Kumi Naidoo, international executive director of Greenpeace, was arrested early this morning for an act of civil disobedience, after he entered an exclusion zone around the Leiv Eiriksson offshore oil rig in the Arctic Ocean, about 120 kilometers off the coast of Greenland, and then climbed onto the rig in violation of an injunction issued last week by a Dutch court.
To reach the oil rig, Naidoo, 45, and other activists left the Greenpeace ship Esperanza in an inflatable speedboat at 6:45 a.m. this morning, and evaded a Danish Navy warship that was guarding the rig.
Naidoo's breach of the exclusion zone was the culmination of a month of direct action by Greenpeace in opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic. Twenty Greenpeace activists were arrested recently after they occupied the oil rig and stopped it from operating. Cairn Energy, the company that operates the oil rig, then obtained the injunction, which carries a fine of 50,000 euros per day, up to a maximum of 1 million euros, for any breach of the exclusion zone.
Cairn Energy workers turned water cannons on Naidoo in an effort to prevent him from scaling a 30-meter ladder on one of the rig's legs. Despite the ice-cold water assault, Naidoo reached the platform, demanded that Cairn end its oil drilling operation and leave the Arctic, and requested a meeting with the rig master.
Naidoo wanted to present the master with the signatures of 50,000 Greenpeace supporters worldwide, who are demanding that Cairn Energy publish its oil spill response plan and explain exactly how the company would manage a deep-water accident in the Arctic similar to the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many experts believe an oil spill in the Arctic would be nearly impossible to clean up because of freezing temperatures, rough weather, and the remote location.
Greenpeace has repeatedly asked Cairn to make its oil spill response plan available for public review and comment, as required by the Arctic Council's Offshore Oil and Gas Guidelines, but the company claims that Greenland authorities won't allow it to publish the plan.
The Dutch judge who granted the injunction underscored the danger of drilling for oil in the Arctic, the legitimacy of Greenpeace's concerns, and the questionable nature of Cairn's refusal to publish its oil spill response plan.
"It must be conceded to Greenpeace International that the oil disaster which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico showed the great risk of drilling at great depths," the judge said. "Capricorn [a fully owned subsidiary of Cairn Energy] has not disputed that if a similar scenario were to develop at the drilling locations at issue, it would be very difficult due to the climactic circumstances in the area, which permit navigation for only a few months a year due to the formation of ice, to stem an oil spill. A leak of this kind could indeed have major consequences for humans, wildlife and the environment in a large region... The injunction judge has taken note of the fact that Capricorn is not willing to publish its oil spill plan."
Greenpeace has been criticized often for its aggressive and confrontational tactics. Before leaving the Esperanza this morning, Naidoo made the following statement to explain the actions he was about to take:
"For me this is one of the defining environmental battles of our age, it's a fight for sanity against the madness of a mindset that sees the melting of the Arctic sea ice as a good thing. As the ice retreats the oil companies want to send the rigs in and drill for the fossil fuels that got us into this mess in the first place. We have to stop them. It goes right to the heart of the kind of world we want and the one which we want to pass onto our children.
"The Arctic oil rush is such a serious threat to the climate and to this beautiful fragile environment that I felt Greenpeace had no choice but to return, so I volunteered to do it myself. Cairn has something to hide, it won't publish its plan to clean up an oil spill here in the Arctic, and that's because it can't be done. I'm going onto that rig to give them the names of fifty thousand people who've emailed them to demand they publish their plan, and I won't leave until I have it in my hands.
"People may wonder why I as an African care about what's happening in the Arctic, but scientists say that the unprecedented warming up here could have grave knock-on consequences for vulnerable people across the world. That's because a warming Arctic could dramatically change weather patterns many thousands of miles away. At some point we have to draw a line and say no more, and I say we draw that line here and now in the Arctic ice."
Civil disobedience and activism are nothing new for Naidoo. Before becoming the leader of Greenpeace International, he was a youth leader in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He was arrested several times and charged with violating provisions against mass mobilization and civil disobedience, and for violating the state of emergency. Eventually, he was forced to flee South Africa and live in exile in the United Kingdom.
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Comments
I think civil disobedience is such an important tool for activists, but shouldn’t be done by everyone. It has to be someone who can risk arrest, police brutality, fines and even jail time. And for stunts like this one, the person has to be excellent physical condition, with the right training.
Civil disobedience brings so much media attention to an issue, and gets people talking and thinking.
Before a cause is widely accepted, acts of civil disobedience are considered by many to be irresponsible or pointless. But after the cause becomes widely accepted, those same people are hailed as heros (Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony) and I think in time, people will regard environmental activists in the same way.
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