Fifty angry West German farmers used their tractors and harvesters to block the gates of a nuclear power plant in the Ruhr Valley town of Hamm on June 2. They were protesting the planned reopening of the reactor despite a major radiation leak that happened on May 4.
The farmers and many other Germans were outraged that the accident at the Hamm experimental reactor had been covered up for weeks. The company that operates the unit claimed increased radiation in the area was due to the accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union 10 days earlier. But independent studies have. since shown that only about 30 percent of the rise in radiation levels was attributable to Chernobyl, while the rest had its source in Hamm.
The farmers, who lost crops and livestock affected by the radiation, accused the plant's operator of lying and the state government of ignoring the potential hazards of the facility. Although it now admits a major leak took place on May 4, the company refused to shut down operations until May 30, claiming nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The day after the farmers' protest and another demonstration at a local town council meeting, the North Rhine-Westphalia state government ordered the plant to remain shut down.
The federal government in Bonn is also feeling the pressure from the rise of antinuclear protest around the country in recent months. On June 3 Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced the creation of a new ministry for the protection of the environment and nuclear safety.
Opinion polls indicate a "dramatic swing" in the public attitude away from support for nuclear power. Even the right-wing Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Kohl's government, voted to review its official position supporting increased reliance on nuclear generation of electricity.
Antinuclear demonstrations of tens of thousands have been organized on several occasions in recent months in West Germany. The government has met most of these actions with massive force. At a March 31 protest on the site of a nuclear processing plant in Wackersdorf, Bavaria, 3,000 cops, 40 water-cannon trucks, and some 300 other vehicles were mobilized against 100,000 protesters.
On June 7 three demonstrations - at Hamm, Wackersdorf, and Brokdorf, near Hamburg - drew a total of about 65,000 people. At Brokdorf, where a power plant is scheduled to go on line soon, a ring of police roadblocks forced demonstrators to walk across country for as much as two or three hours to reach the protest site. More than 6,000 national police, equipped with water cannon and helicopters, were deployed against the demonstrators. Nevertheless some 40,000 were able to join the action.
terviews and helping organize protest activities.
Following his capture, Solidarity supporters in several cities rallied in his support. A protest of 1,500 in Krakow chanted, "There is no freedom without Solidarity or Bujak!" In Gdansk, former Solidarity chairman Lech Walesa praised Bujak before a crowd of several thousand. "Lacking any success, the authorities look upon this capture as an achievement," Walesa said.
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