OPEN LETTER to Indian PM, Authorities

KUDANKULAM ANTI-NUCLEAR SATYAGRAHA, INDIA, 14 May 2012

Jørgen Johansen – TRANSCEND Media Service

Respected Madams, Sirs,

People all over Scandinavia are following the development and are worried about the ongoing work at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP). The construction must be halted and the Safety Analysis Report and the Site Evaluation Report from Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) must be released to the public immediately.

A new and comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report must be commissioned as the one that the DAE has released after 23 years of struggle is incomplete, erroneous and outdated. The Tamil and Malayalam translations of the new EIA must be shared with the local people and the Press in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The opinions and preferences of the project-affected people must be heard by a competent authority in an open, transparent and democratic manner to understand the fears and concerns of the people.

An independent national committee must be constituted to study the issues of geology, hydrology, oceanography and seismology involved in the Koodankulam nuclear power plant.

Disaster management training and evacuation exercises must be conducted in the 30-km radius of the Koodankulam plants and beyond  in the wake of the recent earthquake all over Tamil Nadu and India.

A Tamil Nadu State Assembly Resolution must be passed that the Pechipparai dam water from Kanyakumari District and the Tamirabharani river water from Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi Districts will not be taken for the KKNPP reactors.

A copy of the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) on liability secretly signed between the governments of India and Russia must be made available to the project-affected public.

Complete and truthful information must be given to the local people and the citizens of India about nuclear waste that would be produced at the Koodankulam plants and its management.

All the false cases against the members of the struggle committee and the common people must be withdrawn immediately and unconditionally. Our friends who are still languishing in prison, Muhilan and Sathishkumar, must be released immediately.

The local people’s right to protest peacefully and nonviolently against the KKNPP and other related issues must be respected and honored. And no more false cases and other intimidatory exercises should be used against the struggling people.

Yours,
Jørgen Johansen

Affiliated with Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC), USA http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/parcc.aspx

Faculty member at Hacettepe University, Peace Studies, Turkey http://www.peace.hacettepe.edu.tr/

Editor of Resistance Studies Magazine, http://rsmag.org/

Researcher Resistance Studies Network, www.http://resistancestudies.org/

The Transnational Foundation, www.transnational.org

Syracuse University, Strasbourg, France, http://suabroad.syr.edu/programs/location/strasbourg/

Transcend Peace University, Global, http://tpu.transcend.org/

World Peace Academy, Switzerland www.world-peace-academy.ch/

Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Coventry University, UK, www.coventry.ac.uk/peacestudy

Folkereisning Mot Krig, Norwegian Section of War Resisters’ International, www.ikkevold.no

Networkers SouthNorth, http://www.networkers.org/

Culture Clinic, www.cultureclinic.org/

Skjeberg Folkehøyskole, http://www.skjeberg.fhs.no/

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
—Jeannette Rankin, first woman member of US Congress

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 14 May 2012.

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