Standort: fm4.ORF.at / Meldung: ""I could hear the door being kicked down" "

Chris Cummins

Letters from a shrinking globe: around the day in 80 worlds.

20. 9. 2013 - 12:34

"I could hear the door being kicked down"

Greenpeace says their ship the Arctic Sunrise has been "stormed" by Russian agents. An interview with an activist.

The environmental activist group Greenpeace says that it's campaign ship Arctic Sunrise was boarded by armed Russian security guards late yesterday. Greenpeace says the armed men were lowered on to the deck of the vessel by ropes dangled down from a Soviet-era helicopter.

Greenpeace says that Russian authorities took over the control of the ship and are currently holding Greenpeace crew under armed guard in the ship's canteen.

This followed an attempt the previous day of four Greenpeace activists to board Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya drilling rig, an act the Russian government has said "threatened people's lives and could lead to an environmental catastrophe in the Arctic with unpredictable consequences".

This morning I spoke to Greenpeace's Arctic campaigner Ben Ayliffe who was in contact with the ship as the events unfolded:

BA: I was actually on the phone to one of my colleagues in the radio room when the storming happened. I could hear the door of the radio room being kicked down by the Russian security guards. It was clearly a very frightening moment. Our people were basically herded up at gunpoint, made to lie on the deck and then kept there while the security agents took control of the ship.

Action Against Gazprom's Arctic Drilling 
A Russian Coast guard officer is seen pointing a gun at a Greenpeace International activist

© Denis Sinyakov / Greenpeace

A Russian Coast guard officer is seen pointing a knife at a Greenpeace International activist as five activists attempt to climb the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in Russia’s Pechora Sea

CC: People on the oil rig say it was scary when Greenpeace activists tried to scale the Prirazlomnaya oil platform. Russian diplomats have accused your group of an “aggressive act”.

BA: I think we need to get a sense of perspective here. Greenpeace has a long tradition of peaceful protest. Non-violence is at the core of our beliefs. The idea that we were some sort of terrorists trying to take over the oil platform is frankly ludicrous.

If anything the response from the Russian authorities has been incredible. We've had shots fired across our ship in international waters, we've been stormed in international waters, we've been held at gunpoint, like hostages almost, for hours with no access to lawyers or embassies. So I think it is a bit rich of the oil platform owners and the Russian government to be claiming that Greenpeace activists were the terrorists here.

CC: What do you think will happen next?

BA: That’s a very good question. We’re working very hard with our team in Moscow and in the Netherlands, where Greenpeace International is based, to try and ascertain the legal status of our people. We hear that they may have been charged, that the captain may have been charged.

But then this morning we've just heard that the FSB, the Russian security services, are saying that our team has not been arrested and that they are just deciding what to do with them. So it is very hard to get a straight answer unfortunately.

greenpeace action

© Denis Sinyakov / Greenpeace

CC: You were warned a few weeks ago by the Russian authorities not to enter these Arctic waters. They tried to stop you. Why was it worth taking that risk and trying the scale this rig?

BA: Simply because the Arctic is a unique and pristine environment. When you look at the scale of this oil platform, it is the size of a small town - it is vast. If something were to go wrong, if we were to have a Gulf of Mexico style oil spill up there in the icy, remote conditions, it would have a devastating impact on the local environment and the indigenous communities that live up there.

On top of that we are seeing oil companies like Gazprom or Shell are rushing into the Arctic as the ice vanishes to drill for more of the fossil fuels that are causing the climate to warm up in the first place. It is a quite incredible situation and we believe very passionately that we have to act now to stop this happening. That's why our people put themselves in that situation.

Arctic Sunrise Enters the Kara Sea 
The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise enters the Northern Sea Route

Will Rose / Greenpeace

The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise enters the Northern Sea Route (NSR) off Russia's coastline to protest against Arctic oil drilling

CC: Do you think your Arctic campaign is having any significant impact on global policy? I know that 3.5 million people have signed your Save the Arctic petition, but it looks like the drilling will go ahead.

Pedalling Polar Bears. Greenpeace's Ice Ride in Vienna - a mass bicycle ride to protest against drilling.

It may very well go ahead at Prirazlomnaya, the platform in Russia, but let's not forget that we were promised that that platform would be producing oil probably 13 years ago and it still hasn't happened. So there is no guarantee. It is a rust bucket, you can't imagine a more awful sight than that giant platform.

The other thing is that we were told just a couple of years ago by the oil companies that drilling in the Arctic was inevitable. Already we have seen that companies like Shell and like Statoil in Norway, which had much vaunted plans to drill in the Arctic this year, have had to cancel their plans at great expense because of the huge costs and the technical challenges of operation in these icy conditions and the growing public unease about them being there. So there is no guarantee that we will actually see this huge drilling programme actually taking place in the far north.