Eastern Dawn
Script - 26 mins - Nov 1998
10.00.06 Slovakia Mochovce protest Oct 97
Young Slovakians do battle with black clothed Slovakian ‘Ninjas’, the Slovakian anti-terrorist police. Until now the direct action environmental protestor has been a Western phenomenon. Now all that is changing as young East Europeans discover that they too can use protest to make themselves heard.
00.20 Title then guy pulled off van EASTERN DAWN
00.32 No independent environmental groups existed before Communism fell in 1989. As popular movements swept away the Soviet era young East Europeans had had their first taste of what could be achieved through protest.
00.55 Feet
In the mountains of Slovakia secret camps are occupied by protesters watching out for loggers who are slowly attacking the country's pristine and ancient forests. Rasto Micanik is 21 and a full time campaigner.
01.12 IV Rasto Micanik
You couldn’t get involved in direct actions during the communist era. If they happened they were ruthlessly suppressed. The era of direct action dawned after communism fell. I don’t think actions like ours would have succeeded under the communist regime. They just didn’t happen.
01.29 Rasto on train But it’s time for Rasto to move on. He’s due at another protest camp nearly 300 kms away.
01.37 Pause for music
01.45 IV Rasto Micanik
I think not just the government but society as a whole in post communist states is reserved about direct action. You see the same distant attitude amongst ordinary people as the government - they’re not friendly!
02.10 Mochovce power station
02.16 Mochovce protest
Activists break into the Mochovce nuclear power plant to hang a giant banner on one of its cooling towers. This action marked the birth of Slovakia’s anti-nuclear movement. Slovakians were not used to seeing such open revolt, and the European Bank was embarrassed by its loan to complete the old Soviet-style nuclear reactor.
02.41 Bratislava
Bratislava, the Slovakian capital. It’s surrounded by inefficient power hungry industry. Slovakia’s energy needs are three times that of a West European country.
02.55 Rasto and other activists ask why their government is building new nuclear plants instead of cutting energy consumption.
03.02 This is a protest camp in the small village of Nova Dedina.
03.10 IV Rasto Micanik
I think it will take another ten years before attitudes towards our actions or generally towards environmental questions change. At least 10 years.
03.28 Rushing to church
The activist approached 80 villages in the region of the power plant. The Mayor from this town was the only one to write back and went on to open his village to the environmentalists.
03.45 IV Mayor Florian Svetlansky
I used to be Chief Technical Controller at the factory… at the exact production line where the nuclear components are produced; for Mochovce as well as other nuclear power stations in the Czech Republic or Hungary. Nowadays nuclear power is useful, in spite of everything. Although we all know that it’s a bad legacy for future generations. We’ll leave them something they won’t be able to deal with for several centuries.
04.18 IV Daniel Szabo
The village people are quite afraid of anything that’s strange… they’re not used to this kind of work. They’re still living another decade… they’re still living under the communist regime. It’s the same with the Mochovce power plant, they cannot realise there can be other opinions, other alternatives, there is only one way for them still.
04.42 G/vs Nova Dedina music
04.48 IV Mayor Svetlansky
I also considered it my duty to show our citizens that we have young people with a close relationship with nature and an interest in protecting the environment, and in other similar activities which they’re carrying out in this town.
05.10 clearing graveyard In appreciation for the opportunity to put their message across, the activists have pledged to clear up the neglected village graveyard. Labeled by the media as anarchists, the impression they make on locals is of paramount importance.
Boy in graveyard
The town’s youngsters are clearly impressed, but reports are filtering back of an old lady who was frightened by the protesters asking her for cigarettes.
05.36 'Straight edge' poster They’re supposed to be banned from the camp, along with drugs, alcohol and even coffee. It’s called being ‘Straight Edge’.
05.42 IV Igor Polakovic
We’re not going to advertise the fact that we don’t take drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, because then people will know that we’ve had a problem with these things before. These are conservative people and I don’t care if you do it elsewhere but I do care if somebody does it here in the camp.
06.11 IV Daniel Szabo
Some of you might have a problem with these things. Some of you might think you’re going to do what you like and not take any notice of us.
06.25 IV Igor Polakovic
If I say this it doesn’t mean you can go five metres away and get drunk and come crawling back here. (laughter)
06.35 All part of winning hearts and minds are the ‘Clean energy brigades’. Villagers sign up for a visit by the team to improve their homes’ energy efficiency.
06.48 IV Matus Bakyta,insulating door
I’m putting insulation on the door of this old house. We’ve already put something like a brush under the door… it also stops the air and dust and the energy losses. The old grandmother, she also wants to buy the energy saving lightbulb.
07.13 door scrubbingpeacheschickssigning forms
An old house is made a bit greener, and a bit warmer, and this grandmother is a satisfied customer. In rural, more backward communities, there’s a powerful logic to producing electricity at almost any cost. Even for activists there is paperwork to be done. They take a moment to enlighten an otherwise indifferent villager on the spectre of the Mochovce power plant just down the road.
07.47 IV Igor Polakovic
Unfortunately it’s still very deeply rooted in the Slovakian psyche that if anybody’s opinion differs from the ruling class he must be damned, that he’s not entitled to be heard at all. So I think the prevalent opinion is that people don’t agree with things that go against official Slovakian policy.
08.13 IV Shebova Justina
I think it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Provided it’s well built and it doesn’t explode like in Russia, Chernobyl.So why can’t we have one as well, it’s only the Austrians who have some objections against the plant! (laughs)
08.32 Matus Bakyta
The problem is also that Mochovce absorbs a huge amount of money…
08.38 Shebova Justina
But I couldn’t imagine being without electricity and having to use a petrol lamp.
08.51 July 18th, 1998 Graz protest
This morning the activists wake up with a sense of expectation. An action is on. Secrecy is paramount. One word let slip and the police could be alerted. The van is loaded up and they set out for neighbouring Austria, one of the most liberal of West European nations.
Travelling & radio
09.37 IV Matus Bakyta,driving
Now we are going to Austria to join a Greenpeace protest. We don’t know exactly what kind of action it will. We have found it’s not very safe to talk about this.
09.5510.02 Band/ GrazEU Flag
The activists have arrived and begin their preparations. They’re celebrating in the old Austrian town of Graz. Austria has just taken up the Presidency of the EU and the East Europeans want to enlist them to fight their anti nuclear cause. Pause for music
10.19 The Slovakian protesters know Austria is nervous about the old Soviet reactors still operating just across her border. After a national vote Austria abandoned all nuclear energy but the activists have come West to emphasise that Austria is still at risk. They want the Austrian government to bring pressure on West European companies who maintain the substandard nuclear reactors and who also build new ones.
10.43 IV Matus Bakyta
We call it nuclear colonialism. The Western companies lost their profits in Western Europe and they are coming out to Eastern Europe and the developing countries and they are trying to find their place in the market there. And that’s what we don’t like.
11.03 But the Austrian ‘action’ is muted. Some of the protestors who’ve traveled 100s of kms to get here think it just wasn’t radical enough.
11.11 IV Tomas Kusik
Maybe this kind of action is effective as a part of a big campaign. But maybe it’s not necessary for people to travel such a long distance for an action like this.
Protesters looking disgruntled
11.30 IV Matus Bakyta
I think any action makes sense and especially this one when we are protesting against nuclear enlargement in central and eastern Europe.
11.42 IV Lubica Trubiniova,Head of Greenpeace Slovakia
We have to raise up our anti-nuclear activities very often in Austria or even to do campaigns in very close co-operation with Greenpeace Austria, due to the fact that our politicians, our decision makers don’t pay almost any attention to the protests of Slovak inhabitants, especially Slovak environmental NGO’s in our own country.
12.09 Slovakian protest
Back in Slovakia the environmentalists protests are not dealt with so comfortably. They’re seen as a risk to the new mantra of free commerce and big business. But Slovakian activists say it’s exactly the new business ethos which makes them most angry.
12.40 IV Lubica Trubiniova,Head of Greenpeace Slovaki
We have observed in the last time a very clear and strong attack of Western nuclear firms going to the East due to the much lower environmental awareness of the public in Eastern countries and due also to the fact that nuclear power is very strongly supported by our political and economic leaders.
12.57 Inside Mochovce The reactor in the Mochovce nuclear plant has few of the safety features of Western nuclear facilities. If there’s an earthquake the core could crack and radioactivity would be free to seep across Europe as it did at Chernobyl.
13.15 IV gor Polakovic
One of the basic problems is that Slovakia as a country is trying to enter the EU and it should respect the safety regulations of the EU. Unfortunately, this nuclear power plant will never meet those safety regulations, which means that for 25 years there will be a nuclear plant which could never have been put into operation in the EU.
13.38 fade
consumerism in Poland In neighbouring Poland they’re culturally a lot closer to the West. Poland will be one of the first to be admitted to the EU. In recent years Poles have feasted on Western products. Multinationals and their advertising have swamped Polish cities. Here consumerism is the name of the game.
14.19 Radical Green festival, punk song
But Polish activists are also more developed than most of their Eastern peers. Music pauseThere’s more of a tradition of popular movements here and Poles have been watching their counterparts in England closely. They’ve taken up the British style of anti-roads protests.
14.44 IV Jacek Polewski
There’s not really a discussion about motorways in this country, it’s just ‘we need motorways’ and it’s nothing more, because it’s like in West Europe. But if you see carefully, what they are doing is just big business for the European Union and for big companies, most of them from the West.
15.07 Jacek and meeting
As leader of the Polish branch of ‘Earth First! Jacek Polewski is a key personality. Like most he’s a student and struggles to survive. With little social welfare available activists here are poor and have to be dedicated. It means there are few of the excesses of Western ‘crusties’. There’s a strict leadership structure and drugs are almost unheard of. They’re disciplined and well organised.
15.34
Q: Will joining NATO and the European Union force the Polish government to approve the building of new motorways?
15.46 NATSOF Olaf Swolkien
There is pressure on Poland and as a matter of fact the European Union itself is investing money in building roads in Poland. This money of course goes back to Europe because all the companies that build the motorways are from the West.
16.05 Jacek is from the new generation of East Europeans. He, along with many here, is searching for a fresh approach.
fade
16.09 England, Jacek on train He regularly visits England. It’s where he gets many ideas for his own campaigns. He claims he gets impatient with British protesters as they are too much talk and not enough action. But then, he reasons, they can afford to be…
16.52 Jacek walks squat
It’s much more easy, especially when they have some kind of support from society. Every week money from the government, the dole. And it’s quite easy to be an activist ... it’s not easy, but it’s possible to be an activist here, when you have money for food, for your life, for your house, but in Poland it’s impossible.
17.02 Squat
Here he can share stories and learn of the latest tactics for evading the police. They’re all keen to hear of his most recent action which has caused great controversy in Poland and elsewhere.
fade
17.15 protester on roof pushing crane away
That action involved squatting a house along the route of a proposed motorway, near Poznan. But the German contractors have called out a private security company.
17.33 IV Jacek Polewski
There was a situation where the heavy machine was two metres away from me… it was really dangerous. And then we used stones to destroy the machine, just to protect myself and my friend.
protest pause
17.52 When they came on the roof they were really aggressive. Oh yes! We are in democracy - everybody can protest… to be against something. But on the other side, there is no law, there’s not police which control the eviction. Because the German company paid the security guards, security agency to evict us. And there’s no control on that.
18.2618.31 Roof with protester on topBuilding collapses
The contractors continued with their demolition regardless.
18.41 IV Lubica Trubiniova
I think environmental organisations are the most active in comparison with other organisations. And even the most direct and courageous in protesting openly
18.57 IV Jacek Polewski
In the environment movement there is some kind of discussion about violence and non violence, about being radical or not radical but I feel there is something wrong and I react. It’s nothing more. It’s not the philosophy of Ghandi, or the philosophy of anarchism. I am against because I feel there is something wrong.
19.21 Sunrise Music pause
19.27 Kola Peninsula
In the far North of Russia there was another nuclear demonstration this year against the Russian nuclear operator Minatom. For 3 weeks these young Russian protestors set up camp on the site of a nuclear plant due to begin construction any day.
19.40 Banner
At the Minatom nuclear HQ in the city of Apitity the Russian activists hang a banner on the administration building. It wasn’t long before the police arrived and the protestors and there banner taken away.
19.58 Cameraman beaten up
The worst violence though came from the nuclear authority itself. The man beating up our camera operator is Mr. Danilov, the head of public relations for the Minatom nuclear company.
20.13 Violent Demo
Much of the old Soviet Union remains little changed from the days when demonstrations were forbidden.
20.28 Demo
This is Belarus, a country which remains tightly clamped in authoritarianism
20.36 Minsk views and people montage
Minsk, the Belarussian capital, is a monument to the best of Soviet design but behind it’s beautiful facade lie much darker secrets.
20.48 Police with riot shields
The country is lead by an autocratic government. There are few personal freedoms.
20.58 Pres. Lukashenko and Parade
Even worse, the country’s President Lukashenko has a deep streak of fascism within him. He gave a radio interview. In it he spoke of Hitler as a hero.
21.09 V/O Lukashenko radio interview
Hitler formed a mighty Germany due to his strong presidential power. But the German order has been formed for centuries. Under Hitler that formation reached its peak. And it’s that which is in keeping with our idea of a presidential republic and the role of president in it.
21.25 Scientists' symposium
It might seem hopeless but Belarussian activists do have support from one quarter. Many are leading Belarussian nuclear scientists who have stark memories of Chernobyl. They’re here to speak against nuclear power.
21.42 NATSOF Scientist at podium
There’s one thing I learned at the Ministry and that is that every single one of us who’s worked with atomic energy is guilty.
21.57 Audience
With Chernobyl just 200 km from Minsk they’re anxious for Belarus to avoid the same mistakes and to steer clear of further nuclear development.
22.06 Activists
The scientists are here at the invitation of these grass roots activists. It’s the last phase in a unique and dangerous direct action campaign.
22.14 NATSOF Professor Georgi Lepin, Nuclear Scientist
The young people taking upon themselves this responsibility are the most important people. We older people are stuck in our ways whilst they can see many different alternatives.
22.38 Activists
Their campaign has involved months of secret planning but this summer they began to bring the nuclear issue to a population otherwise kept in the dark. Belarus was heavily contaminated by Chernobyl’s nuclear fallout but few Belarussians know about it.
22.51 Photos of protest
For two weeks this autumn 13 activists, many from other East European countries, did their best to change that. In a top secret action they marched for hundreds of miles through the Belarus countryside. They went to the proposed sites of new nuclear plants. They demonstrated where they could and were frequently arrested, shoved into police vans and dumped in the countryside.
23.15 IV Professor Georgi Lepin, Nuclear Scientist
Young people understand how important this is. It concerns their future and the lives of their children. We have to think what the future generations will do with the nuclear power plants we’re now building. We’re leaving such a heritage they’re going to turn around & curse us.
23.35 Science Academy Outside the Minsk Science Academy the activists are crowning off their summer of protest. By agreeing not to refer to the President or government policy they’ve got permission to stage a small rally.
23.49 IV Olga Miryasova
I hope we’ll not have problems with the police. It’s not a very radical action today. Police try to control all spheres of life for ordinary people in Belarus. Often people who make protests have a harder situation.
24.1024.14 Police CameramanAstonished bypasser
Such a demonstration is almost unheard of here and the police film every detail of the picket. Bypassers are astonished at the sight.
24.17 G/V of Suzanna Like many on this protest Suzanna is a foreigner. She’s Polish.
24.23 IV Suzanna Iskierka
If they build nuclear power plants here in Belarus it will have an impact on Poland as well. It’s not an issue which concerns only one country.
24.34 Protesters and Passers By
It’s the end of the first sustained campaign of its kind here. They’ve made little real impact on Belarussians but in the constricted atmosphere of local politics it’s also their foreign links which have kept them from being locked up.
24.47 'Biogas' protester
I am biogas, shit. You can use me as an alternative energy. Did you know shit can make electricity.
24.58 Environmental organisations here in Belarus need a lot of support at the moment. They haven’t had time to develop. They were not developed during Soviet times obviously. Now they’re starting but as you know the situation is not so easy.
25.21 Punk Band pause
25.29 Band
In Belarus the local activists mostly stick to the underground. No concert like this could be legally performed so they go deep into the forests.
25.40 Around fire
Here they’re free from their government's demands, free to work out what they want and where they fit into their new world. Across Eastern Europe the fire is burning, a youth happy to be free of the past but determined to forge their own future.
CREDITS
Producer/ editor: Keely Purdue
Director: Mark Stucke
A Journeyman Pictures Production, 1998
Script - 26 mins - Nov 1998
10.00.06 Slovakia Mochovce protest Oct 97
Young Slovakians do battle with black clothed Slovakian ‘Ninjas’, the Slovakian anti-terrorist police. Until now the direct action environmental protestor has been a Western phenomenon. Now all that is changing as young East Europeans discover that they too can use protest to make themselves heard.
00.20 Title then guy pulled off van EASTERN DAWN
00.32 No independent environmental groups existed before Communism fell in 1989. As popular movements swept away the Soviet era young East Europeans had had their first taste of what could be achieved through protest.
00.55 Feet
In the mountains of Slovakia secret camps are occupied by protesters watching out for loggers who are slowly attacking the country's pristine and ancient forests. Rasto Micanik is 21 and a full time campaigner.
01.12 IV Rasto Micanik
You couldn’t get involved in direct actions during the communist era. If they happened they were ruthlessly suppressed. The era of direct action dawned after communism fell. I don’t think actions like ours would have succeeded under the communist regime. They just didn’t happen.
01.29 Rasto on train But it’s time for Rasto to move on. He’s due at another protest camp nearly 300 kms away.
01.37 Pause for music
01.45 IV Rasto Micanik
I think not just the government but society as a whole in post communist states is reserved about direct action. You see the same distant attitude amongst ordinary people as the government - they’re not friendly!
02.10 Mochovce power station
02.16 Mochovce protest
Activists break into the Mochovce nuclear power plant to hang a giant banner on one of its cooling towers. This action marked the birth of Slovakia’s anti-nuclear movement. Slovakians were not used to seeing such open revolt, and the European Bank was embarrassed by its loan to complete the old Soviet-style nuclear reactor.
02.41 Bratislava
Bratislava, the Slovakian capital. It’s surrounded by inefficient power hungry industry. Slovakia’s energy needs are three times that of a West European country.
02.55 Rasto and other activists ask why their government is building new nuclear plants instead of cutting energy consumption.
03.02 This is a protest camp in the small village of Nova Dedina.
03.10 IV Rasto Micanik
I think it will take another ten years before attitudes towards our actions or generally towards environmental questions change. At least 10 years.
03.28 Rushing to church
The activist approached 80 villages in the region of the power plant. The Mayor from this town was the only one to write back and went on to open his village to the environmentalists.
03.45 IV Mayor Florian Svetlansky
I used to be Chief Technical Controller at the factory… at the exact production line where the nuclear components are produced; for Mochovce as well as other nuclear power stations in the Czech Republic or Hungary. Nowadays nuclear power is useful, in spite of everything. Although we all know that it’s a bad legacy for future generations. We’ll leave them something they won’t be able to deal with for several centuries.
04.18 IV Daniel Szabo
The village people are quite afraid of anything that’s strange… they’re not used to this kind of work. They’re still living another decade… they’re still living under the communist regime. It’s the same with the Mochovce power plant, they cannot realise there can be other opinions, other alternatives, there is only one way for them still.
04.42 G/vs Nova Dedina music
04.48 IV Mayor Svetlansky
I also considered it my duty to show our citizens that we have young people with a close relationship with nature and an interest in protecting the environment, and in other similar activities which they’re carrying out in this town.
05.10 clearing graveyard In appreciation for the opportunity to put their message across, the activists have pledged to clear up the neglected village graveyard. Labeled by the media as anarchists, the impression they make on locals is of paramount importance.
Boy in graveyard
The town’s youngsters are clearly impressed, but reports are filtering back of an old lady who was frightened by the protesters asking her for cigarettes.
05.36 'Straight edge' poster They’re supposed to be banned from the camp, along with drugs, alcohol and even coffee. It’s called being ‘Straight Edge’.
05.42 IV Igor Polakovic
We’re not going to advertise the fact that we don’t take drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, because then people will know that we’ve had a problem with these things before. These are conservative people and I don’t care if you do it elsewhere but I do care if somebody does it here in the camp.
06.11 IV Daniel Szabo
Some of you might have a problem with these things. Some of you might think you’re going to do what you like and not take any notice of us.
06.25 IV Igor Polakovic
If I say this it doesn’t mean you can go five metres away and get drunk and come crawling back here. (laughter)
06.35 All part of winning hearts and minds are the ‘Clean energy brigades’. Villagers sign up for a visit by the team to improve their homes’ energy efficiency.
06.48 IV Matus Bakyta,insulating door
I’m putting insulation on the door of this old house. We’ve already put something like a brush under the door… it also stops the air and dust and the energy losses. The old grandmother, she also wants to buy the energy saving lightbulb.
07.13 door scrubbingpeacheschickssigning forms
An old house is made a bit greener, and a bit warmer, and this grandmother is a satisfied customer. In rural, more backward communities, there’s a powerful logic to producing electricity at almost any cost. Even for activists there is paperwork to be done. They take a moment to enlighten an otherwise indifferent villager on the spectre of the Mochovce power plant just down the road.
07.47 IV Igor Polakovic
Unfortunately it’s still very deeply rooted in the Slovakian psyche that if anybody’s opinion differs from the ruling class he must be damned, that he’s not entitled to be heard at all. So I think the prevalent opinion is that people don’t agree with things that go against official Slovakian policy.
08.13 IV Shebova Justina
I think it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Provided it’s well built and it doesn’t explode like in Russia, Chernobyl.So why can’t we have one as well, it’s only the Austrians who have some objections against the plant! (laughs)
08.32 Matus Bakyta
The problem is also that Mochovce absorbs a huge amount of money…
08.38 Shebova Justina
But I couldn’t imagine being without electricity and having to use a petrol lamp.
08.51 July 18th, 1998 Graz protest
This morning the activists wake up with a sense of expectation. An action is on. Secrecy is paramount. One word let slip and the police could be alerted. The van is loaded up and they set out for neighbouring Austria, one of the most liberal of West European nations.
Travelling & radio
09.37 IV Matus Bakyta,driving
Now we are going to Austria to join a Greenpeace protest. We don’t know exactly what kind of action it will. We have found it’s not very safe to talk about this.
09.5510.02 Band/ GrazEU Flag
The activists have arrived and begin their preparations. They’re celebrating in the old Austrian town of Graz. Austria has just taken up the Presidency of the EU and the East Europeans want to enlist them to fight their anti nuclear cause. Pause for music
10.19 The Slovakian protesters know Austria is nervous about the old Soviet reactors still operating just across her border. After a national vote Austria abandoned all nuclear energy but the activists have come West to emphasise that Austria is still at risk. They want the Austrian government to bring pressure on West European companies who maintain the substandard nuclear reactors and who also build new ones.
10.43 IV Matus Bakyta
We call it nuclear colonialism. The Western companies lost their profits in Western Europe and they are coming out to Eastern Europe and the developing countries and they are trying to find their place in the market there. And that’s what we don’t like.
11.03 But the Austrian ‘action’ is muted. Some of the protestors who’ve traveled 100s of kms to get here think it just wasn’t radical enough.
11.11 IV Tomas Kusik
Maybe this kind of action is effective as a part of a big campaign. But maybe it’s not necessary for people to travel such a long distance for an action like this.
Protesters looking disgruntled
11.30 IV Matus Bakyta
I think any action makes sense and especially this one when we are protesting against nuclear enlargement in central and eastern Europe.
11.42 IV Lubica Trubiniova,Head of Greenpeace Slovakia
We have to raise up our anti-nuclear activities very often in Austria or even to do campaigns in very close co-operation with Greenpeace Austria, due to the fact that our politicians, our decision makers don’t pay almost any attention to the protests of Slovak inhabitants, especially Slovak environmental NGO’s in our own country.
12.09 Slovakian protest
Back in Slovakia the environmentalists protests are not dealt with so comfortably. They’re seen as a risk to the new mantra of free commerce and big business. But Slovakian activists say it’s exactly the new business ethos which makes them most angry.
12.40 IV Lubica Trubiniova,Head of Greenpeace Slovaki
We have observed in the last time a very clear and strong attack of Western nuclear firms going to the East due to the much lower environmental awareness of the public in Eastern countries and due also to the fact that nuclear power is very strongly supported by our political and economic leaders.
12.57 Inside Mochovce The reactor in the Mochovce nuclear plant has few of the safety features of Western nuclear facilities. If there’s an earthquake the core could crack and radioactivity would be free to seep across Europe as it did at Chernobyl.
13.15 IV gor Polakovic
One of the basic problems is that Slovakia as a country is trying to enter the EU and it should respect the safety regulations of the EU. Unfortunately, this nuclear power plant will never meet those safety regulations, which means that for 25 years there will be a nuclear plant which could never have been put into operation in the EU.
13.38 fade
consumerism in Poland In neighbouring Poland they’re culturally a lot closer to the West. Poland will be one of the first to be admitted to the EU. In recent years Poles have feasted on Western products. Multinationals and their advertising have swamped Polish cities. Here consumerism is the name of the game.
14.19 Radical Green festival, punk song
But Polish activists are also more developed than most of their Eastern peers. Music pauseThere’s more of a tradition of popular movements here and Poles have been watching their counterparts in England closely. They’ve taken up the British style of anti-roads protests.
14.44 IV Jacek Polewski
There’s not really a discussion about motorways in this country, it’s just ‘we need motorways’ and it’s nothing more, because it’s like in West Europe. But if you see carefully, what they are doing is just big business for the European Union and for big companies, most of them from the West.
15.07 Jacek and meeting
As leader of the Polish branch of ‘Earth First! Jacek Polewski is a key personality. Like most he’s a student and struggles to survive. With little social welfare available activists here are poor and have to be dedicated. It means there are few of the excesses of Western ‘crusties’. There’s a strict leadership structure and drugs are almost unheard of. They’re disciplined and well organised.
15.34
Q: Will joining NATO and the European Union force the Polish government to approve the building of new motorways?
15.46 NATSOF Olaf Swolkien
There is pressure on Poland and as a matter of fact the European Union itself is investing money in building roads in Poland. This money of course goes back to Europe because all the companies that build the motorways are from the West.
16.05 Jacek is from the new generation of East Europeans. He, along with many here, is searching for a fresh approach.
fade
16.09 England, Jacek on train He regularly visits England. It’s where he gets many ideas for his own campaigns. He claims he gets impatient with British protesters as they are too much talk and not enough action. But then, he reasons, they can afford to be…
16.52 Jacek walks squat
It’s much more easy, especially when they have some kind of support from society. Every week money from the government, the dole. And it’s quite easy to be an activist ... it’s not easy, but it’s possible to be an activist here, when you have money for food, for your life, for your house, but in Poland it’s impossible.
17.02 Squat
Here he can share stories and learn of the latest tactics for evading the police. They’re all keen to hear of his most recent action which has caused great controversy in Poland and elsewhere.
fade
17.15 protester on roof pushing crane away
That action involved squatting a house along the route of a proposed motorway, near Poznan. But the German contractors have called out a private security company.
17.33 IV Jacek Polewski
There was a situation where the heavy machine was two metres away from me… it was really dangerous. And then we used stones to destroy the machine, just to protect myself and my friend.
protest pause
17.52 When they came on the roof they were really aggressive. Oh yes! We are in democracy - everybody can protest… to be against something. But on the other side, there is no law, there’s not police which control the eviction. Because the German company paid the security guards, security agency to evict us. And there’s no control on that.
18.2618.31 Roof with protester on topBuilding collapses
The contractors continued with their demolition regardless.
18.41 IV Lubica Trubiniova
I think environmental organisations are the most active in comparison with other organisations. And even the most direct and courageous in protesting openly
18.57 IV Jacek Polewski
In the environment movement there is some kind of discussion about violence and non violence, about being radical or not radical but I feel there is something wrong and I react. It’s nothing more. It’s not the philosophy of Ghandi, or the philosophy of anarchism. I am against because I feel there is something wrong.
19.21 Sunrise Music pause
19.27 Kola Peninsula
In the far North of Russia there was another nuclear demonstration this year against the Russian nuclear operator Minatom. For 3 weeks these young Russian protestors set up camp on the site of a nuclear plant due to begin construction any day.
19.40 Banner
At the Minatom nuclear HQ in the city of Apitity the Russian activists hang a banner on the administration building. It wasn’t long before the police arrived and the protestors and there banner taken away.
19.58 Cameraman beaten up
The worst violence though came from the nuclear authority itself. The man beating up our camera operator is Mr. Danilov, the head of public relations for the Minatom nuclear company.
20.13 Violent Demo
Much of the old Soviet Union remains little changed from the days when demonstrations were forbidden.
20.28 Demo
This is Belarus, a country which remains tightly clamped in authoritarianism
20.36 Minsk views and people montage
Minsk, the Belarussian capital, is a monument to the best of Soviet design but behind it’s beautiful facade lie much darker secrets.
20.48 Police with riot shields
The country is lead by an autocratic government. There are few personal freedoms.
20.58 Pres. Lukashenko and Parade
Even worse, the country’s President Lukashenko has a deep streak of fascism within him. He gave a radio interview. In it he spoke of Hitler as a hero.
21.09 V/O Lukashenko radio interview
Hitler formed a mighty Germany due to his strong presidential power. But the German order has been formed for centuries. Under Hitler that formation reached its peak. And it’s that which is in keeping with our idea of a presidential republic and the role of president in it.
21.25 Scientists' symposium
It might seem hopeless but Belarussian activists do have support from one quarter. Many are leading Belarussian nuclear scientists who have stark memories of Chernobyl. They’re here to speak against nuclear power.
21.42 NATSOF Scientist at podium
There’s one thing I learned at the Ministry and that is that every single one of us who’s worked with atomic energy is guilty.
21.57 Audience
With Chernobyl just 200 km from Minsk they’re anxious for Belarus to avoid the same mistakes and to steer clear of further nuclear development.
22.06 Activists
The scientists are here at the invitation of these grass roots activists. It’s the last phase in a unique and dangerous direct action campaign.
22.14 NATSOF Professor Georgi Lepin, Nuclear Scientist
The young people taking upon themselves this responsibility are the most important people. We older people are stuck in our ways whilst they can see many different alternatives.
22.38 Activists
Their campaign has involved months of secret planning but this summer they began to bring the nuclear issue to a population otherwise kept in the dark. Belarus was heavily contaminated by Chernobyl’s nuclear fallout but few Belarussians know about it.
22.51 Photos of protest
For two weeks this autumn 13 activists, many from other East European countries, did their best to change that. In a top secret action they marched for hundreds of miles through the Belarus countryside. They went to the proposed sites of new nuclear plants. They demonstrated where they could and were frequently arrested, shoved into police vans and dumped in the countryside.
23.15 IV Professor Georgi Lepin, Nuclear Scientist
Young people understand how important this is. It concerns their future and the lives of their children. We have to think what the future generations will do with the nuclear power plants we’re now building. We’re leaving such a heritage they’re going to turn around & curse us.
23.35 Science Academy Outside the Minsk Science Academy the activists are crowning off their summer of protest. By agreeing not to refer to the President or government policy they’ve got permission to stage a small rally.
23.49 IV Olga Miryasova
I hope we’ll not have problems with the police. It’s not a very radical action today. Police try to control all spheres of life for ordinary people in Belarus. Often people who make protests have a harder situation.
24.1024.14 Police CameramanAstonished bypasser
Such a demonstration is almost unheard of here and the police film every detail of the picket. Bypassers are astonished at the sight.
24.17 G/V of Suzanna Like many on this protest Suzanna is a foreigner. She’s Polish.
24.23 IV Suzanna Iskierka
If they build nuclear power plants here in Belarus it will have an impact on Poland as well. It’s not an issue which concerns only one country.
24.34 Protesters and Passers By
It’s the end of the first sustained campaign of its kind here. They’ve made little real impact on Belarussians but in the constricted atmosphere of local politics it’s also their foreign links which have kept them from being locked up.
24.47 'Biogas' protester
I am biogas, shit. You can use me as an alternative energy. Did you know shit can make electricity.
24.58 Environmental organisations here in Belarus need a lot of support at the moment. They haven’t had time to develop. They were not developed during Soviet times obviously. Now they’re starting but as you know the situation is not so easy.
25.21 Punk Band pause
25.29 Band
In Belarus the local activists mostly stick to the underground. No concert like this could be legally performed so they go deep into the forests.
25.40 Around fire
Here they’re free from their government's demands, free to work out what they want and where they fit into their new world. Across Eastern Europe the fire is burning, a youth happy to be free of the past but determined to forge their own future.
CREDITS
Producer/ editor: Keely Purdue
Director: Mark Stucke
A Journeyman Pictures Production, 1998