Miners worldwide for saving the natural foundations of life!
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- Created: Thursday, 03 November 2022 13:45
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The world's miners have a special responsibility for future generations. On the one hand, raw materials are needed now and in the future, and on the other hand, they must be extracted in such a way that people's livelihoods are not jeopardised. Miners, environmental and youth fighters belong together! We want to fight for this together and internationally - out for the International Day of Struggle to Save the Environment!
The environmental crisis has drastically worsened due to the global economic and financial crisis that started in 2018 in connection with the Corona pandemic, the Ukraine war and the danger of a nuclear World War 3. We are witnessing a development of raw materials and energy policy that is contemptuous of people and the environment, such as the generation of energy by nuclear power plants or the expansion of the burning of fossil fuels and more oil and gas fracking. Nuclear power plants are being promoted again with a view to military use and there is a growing danger of nuclear war with devastating consequences for people and nature! "The International Miners' Coordination has the vision of a globally connected miners' movement that fights for itself and its children so that the treasures of the soil, water and air belong to those who develop them through their work. They are to be used for a rich, dignified and healthy life for all people in harmony with nature - without exploitation and oppression." (Excerpt from the Struggle Programme of the International Miners' Coordination) With the Ukraine war, a dangerous climax in the competitive struggle for raw material bases, but also energy sources, has flared up. The Donbas region, with its 900 industrial plants, including 248 mines and dangerous chemical plants, as well as 113 plants containing radioactive substances, is the most contaminated area on earth. With the flooding of the mines even before the war and the storage of radioactive material, widespread contamination of the groundwater was knowingly accepted by the Ukrainian authorities. With the bombing of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the most powerful nuclear facility in Europe has become a powder keg. In the event of a super-failure, the radioactive radiation could spread over large parts of Asia and Europe, depending on the direction of the wind. The Ukraine war is being used for an environmental 'rollback', the abolition of already completely inadequate environmental protection measures. These are subordinated to the war course of imperialist countries. Climate protection must be oriented towards "security interests". The militant miners' movement has to fight the dissolution of environmental protection and environmental regulations by the governments, but also the exploitation of raw materials by the international mining monopolies. These have devastating consequences for both people and nature with their greed for profit. In connection with the international structural crisis caused by digitalisation and the conversion of drive technology to e-mobility, the greed for lithium, copper, cobalt and rare earths is growing more and more and the mining and energy monopolies are exploiting people and nature ever more ruthlessly. To this end, new and old raw material deposits are exploited without regard for the masses and their livelihoods. The transition from underground mining to the more profitable surface mining is increasingly calling into question the natural basis of life. One consequence is the increase in child mortality in the vicinity of opencast mines. Miners in Peru, for example, are standing together with the rural population and denouncing this merciless exploitation of their country's raw materials and the destruction of the population's natural livelihoods. With threats, criminalisation, murder of trade unionists, environmental activists and miners, any resistance against the interests and plans of the international mining corporations and energy monopolies is to be broken. We miners make our own calculation and do not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by the imperialist war, nor do we agree to the argument of "energy shortage", the murderous overexploitation of natural resources and destruction of the basis of life! We must not allow ourselves to be played off against each other with the preservation of jobs and environmental protection. On the one hand, it would be possible to manufacture products with less energy and new raw materials, but partly at the expense of profits. On the other hand, it is already possible today to replace a large part of the energy produced from fossil raw materials on the basis of renewable energy production such as wind, solar, etc. Let us take responsibility for this together! Participate in demonstrations, protests and actions for the International Environmental Struggle Day 2022. Support the preparation and implementation of the 3rd International Miners' Conference from 31.08. - 03.09.2023 in Thuringia/Germany!