After the evacuation of Lützerath: the last activists leave the tunnel

The end of Lützerath is approaching: The last two remaining activists have left the underground tunnel. Meanwhile, politicians continue to discuss the violence at the demonstration on Saturday.

Five days after the start of the evacuation of Lützerath, two remaining climate activists left an underground tunnel under the settlement. The activists in the tunnel were considered the last occupiers of Lützerath. This completes the clearing of the village on the edge of the Garzweiler lignite opencast mine.

“The tunnel residents: inside Pinky & Brain leave the #LütziTunnel themselves,” said opponents of lignite via a Twitter channel. The police had already declared the evacuation of the village, which had begun on Wednesday, over the weekend.

RWE responsible for salvaging the last activists

The energy giant RWE is responsible for salvaging the last two activists left in Lützerath. “RWE is relieved that the life-threatening situation ended in this way,” said the supplier.

A video of two masked people on the YouTube platform had caused a stir since Thursday. “Pinky” and “Brain” stated that they were in the tunnel under Lützerath. The tunnel is a very effective form of defense against eviction, they argued. It is much more difficult to clear a tunnel than a tree house, for example. The police had said they had evidence that the video was authentic.

Demolition continues

The energy company RWE said the “dismantling” of the village was continuing and was already “well advanced”. After the complete demolition, RWE wants to excavate the underlying coal. It is expected that the dismantling of Lützerath will take another eight to ten days, said a company spokesman for the “Rheinische Post”. “In March or April, the mine could then reach and excavate the former village,” said the spokesman.

Federal government criticizes violence

Meanwhile, the discussion about clashes during the evacuation of the village continues. The federal government criticized violence by demonstrators. The deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann referred to an interview by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) from the weekend in the “taz”, where he explained that the limit for demonstrations is where violence occurs. “This limit was exceeded in Lützerath, and we expressly condemn that,” said Hoffmann.

Activists accuse police of violence

Activists had accused the police of excess violence during the large demonstration on Saturday. A “high two-digit to three-digit number” of participants were injured, said a spokeswoman for the demonstrators’ paramedic service on Sunday. Among them were many seriously injured and some critically injured.

According to the police, nine activists were taken to the hospital by ambulance. According to this, more than 70 police officers have suffered injuries on the site since the start of the evacuation operation. A police spokesman said on Sunday that the injuries were only partly due to violence by demonstrators.

Use should be processed

“The law was enforced by the police in Lützerath,” said Hoffmann. This must be accepted, and it was also accepted by the majority of the peacefully demonstrating participants in the assembly. “But unfortunately not by everyone.” This led to the clashes that the police actually wanted to avoid. The operation must now be processed, including the proportionality of the police action. The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had already announced this.

Interior Minister Reul defends the police

Reul defended the police against allegations of disproportionate use of force during the demonstration on Saturday. In the ARDTalk show “Anne Will” said the CDU politician that the police had worked “highly professionally”.

He will have every case of inappropriate police violence investigated, said Reul. “We’ve seen a movie or two on the web where we’re like, ‘This doesn’t look good.’ We’ll take a close look at that, we’ve also filed a criminal complaint as a precaution, because I think it needs to be checked.”

But it’s not as if there were masses of “crazed police officers” at the demo. He would have wished the organizers of the demo to clearly distance themselves from violence, but that didn’t happen.

In the “Rheinische Post”, Reul also accused participants in the demonstration of “provocation, hostility and attacks against the police”. Some of the protesters left the agreed route and sought confrontation. The police have always relied on de-escalation, said the minister. “But it was also clear that the police would act decisively and enforce the law when necessary.”

The CDU politician demanded concrete evidence for the allegations from the demonstrators. If a police officer has not followed the rules, “he gets a problem,” said the minister. Conversely, the same applies to violence by demonstrators.

Green leader Lang defends party line

The Federal Green Party leader, Ricarda Lang, once again defended her party’s line on clearing Lützerath for lignite mining. “It wasn’t an easy compromise for me personally, I think for many in my party,” she said ARD morning magazine. However, it is a sign of strength that the party does not make things easy for itself.

Leading Greens politicians such as Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and his NRW colleague Mona Neubaur are behind this decision. They say the coal is needed to maintain energy security. The demolition of Lützerath is part of a compromise that, on the other hand, provides for an eight-year earlier phase-out of coal. Parts of the Green Party and numerous climate activists, on the other hand, criticize the negotiated compromise.