Seventy years on, Indigenous victims of UK’s nuclear tests in South Australia still await justice

Rudi Maxwell Oct 14 2023 https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/indigenous-news/2023/10/14/indigenous-victims-sa-nuke-tests/

Seventy years ago Yami Lester was playing outside with his friends at Wallatinna Station in remote South Australia when the ground shook beneath their little feet.

Then a strange black mist quietly rolled in.

On that day, October 15, 1953, the British government conducted its first nuclear test on the Australian mainland, at Emu Field, 170km from Wallatinna.

Mr Lester, a Yankunytjatjara man, was blinded by the fallout.

Before he died in 2017, he shared his memories of the explosion with ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons.

“It wasn’t long after that a black smoke came through, a strange black smoke, it was shiny and oily,” he said.

“A few hours later we all got crook, every one of us.

“We were all vomiting; we had diarrhoea, skin rashes and sore eyes. I had really sore eyes, they were so sore I couldn’t open them for two or three weeks.

“Some of the older people, they died.”

Between 1952 and 1963, the British government, with the active participation of the Australian government, conducted 12 major nuclear test explosions and up to 600 ‘minor’ trials in remote South Australia and off the coast of Western Australia.

The ‘minor trials’ dispersed 24.4 kg of plutonium in 50,000 fragments, 101kg of beryllium and 8 tonnes of uranium.

Radioactive contamination from the tests was detected across much of the continent. For decades the authorities denied, ignored and covered up the consequences.

Legacy of trauma

Australia held a royal commission into the tests, which handed down its final report in 1985. In the UK, former service personnel are still fighting with the government for access to records.
Karina Lester says little was done to protect Aboriginal communities during nuclear tests, the ones at Emu Field were known as Totem 1 and Totem 2.

Little was done to protect the 16,000-or-so test-site workers, and even less to protect nearby Aboriginal communities, as Karina Lester, Yami’s daughter, explained.

“The country is still wearing the scars and the people are still wearing those scars as well,” Ms Lester told AAP.

“One of the things I’ve been concerned about as a second generation survivor is that there has been no clean-up at Emu Field in 70 years, so we still don’t know if it’s safe for us to hunt and gather and collect food on or to even visit.

“And so it’s a difficult time for the family but also a time for us to remember and remind our fellow Australians of exactly what happened 70 years ago at Totem 1 and Totem 2 at Emu Field.”