Sensational leaked document
unveils plan to change IAEA mission
01 April 2006 - Vienna, Austria
— A sensational leaked document obtained today
by Greenpeace reveals that the head of the UN's
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is considering
realigning the agency's mission from promoting
nuclear power towards renewable energy.
DISCLAIMER - Of course this was an April Fools
joke. But it raises a serious issue that the UN
uses tax payers money to promote dirty, dangerous
nuclear power.
Read more about our campaign
against nuclear power.
In a short internal memo dated
today and intended for circulation to staff at
the Agency, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei
outlines his intention to reframe the agency's
mission statement:
"Whilst I alone cannot
change the mandate of the Agency, I am convening
a panel of experts under my direction to prepare
a report for the next General Conference in September.
Their remit will be to find the best approach
for the agency to become a world leader and advocate
of renewable energy sources"
Our nuclear expert and regular
IAEA watcher, William Hill stated:
"At first we didn't believe
it, we thought it was a joke. Now that it has
sunk in we welcome the acknowledgement of the
fundamental hypocrisy of the IAEA's dual role
and the responsible recognition that it was unsustainable.
We are disappointed that immediate change has
not been made and further dismayed at the likelihood
that the consultative period will be dominated
by industry interests. We will, however, almost
certainly open a bottle of champagne today to
mark this historic development."
We have long been critics of
the IAEA's conflicting dual role. On the one hand,
it is in charge of preventing the spread of nuclear
weapons and leading member states towards nuclear
disarmament. But it also promotes civil nuclear
power programs that provide the means to build
nuclear weapons.
Only yesterday we received a
call from an agency insider claiming he had proof
of dramatic developments at the IAEA. Identifying
himself only as Art Sixnofour he set up an elaborate
hand-over of the leaked document in a Vienna park.
While we have not been in possession
of the document long enough to fully analyse the
implications and confirm the details of the proposed
plan, we believe its explosive contents justified
rapid release of the document.
It is too soon to assume the
Agency's mission will change but we can only applaud
ElBaradei's courage in seeking to remove the foolhardy
contradiction at the heart of the current IAEA
mission statement. The world will be a safer place
if his proposal is adopted.
This might have been a joke
for April 1st, but it makes a serious point. By
promoting the dangerous myth of Atoms for Peace
and nuclear power, the IAEA is responsible for
spreading the very things it seeks to control:
nuclear weapons technology and materials.
Greenpeace believes that the
only way to stop the spread of nuclear weapons
is for the nuclear weapons states to disarm and
for the world to reject the technologies and materials
used to produce them, by changing to promoting
peaceful renewable energy sources the IAEA would
be acting to combat the two most pressing threats
facing the world today, climate change and nuclear
proliferation.
