War between Ukraine and Russia has without a doubt enveloped the news cycle and I hate to be adding some of my thoughts on that here, but I am, and it's never a bad time to share true information. Because this morning I read that a couple days ago that the Transport and Mining Minister of Jamaica stated that the operations of Rusal, a Russian aluminum company, will continue on the island via its subsidiary West Indies Alumina Company (WINDALCO) despite war in Ukraine and many countries condemning Russia. This announcement comes not only despite the war in Ukraine but also despite the subsequent sanctions on Russia essentially aiming to isolate the country (and its people unfortunately) away from the western global economy. While it's left up to common people to feel the effects of supply chain disruptions and crushing sanctions, the actual oligarchs are most likely going to find a way around this (nevermind the fact that as the West focuses their collective virtue signaling ire at Russian oligarchs, other billionaires and globe-shaping capitalists will get off relatively scotch-free). Even though Jamaica was one of the many countries to condemn Russia's military operation into Ukraine in response to potential NATO expansion, the Jamaica Gleaner reported that the Russian ambassador to Jamaica assured that, "We cannot assess at the moment the consequences of the latest sanctions, but what I can say is that Russia aims to continue the work of UC Rusal on the island." This came days before the recent reassurance by the Jamaican government that the Rusal mining and refinement operations in the country will continue. Furthermore, it's worth noting that of the various parts of Russia which have been sanctioned by the United States, as of my writing of this piece, Rusal is not one of them despite the company being sanctioned in the past. Even though there is a clear desire to strangle the Russian economy (feeding into dangerous levels of hate towards Russia), commentators have already noted that there seems to be no desire to disrupt aluminum production. In fact with the aluminum industry there are plans to transform it further with the Industry 4.0/4th Industrial Revolution agenda as it is one of the "green metals" that are key to "sustainable" technology. For instance, while Elon Musk offered Starlink to the people of Ukraine, Tesla has a history of purchasing aluminum from Rusal as it is necessary for cars and other vehicles.
The news of Rusal continuing operations in Jamaica is merely one instance of this nature. Beyond aluminum production, countries and corporations are still purchasing Russian oil and gas alongside the stupid high gas prices in the US. And even further beyond that, I can't help but see the maintenance of these "global supply chains" as a part of the continuation of imperialism, even as many pretend to care about it all of a sudden. In Jamaica WINDALCO has been responsible for environmental contamination and fish kills around the St. Catherine Parish to the point where the local residents had to cry and plea for the production of a second wastewater pond, which was just announced at the beginning of 2022. Yet when Russian mining companies are guilty of such crimes in Jamaica and other countries around the Global South, I can't find the same degree of "sympathy" extended. And I understand there's little to no coverage of these issues, but why should the compromised media and stenographers of the empire determine when we care about this stuff? Also very important to note, I use the example of Rusal and aluminum production in Jamaica as a counterpoint to the sudden sentiment of caring about "Russian imperialism." Because quite frankly, there aren't enough characters in an article that could go towards discussing the crimes committed by Western countries and multinational corporations in the Global South with the purpose of enriching their leaders and CEOs. In Jamaica alone, US companies have utilised bauxite mining and refinement for profits while citizens bear all the consequences and little to no benefits. Bauxite reserves have been depleted to the point where companies are now trying to mine the centuries-old sovereign Maroon territories in Cockpit Country. Again, I focus on examples within the beautiful country of Jamaica because to bring up such examples of the consequences of exploitative mining in various African and Latin American countries would unfortunately have us here all decade. Besides mining, the empire's wars and imperialist operations have continued. In Haiti, police opened fire on workers protesting for a higher minimum wage at the beginning of the year as a part of the ongoing effort to suppress costs of production for multinational corporations (and many police in the Caribbean are trained and/or receive the backing of the US). At almost the same time that the Russian military operation began going past the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk, Israel bombed Syria, AFRICOM bombed Somalia, and Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen. And all of the bombings just mentioned did not and do not happen within vacuums; the present war in Ukraine dates back to 2014 with a CIA-backed coup that would escalate into the continuous shelling of the Donbas region at the hands of neo-Nazi militias. Israel and other Western states have waged war on Syria attempting to crush the nation into submission while funding terrorists. The US has increased its presence in the Horn of Africa (commanded at Somalia's Fort Lemonnier) under the guise of counterterrorism and via the conflict in Ethiopia to maintain its stakes in the continent. And Saudi Arabia, with the support of the US and West, has continually perpetrated one of the worst humanitarian crises in Yemen (and recently even seized the island of Socotra from Yemenis). Also, the US and UK continued the war on truth and moved to further prevent the victims of war crimes from getting any sort of justice with the condemnation of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to extradition from the UK to almost certain death in the US for exposing the empire's crimes. Yet among all these horrific events and many more, many only paid attention to, and cared about, the in-vacuum situation in Ukraine. The grim reality is that as the mechanisms of war and imperialism operate, there's an unacceptable number of people and activists that actually care or care to act. It's disheartening, and I hope it drives people away from accepting the overtly pro-state department narrative the empire wants us to act through.
It is with the same callous tones used to demand that Black Americans fight for the US against Vietnam that we are expected to #StandWithUkraine; and I specifically use the hashtag as a means to distinguish from actually supporting the Ukrainian people. It's abundantly clear that #StandWithUkraine doesn't promote the type of humanity necessary to extend your love and support to the people of the Donbas region who are being and have been for the past 8 years relentlessly shelled by the Ukrainian state. It ignores local volunteer, socialist, and anarchist groups such as Rev Dia who have been a key part of the resistance to US-backed Ukrainian Nazi battalions. It turns a blind eye to the authoritarian tendencies of the Ukrainian government and its puppet leader that make it no better than the Russian government. Mainstream propagandists and state department stooges want us to #StandWithUkraine as we see videos of Africans being refused a chance to leave the country and in some instances even harassed by the many Nazi fighters within the National Guard; and they're expected to just deal with it. I could go on even more, because with every war between states comes the inevitable forces urging you to pick a predetermined, shite side; a tit-for-tat battle between #StandWithUkraine and #StandWithRussia which ultimately detracts from the truths of war and imperialism. At the end of the day, there's another overarching, imperialist system which all sides will be subject to at the end of the day. I say this not to minimise any struggle on the ground taking place because of war, rather I'm adding my thoughts to the discussion while the current flurry of war propaganda also opens up room to bring up some truths which often get ignored. Because for those of us not on the ground in this war I believe our role shouldn't be to add fuel to the flames of propaganda and bolster imperialist states, rather it should be to combat the superseding system with truth and love for all the victims of war and imperialism. Support people and screw the system, hasta siempre!
Sources/Additional Reading:
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20220228/we-are-big-country
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/tesla-has-bought-aluminum-from-russian-supplier-rusal-since-2020.html
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/focus/20220313/diana-mccaulay-choosing-not-know-bauxite-alumina-industry-jamaica
https://punchng.com/weve-lost-35-members-to-hardship-ill-health-ex-alscon-staff/
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20210804/charge-looms-windalco-rio-cobre-fish-kill
https://jis.gov.jm/windalco-constructing-second-ehp-to-prevent-spillages/
https://www.mining.com/web/rusals-jamaica-operations-to-continue-as-usual-minister-says/
My friend in Poland shared a fundraiser for this grassroots group helping refugees of the war in Ukraine, so I'm passing it along as well. They help mostly people on the Polish-Ukrainian & Belarusian border and local areas around there and focus on helping ALL refugees: https://zrzutka.pl/2n7rs4?fbclid=IwAR0GkDm-Z1a4iBCIrRiVRFJYO9I67qlXz8_wHlUdTqmqmCYYYftEZu8FTNk
Also Ramadan is coming! There's been links going around to support the people of Yemen still facing a humanitarian crisis through all of this so I'm also sharing those:
https://gogetfunding.com/emergency-appeal-to-fight-famine-in-yemen-3/
https://wcdhr.org/index.php/2021/12/27/ramadan-in-yemen-help-deliver-life-saving-supplies/
Last thing I promise I'm sharing this amazing song I think goes well with the state of humanity <3 :
You might find this book a good read.
Perhaps share it with a friend?