DUMPING OF TOXIC WASTE ON INDIGENOUS LANDS, DAMAGE FROM MINING, DEFORESTATION AMONG ISSUES, AS INDIGENOUS FORUM DISCUSSION FOCUSES ON PACIFIC REGION Media NewsWire 25 April 08 – “Continuing its seventh annual session with a half-day discussion on the Pacific, delegates to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called for the Forum to take a more robust role in inducing other parts of the United Nations system to carry out mandates for securing the rights of the indigenous peoples in the region……
………Michael Dodson, Member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues holding the human rights portfolio, said indigenous land and waters were being targeted by industrialized nations for dumping of toxic or radioactive wastes from industrial or military operations, often without informing residents of dangers. …………”
Uranium waste imperils Jharkhand villages The New Nation, Bangladesh Aparna Pallavi March 24, 2008 – “Radioactive waste from three government-owned uranium mines has put about 50,000 people in Jharkhand’s Jaduguda at risk. The people, mostly tribal communities, suffer from serious radiation-related health problems. But the mines in East Singhbhum district continue without adequate safety measures.
On studying more than 9,000 people (over 2,000 houses) in five villages near the mines owned by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), researchers found cases of congenital deformities, sterility, spontaneous abortions and cancer were alarmingly high among the villagers, mostly from the Ho, Santhal, Munda and Mahali tribes.
The mines, set up four decades ago, employ around 5,000 people. A team from the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) and a local NGO Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR) conducted the study in May-August last year.
According to the union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, three per cent people in India suffer from physical disabilities; congenital deformity being one of them. In the villages in Jaduguda, the percentage of congenital deformity itself is at 4.49 per cent, as compared to 2.49 per cent in the reference villages. This, says the study, is commensurate with the findings at Church Rock mines in New Mexico, USA. In 1979, a dam at the mining site burst, sending gallons of radioactive mill wastes and triggering an environmental crisis.
The safety situation at the mines is equally dismaying. The company dumps waste from the mines in open fields and transports uranium ore in uncovered dumpers. Just about a decade ago, say villagers, the playgrounds for children and grazing areas were near the three tailing ponds. The company even supplied mine tailings as construction material to the villagers . In December 2006, a pipe burst spilling radioactive waste.
Preparations underway for ‘radiation exposure’ court case ABC Radio Australia 12 March 2008 The French Polynesian Nuclear Test Veteran Association is preparing to bring to court next month, the case of eight Polynesians who formerly worked on Moruroa nuclear sites. Of the eight men who worked on the sites in the 1960s, only three are still alive. They claim their group developed leukaemia due to exposure to radiation during nuclear tests carried out by the French government between 1960 and 1996………………Roland Oldham is the President of Mururoa e Tatou, the French Polynesian Nuclear Test Veteran Association. He says putting the lawsuit together has been extremely difficult.
OLDHAM: French people are more conscious of their legal rights than French Polynesians who lived in atolls far away. Most of them are fishermen. They don’t have a basic knowledge of their rights. And everything in the legal process is carried out in the French language………………………………………………”.
Rio Tinto’s tainted track record ALLIRAN 21 February 2008 - “……………..Rio Tinto’s tainted reputation for being responsible for environmental and human rights violations at its mines and smelters. The company has been regularly embroiled in controversy and accused of corporate misdeeds including suppressing trade unions, taking land from indigenous people without compensation, destruction of the environment, and negligence and complicity in civil war.
Displacement of indigenous people Rio Tinto has an appalling record in its relations with indigenous peoples around the world. …………………In the 1980s, during the construction of the Argyle diamond mines in Western Australia, a large number of Aboriginal sacred sites were desecrated or destroyed. The Tawiyul Women’s Dreaming Place, a most sacred area at the Barramundi Gap and one that played an important role in unifying local groups, was almost completely destroyed. This was done with full awareness of the sacred nature of the site and against the vocal opposition of local Aboriginal groups. Rio Tinto also led the mining industry campaign to oppose native title legislation in Australia in 1997-8………………
When South African armed forces illegally occupied Namibia in the 1970s, Rio Tinto violated United Nations sanctions by establishing a uranium mine and illegally selling its output. The Rossing mine operated at full production to gain maximum profits before Namibia gained independence, despite risks to health and safety.
A UN document described the mining operations there as “mined by virtual slave labour under brutal and unsafe conditions, transported in secrecy to foreign countries, processed in unpublicised locations, marked with false labels and shipping orders, owned by multinational corporations whose activities are only partially disclosed, and used in part to build the nuclear power of an outlaw nation..
The company has consistently refused to apologise for, or even to acknowledge, its operation of the mine during a period in which such operations were proscribed by the United Nations. Mine workers from the pre-independence period now claim to have developed cancer as a result of their work experience. The company has opposed their compensation claims. …
……..(Rio Tinto’s Capper Pass tin smelter in Hull, UK ) Research done by the Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre in 1990. (SURRC) noted that ventilator emissions, dust blown by the wind and onto workers, uranium leaching from waste heaps, and, above all, the prevalence of Radon- 222 decay series radio-isotopes could all be having an adverse impact on the workforce and surrounding communities. .” .
Uranium Cuts a Tragic Path Through the Navajo Nation THE WATCH By Amy Levek December 30, 2007 – “……………..Late this year, spurred to action by a series of articles in The Los Angeles Times in 2006, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) held a hearing on ‘The Health and Environmental Impacts of Uranium Contamination in the Navajo Nation‘ in the House Oversight Committee.The Navajo Nation’s Edith Hood testified at that hearing about “a Navajo concept called hozho.
‘Hozho is how we live our lives. It means balance, beauty and harmony between we, the five-fingered people, and nature. When this balance is disturbed, our way of life, our health and our wellbeing all suffer. The uranium contamination and mining wastes at my home continues to disrupt hozho‘…………..
……..Navajo miners worked in the uranium mines and mills on the reservation in the 1930s and 40s, and then again during the boom that lasted through the cold war of the 1950s and 60s, enthusiastic about the opportunity to be paid relatively and work close to home. Besides the physical after-effects, the Navajo would suffer deep cultural wounds as a result of their work.
……………………………The elevated lung cancer rates, some three to five times higher among Navajo miners than the rest of the American population, is as ironic as it is tragic. Prior to the inception of uranium mining in the 1930s,the Navajo people were virtually cancer-free and had the lowest lung cancer rate of all Native American groups.
.’………………………………………………….Navajo kids were swimming in open pit uranium mines in the 1990s. When the US EPA took readings at one mine site, the radium levels were over 270 times the EPA standard. And that was last year. And American citizens are still drinking contaminated water, breathing in radioactive dust, and likely living in radioactive homes today. That’s happening today, right now‘.-(Waxman)………………………………”
Censored in 2007: Traditional Indigenous People The narcosphere By Brenda Norrell Dec 31st, 2007 “The most censored issue of Indigenous Peoples by the media in 2007 was the ‘Silencing of traditional and grassroots’ voices by those in power’ according to readers voting on a poll at the Censored Blog.
The elected tribal councils in the United States and band councils in Canada attempted to silence Indian spiritual leaders and traditional people by way of silencing and distorting the news in 2007.
‘Nuclear, uranium and coal genocide on Indigenous lands,’ was the second most censored issue. Throughout the Americas, Indigenous lands and people are targeted by coal, uranium, copper and gold mining and toxic dumping that will poison their air, water and land………………Navajos live with the pollution and sickness of unreclaimed uranium mines, power plants, coal mining and hundreds of oil and gas wells in the Four Corners area alone…………The Algonquin, Pueblos, Navajo, Lakota and others are also battling new uranium mining, while Goshute and Western Shoshone fight nuclear dumping on their lands which will be detrimental to future generations…………………………………..”.
Niger: The Touaregs and environmental war - African Path June 25, 2007 - “……………………the Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice (MNJ) has stepped up its activity claiming responsibility for a pitched battle with government troops in March and a recent attack on a uranium exploration team. ……………….
..’The movement was created because nothing has been done by the government,’Moktar Roman, spokesperson for MNJ said. ‘There is no work, no schools, not even drinking water in all Niger. It’s terrible, it’s a genocide, and the government is corrupt, taking money from people and leaving them to live in poverty’ he said. The group is fighting for development in what the United Nations considers the poorest, least developed country in the world, Roman said. ‘It is not just a Touareg movement.’……………………….
…Among the major driving forces are, as always, the underdevelopment of the north and the lack of local control over resource exploitation, particularly gold and uranium. The attack on the uranium exploration team was no accident, given the MNJ’s call for ‘wealth from Niger’s burgeoning uranium mining industry to benefit… the northern region in which the mining is taking place.’
According to Paris-based Niger analyst, Nadia Belamat, though, the uranium exploitation dispute isn’t simply economic: ‘not only is uranium mining in northern Niger not helping the region economically, it is also causing serious ecological and health problems’
Enron prosecutor takes on Navajo uranium cleanup – The tribe hires John C. Hueston to press the U.S. to remove toxic material from its land.- Latimes.com By Judy Pasternak, February 25, 2007 - “The Southern California lawyer who successfully prosecuted top Enron executives has been hired by the Navajo tribal government to seek a full cleanup of the old uranium mines contaminating the country’s largest reservation.John C. Hueston, who gained fame for his questioning of Enron founder Kenneth L. Lay, contacted the tribe in November after reading articles in The Times about the poisoning of the Navajo homeland as the government mined uranium for use in nuclear weapons. The reports detailed how residents had been exposed to radiation and toxic heavy metals in their air, water, soiland even the walls and floors of their homes. The tribe retained the former federal prosecutor Thursday to coordinate an effort to finish the cleanup and eventually to help Navajos made ill by exposure. ……………………………..” Indigenous Peoples Call for Global Ban on Uranium Mining – Counterpunch 9/2/07 By BRENDA NORRELL – “Indigenous peoples from around the world, victims of uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear dumping, issued a global ban on uranium mining on native lands. The declaration, signed during the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, held Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2006 on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona, brought together Australian aboriginals and villagers from India and Africa. Pacific islanders joined with indigenous peoples from the Americas to take action and halt the cancer, birth defects, and death from uranium and nuclear industries on native lands.This is a very long article, detailing evidence from many indigenous people – from the Navajo Nation, from India, Australia, China, Mexico and Canada. read the whole article at http://www.counterpunch.org/norrell02082007.html
TIMELINEJune 07 Australian Prime Minister guts the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 (ALRA) – making it easier for uranium exploration and waste dumping29 June Canada’s First Nations national ‘day of action’ Algonquins blockade of uranium companyJune 07 Nigeria – Touaregs in Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice (MNJ) fight uranium exploration teamJune 04 2007 USA Sioux protestors Grand River Environmental Equality Network (GREEN) occupying U.S. Forest Service land at Slim Buttes protesting uranium runoff, uranium miningMay 07 Canada application for uranium exploration on sacred lands,in the Northwest Territories rejected by Lutselk’e Dene peopleNov-Dec 2006 Indigenous World Uranium Summit, held Nov. 30-Dec Indigenous peoples from around the world issued a global ban on uranium mining on native lands2006 U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said the U.S. government is trampling on Shoshone rights in privatization of Shoshone ancestral lands for mining and federal efforts to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain,
Tags: indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium
Tags: indigenous
