Notes to the Austrian Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

Here is the English version of the note to the Austrian Embassy and Czech ministry of foreign affairs. The Czech originals are here. The notes were delivered on Friday June 15 to the respective representatives. So far our movement and thus also the radioactive fallout remains without any response.

Note to the Austrian embassy

for Dr. Margot Klestil-Löffler, Austrian embassy in the Czech Republic

Dear Ambassador,

as you certainly know, in 1978 following a referendum Austria abandoned a program to build six nuclear power plants and decided not to bring on-line the first of them which was already built in Zwentendorf. Austria decided to replace this missing capacity by coal burning plants. Coal contains appreciable amount of radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium and radium. Therefore, that decision also means a decision to release at least 2400 tons of radioactive wastes (and also 560 km³ of CO2; 3.8 km³ of SO2; 1.4 km³ of NOx and 70 million tons of solid wastes including arsenic, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals) to the atmosphere and open waste dumps.

STOP TEMELIN and its partnership organization START ZWENTENDORF justly demand effective steps to eliminate risks of dangerous radioactive wastes.

Inactive nuclear power plant Zwentendorf contributes annually to the total mass of these wastes by at least 10 tons.

Thus, the citizen movement START ZWENTENDORF demands:

• Decrease of the radioactive fallout level in middle Europe.
• Immediate activation of the nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf.
• Build-up of other nuclear power plants according to the original program to at least compensate the contemporary import of electricity into Austria which is 20 TWh/year.

Please, tell us by return the schedule of the nuclear power plant Zwentendorf start of operation.

Thank you.

Unless our rightful demands will be followed, the citizen movement START ZWENTENDORF will be pressed to join the border blockades organized by our partnership organization STOP TEMELIN and then fight together to decrease the risks of radioactivity in our common Middle Europe.

For the START ZWENTENDORF movement (http://plarmy.org/zwentendorf), your sincerely the signatories:

the list of signatories follows.

Note to the Czech ministry of foreign affairs

for Mr. Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech minister of foreign affairs

Dear Minister,

as you certainly know, in 1978 following a referendum Austria abandoned a program to build six nuclear power plants and decided not to bring on-line the first of them which was already built in Zwentendorf. Austria decided to replace this missing capacity by coal burning plants. Coal contains appreciable amount of radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium and radium. Therefore, that decision also means a decision to release at least 2400 tons of radioactive wastes (and also 560 km³ of CO2; 3.8 km³ of SO2; 1.4 km³ of NOx and 70 million tons of solid wastes including arsenic, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals) to the atmosphere and open waste dumps.

STOP TEMELIN and its partnership organization START ZWENTENDORF justly demand effective steps to eliminate risks of dangerous radioactive wastes.

Inactive nuclear power plant Zwentendorf contributes annually to the total mass of these wastes by at least 10 tons.

Thus, the citizen movement START ZWENTENDORF demands:

• Decrease of the radioactive fallout level in middle Europe.
• Immediate activation of the nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf.
• Build-up of other nuclear power plants according to the original program to at least compensate the contemporary import of electricity into Austria which is 20 TWh/year.

Please, tell us by return the schedule of diplomatic actions by your ministry which will lead to start-up of the nuclear power in Zwentendorf in due time.

Thank you.

For the START ZWENTENDORF movement (http://plarmy.org/zwentendorf), your sincerely the signatories:

the list of signatories follows.

Further steps and argumentation

Unless major remarks appear, these notes will be sent out on Friday June 15th 2007 by our diplomatic mail (that is an email from zwentendorf/at/centrum.cz).

START ZWENTENDORF has a simple organizational structure: each member is a president of the movement. The president as a top representative of the movement is not only entitled, but also obliged, to act separately for all the members of the movement, on behalf of the movement and following its spirit. These are the same rules as many other movements with multiple presidents.

All the presidents will be continuously notified about the reactions of the embassy and the ministry.

Four days should be enough to switch on the nuclear power plant, so giving them a little spare time, on Wednesday June 20 some factual information should be available on the Austrian embassy.