V a t t e n f a l l - Sweden´s other face

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LAUBAG attracted new settlers to Grötsch with the offer of cheap building land (that it had itself "acquired" from the Grötsch people for a song). The problem was the coal-loading plant in the middle of what was left of Grötsch. LAUBAG assured potential buyers that the coal-loading plant would be moved from Grötsch around 2010, and the new settlers relied on LAUBAG assurances. Early in 2001 LAUBAG then announced, that the coal-loading plant, and thus also the "residual health risk", would remain in Grötsch!
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It is important to tell the tragic story of the decimation of the Wend village of Grötsch, because it clearly illustrates, that the mining industry's contemptuous dealings with people directed affected by brown coal strip-mining are not simply a horror story from East Germany's communist past, but reflect the daily experiences of people up to the present day. After Grötsch, the people of the neighbouring village of Heinersbrück (Sorb: Most) were also browbeaten into submission. The people of Horno have suffered for a decade the unscrupulous machinations of a ruthless, land-hungry predator, that will stoop to any means to achieve its aims. And if Horno is lost, Grießen is next.: (Jänschwalde strip-mine)
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Similar to the attitude towards the people of Grötsch, the Hornoer are expected by the State Government "to make a sacrifice". In reality, the people of Horno are the sacrifice, a role, however, that they categorically reject. They also reject the playing down of their plight, the reduction of a cultural heritage and other immaterial values, that have accumulated over a period of several hundred years, to a mere sum of money, a "reasonable compensation", as Vattenfall-President Lars Josefsson described it in his "Letter from the CEO" on the Internet (www.vattenfall.com). The people of Horno insist on describing the threat facing them with the name it deserves: compulsory resettlement!
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The brown-coal mining industry is a thoroughly parasitic business. It lives off the destruction of the countryside – in the Lausitz, ancient Sorb land – and the uprooting of a rural population. Whatever can be said about efforts directed at recultivation, the bitter truth is, that the 73 Sorb villages that were razed to the ground between 1945 and 1989 in favour of brown coal strip-mining, have been lost for ever.
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