The League for Alternative Energy and the Anti-Nuclear Fight

By Mario Signorino

ABSTRACT: The report and political conclusions of the conference "For An Alternative Model of Society, No to Nuclear Growth" which was held in Rome from July 1-3, 1977 on the initiative of the Radical Party's parliamentary group.

(NOTIZIE RADICALI No. 163, July 16, 1977)

From July 1-3 there was held in Rome the conference "For An Alternative Model of Society, No to Nuclear Growth" which was organised by the Radical Parliamentary Group and the League for Alternative Energy and the Anti-Nuclear Fight. The league and the conference are the fruit of a combined initiative of the Radical deputies and "Prova Radicale" [a Radical Party publication, ed.]. How and why was this initiative taken? What political prospects does it open up? How is it related to the action of the party?

"How The League and the Conference Came About"

At the end of February the special issue of "Prova Radicale" came out dedicated to the Parliamentary study of the energy problem. At the beginning of anti-nuclear movement "Prova" thus filled a lacuna of reliable news on the official programmes by presenting a detailed analysis of the stenographic reports and of the documentation gathered by the Chamber's Industry Commission in the course of its study. It also identified what was and what remains of the central problem of the anti-nuclear fight: correct and accessible information available also to laymen.

This documentary basis permitted the Radical Parliamentary Group to take a position on the problem which, in that moment, was being debated in the Industry Commission for the approval of the study's concluding report.

On March 31 the Group published at its own expense an appeal to the citizens in "La Repubblica" and "Corriere della Sera" [Rome and Milan dailies respectively, ed.]: "...we ask for help from all the men and women in the country, whatever their religious, moral or political position may be, to ask to know, to be able to reflect and judge, counsel and choose for themselves, before Parliament, which is obedient to pre-constituted interests and options, decrees a choice that will be irreversible or, at least, insanely costly to society and each one of us..."

Within a few days 5,000 citizens from all over Italy replied to the call and stated their availability for any action on a nuclear moratorium. Thus it was possible to make up an initial list and have an assured basis for subsequent work.

In April the Radical Group with Emma Bonino [at its head] formed the only opposition in the Industry Commission to the approval of the final report accepting the government's nuclear programme. The convergence of all the other parties on pro-nuclear lines, the total lack of interest of the deputies of Democrazia Proletaria made it impossible to obtain concrete results. But in the final session, on April 28, Emma's opposition won the support of the Socialist deputies De Michelis and Tocco. Tocco was later among the first to join the League and he now is a member of its presidency.

A little earlier Emma had presented to the Commission's chairman a list of "50 questions without an answer on the nuclear programme" which were debated by the 14 experts called by the Commission to discuss safety problems. Chairman Fortuna had a voluminous report written up on the "50 points" - a document which made clear the superficiality of the official positions on energy questions which we will publish in the autumn.

At the same time, participation in the fight of Montalto di Castro against the nuclear plants and the relations formed with ecological and far-left groups committed to the nuclear question presented the need to broaden our action to a national level and to collaborate with the international anti-nuclear movement. Thus it was decided to participate in the international seminar in Salzburg (April 29 - May 1) "For a Non-nuclear Future" which rallied the anti-nuclear opposition from all over the world. On this occasion contacts were made with the main movements and a significant number of them agreed to participate in a conference to be held in Rome for the launching of an Italian league.

The anti-nuclear league was thus born as a working structure for the organisation of the conference and, at the same time, as an indication of a future method with the declared aim of establishing a point of reference for national policy - without claims of hegemony or driving out existing groups - with solid connections abroad capable of surpassing the limits of local or minority action and of picking up in time of scarcely politicised social levels who yet were sensitive to the "ecological" opposition.

"The Rome Conference and the Establishment of the League"

The conference was preceded by a concert-demonstration at Montalto di Castro on the evening of June 30 with political speeches from Emma Bonino and the Hon. Mr. Tocco of the PSI, Pietro Blasi and Plinio Bravetti of the Montalto citizens' committee, and a concert by Gino Paoli and Francesco Messina. It ended on July 3 with a great rally in Piazza Navona in which, among other speakers, there was Brice Lalonde, the leader of the French ecologists and the new bugbear of the right and left due to the electoral weight he carried (10% at the last municipal elections). An exhibition of alternative technologies organised by Enrico Tedeschi in front of the Sala Borromini was on display throughout the conference.

Structured along constantly intertwined lines of interest - political, scientific and defending oneself in court - the conference aroused exceptional interest and laid one of the bases for the anti-nuclear debate in Italy. For the first time scholars and anti-nuclear activists had the chance to confront the problems, the experiences and the technical-scientific information acquired in the years of struggle of the main international movements.

Aside from the more specifically political issues to which Brice Lalonde above all made an important contribution, the work dwelt mainly on the economic, political and safety questions connected to the nuclear choice and on realistic hypotheses of energy saving and the use of alternative technologies. A particularly important contribution was made by Robert Pollard, a nuclear engineer who was formerly director of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the American agency for safety control) who resigned last year for reasons of conscience. His documented information on the still unresolved problems of nuclear technology has no interlocutors in Italy sufficiently qualified to contradict them. Other important reports on nuclear problems seen in their various aspects were made by Prof. Pancini, Peter Sonderegger, Francesco Villa, President of the National Association of Geologists, Giorgio Nebbia, Dario Paccino, Carlo Musetta, Bernardo Rossi Doria, and Virginio Bettini. With regard to energy saving and al

ternative sources, to be noted were the reports of Aurelio Peccei, Lorenzo Matteoli, Pietro Binel and Peter Sonderegger.

And finally, great attention was given to juridical questions and that of defending oneself in court, which were discussed by Italian jurists and local administrators (among them Luca Boneschi and the mayor of Pavia Elio Veltri) as well as by foreign experts: the attorney Christian Huglo, Konradin Kreuzer (Switzerland), Lonroth (Sweden), Van Den Bos (Holland), and the German lawyer Rainer Beeretz, prominent in the legal fight against the nuclear plants of Wyhl and Brockdorf. At the conclusion of the conference, these lawyers held a working seminar, closed to the public, in which Pollard participated and the Italian lawyers who were in charge of furthering the legal initiatives of the League.

During the working sessions the composition of the League's provisional representative organs was announced which will carry out their mandate until the constitutional congress takes place. The Presidency is composed of Virginio Bettini, Pietro Blasi, Emma Bonino, Adriano Buzzati Traverso, Carlo Muscetta, Giorgio Nebbia, Arturo Oslo, Marco Pannella, Aurlio Peccei, Stefano Rodotà, and Giuseppe Tocco.

The Secretariat is composed of Luca Boneschi, Rosa Fillipini, Luisa Pannunci and Mario Signorino.

"A Programme for the Autumn"

The final motion of the conference, centred on the request to halt the nuclear programme, commits the members of the League to collect, together with all the anti-nuclear movements, 50,000 signatures for a popular-initiative bill to change Law 2 of August 1975 no. 393 on the location of the nuclear plants. Contrary to the authoritarian procedures established by the law, the project provides for effective participation of the local agencies and the citizens in determining the sites and the abrogation of the articles that impose the location of four nuclear plants on the population of Montalto di Castro and Molise without any consultation and against the declared will of their administrators. The definitive text of the project is being worked out and its presentation is foreseen for the beginning of September.

Another initiative, whose first phase has already been realised, is to present an appeal to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Pietro Ingrao, signed by 400 scientists, researchers and technicians to block the government's nuclear plan. These first signers, all highly qualified, are expected to be followed by those working in scientific and technical fields, including graduate students in science. This is an appeal from the League to all militants to help collect signatures in the campaign which will go on during the next few months.

But important events are also scheduled for the summer: the international anti-militarist and anti-nuclear march which will be held in France and end with a great demonstration on July 30 at Malville against the "Superphénix" project. At the same time as Malville, the Roman Anti-nuclear Co-ordinating Movement, the League and the Citizens Committees of the Maremma have called for a national demonstration at Montalto di Castro (July 30). In practice this will also be the opening of the camping event which this summer will be held in the Maremma and to which all anti-nuclear and ecological militants are invited. Many activities, debates, research and application of alternative technologies, study and information centres, concerts etc. are planned. Still during the same period, from July 27 - 31 a camping event will be held in the National Park of the Abruzzo: "The bear, in the sleeping bag, with the guitar", a proposal for a different way of life and ecological, anti-nuclear initiative which, among other t

hings, offers a noteworthy concert series.

It is worth remembering that all these initiatives have a precise political importance because of the period in which they take place and for the fact that they are to take place this summer. At Montalto, for example, the ENEL [National Electricity Agency] has already begun the construction of the two plants, and only the revolt of the women has for the moment stopped them. It is expected that they will start up again very soon and that in August there will be a lot to do in the Maremma.

Along with its militant activities, the League is committed to tasks on other levels: in the Chamber the Radical Parliamentary Group continues its action for imposing the debate of the government's energy programme and the publication of all the documents, studies and projects relating to the sites and construction of nuclear plants. The aim is to obtain the commitment of the Chamber to take up the work on the nuclear question again right after the summer vacation. Also very important is the publishing activity being studied during these months: The publication of the Rome conference documents is scheduled for autumn along with various fundamental material on the energy problem, studies and researches on the Italian situation and on the setting up of alternatives. It is a decisive sector for the development of the League and requires the contribution of all interested comrades. However, the need of a press organ to serve as a point of reference for the movement is still unsettled due to the lack of mone

y for starting up the publication of "Prova Radicale" again.

"A Radical Fight"

We have begun this ecological and anti-nuclear "trip" as a small group: The Radical Parliamentary Group and "Prova Radicale". But we are convinced that when between August and

September we begin a vast campaign for membership in the League, we should not try to interest only those - and they are many - who are sensitive to ecological problems but that we should create a totally unpoliticised framework: many memberships in the League, we are sure, will end up in the pockets of the Radicals. Why?

This battle, perhaps more than any other, contains within itself the basic morality and politics of the Radical Party, the methods of civil disobedience and non-violence, the opposition to the Christian Democratic regime and to the historic compromise, (1) the fight against corporatism, the new way, which is ours, of understanding and practising politics and the personal, the struggle for a Socialist project, lay and libertarian, self-managing.

The Radical membership understands very well the need and importance of opposing the regime's designs, on which converge in a corporatist way the government and the parties, the big industries and the unions, closed castes of technicians, journalists and businessmen of all kinds. The nuclear programme by now goes back in its official form to 1975. Well then, in these there has been an attempt to put it over in an underhanded way, by keeping the people totally uninformed, by negotiating secretly, without one party or even the unions feeling the duty to involve the citizens in the discussions and decisions of a choice on which there is no going back, that will condition our future forever. Still today ecological preoccupations are underestimated and ignored by the old and new left alike, just as until not long ago our civil rights battles were considered the backward concerns of an enlightened or ingenuous bourgeoisie. Today it is clear even to those who don't want to see that civil liberties is the stro

ngest point of contradiction for the survival of this regime, with or without the historic compromise. And it is equally clear that ecological practices are not cards that the big industries and capital are waiting to play. On the contrary, they "must" continue to develop their profits and destroy the environment and health.

The choice of nuclear power is the last word in this spontaneous push of capitalism towards the destruction and the overthrowing of nature and of man. The centralisation that it brings about in the energy, industrial and financial structure is in complete contradiction to all fights for the division of power, independence, and self-management. And how is one to imagine that one can fight usefully in coming decades against the violence of the state and of profits when energy power, which is economic and thus political power, and the very safety of our lives will depend on a highly restricted nuclear priesthood? The PCI and the unions are deceiving the people when they ask for "democratic controls" that are rendered impossible by the very complexity of nuclear technology, by the unprecedented risks that it involves, by the huge investments and technical and bureaucratic structures.

Even today the nuclear choice demands the elimination of local autonomy (see law no. 393) and popular participation, demands secret procedures and the systematic omission of information about risks and the so-far unresolved problems. Already today Donat Cattin [DC leader, ed.] attacks the anti-nuclear movement, like a new Tambroni [DC, forced to resign from his ministerial post because of popular outrage over support he received from the Fascists], and denounces it to the repressive agencies as an "enemy of the state". There is actually preventive incrimination of the opposition when it regards the nuclear programme. And tomorrow it will be the legitimate concern for the defence of fossil fuels and plants to impose special provisions that will mean the death of civil rights and freedom. These are not unjustifiable nightmares, but indications of a real tendency which has already shown itself clearly abroad and against which there is the growing opposition of scientists and ordinary people all over the wo

rld. Only in the countries of the gulags is there silence over this, as over other things.

Furthermore it is clear, including from what we have already said, that it was not a question of building a dissenting front alone, although the aim is not to be lightly dismissed of preserving our chance to choose our future and is one which even interests people of varying ideologies. Along with the fight against the nuclear choice, in fact, our capacity is at risk to

fight concretely for the affirmation of a Socialist self-management project that requires alternate energy sources (solar, in particular) and alternate ways of producing and using energy: more generally, alternative proposals for economic development, territorial settlement, consumption, the safeguarding of natural resources and health, a different quality of life.

These are fundamental problems that the Radicals cannot ignore, to which they must commit themselves personally. The lever on which to put pressure is the anti-nuclear fight - difficult, uncertain, long-term, but preliminary to (even when it must be contemporary with) any project for alternative economics and politics. Restricted as it has been until now to minority groups and local battles, the anti-nuclear fight can undergo a leap in quality and become a national issue only if from now on it moves along Radical lines with Radical methods and with the Radical capacity to win battles of liberation which end in a victory for all, in more liberty and more joy for all.

The hardest part of the referendum campaign is now over. The League is already a reality and has been born right. This may be the first time that a Radical political initiative has so quickly found support from members of various parties, in particular on the traditional left. The presence of a card-carrying Communist like the ecologist Virginio Bettini on the presidency of the League is of greatly auspicious for the future. That is why we appeal to every Radical comrade to join the League and to establish League sections with other comrades in all Radical Party branches as well as to begin to interest and inform themselves on the energy and nuclear problems, to get on the move in their cities and regions.

This "trip" which we are beginning today will be a very long one and perhaps harder than others. But it can also be the most fascinating one.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Historic compromise - The Communist Party's decision to collaborate with the Christian Democrats.