Colbasna armsdump and Ecotopia

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Thursday September 22, 2005 01:22 by Anitya O' Flynn - Gluaiseacht, Eyfa greenday27186 at yahoo dot co dot uk castletroy limerick 061 237099

in relevance to the action which took place in moldovia this August.

The participants of Ecotopia in Moldova made this declaration during their stay in the camp, performances and a symbolic statement to raise awareness on the Colbasna arms dump. there was also a large action at the camp, and the next day we were on Moldavian news for 15mins! So any way many people, using various languages originally, wrote this.

no bombs in russian and then two types of romanian.

Introduction
For 60 years Colbasna has been the storage of almost 40.000 tons of ammunition. This dump is a relic from the Cold War and it is currently under control of the Transdniesterian authorities. The arms dump is the topic to grave political and safety concerns. In 2002 the international community tried to disable and remove most of the ammunition, but they have failed due to political intrigue. Therefore the arms dump currently remains a political and ecological time bomb.
Situated approximately 26 kilometers away from the arms dump, Ecotopia took place. Ecotopia is the annual European gathering of young people from all over the world who are involved in environmental and social issues. Around 250 people from over 26 countries came together to share experience, knowledge and skills on topics such as climate change, alternative media, global politics, grass roots activism, et cetera.
When the people of Ecotopia got aware of the proximity of the single largest and potential most dangerous arms dump of Europe, they felt they should raise awareness of this issue, in Transdniester, all regions of Moldova, and their home towns. Therefore they made a performance which illustrated the international threat which is being posed by the dump. Also they made a living peace sign with a radiating no bombs in all three languages of the region. Besides the performances, Ecotopia issued the following statement.

Ecotopia Peace Declaration



We are more than 200 men and women from more than 26 different countries, camping at Ecotopia near the village of Saharna, situated in a beautiful part of Moldova. We have gathered here to discuss and to find solutions to the problems we face in our counties and in ourselves, problems such as ecological and social insensibility that prevent the full flowering of people and nature.
We are here for two weeks as a small example of the society we want to see; a society where decisions are made not by majority, not by minority, but by consensus. Therefore, when we find to our surprise that there still exists at Colbasna, only 26 kilometers from this place, a vast arsenal with 40 000 tones of instruments of violence, we decided we must speak. We know about the political controversies surrounding these weapons, we are not representing any government, any party or political organization. We simply know that there is an enormous dump of dangerous weaponry, some of it 60 years old still stored there under the earth, an obsolete and dangerous remnant of the so called cold war. And we believe that every man and women from each and every nation and culture of the region would like to see these weapons safely decommissioned and destroyed thereby removing an everyday threat of catastrophe to this beautiful part of the earth. Indeed we believe that every man and women of Europe and the world would be happy to see the threat of these weapons exploding, whether spontaneously or in war, averted.
We are not here to teach the people of this area what they should do; we do not know what they should do, but we wish these people strength and wisdom to find the best way of solving this problem. We do know however, that weapon’s, are too dangerous to play with in political games.
This we know from our history. Around sixty years ago the city Nagasaki was destroyed by a weapon. To remember and understand the full effect of that war and to make an effort to prevent something like it from happening again would be a fitting memorial to those who were lost in all wars.



This memorial, emerging from that conflagration, would be like a phoenix emerging from the flames. At august 9th in Ecotopia we built and burned a Phoenix in memory of Nagasaki. We too have emerged from the flames and are gathered here from different parts of the world near the river Dniester. We rise up to resist any further destruction of the environment and of ourselves. We are here so that the people of Transdniester and all regions of Moldova may know that their problems are our problems too.
We all need to rise, united and renewed, because ecological disasters and wars do not always respect borders.
We just wanted you to know. Dare to be aware.