reports from Hamburg 20 YEARS AGO the salt mountains of Gorleben, in a minty populated, isolatco re 150 kilometers south of Hambure were chosen as a store for highly radioactive waste. A massive 'intermediate store' was built there, area, which once voted conservative, has been the stronghold of resistance against atomic politics ever since.
As the atomic power stations have long been in operation - the last was opened in 1989 - the oppo. sition has been concentrated around storage of radioactive material. Waste Intended for Gorleben was vidual atomic piles or in the reprocessing plants in The Hague or in the last three years the resis. rebuild a mass basis, despite the fact that it is not supported by any party or trade union. The Social Demodespite the fact that they have been for withdrawal from it for more than a decade.
The Greens content themselves even support the movement finansally. The resistance is a real grass roots movement, but not at all spontaneous, but rather well organised and highly motivated.
The core of the opposition is citizens initiatives in the region around coneden (tarmers, peat bourgeois and intelligensia), small groups of ment of the '70s and above all very young people who are prepared for action. The movement is an expression of a new youth radicalisation. wagon loads of atomic waste were brought from southern Germany to tions against it in many towns, in some cases of a few hundred, in a few casel of up to 3,000 people.
On the weekend before the sembled in calehhouine Lunabure and the region. 573 farmers participated in a tors and combine Hal Yours The transport of the waste took place under ures. There was much sabotage of railway instaladons. in the area around Gorleben, roads were tunnelled under. railway lines pulled up and barricades built. 30,000 police were mobilised to break the resistance, 19.000 of those in the region around Gorleben. The authorities announced a ban on demonstrations on the route of the transport, which was simply ignored. during the week when people are tied up at work and school. Despite that over 10,000 people awaited its arrival in the region. Some conor mine and han the t