arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Campaign against toxic fumes in Otradny, Russia. July/August 2005 action camp. On july 4th, radical eco-activists set up a camp of action and resistance in the 60 000 strong Russian town of Otradny in the Samara region, a good 1100 km’s east of Moscow, and will stay there until at least the end of august. The reason for this is a campaign against a factory recicling aluminium waste on the edge of the town, covering the place with toxic fumes. The factory: In 2001 the company REMETALL-C bought part of an former soviet steel-concrete factory and began recicling aluminium waste. The aluminum waste comes from aluminium producing factories and is melted in a process of extracting and recicling the remaining traces of aluminium. This produces highly toxic gases (AL2 O3). Producing aluminium is of course not a very ecological occupation by itself; but this factory doesn’t even slightly stick to the vague legal ecological standards. Former workers of REMETALL-C report about awful working conditions: wages are held back for months, the company doesn’t stick to health and safety regulations, workers have been reported suffering from bad coughs and breathing difficulties. Apart from that workers are regularly sacked, nobody works there for a long time which, in combination with an extremely high unemployment rate and employment without contracts, leads to the fear of being sacked and none of the workers dare or even have the possibilty to take legal steps defending their rights. Security and environmental examinations on the premises of the factory have taken place, but the official results are always the same: “Everything’s going according to legal regulations”, is what the officials publicly announced, though so far the public have been denied direct access to any of the actual results in facts and numbers. The campaign: In 2003 the first complaints arose, when workers of the neighbouring Yukos-Oil corporation and other factories began suffering from asthma attacks, breathing difficulties and lung diseases. They went to court – unsuccessfully. Inhabitants of the nearby neighbourhood as well as workers and their families seeked the assistance of local environmental NGOs, who turned out not to be of any help to them though. All they did was tell them to get in contact with the “RAINBOW KEEPERS”, a radical ecological activist group working on a non-hierarchical basis who then decided to take up the campaign together with other active groups and locals. On july 3rd, the day before the camp was set up, local elections were held for the city government and the mayor’s seat. The pro-government pre-election newspaper started a campaign against the expected protesters, calling them “Anarcho-Nationalists” who were paid by the oppositional party to come from outside, disturb the elections and bring disorder and chaos to the town of Otradny, because they didn’t know where else to spend their summer and needed the money the opposition pays them for alcohol. On the day itself the town was packed with police, including OMON special forces, to protect the citizens from the eco-activists who weren’t going to show up until the next day, anyway. The action camp: On july 4th, after a few months of mobilisation, the “International Ecological Protest Camp” was set up not far from the factory itself. The same day some 20 police showed up together with agents of the secret service FSB to identify those 8 protesters before unlawfully forcing them off the site. But the activists quickly managed to draw the attention of the public and the press towards the site and set up their tents on a new site, directly next to the factory and the chimney releasing the toxic fumes. By now the number of activists on site has risen to about 30, a maximum of around 70 is to be expected. The aim of the camp is to create awareness of and draw attention to the problem and the corrupt ways in which the local government deals with it, and to put pressure on those responsible to take the legal steps neccessary and shut the factory. The legal situation: The state health and epidemological institute stated a report to the procurator, the executive organ of the court, giving him basis to decide on july 7th that the factory should stop working because of environmental and security regulations, such as the chimney working without a functioning filter and other things. But this paper is useless, as it is written in such a way, that the factory have no legal reason to stick to that decision. So far activists have been picketing the central market square every day, handing out information and speaking to local inhabitants. On Saturday, july 16th a public meeting is to be held in the city centre, and on july 21st a general rally. The press and local as well as national TV-stations seem rather interested in the whole subject, several articles have been published in various newspapers and the local TV-stations broadcasted about the protest site on the evening news. The camp will go on until at least the end of august. Check: ru.indymedia.org Contact us at: ekolager@yandex.ru