From the Movement for Democratic Socialism (MDS [2]), Tokyo, June 10:
It will soon be three months since the Eastern Japan catastrophic earthquake and tsunami broke out and the successive Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster was triggered. We are grateful to all of you for the messages and largesse you have sent us from many parts of the world to encourage us in our efforts to gain democratic recovery from the disaster and the total abolishment of nuclear power plants. We, once again, express our profound gratitude. As for the donations, we are making full use of them in our activities to help reconstruct the disaster-stricken communities. Let us now turn to how we, MDS, are campaigning against nuclear power plants.
1. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) openly admitted at last that No.1 nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi power plant had melted down, and it admitted the possibility of No.2 and No.3 reactors having also melted down. Radioactive contamination caused by tainted cooling water continues, and spreading radiation is contaminating agricultural products in areas far beyond Tohoku region. As of now there seems to be no hope in sight as to when they can finally get things back under control.
2. Under these circumstances, the anger of the Japanese citizens is intensifying and the general public are tilting in favor of the abolishment of nuclear power plants. The governors hosting nuclear power plants, who have sided with promoting nuclear energy, have come to announce that they will not authorize the construction of new nuclear power plants nor will they license the resumption of reactors whose operations are now in suspension. This is what our campaign against nuclear power plants has brought about.
3. However, Prime Minister Kan Naoto, at this point, still sticks to nuclear energy together with global capitalists in the business community who are also desperate to maintain the nuclear power plants. Electric power companies like TEPCO and KEPCO (Kansai Electric Power Co.), in order to maintain them by any means, are now orchestrating the propaganda for saving electricity. By imposing inconveniences on citizens in Japan's hot summer, they machinate to appeal the necessity of nuclear energy.
4. In response to this, MDS is striving for the immediate suspension and abolishment of all the nuclear power plants. We also organize protest actions and demonstrations in front of TEPCO and KEPCO. We demand that the compensation for the sufferers from Fukushima nuclear disaster should be procured by TEPCO and the nuclear plant manufacturers such as Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi; not us innocent taxpayers. Besides, we are campaigning against the policies of the Ministry of Education that authorized the maximum level of 20 mSv per year radiation dose at the schoolyards of Fukushima prefecture. We are working in solidarity with the refugees from Fukushima who have evacuated to avoid radiation. We encourage them by supporting their decision to leave the affected areas, for they are often criticized for abandoning their hometowns.
5. MDS will work hard to strengthen international solidarity in our struggles to expel all the nuclear power plants from this world.
In solidarity,
Sato Kazuyoshi
President of the Movement for Democratic Socialism (MDS)
See our last post on the Fukushima disaster [3].
