[asia-apec 349] Asian nuclear crisis

[Citizens' Nuclear Information Center]

Dear colleagues in Asia,

I believe following message is very important for Asia-APEC activists.  It
relates heavily with nuclear states' ambitions of making an international
radwaste disposal site at somewhere in the world.  We can never allow to
make an initial example in Asia.

Mika Obayashi
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
Japan

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> Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 15:33:01 +0900 (KST)
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> To: cnic-jp at po.iijnet.or.jp
> From: Anna Gyorgy <annag at uriel.net>
> Subject: For Mika Obayashi
>
> 3 February 1997:  ACTION ALERT -
>
> PLEASE REPLY TO: Green Korea <environ at chollian.dacom.co.kr> (fax:
> (822)325-5677) and Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU)
> <tepuAms1.hinet.net> (fax: (886-2)362-3458)
>
> TAIWANESE AND KOREAN ACTIVISTS WORK TOGETHER TO PREVENT RAD-WASTE DUMPING
> IN NORTH KOREA: Korean Hunger Strike Participants Expelled from Taiwan;
> Protests Continue in both Countries
>
> ACTION REQUESTED: Organizations are urged to send a statement of opposition
> to the planned nuclear waste exports and support for citizen actions to
> prevent this dangerous precedent.   On January 20, 1997, a deal between
> Taiwan and North Korea was announced that would help "solve" Taiwan's
> nuclear waste problem. Taiwan would ship 60,000 barrels of radioactive
> ("low-level") material to famine-plagued North Korea within two years for
> storage, with an option to increase the total to 200,000 barrels. "Taiwan
> seems to have hardly imagined that opposition to its plan would grow so
> widely and rapidly under the lead of the Seoul government and the South
> Korean people. For the impoverished North, meanwhile, the nuclear deal is
> one that cannot be called off, because of the large amounts of foreign
> currency involved. Taipei has not disclosed the terms of the deal, but
> activists have claimed that it will pay Pyongyang up to $227 million." --
> Editorial, "Korea Times", 30 Jan. 97
>
>  Environmental activists in Korea and Taiwan categorically oppose the
> dumping of nuclear waste "in other countries' backyards." Both Green Korea
> and TEPU called on their countries to offer technological and economic
> assistance to North Korea, instead of exporting nuclear waste.   ACTIONS:
> On Tuesday, 28 January a group of six Green Korea activists began a hunger
> strike in front of the Taiwan Power Company headquarters ("Taipower") in
> Taipei to oppose the planned shipments. Their action was fully supported
> and coordinated with the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), a
> national NGO that has long opposed nuclear construction in Taiwan, and past
> waste 'adventures.' (see "Background") On Thursday, 30 January, the
> peaceful group, seated in front of Taipower with banners against the waste
> export, was assaulted by ultra-right-wing Chinese-Taiwanese nationalists as
> police stood by. Later that day the group was expelled from Taiwan.
> Returning to Seoul in a wheelchair because of injuries from the attack, Dr.
> Jang Won, professor at Taejon University and secretary general of Green
> Korea, announced that the group would continue the protest in front of the
> Taiwanese Representative Office in downtown Seoul. (South Korea's
> government switched their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing
> four years ago.) There the group, joined by other supporters, talked with
> the public and kept vigil, spending a cold winter night on the sidewalk
> Friday. At 2 am 1st February Dr. Jang was taken by police to the hospital
> because of his poor health; he is continuing his fast there. Back in
> Taipei, a group of environmental activists continued the protest in front
> of Taipower until Sunday evening. In Seoul, Green Korea will continue its
> vigil and signature collecting in front of the Taiwanese Office, weekends
> 11am-7pm, weekdays 8am-8pm.   "If Taiwan is incapable of managing the
> nuclear waste problems, it should not develop nuclear power. The Taiwan
> government must terminate construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant
> and immediately stop operating the No. 1,2 and 3 nuclear power plants. The
> only way to solve the nuclear waste problem is not to produce wastes in the
> first place." -- from a news release issued by the "Taipower Headquarters
> Protesters" on 1 February.
>
> BACKGROUND: Since 1982 the state-owned Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) has
> shipped low and mid-level nuclear waste from its three nuclear power plants
> to the Long-men Nuclear Waste Depository on Orchid Island. Also called Lan
> Yu, the beautiful island with its unique ecosystem is home to 3,000 Yami,
> the most isolated of Taiwan's indigenous peoples. After storing 98,000
> barrels of nuclear waste on the island, Taipower faced widespread protests
> in 1995 when it broke its promise to the Yami to cancel any expansion of
> the facility and approved plans to store an additional 100,000 drums of
> nuclear waste in Long-Men. The Yami fear contamination of soil and sea from
> leaking barrels; the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council has admitted that some of
> the drums of waste have rusted. After and international campaign charging
> Taipower and the AEC with environmental racism over their waste program,
> the expansion program was withdrawn. Now we see a new form of
> "environmental imperialism" in which richer countries try to pass on their
> dangerous radioactive waste legacy to others which desperately need foreign
> exchange to help their economic situation. A victory over this export
> attempt will set an important international precedent against storing
> "waste for cash" in other nations' back yards and strengthen the movement
> towards nuclear phase-out.
>
> ADDITIONAL NEWS:
>
> *       "Korea Times", 1 Feb. 1997:  Korean Lawmakers and Environmentalists
> go to Taiwan    Following the expulsion of the Green Korea hunger strikers,
> four South Korean National Assembly members from two opposition parties
> left for Taiwan to protest the planned shipments of waste to North Korea.
> "In their protest visit to Taiwan, done jointly with the civic group Korean
> Federation of Environmental Movement, the lawmakers will deliver to the
> Taiwan government the Korean National Assembly's statement signed by 277
> lawmakers urging Taiwan to withhold the nuclear waste shipment plans....
> Meanwhile, the political circle of the nation reacted furiously to
> Taiwanese harassment against and deportation of Korean environmentalists,
> who were engaging in peaceful protest there Thursday."
>
>  *      "The Korea Herald", 1 Feb:  South Korean government opposes deal
> ""The government regards the expulsion of the peaceful Korean protesters as
> regretful,' said a Foreign Ministry official.  'Taiwan's planned export of
> nuclear waste violates international practices and amounts to an immoral
> act affecting the environment of the entire Korean Peninsula.'
>
> (end)

**********************************
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
1-59-14-302, Higashi-nakano
Nakano-ku, Tokyo  164, JAPAN
phone; 81-3-5330-9520, fax; 81-3-5330-9530
e-mail; <cnic-jp at po.iijnet.or.jp> <cnic at kiwi.co.jp>