28. September 2022
The Coop Anti-war Café rejects war, including the war in Ukraine. Only we take the position that this war was provoked by NATO, by Germany, by the USA and other NATO allies. And the war started back in 2014, and not in February of this year. The Russian Federation justifies its invasion with the argument of self-defense after massive terrorist attacks on the Russian population in Ukraine. In addition, Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine should remain neutral and that no NATO weapons systems should be stationed in its borders. To this end, we have published the following appeal: Negotiations Now! Stop the war in Ukraine!
For years we supported the International Uranium Film Festival at the Coop Anti-War Café in Berlin.
Again and again there were contradictions in the assessment of conflicts, but we always supported the initiative. We met in the anti-war café, had discussions. Myself I have also taken part in panel discussions at the film festival.
The logo of the anti-war café was listed in the programbooklet and we twice we presented exhibitions at the Anti-War Café parallel to the festival. We met with activists and planned events. Mostly within the framework of our Berlin working group on depleted uranium munitions.
With the initiators of the festival, Norbert G. Suchanek and Márcia Gomes de Oliveira, who live in Brazil, and with Jutta Wunderlich and Hubert Burczek, who have coordinated the festival here in Berlin we had many meetings. And there has also been good cooperation with Prof. Manfred Mohr, spokesman for the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). Some time ago I even became a member of the ICBUW. And of course we can continue to discuss the background to this conflict in case this is conveniant..
But after the escalation of the Ukraine warin February, many things have changed. Sharp contradictions are now also becoming visible among peace activists. And the same also became clear at the Uranium Film Festival and at my place in the Anti-War Café where I also face massive hostilities.
This summer the International Film Festival took place in Brazil. The Polish film producer Lech Majewski presented his film „Valley of the Gods“. Lech Majewski participated in a program called Stand With Ukraine back in April. The Polish ambassador also attended the award ceremony in Rio and the topic of support for Ukraine against Russia was discussed.
Strong anti-Russian tones can also be read in the programbooklet of the festival in Berlin
Prof. Manfred Mohr writes: Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine reveals another victim of the war – the environment. Their concern is increased by the use of particularly destructive weapons such as uranium ammunition. The use of nuclear weapons, which the Russian side has openly threatened which, would threaten the very existence of mankind. Such a threat constitutes a clear and serious violation of international law, as reiterated in the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
And Prof. Mohr’s contribution goes on to say: The war in the Ukraine that is unfolding before our eyes and cannot be justified or „related“ by anything and underlines the role of law and morality; it is strengthened and not weakened, for example when war crimes are prosecuted.
Klaus Mintrup writes:
As I write this greeting at the beginning of August, the security of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in the Ukraine is under acute threat from attacks. Nuclear power is an unmanageable, high-risk technology, particularly evident in times of war. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine should serve as a reminder to all of us to end the fossil-nuclear age very quickly.
The fact is that these articles massively criticize Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. It is completely overlooked that this war started already in 2014. After the coup in Kyiv, which violated international law, right-wing extremists came to power in Ukraine. Immediately after the coup, the new politicians in Kyiv acted with extreme brutality against the Russian population. The incumbent, democratically elected President Yanukovych was only able to flee to Russia at great risk to his life.
On May 2nd there was a terrible massacre of left-wing critics in Odessa, around 50 people were murdered, burned to death or killed in the Trade Union Building. There were no investigations by Ukrainian authorities. After the two people’s republics in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, did not want to submit to Kiev’s new Russophobic policy and declared themselves autonomous people’s republics, the people there were declared terrorists and the Ukrainian military and right-wing militias have killed over 10,000 people since 2014. The Ukrainian army shelled civilian targets in these Ukrainian areas with heavy artillery. Many people were seriously injured, and thousands upon thousands had to flee.
Moreover, it is a fact that Ukrainian politicians have made absolutely irresponsible statements regarding nuclear weapons and now it is the very government in Kyiv that is shelling Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, with heavy artillery. Many of the weapon systems were most likely supplied by western supporters.
Kyiv has tried several times this year to bring the nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye back under Ukrainian control in order to secure the country’s energy supply, but also to gain access to the plutonium stored there.
In 1994 the Budapest Memorandum was signed, in which Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan undertook to transfer nuclear weapons on their territory to Russia. They also agreed not to seek nuclear weapons in the future.
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Ukrainian President Zelensky gave a speech in which he stated that Ukraine no longer felt bound by the Budapest Memorandum. Referring to consultations that Kyiv had previously requested, the Ukrainian President said that if they „do not take place or do not lead to concrete guarantees of our state’s security, Ukraine will rightly believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and that all the decisions of the package of… questioned in 1994“.
Those words were nothing more than a hint that Ukraine would acquire nuclear weapons. The media hardly reported about it, and there were no reactions from the Western politicians present. So the statement by the President of Ukraine was an announcement that he would break this treaty, the Budapest Memorandum.
There is also the possibility of building so-called dirty bombs, which do not trigger a chain reaction, but only distribute nuclear material in conventional ways. For example, on a Totschka U rocket as a carrier.
Yulia Tymoshenko, politician and former Prime Minister of Ukraine, recently called on the international community to set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“Close the skies over Ukraine! Our children today repeat it like a prayer when rockets and bombs from the Kremlin are thrown at them. You want to live, not die. Close the skies over Ukraine! because these attacks on our nuclear power plants pose a nuclear threat to all of Europe,” Tymoshenko said in a video message posted on Facebook.
According to her, a direct attack by the Russian army on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is possible, attacks on the nuclear reactors – „this is the eve of the end of the world, all borders have been crossed, all bridges destroyed.“
A phone call between Tymoshenko and Nestor Schufritsch, a long-time companion, from the Berlin Charité that is said to have taken place on March 18, 2014, shortly after the referendum in Crimea and was broadcast immediately afterwards by the Russian state broadcasters Russia Today and Rossija 1, shows the true attitude of Mrs Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko’s voice can be heard in the recording, she is on the phone with Nestor Schufritsch. Both apparently have no suspicion that they are being bugged. Tymoshenko says she’s „ready to pick up a submachine gun and shoot that scumbag (Putin) in the forehead.“
Nestor Schufritsch then asked Yulia Tymoshenko how the “eight million Russians on the territory of Ukraine” should be dealt with in the future. Ms. Tymoshenko replied that the eight million Russians in the Donbass region of Ukraine should be wiped out with a nuclear bomb.
A very important topic for the film festival would be to address precisely this immense danger posed by the actors in Ukraine. In particular, the immense danger that a government in its own country would shell a nuclear power plant.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which oversees the NPT, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May:
“And especially now, as you may know, we are trying to get back to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Six nuclear reactors, 30,000 kilos of plutonium, 40,000 kilos of enriched uranium, and my inspectors have no access.”
A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was recently able to visit the nuclear power plant. But after that, despite Rafael Grossi’s reassurances to the contrary, there was no assignment of responsibility to the Kyiv government or Western backers.
Based on the information given here, I have decided to no longer support the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF). At the same time, I expressly protest against misusing the right and supportive basic concerns of this festival for russophobic propaganda.
Berlin, September 26, 2022
Heinrich Bücker, Coop Anti-War Café Berlin
Ana Barbara von Keitz
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