The 3rd December 2020 two men was charged with arson in one of the first cases of ecofascism in Sweden. The two men born 2000 and 2002, from now on called Z and A, is charged with burning down a mink farm in Sölvesborg. But the case started with something else. Z is arrested in the end of April 2020 and later held with the charge “instigation to do general destruction”. Even earlier, on the night of 22nd February, A is arrested in his fathers home in Luxembourg after the police did a search and found evidence that he was building bombs and preparing for terror.
The 16th January seven persons is arrested in the USA. Three of them is suspected to planned a murder against two persons they thought were active Antifa. All seven persons were active in the neo-Nazi group The Base. The Base started in June 2018 and was a part of the new wave of neo-Nazi groups in the USA that took inspiration from the book “Siege” and its theory of acceleration. Acceleration , in this context, uses the idea that through violence and terror accelerate the fail state and give the group an opportunity to reform the society radically through a shock doctrine. The 25th January 2020 the Brittish newspaper The Guardian an article and exposes the name behind the pseudonym for the leader of The Base [1]. In the article a nick name is mentioned which appears to be a Swedish person:
One user, jagRolig, posted: “Waiting on the next European meetup.”
An propaganda poster published in the groups telegram chat.
This nick name will play a big role later to expose the two Swedish men that now are charged with arson against a mink farm in Sweden.
At the same time The Base was active the group The Green Brigade, which mainly was made up out of a Telegram chat group that was created 7th November 2019 that had 909 members. The Green Brigade was inside the same sphere as the Base with similar ideas about accelerationism. Their first post was an video when a mink farm burned down with the text “We salute our troops who carried out a successful operation in Sweden!”. In December they post pictures of flyers that was posted in Nacka, Sweden. The 31th January the canadian newspaper the Vice published an article that connects the nick name jagRolig to the video that was posted when the mink farm was burned down[2]. The video was posted to a page called iFunny. At the site the same user had posted a video showing to make bombs from an bomb recipe that ISIS published online.
The two articles seems to trigger the police to start an investigation and the 22nd February A is arrested in Luxembourg. They are holding him on the charge of possession of explosives that could be used in connection with terror. A is a Swedish man that just turned 18. He stayed with his father in Luxembourg where his father worked as a director of a holding company for one of the biggest Swedish companies. A had lived in Luxembourg since his childhood but when his parents divorced his mother moved back to Sweden.
De två åtalade poserandes med en Alternativ för Sverige-tröja.
The same day the police in Luxembourg arrests A the Swedish security police picks up Z for question as an witness. It is not until April that they relize that also Z is involved and they arrest him. He is arrested and held in custody. The police in Luxembourg has had time to go through the electronic devices they retrieved in the search and found evidence that they planned an bombing against an abortion clinic in Stockholm. They initially charge Z with instigation to do general destruction” but already when they questioned him as a witness they ask questions about the arson at the mink farm in Sölvesborg.
It’s the 30th October 2019 when a fire is started at an closed mink farm outside Sölvesborg in Southern Sweden. The farm declared bankruptcy a short while before and no minks was found at the farm. At first the previous owner thought it was an childish act but after the canadian newspaper The Vice called to interview the son they relized it probably was a lot more behind it.
Days before A’s mother had drived A and Z to Sölvesborg from the Stockholm area. The two men had told A’s mother that they were going camping. They had in over a month planned and mapped the mink farm and the plan was to release all the minks. The break in to relize that the mink farm had closed. They photograph when they do property damage by slash tires, cut electric wires and steal parts. But later at night they return and set the place on fire at several places and the mink farm burns down on the evening of 30th October 2019.
Chatt i programmet Wire med TheEcologist var A erkänner mordbranden.
In the chat logs that the police retrieved in both the suspects computers they find clear evidence about the arson at the mink farm in Sölvesborg. The two men are planning additional acts of terror. They are looking for information about a judge that they claimed gave a too short sentence to a foreign man that raped an 13 year old girl. They also planned to kill the convicted man. They also search for information about abortion clinics to bomb at Södermalm in Stockholm.
In the chat logs A admits to being a member of The Base and The Green Brigade and this is the chat that The Guardian later quotes in their article about The Base. Z claims he never was a member and A says in a chat with another person that Z never was a member of The Base. The 19th of March The Green Brigade writes in their Telegram chat that the group is disbanded after that several key member (including the founder) has disappeared. The co-founder of The Green Brigade chat TheEcologist, that A says he met in Sweden, was exposed as William Franklin Rehm IV by Eugene Antifa in May 2020[3].
The Green Brigade’s eco terrorism is a mismatch of several different sources. There is the recently deceased Finnish eco fascist Pentti Linkolas thoughts. There is the idea of accelerationism, an theory that exist with both the right (Nick Land, r/acc) and left (Mark Fisher, l/acc) and they both emphasizes the idea to identify tendencies in the society that causes its exceeding or failing and it should be accelerated instead of fighting against. In the white supremacist interpretation of accelerationism (f/acc) the idea is to increase the tendency to cause conflict between ethnic groups, to increase the polarization towards an civil war. This was brought forward as a eco fascist accelerationism in the manifest the mosque shooter in Christchurch, New Zeeland sent out, an manifest A had saved in his computer. An third ideological path is the anti-civilization eco terrorism that is inspired by the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. 2011 the anti-civlization eco terrorism network “Individuals tending towards the Wild” (the Spanish shortening is usually used) is founded in Mexico and is spread in Latin America and international. Their nihilist ideology is based on directing acts of terror – usually in the form of letter bombs – towards scientists and representatives for the “techno-industrial society” to defense of the “wild nature” and the individual liberation. The Green Brigades posters prompts people to read ITS newspaper Bayaq and do your own actions. (“Read Bayaq. Take action”).
Z was arrest almost 1.5 month and was released the 1st June 2020. A was still in custody in April but it is unclear if the authorities in Luxembourg has decided to move forward with the charges or if he will be turned over to Sweden. In April they stated that they suspected charges had weakened.
In Sweden we have seen the first act of terror by right wing extremists that has been influenced by the new wave of acceleration terror groups in the USA but is sadly probably not the last.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/25/inside-the-base-neo-nazi-terror-group
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjdvzx/eco-fascist-arm-of-neo-nazi-terror-group-the-base-linked-to-swedish-arson
[3] https://eugeneantifa.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/09/william-rehm-iv/