Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 26 – Moscow now wants
to dump some of the most dangerous radioactive wastes as well as almost as
dangerous chemical and biological trash in four regions over the objections of
residents. Activists are calling these dumps “death factories” and pledge to
mount protests against them.
The four sites are in the Udmurt and
Altay Republics and two predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts, Kirov and Kurgan;
and activists in the four have come together to protest the failure of the
Russian government and the corporation that it has given the task to build and
operate these dumps to follow Russian laws (newizv.ru/news/politics/22-07-2020/v-chetyreh-regionah-rossii-zreet-protest-iz-za-zavodov-smerti).
In many ways, this is a recapitulation
of the situation that has given rise to the Shiyes protests over an ordinary dump
Moscow wants to develop for Moscow trash; but these four are likely to become
more serious for at least two reasons, possibly blowing up politically in the
face of the powers that be at the center and those at the regional level who
support these efforts.
On the one hand, anytime the word “radioactive”
is used, popular concerns become elevated; and on the other, the events in Shiyes
and now Khabarovsk show that people in the regions are more prepared to protest
than they were earlier. In Udmurtia, for example, the Kremlin-appointed head
backs the project despite the objections of his own population.
The Inter-Regional Coordination Committee
‘No to Death Factories!’ is demanding investigations, full-scale investigations
with the results made available to the public, and public referenda in each of the
regions where Moscow wants to put wastes from the major cities and even profit
by importing it from abroad.
And in all four regions, it reports,
people are making these demands and organizing public actions under slogans
like “Children’s Lives are More Valuable than Money,” “We have to Live Here,”
and “Moscow, take care of your own wastes.”
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