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

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A third Brown Coal Plan has yet to be approved. In the absence of a legally binding Brown Coal Plan for the Jänschwalde mine, which takes account of constitutional provisions concerning Sorb settlements and regulates resettlement, there is no legal basis for the compulsory resettlement of Horno. The existence of the "Horno Law" (Braunkohlengrundlagengesetz), enacted in June 1997, does not compensate the lack of a binding Brown Coal Plan, for the simple reason that the "Horno Law" does not lay down that the inhabitants of Horno be resettled, it simply allows for "unavoidable resettlements". And this unavoidability, which has to be determined for each individual case, has yet to be proven in the case of Horno.
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Horno is not the last Sorb village to be sacrificed: Grießen, less than two kilometres to the north of Horno, is the next victim.
The fight for the survival of Horno has never been just about the fate of the village's 300 inhabitants. The Sorb village of Horno, atop the Horno Hill, just 500 metres from the River Neiße and Poland, is the gateway to the Guben region, rich in lakes and forests, which has previously been spared the ravages of strip-mining, but is now to be sacrificed to the Jänschwalde strip-mine. If Horno falls, and the mine proceeds over and beyond the Horno Hill, the next victim lies less than two kilometres away: Grießen (Sorb: Grešna), with some 190 inhabitants, situated directly on the River Neiße.
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However bad the threat facing Horno, the fate confronting the people of Grießen is in many ways even worse. Because a second village resettlement in favour of the Jänschwalde mine would have provoked even more resistance in the region and cost LAUBAG too much money, it was decided to let Grießen remain, and to closely bypass the village at a distance of just 200 metres. 80 per cent (!) of Grießen's municipal territory will disappear into the mining site. Grießen village will be restricted to an isolated island right on the Polish border, barely connected to the outside world by two roads. The Grießener water power plant on the Neiße Canal stands as a fitting reminder of environment-compatible, alternative energy. [PHOTO: WASSERKRAFTWERK]
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For LAUBAG, this is the cheap alternative to resettlement. All attempts by Grießen village council over the past eight years to persuade LAUBAG to move the mining site even just 10 metres further to the west, to give the villagers a little more room to breathe, were rejected. LAUBAG's reason: it needs the brown coal! It has always been a firm principle on LAUBAG's part, never to yield on its maximum demands.
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In reality, the economic, social and cultural life of the village will be destroyed without any form of compensation whatsoever. Because the mining site reaches right to the village itself, the municipality loses sovereignty over its territory. This means that Grießen cannot realize its planning objective of securing the area around the village for the recreational and leisure purposes of its inhabitants. To the extent that the village, situated right on the Polish border, has development possibilities only to the west of the Neiße, these will be completely lost to the mine. As a result, the e ssence of Grießen's constitutionally guaranteed autonomy will be destroyed. The economic impact is also devastating. Catering, retailing and other businesses will decline, because customers will disappear. The agricultural enterprise, with more than sixty jobs, will be destroyed. And this economic decline will accelerate migration
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