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Beyond Nukes, Towards Renewables - The 9th 'No Nukes Asia Forum'

The 9th 'No Nukes Asia Forum' was held under the title of 'Beyond Nukes, Towards Renewables' on September 10th, in the central area of Seoul. More than 30 activists from various Asian countries including China, Japan and India were participating. This Forum has been held annually since 1993 and contributed to make progress in information exchange and forming solidarity links towards a "Nuclear Free Asia".

The 9th Forum in Seoul attracts our keen attention because recent conditions surrounding nuclear plants are under critical point. Even though several European countries declared that they will no longer not construct nuclear plants, the US Bush Administration declared that it will restore the nuclear industry. Bush's nuclear energy scheme does not only mean policy shift on a national level, but also signifies its greedy strategy to export & sell nuclear technologies to the third world countries including Asia. Also, Russia plans to construct a repository of nuclear waste which will be gathered from all over the world. In the case of Asia, out of eight new nuclear plants which have just started to be run around the world, five of them are located in Asia. Korea and Japan still continue to promote nuclear industry, while China and India intend to increase nuclear armaments.

Under these conditions, participants in this Forum discussed counter-action strategies to this chaotic situation and exchanged experience of struggles. Participants strongly denounced Bush's retrogressive policies. Activists especially from Japan, Korea and Taiwan - countries which are expected to be major customers of Russia - shared common views for counter-measures against the policy of importing nuclear waste and spent fuel across the world.

As well as people's strategies against nuclear plants, renewable energy scenarios beyond nuclear in the 21st century and various ideas for more fundamental and concrete alternatives were introduced and discussed in this Forum.

Yim Jeong-Hee, director of anti-nuke team of Korea Eco-Center, who participated in the preparation process of this Forum, noted, "Today we are facing a critical point. The government plans to construct new nuclear plants and nuclear waste repositories in Ulsan and Youngkwang. And in the case of Gyeongjoo, there is already a nuclear plant but is very dangerous because it is an active fault district where earthquakes occur frequently. Therefore, the participants in this Forum will visit the proposed sites for new nuclear plants and nuclear waste repositories, and then organize protests and forums with local residents. I believe that this kind of practical programme differentiates this forum from others."

In fact, after the Forum, participants from abroad together with local activists organized a rally on September 11th, in front of the Pagoda Park, center of Seoul. At the rally, they firmly demanded that 'each government should abandon the nuclear expansion policy' and declared strong solidarity and struggles for realizing "Nuclear Free Asia".