Rhapsody in green WHILE AUSTRIA is providing financial help for the project, Hungarian environmentalists are building a campaign against the construction of a "Super-Hainburg" [a dam project successfully blocked by Austrian environmentalists], - Gabeikovo-Nagymaros. On Saturday, January 18, the Duna Kor [Danube Circle] exchanged experiences with Hainburg and Wackersdorf activists in the first open public meeting in Hungary since 1956.
gressive project in Western Europe since the war. Economically reopening the site is unprofitable because the world-market price for uranium is very low. Militarily, on the other hand, it makes a lot of sense. At a very small additional cost, plutonium suitable for atomic weapons could be produced. This is one of the biggest threats to world peace."
The architect Tamas Toth referred to a statement by seven Soviet writers against the diversion of Siberian rivers, whose protest was publicized in the Soviet press. "We will strive to make contact with Soviet defenders of the environment, not least importantly because of the example the Soviet Union represents for Hungary."
I spoke as a member of the initiative group "Gewerkschafter gegen Hainburg" (*Trade-Unionists Against Hainburg"). "The rulers East and West like to belittle questions of the
HERMANN DWORCZAK
The meeting was at 4:00 p.m. in the Hotel Penta in Budapest. From there the participants went together to the Zoldfa ("Green Tree," a prophetic name) restaurant. Six "undercover" agents of the state security forces turned up but did not intervene. The first public meeting in Hungary since the 1956 revolution went ahead.
Last October, the planned "Alternative Culture Forum" could not be held publicly because at the last moment the rooms that had been rented in the Duna-International were locked, and the participants had to go off into private lodgings. But this time there was no veto from above.
About sixty persons came. Among them were members and friends of the Duna Kor, which has made mobilizing against the Gabcikovoagymaros power plant is axis, as Nagymaros power plant its axis, as well as Hainburg activists from Austria and Wackersdorf activists from West Germany. Several representatives of the Hungarian samizdat press such as Beszelo and Hirmondo were present.
Notably absent was the entire official press of the country, although it had been invited to the meeting.
After greetings from the jurist Laszlo Solyom, Janos Vargha from the Duna Kor summarized the main arguments against the planned damsystem project. He pointed out among other things that, unlike Austria, Hungary lacks mountains like the Alps and that "part of the drinking water supply will come from the area threatened by the power plant."
He also challenged the economic calculations for the project, since "for twenty years two-thirds of the power will have to be exported to 20
Austria in order to pay off the latter's aid."
Janos Vargha concluded, "We are not going to sit by and watch this thing go through."
Gunther Nenning brought solidarity greetings from Austria and talked about the possibility of an international democratic environmentalist movement." He strongly condemned Austria's financial participation in the project. "As long as there was no money in Hungary for building the project, there was a certain room for criticism. With Hainburg they started hitting people on the head and other parts of their bodies, when the money was there."
Hans Dieter Reichhelm, press representative of the Bavarian Greens talked about the experience of Wackersdorf. "This is the most agenvironment by claiming that they are playthings for youth and intellectuals. The blocking of the Hainburg project, however, has led to a certain rethinking in the Austrian trade-union movement itself, especially among whitecollar workers in the private sector. It is important to respond to environmental problems that overspan borders with concrete international solidarity."
I also read solidarity greetings from the Breitmaulfrosche Factory Council in Voest-Alpine, in which it was said, among other things, "What Austrian finance capital and the Austrian energy industry have not succeeded in doing in their own country, they are now trying to do in Hungary. This is a stab in the back not only to the ecology movement in Austria but above all to the efforts of the critical and progressive forces in Hungary."
There is no telling today whether the Hungarian authorities' present
The Budapest Declaration WE GERMAN, Austrian, and Hungarian defenders of the environment protest against the plan of the Austrian, Czechoslovak, and Hungarian governments to transform the Danube from Hainburg to Nagymaros into an energyproducing canal and thereby to endanger the fauna of the river, the meadowlands, the reserves of drinking water, and the landscapes and cultural legacies that are already protected or should be.
Without reducing the responsibility of the other two governments, we protest in particular against the participation of Austria in the building of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam system. Since by dropping the Hainburg project the Austrian government has recognized that the planned installations were harmful and without value, its participation in the work in Hungary can be described as a deliberate exporting of destruction of the environment.
We intend to use all democratic, peaceful, and constitutional means to get the aforementioned governments to change their plans and to respect the true interests of all the peoples living in the valley of the Danube. We call on everyone to support our statement of protest.
Budapest, January 18, 1986. Signed: Gunther Nenning, Janos Vargha, Hermann Dworczak, Laszlo Vit, A. Englander, Eva Hauk, Laszlo Hollos, Laszlo Solyom, Hanns-Dieter Reichhelm, Lajos Gyorgy, Wolfgang "Fos" Sadik, Gunther Schobesberger, Gabor Pajkossy, Mihaly Kolba, Tamas Toth, Lorant Hideg, Attilla Ertsey, Balasz Lados, Olga Dioszegi, Zsolt Keszthelyi, Agoston Peterffy, Anna Perezel.
International Viewpoint 24 February 1986
line of quasi-toleration of the protest will be maintained. The "new evil," the Stalinist hardliners, might strike and push for a graveyard peace.
A good pretext for such hardliners could be the article in the January 22 issue of Pravda in which the Hungarians were warned against more extensive economic collaboration with the West and the "spread of bourgeois ideology and anti-Soviet propaganda" that would accompany it.
The Duna Kor, in any case, is determined to press ahead. Its next step is a "stroll for environmentalists" on Margaret's Island on February 8. This action has been announced ir a leaflet which says:
"On February 8, 1986, wè are holding a study trip on Margaret's Island. The theme is 'Our daily drinking water and the Danube dam. We are meeting at 12:30 p.m. on the Batthyany Square alongside the trolley station." From 'Die Linke, journal of The Austrian section of the Fourth International.
* * * The demonstration took place. In its February 10 issue, Liberation reported "A demonstration of about eighty Hungarian and Austrian environmentalists was dispersed Saturday [February 8] by the Hungarian police. They were protesting the building of Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube, which had already provoked a petition campaign in 1984 that collected 6,000 signatures. "O
New Arabic journal published
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International Viewpoint 24 February 1986