NUCLEONICS WEEK -May 15, 2003
WONUC TO SUE SWISS GREEN WHO
ADMITTED 1982 SUPERPHENIX ATTACK
The World Council of Nuclear Workers (Wonuc)an-
nounced this week it would file suit against Chaim Nissim,
a former Green politician in Switzerland who admitted he
launched the January 1982 bazooka attack on the Super-
phenix breeder reactor at Creys-Malville.
Nissim, who represented the Green party in the Geneva
cantonal government for 14 years until 2001, told Swiss
media last week he was part of an antinuclear group that
decided to sabotage the reactor following the massive 1977
demonstrations against its construction in which one antinu-
clear activist was killed. The aim of the rocket attack was to
delay the construction, he said.
The attack caused some damage but didn't prevent startup
of the 1,200-MW Superphenix in 1987. After a debate over
whether it should continue operation as an R&D facility, the
reactor was closed by a controversial order of the Socialist-
Green government in 1998.
Nissim told Le Temps, a Geneva daily, and other media
that he obtained the Soviet-made rockets through a German
clandestine group with ties to the group of Carlos, a re-
nowned international terrorist. He took delivery of them in
Brussels from another clandestine group, the Fighting
Communist Cells.
He said he didn't regret the attack on Superphenix, which
he said hadn't injured anyone and qualified as a "non-vio-
lent " protest action. Nissim acknowledged that the attack
could have caused injury to site workers, but said he reasoned
that, had Superphenix begun operation, it would have endan-
gered "thousands of people." The plant's site is about 100
kilometers from Geneva, up the Rhone River in France.
Nissim, who has written an as-yet unpublished book
about the attack, said he was revealing it now because the 20-
year statute of limitations against terrorist acts had expired,
and he wanted to relate that "little guys can win against big guys."
Wonuc President Andre Maisseu, who collected copies of
Nissim's recent media interviews, said Nissim suggested the
1982 bazooka attack, as well as other actions directed against
Superphenix contractors and site construction work, was
acceptable because it had not been condemned by the antinu-
clear movement.
That, Maisseu said this week, made it possible to file suit
on grounds of inciting terrorist action, thus getting around
the statute limitation problem. In addition, he told Nucleon-
ics Week, Wonuc's lawyers are investigating how long the
initial inquiry into the bazooka attack lasted, because the
period for calculating the statute of limitations begins at the
end of an inquiry. A judge can also opt to re-open a case if
new evidence appears, he said.
Maisseu said Wonuc's aim, besides defending the inter-
ests of nuclear industry professionals, is to officially establish
the connections it believes exist between environmental
activist groups and terrorist organizations.
-Ann MacLachlan,Paris