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Blockade for now
heiko balsmeyer - 23.04.2004 18:49
The Spring conference of the German anti-nuclear move-ment did not answer the big questions. But the resistance to the next Castor transport of nuclear waste is growing.
The scene has got more heterogeneous. At the Spring confer-ence of the German anti-atomic movement in Berlin last week-end (April 17 and 18) young activists in track jackets met up with grey-haired leftwing-radicals in black and bearded wearers of cloths and batik shirts. The bourgeois locality initiatives from southern Germany, who want to restrict themselves to fighting interim storages at their front doors, had cancelled their atten-dance at short notice.
About 50 activists had followed the invitation of the Antiatomfo-rum Berlin, an action alliance of two local groups. The offensive of the nuclear industry at European level, the current domi-nance of welfare issues, the handling of possible terrorist at-tacks on nuclear installations as well as preparations for the re-sistance against imminent atomic transports provided plenty to talk about.
The expansion of the European Union on 1 May also expands the sales market of the nuclear industry. In particular the Eura-tom treaty and the Brussels institutions dealing with it provide for the continuous modernisation and expansion of the Euro-pean nuclear industry. The agreement from the year 1957 forces all EU states to promote civilian use of atomic energy.
“Talks are already going on with Poland about starting a nuclear programme and the credit volume of Euratom was raised from four to six billion euros,” reported Dieter Kaufmann of the Frank-furter Arbeitskreis für die Stilllegung aller Atomanlagen (Frank-furt Working Group for Decommissioning All Nuclear Installa-tions). In Finland the French Framatome, which is part-owned by Germany’s Siemens, has been contracted to build a Euro-pean Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR). On 26 April, the anni-versary of the reactor disaster in Chernobyl, there will be dem-onstrations against it in Helsinki. The same type of reactor pro-totype is also to be built on the French Atlantic coast so as to at-tract more international orders for building new atomic reactors. It became clear in the discussion that Europe has to become an important action level of the anti-nuclear movement, but that in-terventions would be made difficult by the untransparent struc-ture of Euratom. This calls for keeping each other updated about activities across Europe.
The nuclear opponents were self-critical about not having done enough to make clear to the public at large that the socalled nuclear exit is an agreement between the federal government and the nuclear companies that guarantees the further opera-tion of nuclear installations free of societal disturbances. But this could change with the imminent transports from Rossendorf to Ahaus. This involves waste from a research reactor where certainly no research was going on into abandoning atomic en-ergy.
An analysis by the “Marburg Initiative for an Atomic Power-Free Future” of the energy policy of the Red-Green government in Berlin presented an unmistakeable finding: “Whether the energy markets in general are liberalised, whether the eco tax, a pro-motion of combined power-heat generation, the status guaran-tee for nuclear stations or emission trading is decided, on the side of those profiting you always find the Big Four German power suppliers, Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall,” summed up a Marburg delegate. Also profiting were the richer classes of society, while the poor always lost. Hence there were opportuni-ties for the anti-nuclear movement to link up with other social movements. To explain the assertive power of the electricity utilities, the speakers from Marburg cited the close contacts with other large enterprises and politicians. For example, the big banks and the Allianz insurance group are represented in the Deutsches Atomforum along with the nuclear companies. Until 1992 the present economics minister, Wolfgang Clement, had a post on the supervisory board of the RWE subsidiary, Rhein-braun, chancellor Gerhard Schröder had one until 1998 with Preussen-Elektra AG, which now belongs to Eon.
The question whether sitting on roads and rails actually attacks the politico-economic nuclear complex or whether that could ac-tually live well with that, prompted the important discussion about the aims, self-definition and action forms of the future. “We’re no longer a danger, we’re not even an ideological dan-ger any more and we have no attractive life model to offer,” was the sober analysis of a white-haired activist from the north. Oth-ers, including representatives of the BI Lüchow [Gorleben nu-clear dumps] did no want to address such fundamental issues but rather prepare the resistance against the next transport. A Berlin activist suggested plugging into the power grid and join-ing the “for nothing” campaign. It was ultimately agreed that the first thing that needs doing now is to organise the opposition to the nuclear transports coming soon.
Another hot topic was how to handle the invoked danger of any terrorist attack on nuclear power stations, nuclear waste stor-ages or other nuclear installations. It was put on the agenda by the Hamburger Anti-Atom-Gruppe. Peter Kurz (name changed) criticised: “This theme is part of the discourse about internal se-curity that aims to erode civic rights. We cannot determine this discourse, we cannot ride this tiger.” The opposite position was taken especially by the locality initiatives, who say the terrorism danger is a strong argument in litigation to try to block the build-ing of interim waste storages. Against this it was argued that it was contradictory to complain about the curtailment of civic rights during Castor transports while at the same time arguing in a way that nourishes the terrorism discourse. The Hamburgians intend to make contact over the issue with the locality initiatives to try to thrash things out.
But for now, resistance is being mobilised against the Castor transports from Rossendorf to Ahaus. Walter Kern (name changed) of Widerstand gegen Atomanlagen in Ahaus sus-pects: “The transports will probably start after Whitsun because the permit runs from 27 May.” Because 18 Castors are to be trucked and there is only one, at most two, special shock ab-sorption systems available, there will be nine or 18 truck runs. That means commuter traffic between Dresden and Ahaus is to be expected. The anti-nuclear activists plan to turn the entire motorway route of 600 kilometres into one action area.
With that, the discussions about changes in the societal envi-ronment, the parameters of political action and utopias are put off to another day – until the Autumn conference in the Wend-land [Gorleben], ahead of the next Castor transport to there.
www.nixfaehrtmehr.de; www.wigatom.de
Published in German at  http://www.jungle-world.com/seiten/2004/17/3021.php
Translated and posted here by Diet Simon with the permission of the author.
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