Germany:Attempt Fails to Remove Smokestack Protesters

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>> MIDNIGHT SECURITY ATTEMPT TO GET CLIMBERS OFF SMOKESTACK FAILS


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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> MIDNIGHT SECURITY ATTEMPT TO GET CLIMBERS OFF SMOKESTACK FAILS
- Greenpeace climbers start third day on smokestack
 
FRIMMERSDORF, West Germany, 29 March 1995 (GP) A midnight attempt
by Germany utility company RWE's security guards to remove three
Greenpeace activists off their smokestack failed last night.   
The three climbers have been 130m up on the brown coal-fired
power station chimney at the Frimmersdorf site near Cologne since
early Monday morning despite snow, rain, hail and force 8 gales. 
At 0030 hrs local time private "cleanup commandos" cordoned off
and secured the area around the smokestack, and climbed it, in an
attempt to reach the platform holding the climbers but stopped
just 2 metres short. 
 
For an hour the three Greenpeace climbers argued that if the RWE
guards came any closer the climbers would go further up the
smokestack and lock themselves to the fixed metal ladder where
the guards would have to remove them.  The discussion with RWE
was documented live by the three climbers and broadcasted.   
Greenpeace later checked with local police who knew absolutely
nothing about the RWE security guard actions under the cover of
darkness. 
 
"Just as RWE endangers people through their CO2 emissions, they
tonight endangered the lives of the three non-violent Greenpeace
climbers, who are simply here to remind the world and the
delegates at the Climate Summit of the source of the problem of
climate change," said American Dan R. from the chimney. 
 
"We will carry on our protest against climate killer RWE.  Out of
the Frimmersdorf site alone 14 million tonnes of C02 are pouring
each year." 
 
In the future, RWE plans to neglect the environment by opening a
new brown coal mine, Garzweiler II, and plans to invest
20billion DM (USD 13 billion) in the so-called "modernisation" of
its coal fired power plants.   Ironically it is trying to put on
a good public relations image at the Climate Summit with a
photovoltaic display, but its real money is still pouring into
C02 emissions.
 
Greenpeace demands that the Climate Summit, as a first step,
agrees to developed country C02 cuts of 20% by 2005, as proposed
by the Alliance of Small Island States.  
 
For information: In Frimmersdorf:  ++49 172 381 8142; in Berlin:
++49 30 304 1432/3 Fouad Hamdan/Cindy Baxter  
NOTE: You can interview the climbers by phone: contact us!   
On the Internet:  http://www.greenpeace.org/    
or  http://www.cyberstore.ca/greenpeace/climate/html