Koodankulam

 

Solidarity For Anti-Nuclear Struggle Pours In From Around The World

By Citizens Of The World

30 September, 2012  Countercurrents.org

As citizens of the world we have been watching with awe, inspiration and great concern as masses of Indian people have risen up to confront the corrupt partnership of the Indian government and nuclear industry at the Koodankulam and Jaitapur nuclear sites. We have joined in solidarity with the organizers of this movement to resist the nuclear madness in India and in our respective homelands. The US/Indian nuclear partnership has been forced on India through a neocolonial relationship that is demanding the nuclearization of this important strategic ally to the US military industrial machine.

We understand that the plight of the Indian people is our plight as we fight back against the same nuclear madness forced on us by completely corrupted governments. Over 6,000 people face prison for their non-violent opposition to the Koodankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, India. We stand in solidarity with the tens of thousands of people that are risking their lives to say NO! We stand in solidarity with the fisherman that have lost their lives trying to protect their ocean from the threat of radioactive poisons and the thousands of fishermen that continue to resist. We stand in solidarity with the people of India who have stopped eating in a hunger strike to draw attention to their struggle for a nuclear free future!

During the September 20th and 21st convergence on the US Capitol to call for an end to the production of nuclear weapons and energy in America, many voiced our concerns and shared our inspiration for and from the Indian people standing up to nuclear sponsored state repression in this struggle. The people protesting the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, India have been struggling nonviolently at the grassroots level to stop this plant since the 1980s. This movement has mushroomed in the face of opposition from the state and industry with tens of thousands of people powerfully and peacefully resisting this nuclear assault.

The ongoing Fukushima catastrophe in Japan is a profound reminder of the grave dangers associated with nuclear power, and the Koodankulam plant has also been constructed in an area susceptible to earthquakes and tsunamis. This first new nuclear commissioning in India is happening without incorporating post-Fukushima safety recommendations, without any environmental impact assessment, without proper safety and evacuation drills, without auxiliary power generators and even without adequate crucial water supplies. However, the resistance being demonstrated in Tamil Nadu is about something even greater than the threat from nuclear power. It has become a people-powered struggle for freedom in a country that has long claimed to be the world's largest democracy in the peaceful tradition of Mahatma Gandhi. In the past several weeks, fisherman have been killed, three Japanese activists have been expelled from the country, and an increasingly repressive hand has been coming down on this peaceful resistance from militarized police forces at the beck and call of the global nuclear mafia.

As a growing network of citizen's groups across the United States and the world under the banner of the Coalition Against Nukes, we stand in solidarity with the people of India in this struggle for freedom and sanity. We demand a halt to the state repression and violence being perpetrated by the Indian authorities and we call on individuals, human rights organizations, and environmental groups to join with us by signing on to this statement of solidarity.

For A Nuclear Free Planet,

Read about Coalition Against Nukes below..

Coalition Against Nukes, or C.A.N., was created after the 3/11/11 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdowns in Japan causing huge amounts of radiation to contaminate Japan and continually spread radioactive plumes across the world.

What the Coalition Against Nukes Stands For

* We are dedicated to creating a nuclear free world by working towards the phase-out of all nuclear power reactors and weapons.

* We recognize that the radioactive waste from nuclear reactors serves as source material for the creation of nuclear weapons. As a result, we consider these reactors to be “bomb factories,” spread around the planet under the intentionally misleading label, “peaceful nuclear energy.” We believe there to be nothing “peaceful” about energy generation that creates tons of toxic nuclear waste, which cannot be safely stored or neutralized, which puts human life, heath and safety at risk, and which is used to create deadly weaponry.

* We are committed to promoting the development and implementation of abundant, free, safe energy from sun, wind, water, and geothermal sources, as well as instituting well-known methods of conservation and efficiency, which have been shown to be capable of meeting all our energy needs.

* The core tenet of C.A.N. is that the interrelated practices of nuclear power generation, nuclear weaponry and uranium mining form a single unit of concern, and as such, must be addressed in a unified way and not be protested separately.

Members of CAN held their first peaceful anti-nuke rallies on 10/1/11 and are in solidarity continually networking anti-nuke actions around the world. Global anti-nuke actions commemorating 3/11/12, the first anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, were extremely successful helping influence many people to understand that the global nuclear crisis isn’t just “made in Japan.”

Coalition Against Nukes is a proactive citizens group actively networking with elected officials, creating and circulating petitions, organizing peaceful marches, rallies and any public event disseminating information why the nuclear power industry (beginning with uranium mining) MUST BE STOPPED.