Russia’s heavy-handed treatment of activists protesting against Arctic drilling looks to have set the tone for this new battleground

When it comes to taking on the fossil fuel industry, what does direct action look like?

If you’re Greenpeace, the obvious answer is to try to interrupt major oil operations in the Arctic – where an estimated quarter of the world’s oil and gas reserves are thought to reside. The global conservation organisation has consistently called for a sanctuary around the north pole and a ban on oil drilling in the Arctic, but only in the past two years did it launch a more confrontational approach involving the illegal boarding of offshore oil rigs.

The risky strategy has helped attract attention to dangerous Arctic energy exploration. In late September Greenpeace drew the full fury of the Russian state on 30 activists, after two of their party scaled Gazprom’s new oil platform Prirazlomnaya.

While the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise sat in international waters, Russian coastguard officers forcibly boarded and seized control of the ship, arresting the entire crew, initially on a charge of piracy. While the original charges have been scaled back, all 30 remained in custody seemingly facing lengthy jail terms in late October as Ethical Corporation went to press.

‘Blatant intimidation’

“The Russian authorities are trying to scare people who stand up to the oil industry in the Arctic, but this blatant intimidation will not succeed,” Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo said following the arrests.

Naidoo subsequently offered himself as security for the so-called Arctic 30 – 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists – writing in a letter mailed to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of his willingness to “share” their fate. Human rights organisations in Russia see the Greenpeace arrests as one more sign of a Russian Federation bent on stifling any kind of democratic dissent.

“Since Putin came back to power things have gone from bad to worse,” says Sergei Nikitin, Amnesty International’s Moscow office director. “Here we have peaceful, nonviolent actions from a well-known organisation which identified itself.”

The arrest of the Arctic 30 through the use of disproportionate sanctions is essentially an international version of the Pussy Riot case, says Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“This is a message to show Greenpeace how high the stakes are for their environmental activism,” says Cooper.

Energy analysts say the Greenpeace action may have struck a nerve with the Russian state at a time when it is particularly vulnerable: heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues to finance government operations, it faces a significant decline in output from its conventional reserves and so must turn to oil prospecting in the icy waters north of the Arctic Circle.

For this reason, “Greenpeace sees [Gazprom’s oil platform Prirazlomnaya] as the thin edge of the wedge”, says Anthea Pitt, executive editor of Petroleum Economist magazine. “If it comes off, then it’s almost open season for the entire Arctic.”

Gazprom’s giant $4bn Prirazlomnaya platform could supply oil directly to the global market by early 2014 and, in the process, help solidify Russia’s position as a global energy leader.

“Ignoring this case will only embolden Russian authorities further,” warns Cooper.

“What specific governments and the international community, in general, need to focus on is not whether they support what Greenpeace did at the Prirazlomnaya oil rig, but the fact that the Greenpeace activists were unarmed protesters whose actions do not warrant such grotesque criminal charges.”

Activism  Arctic  Greenpeace  Oil  protesting 

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