The disaster at Fukushima has impacted on anti-nuclear campaigning internationally.
Angela Merkel's decision to decommission Germany's nuclear power industry did not came about because of the strength of the anti-nuclear movement which has punished her government on the streets and at the polls.
Large protests had started last autumn after her coalition government reversed the decision of the previous SPD/Green administration to phase out nuclear power by 2021, committing the country instead to maintaining the industry until at least 2036. Further mobilisations took place across the country in the aftermath of the Japanese meltdown, including a massive show of strength by more than 60,000 activists who on March 12 formed a 45 km long human chain from Stuttgart to Neckarwestheim 1 nuclear reactor on the French border.
In the lead up to elections in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, Merkel announced the temporary shut down of the seven oldest of the countries 17 reactors. This didn't prevent the CDU being punished at the polls and an SPD/Green administration being elected in this traditionally conservative southern state. The day before the election 250,000 people took place in anti-nuclear protests across the
On May 20 in elections in Bremen, the CDU was heavily punished again. On May 30, the Chancellor announced that the seven reactors that had been temporarily shut down, and an eighth that was already offline will be permanently decommissioned. Six of the remaining stations will be closed in 2021 and the remaining in 2022.
For the German anti-nuclear movement this is in an important achievement. Most of the campaigners believe that nuclear power could and should be fully decommissioned by 2015 - and there is concern that research reactors have been excluded - but the success they have achieved can and should be built on by all anti-nuclear activists in Germany and internationally.
Another place where campaigners have tried to use the dynamics of Fukushima to point out the folly of nuclear power has been in India - where the response of the government so far has been to crack down on the protests. For five years mobilisations have been taking place against the proposal to build a nuclear power plant at Jaitapur - a proposal that is clearly opposed by the local community.
The proposed plant is being supplied by the French company Areva and is a European Pressurised Reactor - which is untested and hasn't received regulatory approval anywhere. Despite that the Indian government confirmed that it intends to go ahead with the plant, which it is proposed will have six reactors and be the biggest nuclear power plant anywhere in the world. Some work has started on the site in recent weeks.
Jaitapur, in Maharastra is like Fukushima in an area of significant seismic activity - and it is also an area of unique biodiversity that will be threatened if the construction goes ahead. Further most of the land on which the plant will be constructed has been acquired forcibly - one of the reasons for the strength of local opposition.
Campaigners have used what information has been available around Fukushima despite the attempts by TEPCO to keep as much of the reality hidden as possible to build support for their arguments amongst a wider public.
Long term anti-nuclear campaigner Praful Bidwal puts it thus: "The lessons from Fukushima stand out in their grim starkness. If an industrially advanced society like Japan couldn't handle a nuclear crisis despite its resources and skills, it defies credulity that India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)-with its poor performance, serious accidents, routine over-exposure of workers and the
31 public, and a shoddy safety culture can do So." After a major petition campaign involving well known figures from Indian society, including a number of nuclear scientists which gathered 73,000 signatures, on April 23 activists began a yatra from Mumbai to Jaitapur. A crackdown by police prevented it even setting off on its three day march and hundreds were detained. Most were held by police for many hours prevtning them from regrouping. The movement remains determined that it will continue to campaign against Jaitapur - and against the idea that nuclear is the only way to feed India's apparent growing energy needs
In Japan, information about the disaster continues to leak through drop by drop. The earthquake, the tsunami and the effects of these on the nuclear plant have left the infrastructure of the north east of Japan devastated - over 7000 enterprises were destroyed or serious damaged; around a third of those that exist in the area. Unemployment has surged in the region - standing at 2.5 times the level of the same period last year. As with all natural disasters only a small percentage of the aid sent through major international agencies has got through to the poor
On June 2 the Japanese government halted the shipment of tea and of plums produced in the vicinity of Fukushima because of radioactive caesium levels above the legal limit. Further tests have been ordered but it seems likely that large quantities of these crops will have to be
Plant operator TEPCO have admitted that they may not stabilise the reactors by the end of the year, and it looks like they may loose the battle to deal with the contaminated water before the rainy season hits. This certainly means the exclusion zone around the plant will have to be maintained and also raises the spectre of further incidents which spin completely out of control in the battle to deal with previously unknown consequences of the tragedy.
70,000 people marched in demonstrations across the country on June 11 against nuclear power. The calls of Japanese workers for rapid denuclearisation need urgently to be supported not only by anti-nuclear activists but by the whole of the international labour
* From Praful Bidwai blog, April 11, 2011: http://www.prafulbidwai.org/