Nuclear Workers make Goulash out of Blockaders

Thirty activists from the radical environmental movement Rainbow Keepers were viciously attacked on July 29 while blockading the construction of the Rostov Nuclear Power Plant, near Volgodonsk, Russia.

On July 27, the protesters, hailing from various countries of the former USSR and Europe, erected a blockade on the road leading into the plant with human bodies linked by concrete-filled barrels. Two days later, with local police looking on indifferently, the workers surrounded the protesters and beat them unmercifully until they unlocked from their barrels, at which point the protesters were thrown in a steep ditch. Some of the workers smashed the blockaders' heads against the barrels while others used iron rods to extract the activists. In the meantime, other workers plundered the injured activists, rummaging their pockets and taking wallets and documents. The Rainbow Keepers report that "the dreadful cries of pain just urged on the attacking workers."

During the melee at the blockade, a small, well-organized group of plant workers smashed the Rainbow Keeper's camp, burning tents and personal effects with bottles of fuel.

All of the protesters suffered injuries, including five taken to the hospital suffering from concussions and, for one, a broken nose.

The attack appears to have been coordinated by the Volgodonsk government, plant officials and the local police. Officials from each warned Rainbow Keepers the day before the attack that the workers would beat them and that they wouldn't stop them. The chairman of the worker's trade union headed the attack, and when satisfied that a sufficient pounding had been administered proclaimed "That's enough, let's go," upon which the workers departed from the scene. Meanwhile, a police official watching the beating announced that he was proud of the operation. The Rostov Nuclear Plant press service filmed the beating from start to finish.

A half-hour after the beating had taken place, the Mayor of Volgodonsk, Sergei Gorbunov, arrived at the destroyed camp. He proceeded to ignore the carnage that had just taken place and instead focused his concerns on the sanitary conditions of the camp.

The next day, local police arrested all but two young girls at the rebuilt protest camp, and while in transit to Volgodonsk arrested five other activists hitchhiking. 15 were given warnings.

Construction of the Rostov Nuclear Plant was begun in the 70s, but immediately questioned because of seismic activity and geological faults in the area. In 1990, after vigorous protests from the citizens of Volgodonsk, the Russian Federation stopped construction of the plant, but the plan was revived in 1996. The first phase of the plant is expected to be on-line in 1998.

The Rainbow Keepers seek to put the Rostov plant to a vote of the citizens of Volgodonsk and to stop further expansion of the nuclear industry in Russia. To that end they established their protest camp on July 16 at the construction site, and began picketing in the town. Following the ransacking of the blockade, Rainbow Keepers have re-established the camp, and hosted an anti-nuclear rock festival in a nearby town (the mayor of Volgodonsk prohibited the festival there). Volgodonsk responded with their own rock concert, with the motto, "Off with adversaries of the nuclear plant! Let the science and progress be!"

The movement against Rostov continues to grow, and as of August 3, over 100 people from seven countries were occupying the camp. Rainbow Keepers ask for an international campaign of solidarity. Please send a protest letter to Head of Volgodonsk Sergei Gorbunov, fax 00 7 86392 2-22-66.

Rainbow Keepers may be contacted at POB 14, Nizhni Novgorod, 603082 Russia; email root@rk.vdonsk.ru; phone oo 7 86392 371-14.