Stop-Pillage is a coalition of organizations, groups and individuals. We oppose the North’s system of capturing the wealth of the Global South and its disastrous human and environmental consequences.
Our Western lifestyles, so synonymous with comfort, are largely based on extractivism and the exploitation of natural and human resources. From the phones we use to electric toothbrushes, bicycles and everyday products such as coffee and sugar, much of what we consume comes from raw materials sourced in the Global South. These resources are extracted or cultivated in inhumane conditions, fuelling supply chains that impoverish local populations while destroying their ecosystems. This model of insatiable growth is even visible in the so-called ‘green’ energy transition, which requires ever more resources. Lithium, essential for electric car batteries, is a prime example: its extraction in Chile consumes 400,000 litres of water per hour, destroying ecosystems and threatening populations already hit by drought. This quest for sustainability in the West relocates pollution and its impacts to populations on the periphery of the Global North, perpetuating a system in which these populations, the majority of them non-white, pay the price for our comfort and our refusal to change our model of consumption. We have a collective responsibility not to turn a blind eye, but to take responsibility and action to denounce these injustices and help build a fairer world based on solidarity.
Capitalism, which is intrinsically extractivist and racialised, allows corporations and their shareholders to make colossal profits by exploiting raw materials that are essential for our daily lives. In Switzerland, the world’s hub of commodities trading, resources such as gold, coal and oil are traded en masse, generating huge profits without ever touching Swiss soil. For example, Glencore, a Zug-based transnational active in the Democratic Republic of Congo, saw its profits rise ten-fold from 1.2 billion to 12 billion dollars between 2021 and 2022, while being responsible for serious human rights violations. In the DRC, the company has perpetrated fraudulent mining transactions, often linked to corrupt practices and large-scale massacres. Its activities have exacerbated poverty, caused environmental destruction, and fuelled a cycle of suffering for local populations already weakened by precarious living conditions and systemic violence. This model illustrates a system of wealth grabbing at the expense of the populations in the South, whose natural resources are plundered without any compensation, fuelling an ecological crisis that is leading to massive displacements and the creation of climate refugees. In this context, climate justice becomes inextricable from political crises where systematic violence further aggravates global injustice and the precariousness of populations.
The genocide in Gaza and extractivism in the DRC reflect a neo-colonial system, a death regime in which the lives of white people are privileged, while those of non-white people are reduced to suffering and exploitation, in the service of the development and enrichment of Western countries. This system is based on systematic dehumanisation, turning human lives into exploitable ‘resources’. In Gaza, for example, the reduction of Palestinians to an imaginary animality serves to justify their annihilation, establishing a radical separation between the human and the ‘other’. This mechanism, intrinsic to racism, feeds domination by excluding entire peoples from humanity. This imperialist logic, which legitimises oppression and violence, must be deconstructed in order to recognise the intrinsic value of every life and achieve true equality. In this context, actors like Glencore, involved in a global cartel facilitating coal exports to Israel, contribute directly to genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, trading companies thrive on these crises and bolster Swiss GDP. The 14th international commodities trading summit, scheduled from 24 to 26 March 2025 in Lausanne, embodies this dynamic: multinational executives, bankers and financiers are developing strategies to profit even more from these upheavals.
Stop-Pillage, a coalition of committed collectives, organisations and individuals, stands up against the imperialisms of the 21st century. Swiss companies benefit directly from this system through the massive exploitation of foreign labour and the repatriation of profits made by their subsidiaries, as do the banks, which receive fortunes from the elites of the South, thus diverting tax resources that are vital for financing the needs of the people. We denounce the active complicity of the Swiss authorities, who offer multinationals a tax paradise, weak regulation, and opacity conducive to exploitation. Our demands are clear: we are calling for an end to extractivism, (the symbol of racial capitalism), the dismantling of the Swiss trading giants, the recognition of the right of peoples to handle their resources, and an economic model based on social and climate justice.
To accompany the summit, Stop-Pillage is organising a counter-summit (14-16 march) to denounce the systematic plundering of resources in the Global South. We call on all those who reject this injustice to mobilise, to remind everyone that the comfort of a few cannot continue to be built on the destruction of others. The fight against globalised capitalism and extractivism legitimised on racist grounds is a fight for a world where natural resources serve people, not profits.