The No-Nukes Asia Forum was conceived in Japan as a way to bring together anti-nuclear activists working in different Asian countries. A pre-forum of Asian NGOs was held at Yokohama in 1992 before the Earth Summit in Brazil. Mr. Kim Wong-Shik, working for the anti-nuclear information center in Korea, proposed the idea of an anti-nuclear forum in Asia. The first NNAF conference was held in Japan in 1993.

A key motivation was the recognition that the Japanese industry was trying to export nuclear technology to Asian neighbours to offset its increasing unpopularity at home. It was felt that the only way to respond to this nuclear 'globalisation' was to globalise the movement and build strong ties of information and support between countries. The Forum takes place in a different member country each year.

In 1999, spurred by similar export hopes by the Australian Government to push uranium into the so-called Asian 'Window of Opportunity', the Anti-Uranium Coalition's Brenda Conochie began investigating the NNAF and making contacts with key activists involved in the network. In November, Scott Ludlam travelled to India to represent ANAWA.

The Conference Format
The NNAF 1999 was held in Bangalore, capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It began on November 22, and was hosted by the Bangalore-based group CANE, (Citizens for Alternatives to Nuclear Energy) There were around 40 participants representing India, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. A paper from Taiwan was also included. People had come from around India to take part, from four existing or proposed reactor sites and from India's only operating uranium mine at Jaduguda.

On the second day, a number of respected academics, activists and engineers spoke about how the idea of 'Energy for the People' is being practiced in southern India. The centralised, capital-intensive and polluting energy models of the west which find their extreme in the nuclear power industry were compared with decentralised and sustainable, human-scale energy schemes which actually meet the needs of people.

The forum spent two days in Bangalore and then traveled overnight to the town of Yellapur in the Uttara Kannada district. Yellapur is 50km from the new Kaiga nuclear power plant. This district has seen a string of 'development' projects, of which Kaiga is only the latest. Cumulatively, these projects have caused immense suffering and environmental damage, and the people are now reaching for a different development path which is sustainable and people-friendly. We spent one day in town and one day on a field trip through the area to see the effects of development.

The conference concluded on November 26 in the coastal town of Karwar, and will be rejoined again in 2000 in Maki Town, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. In line with the theme of Energy For People: Planning, Conservation and Sustainable Alternatives, the organisers worked hard to demonstrate the context in which nuclear development is taking place in India.

To paraphrase Vishnu Kamath, not only is nuclear technology anti-people, but the whole development worldview which it exists within is anti-people. Nuclear energy is a symptom of a much wider malaise.

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The participants of the Forum