German nuclear waste: "Everything I hate about this country and this system"

international | environment | opinion/analysis Saturday November 13, 2010 12:31 by fire owl

A report about my experiences at my first participation in a protest against a CASTOR shipment

"The whole scene appears like something from “Lord of the Rings”. Imagine it’s dark, real dark. On one side a happy, singing crowd, including some 70-year-olds and many teenies with colourful clothes, little fires to warm themselves....On the other side machines in fighting armour, truncheons, helmets and artificial light.....Machine-people who don’t move. Sauron has sent his Orcs...."

Hobbits vs Orcs

By Feuereule (Fire Owl, translated by Diet Simon)

A report about my experiences at my first participation in a protest against a CASTOR shipment

Day 1: We went to the demo on Saturday, 50,000 of us. Just out of this world in Wendland was the solidarity of its people. There are 600 farms in the Wendland, at the demo were 600 tractors. What really got up my nose was the presence of top politicians, from Greens to Left, who had their pictures taken on a tractor only then to flit back to Berlin. .... It reminded me that it was Social Democrats and Greens who took German troops into Afghanistan, who introduced drastic welfare cuts and who negotiated a rotten nuclear compromise...

A media lie: “As a hole was dug under the road, autonomous radicals attacked the police.” THERE WERE NO STONES THERE!!!!! It was a paddock, I heard/saw no firecrackers. What I did see was 100 heavily armed police guarding a rabbit hole.......

Day 2: Driving to the track, we gave some south Germans a lift who’d come into the Wendland overnight, directly from the place [near the Franco-German border] where the CASTOR train was blockaded so that it had to detour. And again: the care for us of the locals was so very impressive, everywhere stands by the gardens, where cake, coffee, tea and so on were offered! It was sheer unbelievable!!!!!!! Finally we got to the railway line....Fighting-machines with dogs, mounted police and, naturally, tractors blocking the access roads – what a beautiful sight (the tractors, not the cops, of course)! So we got to the track, somewhat confused police obstructing us a little, but not really. On the rails thousands of young and old people with funny hats, placards, flags, music...little kids frolicking between the rails......PEACE......a people’s festival .....police moving in and out....fighting machines, some of them, unfortunately, with the Saxony crest on their shoulder badges....NOT in a good mood......When we arrived, Lower Saxony police were at the track. When I looked into their eyes I thought I saw shame there. Some looked down......

Hours passed, a peppy drumming group at some point........and the report: "We’ve negotiated with the leadership, the police don’t at the moment see themselves able to disperse us. We’re squatting on 3 kilometres of track with 5,000 people.” Jubilation, euphoria. Night falls, more and more police vehicles arriving, greeted from 5,000 throats by "YOUR CHILDREN WILL BECOME LIKE US." It’s shit-cold!!!! Shit cold ... and again: the solidarity of the locals and the good organisation from the camps: sandwiches, soup, tea, coffee, blankets........The police don helmets, there’s aggression in the air. When also behind us police march up I feel real panic for the first time, my/our flight route is blocked. I have to get out briefly....then we go back to the track. I’m also afraid of dogs, I’m shit-scared of dogs, and of mounted police. One from the group removing stones from the track reports ashen faced of bashing orgies by the police.....
Like orcs from Lord of the Rings

The whole scene appears like something from “Lord of the Rings”. Imagine it’s dark, real dark. On one side a happy, singing crowd, including some 70-year-olds and many teenies with colourful clothes, little fires to warm themselves....On the other side machines in fighting armour, truncheons, helmets and artificial light.....Machine-people who don’t move. Sauron has sent his Orcs....

It’s 9.30 pm, we’ve been on the rails since 1 pm. I’m cold to the bones. My girlfriend starts singing "Manamana manamana". I begin swaying to the rhythm. That helps. The cops give the impression of being totally confused. When my girlfriend asks a policeman behind us, whether we can still get out of the encirclement and whether only newcomers are being kept out, he looks fearfully to the left and right and whispers, “Nobody here really knows”....It’s 8.24 pm. The news is spread that the farmers have blockaded the access roads with their tractors and that the police don’t have the numbers to carry us away. The train has been stopped!!!!!!!! Police propaganda??? No, the truth!!!! Victory!!!! We agree to move out. We’re freezing terribly, the games when the cops start attacking really strain the nerves. We disappear. On the way to the car we see a prepared battlefield: Water cannons, vans for transporting prisoners...preparations for civil war??? For the granddads and grandmas, for the many teenies on the rails???? This becomes the spot where the next day about 1,500 people are interned for hours in the early morning.....

Day 3. We drive back. When hearing that the train has rolled into Dannenberg, I had to wail. Pretty much used up my nerves today, but also a bit, a little bit proud. And I feel guilty about having left mates back on the rails, about sitting in warmth.....still, even now.

Just some information about what’s at stake: The radioactivity in the CASTORS would kill within a minute. The radioactivity of a single CASTOR casket equates with that released by Chernobyl, and this is driven through Germany..... There is no final repository anywhere in the world. The nuclear material lasts a million years...... No one knows where to put the waste. Gorleben is patently unsuitable, no other federal state wants the waste. Nuclear energy is no bridging technology; that would be small gas-burning power stations that could offset the fluctuations of wind and solar energy. Nuclear energy clogs up the power grids because nuclear power stations can’t be flexibly throttled up or down. As long as nuclear power stations remain, alternative energies will not grow, the two clash.
The CASTOR consignments stand for everything I hate about this country and this system: police protecting big-corporate interests, democracy ignored, parties that only lie, media that only propagandise instead of reporting independently, inhumane technology, lobby-driven policies....

Marginal remarks:

I have never experienced anything like it. I will never forget the fellowship and determination. The brave inhabitants of Wendland have grown very close to my heart. In the evening, before we got to the car, more cake...delicious cake, freshly baked by residents for us....

At the car: A women of about 60 spoke with great agitation with a policeman: “You won’t get through here, you’d have to shoot someone.”
Croatian, Polish and French police are said to have been deployed, that’s illegal.

[Someone who calls himself “cop watcher” responded that “On Friday there were certainly Polish cops running round in Dannenberg. That’s probably connected with a CASTOR consignment being taken in December to Greifswald, which is close to the Polish border.”]