(The following article appeared in the February 9-16 issue of the Spanish Trotskyist weekly Combate. The introduction is by Combate; the translation is by Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.]
Antinuclear sentiment is growing in Euskadi. Antinuclear committees sprang up throughout the region after the Civil Guard murdered David Alvarez, who was trying to sabotage the Lemóniz nuclear plant. Radicalization is deepening-
Iberduero's offices in Plencia were pelted with rocks during a demonstration. The company has been put on the defensive and has had to resort to pseudonationalist arguments to justify the plant. Our correspondent in Euskadi responds in classstruggle terms.
"Technical' Arguments or Capitalist Arguments?
Oliar, the industries minister, has declared that installation of nuclear plants is "necessary if we want to avoid economic stagnation."
Iberduero, the company building the Lemóniz plant, has also taken up this argument, giving it an autonomist twist: "In the context of Basque autonomy, failure to remedy the present situation would lead to the Basque country being dependent on other regions-the ones that export energy."
The Committee for a Nonnuclear Basque Coast has already thoroughly answered these arguments: In the first place, if any energy source leads to foreign dependence-concretely, dependence on uranium and technology from the United States-it is nuclear energy. Should the United States for economic or political companies organized in a consortium (UN- ESA) control 92 percent of total electric power production. Iberduero monopolizes the supply in fourteen provinces in the northern part of the peninsula, including the four provinces of southern Euskadi. Energy policy, investments, research, plant-site selection, and so on, are all determined by the interests of these private companies and not by the interests of the populace.
Nuclear power has three advantages for the capitalists:
1. Large amounts of capital are required, which are at the disposal of only the biggest monopoly groups. (Sixty-five billion pesetas [US$780 million] is being invested in the Lemóniz plant alone.)
2. They can recover the increased costs by raising prices, because of their mon ? oly position.
3. Nuclear power assures their political dominance.
In addition, the ecological damage done by the nuclear industry can be converted into a new source of profits-the pollutioncontrol industry.
Sites for power plants are chosen on the basis of commercial criteria, not the interests of the population. Lemóniz is twentyfive kilometers from greater Bilbao (population one million) and in a zone officially designated as "rural and parkland."
Given the present state of technology, for a plant to be profitable it has to be unsafe and polluting. In other words, to guarantee fully the impossibility of accidents and sabotage, to eliminate satisfactorily all risk of thermal pollution of the air and water, and to get rid of the solid radioactive wastes, such investments would be required that the power plants would no longer be profitable.
Corruption and Manipulation
Iberduero remained silent when 150,000 persons chanted "ez, ez, ez, zentral nuklearik ez." But the company is now proposing a debate on nuclear policy-four years after construction work on the Lemóniz plant began. From its position as both judge and party to the dispute, Iberduero pontificates about the dangers of making Euskadi nuclear-free. But in order to impose its policy of accomplished facts it has even found it necessary, in complicity with the government, to violate the legality of the system itself. This provoked one of the most scandalous cases of administrative corruption yet brought to light. (Others, even more grave, have no doubt been covered up.)
The Vizcaya provincial governmenttwo of whose members, García Tejedor and Marcelo Ruiz, are also, respectively, employee and member of the board of directors of Iberduero-changed the designation of the land where the plant was being tion of the land where the plant was being built without any consultation with the local population. The change was made three years after construction work began.
Profits for Them, Pollution for Us
The various ecology and antinuclear groups have scientifically demonstrated the irreversible effects of radioactive pollution on the environment and on human beings: alteration of the wildlife population, a rise in cancer and leukemia cases, effects on pregnancies, and so on. The influence of radiation remains in an area for centuries. The lifespan of a power plant is twenty-five to thirty years; after that it must be hermetically sealed. It will then be necessary to maintain military vigilance for centuries to prevent sabotage. Even today police surveillance is exhaustive. The Civil Guard machine-gunned two engineers during an inspection last week, and Civil Guard jeeps patrol all day inside the installations.
Those charged with the task of "scientifically" justifying capitalist chaos try to convince us that "these minimal risks are fully compensated by the expected social benefits." (In December, the anticorruption commission of Spanish television denounced the existence of a company called AGUEROP that produces programs aimed at "creating a favorable image for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.")
They also try to convince us that the logic of private profit is the only one possible in our society. Certainly, energy is indispensable for socioeconomic development, and all possible energy sources must be considered. But we do not agree that the present capitalist system, which implies a specific form of energy use and a specific kind of development, has to be the only possible way to structure a society.
Even today it would be possible to conserve 40 percent of the energy used for heating, if buildings were properly insulated. Also, much of the energy produced from petroleum could be conserved if there was a rational means of mass transportation. With techniques already developed, industrial furnaces could consume half the coal they use up today.
Many products, such as automobiles, could last three times longer than they do at present. But the need to constantly increase demand leads to forcing the consumer, through advertising, to change prematurely. And if the appropriations were not handed over to private capitalists, it would be possible to devote a much greater portion of national income to research into nonpolluting energy sources (sun, wind, etc.). As the first step, all energy sources and related processing industries (refineries, etc.) would have to be nationalized.
The rapid and massive response by the sidents of the Deva valley and Guipúzcoa as a whole forced the provincial government to reject the installation of a plant in that area. The same thing has occurred in Tudela. In the case of Lemóniz, two big demonstrations, the statements of residents associations and ecology groups, and other such protests have so far been insufficient to force Iberduero to halt construction. Relaunching of mobilizations is urgent. The municipal elections will present an especially good opportunity to alert broad layers of the population about this question. In face of popular pressure, the majority political forces have no alternative but to take part-even the Basque government is discussing the question these days
Mobilize Against the 'Accomplished Facts'
In an assembly held in Plencia the day of David Alvarez's funeral, representatives of the antinuclear committee of the area called for building similar committees in all the towns and neighborhoods of Euskadi. Today the antinuclear committees can be a lever for forcing Iberduero to halt work. This would be a first step until a debate could be held in which the parties, unions, neighborhood associations, and so on would take part. Then a final decision could be made about what to do-abandon the project completely, replace it with a conventional thermal plant, or some other alternative.
Enriched uranium for the Lemóniz plant is expected to arrive in March. Because it will soon be too late, and because "it is better to be active today than radioactive tomorrow," a powerful response is urgent.