No Nickel for Genocide
Sudbury is synonymous with nickel and nickel is synonymous
with war. World War I could not have been fought in the way it was if
nickel had not been discovered in Sudbury and the metallurgical
processes which enabled the extraction of nickel from its ores were not
developed. Ninety per cent of
the world's nickel came from Sudbury and almost all of that went for
military purposes. The main application was nickel-steel armour
cladding for the dreadnought, the huge warships which were the apex
weapon in the period leading up to the war. As the war progressed,
nickel was increasingly used in
tanks, artillery, aircraft engines, ammunition and other tools of
modern warfare.
After the war, the nickel industry suffered a huge downturn as the military demand for nickel collapsed. Attempts by the nickel companies to diversify into civilian production through the development of monel metal and other alloys met only partial success. But the Great Depression ended quickly in Sudbury as war production took over in 1932 and remained strong until the end of World War II.
The 1950s saw the beginning of a diversification of nickel production. Mines were developed in countries such as Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Philippines and Indonesia, and in Thompson, Raglan and Voisey's Bay in Canada. Sudbury is no longer the world's sole source of nickel and now only produces about four per cent. Modern armaments production requires many superalloys and a myriad of parts and components which are assembled into the final machines of war. This creates a complex supply chain. This means that it is much more difficult to connect Sudbury and war production, especially Israeli war production. However, this connection is still very real.
Israel is a significant manufacturer and exporter of advanced weapon systems. For example, IMI Systems, formerly Israeli Military Industries, wholly owned by the State of Israel, produces the Uzi sub-machine gun and the Merkava tank, the main battle tank of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and a tank considered equivalent to the U.S. Abrams, the British Chieftain and the German Leopard tanks, amongst a long list of other deadly weapons. Israel is the ninth-largest arms exporter, accounting for 2.4 per cent of global arms sales during 2019-23 according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfer Database of March 2024.
The Canadian working class opposes the genocidal campaign that the Israeli Zionists are carrying out against the Palestinian people. Canadian workers do not want to see the natural resources of our land and the products of our labour, such as nickel and other metals, contribute to the manufacture of the weaponry that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Canada exported only $23,840 of nickel to Israel in 2023.
However, Canada is a significant exporter of nickel to the United
States and other arms-manufacturing countries. The U.S. imports 40 per
cent of its nickel requirements from Canada, half of this from Sudbury.
A significant portion of this
nickel is incorporated into weapons destined for Israel. The high
purity, refined nickel produced in Sudbury is particularly suitable for
the production of superalloys used in military applications.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has published a document "The Companies Profiting from Israel's 2023-2024 Attacks on Gaza" which lists those companies which are contributing to Israel's genocide through the provision of weapons and specifies which weapons the company is supplying. The list includes the largest U.S. and Israeli arms manufacturers, including Lockheed-Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon), the world's two largest weapons manufacturers, as well as Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrup Grumman (all major U.S. weapons manufacturers). Israeli firms include Elbit Systems (Israel's largest arms manufacturer), Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Raphael Advanced Defense Systems, all three among the world's 100 largest weapons manufacturers.
Canada must prohibit the sale of nickel and other war-related metals to these companies on the AFSC list of war profiteers as long as they continue to provide weaponry to Israel and also prohibit the sale of nickel to any companies that may be added to this list. Further, all companies that purchase Canadian nickel must commit to refusing to re-sell the nickel purchased to these armaments manufacturers.
The Canadian Parliament passed a resolution on March 18 which
called for a ban on the sale of Canadian-manufactured weaponry to
Israel and the Canadian Government subsequently committed itself
to such a ban although only on new sales contracts, not on
existing ones. The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a
resolution on April 5 calling for an embargo on arms sales to Israel.
The world is demanding a ban on arms sales to Israel. Should not the ban on sales of armaments and other military equipment to Israel also include a ban on the export from Canada of the raw materials that are needed to manufacture these weapons?
No Nickel For Genocide!
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 26 - April 15, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS542617.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca