Cooperation with ecological groups, with peace- and human rights organizations
Times are changing. While we all were hoping for a dialogue between those in power in the East and the West during the Cold War, we are nowadays very skeptical while watching politicians like former German chancellor Gerhard Schrцder being close friend with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
By the way, Helmut Kohl refused to criticize his „friend“ Boris Jelzin while Boris had Chechnya bombed.
It was September 11th, 2001 that united all of them: Putin, Bush and Schrцder/Merkel. They share common interests, when they use the fight against non-state terror as a pretext to infringe on the rights of citizens and to secure their own grip on power. Schrцder called Putin a "democrate beyond doubt", and in return the Russian government grants Western governments leeway in Afghanistan and Iraque.
Western nuclear industry supports the Russian nuclear industry in several aspects – against the interests of Russian and Western environmentalists, who are fighting against the planned privatization of the nuclear industry, fighting against swimming nuclear power plants, fighting for energy saving and fighting for alternative sources of energy.
Nuclear waste is directly exported from the city of Gronau to gthe closed city of Novouralsk. Closed cities in Russia are a poststalinistic structure, even Russian citizens are not allowed to enter these cities without special permit by the authorities. So no one in the nuclear industry in the West has to worry that curious environmentalists might find out what happens to these German waste exports to Russia: poststalinistic structures of the Russian nuclear industry take care that no secrets regarding nuclear waste from Germany will ever reach the ears of the public. If one day an accident should happen with nuclear waste from Germany, no one will ever know about this, for the closed cities do not grant free access to journalists.
At the same time social benefits are cut – in the East as well as in the West. The protests of almost a million of angry Russians who took to the streets to demonstrate against cuts in social spending, were not even mentioned in the German media.
But below the governmental structures there are other forms of cooperation. German and Russian human rights organizations fight against the deportation of refugees from Germany, against racism in the East and the West. Environmental activists think about how we could do without nuclear energy – in the East and the West. And environmentalists from Chelybinsk inform German environmentalists, how money from the western nuclear industry disappears in corrupt channels.
My journeys to Russia
Since 1986 I have been traveling to Russia every year, where I am looking for contacts with the civic society, with people, who are working for ecology, for human rights, for refugees and against cutting of social spending.
In my property as a member of Green party delegations I happened to be was several times in Russia - among other persons with the politicians Helmut Lippelt, Elisabeth Schroedter, Wolfgang Ullmann, Gerd Poppe (in Moscow, Wolgograd and Ingushetia).
Priorities of my work in Russia
Environment:
One of the lessons of Chernobyl: what happens in Russia is important for us, too.
On June 9th , 2006 (source: lenta.ru) Vladimir Putin met with managers from the military nuclear industry and the energy industry. At this opportunity Putin demanded to increase the share of nuclear energy in the field of electricity to 25%. At the same time Sergej Kirijenko, head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy (Rosatom) said that beginning in 2007 Russia will build 2 new nuclear power blocks every year. And from 2009-2010 it is planned to build four to five new blocks a year.
The Russian nuclear industry has big plans. At present, the planning stage of the first swimming nuclear power plant is accomplished, in four to five years this first swimming nuclear power plant will be about to work near Severodinsk in the Northern Sea.
The cooperation between German and Russian nuclear power companies gets closer and closer. German nuclear waste is exported to the closed city of Novouralsk. It takes foreigners at least 2 months to receive a permit for getting access to this city. Russian citizens cannot enter a closed city without permission. This perfectly meets the requirements of the Western and Russian nuclear industries for secrecy.
Partnership with Russian environmental groups
Against this backdrop of ecological threats Western and Russian environmental groups should enhance their cooperation, work for the environment in Russia and for a stop of nuclear energy.
I myself am cooperating with several Russian environmentalists:
Grigorij Pasko (ecological journalist), Natalija Mironowa (Movement for nuclear security, Chelybinsk), Vladimir Slivjak.
I organized several speaking engagements for Grigorij Pasko, where I served as his interpreter. While in Germany, Grigorij spoke with ecological groups, with human rights groups, and he spoke out against the export of German nuclear waste to Russia.
When toward the end of 2003 the red-green coalition government planned to export a nuclear plant for uranium enrichment, I organized a visit of environmentalist Natalia Mironova from Chelyabinsk. In her public lectures, in her meetings with the press and with journalists Natalia spoke out against the planned export of the plant.
Refugees and Human Rights
German courts and Russian politicians agree that refugees from Chechnya should find shelter and resettlement in Russia. Consequently, most German courts think that Chechen refugees can be deported to Russia.
German and Russian human rights group vigorously oppose this view.
German and Russian human rights groups, like Amnesty International and Memorial fight together for the rights of refugees.
I do closely cooperate with Amnesty and Memorial in this area.