Chernobyl encourages anti-N groups

Press, 21 May 1986, Page 13

Chernobyl encourages anti-N groups

NZPA-Reuter Hanover West Germany’s antinuclear movement has gone on the offensive since the Chernobyl accident with protests and demands to shut down atomic power-stations. In Hanover the Green Party yesterday agreed to demand immediate closing of the country’s 19 nuclear power plants as the main plank of its 1987 election programme. In Wackersdorf, where West Germany’s first nuclear waste reprocessing plant is being built, police and demonstrators reported about 400 injuries and at least 16 arrests in three days of

clashes. Johannes Rau, the Opposition Social Democratic Party’s candidate for Chancellor in the elections next January, said the police at Wackersdorf had become victims of a highly-charged antinuclear atmosphere caused by Chernobyl. Mr Rau, whose party proposes gradual phasing out of nuclear power, ruled out a coalition with the Greens after the poll next year, saying their programme went far beyond the bounds of reason.

The programme, adopted at the end of a four-day congress, also calls for withdrawal from

N.A.T.O. and the removal of foreign forces and United States nuclear weapons. Commentators said it was a victory for hardliners struggling against those who want to compromise on policies to share power with the Social Democrats. Opinion polls say concern about nuclear power has boosted support for the Greens to 9 per cent. That would be enough to give them the balance of power if, as forecast by some surveys, neither the S.P.D. nor Helmut Kohl’s Centre-Right coalition wins outright victory in the elections.