Expresses solidarity with agitating fishing community members
The Kerala Swathantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF) has urged the State government to take steps to ensure that the Kudankulam nuclear power plant is closed down immediately.
A pressnote quoting KSMTF leaders, who recently visited the site near the plant where thousands of people have been staging a sit-in, expressed solidarity with the members of the fishing community involved in the agitation.
“The struggle is not just to protect the fish and the ocean from radiation; it is a struggle to protect the lives of the people in Kerala and Tamil Nadu,” T. Peter, president of the federation, said. The pressnote said the plant posed a threat to prominent tourism sites such as Kanyakumari, Kovalam, Varkala, Kuttanad, and coastal Alappuzha.
“The Atomic Energy Regulation Board has admitted in its recent report that there should be no tourism site within a radius of 20 km from the plant. The distance between Kudankulam and Kanyakumari is only 14 km,” Mr. Peter said.
The pressnote feared that the plant would pollute marine resources and vegetables produced in Tamil Nadu and exported to Kerala. “We are fighting this battle not just for the fishing community,” Mr. Peter said. “It is for the future generations.”
The federation ridiculed nuclear scientists vouching for the safety of the plant. “It is the same theory which was propagated at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima,” leaders of the federation said.
“An accident at Kudankulam will be unmanageable for the governments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala because of the density of population in the southern parts of the States,” they said. “For those politicians who ask us for alternatives, we say there are safer alternatives,” Mr. Peter said.
“But first, let them tell us how they will dispose of radioactive waste in a safe manner, since no nuclear scientist anywhere so far can really say this honestly. The people of the western world will not tolerate one more nuclear plant in their countries, and some countries have already started decommissioning the existing plants. If you accept their technology, you have the responsibility to reject it when they reject it.”
The federation activists reminded MLAs in the State that they had a moral responsibility to protect the lives of the people who elected them.
