A Brief News Commentary by Doug Draper
After more than confinement in Russian jails, members of the ‘Greenpeace 30’, including Paul Ruzychi of Niagara, Ontario, and Alexandre Paul of Montreal, Quebec, finally arrived home this December 27th.
Greenpeace activists and Port Colborne, Ontario native Paul Ruzychi while still in a Russian jail. He finally arrived home this December 28th.
This is joyous news for them and for their families who staged public rallies for them as the activists faced up to 15 years in prison on phoney charges of piracy and hooliganism after their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, was raided by arimed Russiona officers on the high seas this past fall.The 30 Greenpeace activists and journalists entered Arctic waters north of the Russian coast to protest that country’s installation of drilling rigs. A few of the activists were scaling one of the rigs when the armed officers arrived and the arrests began. I say the main charge of piracy – the one that would have produced most of the jail time – was bogus (and even Russian strongman Vladimir Putin publicly said as much earlier on) is that anyone who has followed Greenpeace’s exploits since its founding in Canada some four decades ago knows that the group as a solid record of non-violence and not damaging property. When its activists climb a tower or some other structure that is the object of their protest, it is routinely done to unfurl a large banner which they often take down themselves days later, after it has generated the desired coverage in the media.
Greenpeace’s voyage to the Russian oil rig this fall was part of an effort to raise public awareness about the risks of drilling for oil in an Arctic many scientists around the world say is already being drastically altered by the carbon emissions from oil consumption and climate change.
The arrests and charges of the activists received a fair amount of coverage in the mainstream media, including media here in Niagara, but mainly as an elaborate cop story.
The question is how much coverage will these same media venues continue to give the environmental issues these activists were hoping to draw attention to?
Judging by what pathetic little coverage environmental issues have received in the mainstream media in recent years, I fear it won’t be much.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
I wish I had known he arrived home. It would have been nice to greet him.
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Welcome home Paul!
First off, let me say that I am pleased that Mr. Ruzycki has been released unharmed, and is back in Canada. Historically, Poles have generally not been treated kindly by Russian “justice”, regardless of citizenship or issue. Further, I respect and share Mr. Ruzycki’s commitment to environmental issues.
However, this has never been about the environment.
It appears that Mr. Ruzicki has been used, possibly duped, by an organization that has been shown to be a sock-puppet for Saudi and Qatari oil interests and foreign commodity merchants. It is a matter of record that Greenpeace and other similar organizations world-wide have been the recipients of over US$100 million in funds in a massive campaign against what the Saudi ambassador calls “unconventional energy”. Basically anything that threatens OPEC oil prices, such as deep-water drilling, fracking and oil sand technology has been cast as the enemy, regardless of whether conducted in Canada, Russia or elsewhere.
It is hoped that the real issue exposed by the Ruzycki adventure is that he was a casualty of an economic assault against those perceived to be a competitive threat to OPEC oil barons and their 1 percenter enablers. Remember that groups like Greenpeace are actually being used to promote high energy prices and that the well intentioned Paul Ruzicki was used to protect the likes of Saudi Aramco and Glencore at the expense of the Canadian working man.
As to why this receives so little coverage is because reality discredits the myths that the embarrassed main-stream media has so shamelessly and without question promoted.
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I agree with Chris. GreenPeace has changed from a well-intentioned group of anti-nuke, anti-whaling protesters to a shill for the false ideology of the anti-fossil fuel environmental lobby, backed by OPEC interests.
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