Treasure hunt in Lusatia
Tomaš Kappa / Ralph Th. Kappler
"A thousand years and longer we have lived like dear brothers.You, you endure that I breathe. And I endure your rage". (Heinrich Heine "An Edom")
This
is a story about Germany’s biggest secret and a scandal, its treatment
of the Sorbian people. They are allowed to perform their folk-dances for
German crowds. Yet, despite their minority rights and despite Lusatia’s
abundant mineral riches, the German authorities continue to close down
Sorbian schools and kindergartens. As Germany’s
State television station MDR revealed recently, irreplaceable
landscapes and many Sorb villages have been and continue to be destroyed
on the basis of a Nazi law. The Sorbs are the smallest Slavonic nation
and a national minority within Germany living in a region called Lusatia. They cultivated Lusatia and have been living there for over 1,600 years, always under German pressure to give up their own Slavonic culture. This
Nazi law which was never eliminated, has made it possible to confiscate
privately owned houses and commercial properties in Lusatia on a huge scale up to the present day. The original purpose of the law was to feed Hitler’s war machine with the brown-coal of Lusatia. The present German government has allowed the Swedish State energy trust, Vattenfall, to use it to destroy an area in Lusatia the size of Luxemburg.
The
German authorities have systematically hidden this abuse of Sorb lands,
culture and property from the public view. The role-model State of
Sweden profits from this abuse and from this Nazi expropriation law. It
is only by threatening forced expropriation, that Vattenfall is able to
blackmail the Sorbs living there to leave their homes and land. This
alone enables the Swedish State company to expand its brown-coal mining at the expense of both the beautiful landscapes and of the people living there.
"A quarter of our entire nation has been forced to leave our homelands by the mining lobby. We Sorbs are being forced over the cliff", warned Jan Nuk, chairman of the Sorbian umbrella organisation, Domowina, through the Foreign Press Association in London. Shortly afterwards, the gates of Buckingham Palace opened for Sorbian representatives. Sorbs brought the first foreign gift to London during the "Golden Jubilee" of Queen Elizabeth II. Sorbs have not campaigned in the British capital since the end of WW II. In 1946 they tried, in vain, to lobby in London for Lusatia to join with Czechoslovakia.
| Lusatia briefing at Foreign Press Association,London May 2002 (Jan Nuk, Domowina Chairman, left / Tomaš Kappa/ Ralph Thomas Kappler, centre) |
Up
to this day Lusatia is located in the federal states of Brandenburg and
Saxony. Lusatia is blessed with the largest gold, copper and rare earth
resources in Germany. Despite its natural riches it is continually
denigrated as a supposedly undeveloped region by the coal-mining lobby.
However the region suffers mainly from a lack of courageous policies.
Even twenty years after the collapse of the communist regime, Sorbs have
no legitimate democratic representation of their own.
There are also signs of hope. The SERBSKI SEJMIK tried to become the first grass roots movement towards a Sorbian parliament. Stanislav Tillich is the first Minister President of Sorbian origin. Musicians of the cult band Silbermond speak Sorbian. The 20th Century Fox studios distributed the KRABAT film, which featured renowned German stars such as Daniel Brühl and Robert Stadlober. However, the German film-makers failed to mention that the bestseller KRABAT was originally a Sorbian epic freedom story, published by Měrćin Nowak-Njechorński.
There are also signs of hope. The SERBSKI SEJMIK tried to become the first grass roots movement towards a Sorbian parliament. Stanislav Tillich is the first Minister President of Sorbian origin. Musicians of the cult band Silbermond speak Sorbian. The 20th Century Fox studios distributed the KRABAT film, which featured renowned German stars such as Daniel Brühl and Robert Stadlober. However, the German film-makers failed to mention that the bestseller KRABAT was originally a Sorbian epic freedom story, published by Měrćin Nowak-Njechorński.
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| Girl from Sorbian Lusatia (Foto by Iwajla Klinke) |
136 obliterated villages
Werner Domain and his wife were the last inhabitants of the Sorbian village of Horno. The seventy year old, retired couple tried to withstand the ongoing intimidation of mining operators. They managed to plant a linden tree in front of their house while giant coal excavators approached amidst deafening noise and clouds of dust. By then, Horno was already deserted and destroyed as if by war.
136 villages disappeared in Lusatian lignite coal craters, right in the heart of Germany. Germany, the self-proclaimed green technology and eco-champion! These brutal actions accelerated the dissolution of the Sorbian people. On the Internet site www.verschwundene-orte.de one can find the melodious names of destroyed Sorbian villages such as Publik, Bukovina, Horno, Barak, Rovno or Lacoma.
Horno was destroyed by the Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall, although there was no exploitable coal under this village. Vattenfall took over almost the entire East German energy infrastructure during the fall of communism. This was no coincidence, since some of the most prominent East German politicians made a swift career under these lobbying wings. Sweden was also one of the main western trade partners and technology suppliers to the East German communist regime. Today, Vattenfall sponsors Sorbian communications and education infrastructures, which undermines Sorbian self-representation. The Lusatian mining company Laubag announced euphemistically, that they had “appropriated” more than 750 square kilometres of land. What they actually did through this massive land excavation was to destroy an area the size of the City State Hamburg. Prof. Joachim Katzur, head of the Institute for Mining Redevelopment, goes even further in a ZEIT interview: "Actually, the Lusatian mining operators have affected four times as much land, if we also count the land where the flow of below ground water is disturbed."
Thus
over 3000 square kilometres of fertile urban Lusatian land were
sacrificed to relentless coal mining. 3000 square kilometres of affected
land is more than the size of Luxembourg and half the size of the
Palestinian territories. The size of Lusatia as a whole is comparable to
the size of the EU country Belgium. In Germany thousands of square
kilometres of fertile land has disappeared in open cast lignite mining
craters. This man-made intervention into nature is the biggest
transformation of the earth's surface since the last ice age.
 |
| Over 130 destroyed villages - Strip Mining by Vattenfall in Lusatia |
Fairy tales about clean coal
"If we take the global climate change seriously, we need to steer away from lignite coal as quickly as possible", said Claudia Kempfert of the German Institute for Economic Research. Due to its low efficiency and huge greenhouse gas emissions, lignite coal is extremely damaging to the climate. We are now losing more than just the struggle for climate protection. Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) is just a PR buzz word invented by Vattenfall, RWE & Co. The proclaimed aim of this experimental technique is the reduction of CO2 emissions and their underground storage.
"CCS is in fact a tool to block investments in renewable energy technologies and thus to cement oligarchic fossil power structures," the energy expert of the Green Party, Astrid Schneider, explained. In Saxony, a parliamentary hearing failed recently to make the case for CCS. Vattenfall expert, Hubertus Altmann, admitted in Parliament that the CCS technology can not be industrially applied before the middle of the next decade, if at all.
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| Lusatian Village - Associated Press AP |
Matryoshka principle
Precious metals worth billions such as gold, platinum, silver, zinc and more than 2.7 million tons of copper shale were discovered in Lusatia. World market prices of up to 10,000 € can be reached for a single ton of copper. The Kupferschiefer KSL GmbH applied for mining rights in Lusatia. However, KSL operates under a murky Matryoshka principle. KSL is merely a subsidiary of the Panamanian Minera SA. Minera SA is in fact a subsidiary of the Canadian Inmet Mining. And Inmet Mining is headed by a German geologist from Aachen, its CEO, Jochen Tilk. Only citizen participation can provide contract transparency. And the Lusatian treasure hunt would find some sort of happy ending, if besides providing jobs and profits, substantial investments were to flow into the region’s educational system, universities and Sorbian language programs. Nuk’s successor, David Statnik, demands: "If mining rights are granted to companies for coal, copper or gold, they should have to invest in Lusatia as much as they would have to in Bavaria or North Rhine Westphalia.”
Precious metals worth billions such as gold, platinum, silver, zinc and more than 2.7 million tons of copper shale were discovered in Lusatia. World market prices of up to 10,000 € can be reached for a single ton of copper. The Kupferschiefer KSL GmbH applied for mining rights in Lusatia. However, KSL operates under a murky Matryoshka principle. KSL is merely a subsidiary of the Panamanian Minera SA. Minera SA is in fact a subsidiary of the Canadian Inmet Mining. And Inmet Mining is headed by a German geologist from Aachen, its CEO, Jochen Tilk. Only citizen participation can provide contract transparency. And the Lusatian treasure hunt would find some sort of happy ending, if besides providing jobs and profits, substantial investments were to flow into the region’s educational system, universities and Sorbian language programs. Nuk’s successor, David Statnik, demands: "If mining rights are granted to companies for coal, copper or gold, they should have to invest in Lusatia as much as they would have to in Bavaria or North Rhine Westphalia.”
Nazism,Communism and now imposed Democracy
Sorbs were suppressed for centuries. They were forbidden to use their
language. They weren't even allowed to keep dogs or horses. After a
brief heyday during the period of Enlightenment, the brutal German
assimilation pressure returned. Thousands of Lusatian families were
forcibly Germanized. A key event dates back to the year 939, when German
Count Gero advanced his martial career by inviting thirty Sorbian
princes to a feast and assassinating them on the spot. In this way, Gero
beheaded the Slav resistance against German land robbery.
What
is the situation today? "Even after over two decades of the peaceful
revolution, we have no self-determination rights as Sorbs. Sorbs are
still ruled by others," Benedikt Dyrlich complains. As chairman of the
Sorbian Artists’ Federation, he criticises the lack of Sorbian
representation in their own homeland. The Sorbian umbrella organisation
Domowina is still entangled in a GDR-like inertia and top down politics.
Markus
Meckel is well-versed in the matter. He became the first freely elected
East German Foreign Minister. And as such he participated in the 2plus4
negotiations with the WW II victorious powers. Recently, Meckel
ironically remarked in Brussels: "Perhaps Sorbs would be better off, if,
as First Nation, they made themselves a bit more independent with their
abundant mineral resources." Meckel became evasive when asked about
shortfalls in the carelessly patched German Unification Treaty. Interior
Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, patched this treaty hastily together with a
“hot needle” and with Stasi-tolerated East German politicians. As
Foreign Minister, “this Unification Treaty was not really my cup of
tea”, Meckel said.
Thus, the question of who owns the ancestral Sorbian lands is still the focal topic which was neglected also by East German bureaucrats. Who are the rightful owners of the Lusatian land and its natural resources? This crucial question about the legitimacy of the hastily awarded excavation rights remains unanswered to this day.
Thus, the question of who owns the ancestral Sorbian lands is still the focal topic which was neglected also by East German bureaucrats. Who are the rightful owners of the Lusatian land and its natural resources? This crucial question about the legitimacy of the hastily awarded excavation rights remains unanswered to this day.
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| Sorbian Wendish village Horno - destroyed by Vattenfall (Foto Gerard Petit) |
Silence is death, speech is gold
Marka Macijowa, head of the Sorbian National Publishing House, focuses
on the ground work of Sorbian-German language education. "The Sorbian
language will only survive if parents pass it on to their children.
Germans, on the other hand, must learn to discover and respect the
Sorbian culture as an enriching aspect of their own culture”, Macijowa
demands. Meanwhile, Sorbs have also established political links to Berlin, Prague and Brussels.
The President of the EU Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, agreed to become the
patron of this year's International Conference on Sorbian Music in
Cottbus. As a young man Buzek organised the Polish Solidarity movement
in Silesia from the political underground.
Help could also come from
another source. Agricultural Commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, from Rumania
is currently restructuring EU agriculture. His aim is to decentralize
European agriculture and to make it greener. If these EU reforms are
only partially implemented, it would be a sustainable policy push for
the Lusatian region. For over sixteen centuries Sorbian has been spoken
and sung in the Lužica region. Ruthless coal exploitation is now
destroying the landscape from which the Sorbian culture emerged.
At the reception in Buckingham Palace Jan Nuk and the author handed over a small blue-bound book entitled "Dwe Lubosci Ja Mam - Two loves I have in me”. Shakespeare's sonnets in Sorbian. Also, with the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in mind, one could say, that Germans and Sorbs now must together learn to practise the techniques of joint survival. This know-how of joint survival is certainly the most substantial and yet undiscovered Lusatian treasure. Lusatia could still rise to become a cosmopolitan CleanTech country. Ironically, also the German majority would benefit from this change.
 |
| Buckingham Palace Gates open for Sorb Delegation - Jan Nuk, Tomaš Kappa (2002) |
At the reception in Buckingham Palace Jan Nuk and the author handed over a small blue-bound book entitled "Dwe Lubosci Ja Mam - Two loves I have in me”. Shakespeare's sonnets in Sorbian. Also, with the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in mind, one could say, that Germans and Sorbs now must together learn to practise the techniques of joint survival. This know-how of joint survival is certainly the most substantial and yet undiscovered Lusatian treasure. Lusatia could still rise to become a cosmopolitan CleanTech country. Ironically, also the German majority would benefit from this change.
Only
towards the end of his life did my father speak Sorbian again. After he
passed away, I found a receipt slip on his coffee table. His living
room appeared to have been tidied up as if he were expecting a visitor
shortly. On this slip father had written just two sentences: "Witajci k
nam" (warmest welcome) and below, also in Sorbian: "Blessings to whom
who returns home”.
* Article "Schatzjagd im Sorbenland”, Treasure Hunt in Lusatia," published
by Pogrom-Magazine of the "Society for Threatened Peoples – Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker“, Ralph Th. Kappler / Tomaš Kappa,
Göttingen 2012
* Press Release: Sorbian Delegation at the London based Foreign Press Association
Joint statement of HALO ENERGY and DOMOWINA, London 2002
https://independent.academia.edu/RalphThomasKappler
* Sorbian Wendish EU Memorandum to EU-President José Manuel Barroso,
Sorbisches EU Memorandum an EU Präsident José Manuel Barroso,
Brussels / Budyšin / Bautzen, 7th of June 2012
https://independent.academia.edu/RalphThomasKappler
* Ralph Th. Kappler / Tomaš Kappa founded the HALO ENERGY
CleanTech communications network in 2002 in London.
Distributed by HALO ENERGY
Web: https://www.halo-energy.com
by Pogrom-Magazine of the "Society for Threatened Peoples – Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker“, Ralph Th. Kappler / Tomaš Kappa,
Göttingen 2012
* Press Release: Sorbian Delegation at the London based Foreign Press Association
Joint statement of HALO ENERGY and DOMOWINA, London 2002
https://independent.academia.edu/RalphThomasKappler
* Sorbian Wendish EU Memorandum to EU-President José Manuel Barroso,
Sorbisches EU Memorandum an EU Präsident José Manuel Barroso,
Brussels / Budyšin / Bautzen, 7th of June 2012
https://independent.academia.edu/RalphThomasKappler
* Ralph Th. Kappler / Tomaš Kappa founded the HALO ENERGY
CleanTech communications network in 2002 in London.
Distributed by HALO ENERGY
Web: https://www.halo-energy.com
MORE INFORMATION ON SORBIAN LUSATIA
Institucije | Institutionen | Institutions
Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina/Domowina-Verlag Bautzen/
Domowina People's press
Łužiska Alianca – Lusatia Alliance - Lausitzer AllianzSerbska kulturna informacija/Sorbische Kulturinformation Bautzen/Sorbian cultural Information Bautzen
Serbski kulturny centrum SKC SlepoSorbisches Kulturzentrum Schleife
Sorbian cultural centrum Slepo/Schleife
Serbski ludowy ansambl/Sorbisches National-Ensemble/
Sorbian National Ensemble
Serbski muzej Budyšin/Sorbisches Museum Bautzen/
Sorbian Museum Bautzen/Budyšin
Uniwersita Lipsk/Universität LeipzigInstitut za sorabistiku
Institut für Sorabistik
Institute of Sorbian Studies
FUEVFederalistiska unija Europskich narodnych skupin/Föderalistische Union Europäischer Volksgruppen/
Federal Union of European Nationalities
Sinti und RomaZentralrat deutscher Sinti und Roma,Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum
YIVO Yiddish Scientific Institute - יִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוטKarsten Troyke - Yiddish Singer - Publisher on Yiddish Music"Katolski Posoł" - časopis katolskich Serbow/ Zeitschrift der katholischen Sorben/
Magazin of the Roman-catholic Sorbs
RUNJEWONLINE.info - Swobodny online-magacin Upper Sorbian free online-magazine
Wikipedija - hornjoserbsce Wikipedia - obersorbisch HALO ENERGY 