Australia destroyed Aboriginals’ reputation, to get land for uranium mining
Government had made it clear that it wished to re-engage itself more directly in the control of community land through leasing options as well as to open up Aboriginal land for development and mining purposes.
The plan was to empty the homelands, and this has not changed. However, it was recognised that achieving this would be politically fraught – it would need to be accomplished in a manner that would not off-side mainstream Australia. Removing Aboriginal people from their land and taking control over their communities would need to be presented in a way that Australians would believe it to be to Aboriginal advantage, whatever the tactics.
So began the campaign to discredit the people and to publicly stigmatise Aboriginal men of the Northern Territory
And even in 2009 when the CEO of the Australian Crime Commission, John Lawler, reported that his investigation had shown there were no organised paedophile rings operating in the NT, no formal apology was ever made to the Aboriginal men and their families who were brutally shamed by the false claims.
Sixth Anniversary of the Northern Territory Intervention – Striking the Wrong Note Lateral Love Australia‘concerned Australians’ Michele Harris, 21 June 13 Aboriginal advocate Olga Havnen, in her Lowitja O’Donoghue oration has asked a critical question. She asks what has been the psychological impact of the Intervention on Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory. It is surprising that so little attention has been given to this critical, yet in some ways tenuous, link before now.
Even before the Intervention began in June 2007, government had long planned a new approach to the ‘management’ of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. It was no longer part of government thinking that self-determination and Aboriginal control over land could be allowed to continue. These were the Whitlam notions of 1975 and they were no longer acceptable. Continue reading
Corporate land grabbing from indigenous peoples
Ultimately, the most affected aren’t the [indigenous] leaders who are comfortable in their palaces –most of them for more than two decades in power. The real losers in this are ordinary people in African countries.
As the G8 meet in Northern Ireland, the spotlight has been brought back to taxes and role of multi-nationals in developing countries. It is not just tax evasion and tax holidays that governments provide them that hurt developing economies but land grabbing has also become an every day reality in most African countries. Some companies involved are from these G8 countries.
More work on the ground needs to be done for local communities to have their rights to land well kept as governments push in favour of foreign companies
Push for transparency at G8 alone will not solve land grabs in Africa Rose Bell’s blog JUNE 17, 2013 In 2012, a few months before he passed away, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi while attending the World Economic Forum on Africa was asked a question that intrigues most African citizens. Why do African leaders- revolutionaries turn to looting their own countries once in power? The brainy later leader of Ethiopia responded by highlighting foreign corporations’ role in impoverishing Africa. He hinted that African leaders, in their quest to find jobs for an increasing unemployed population, were being held hostage by corporations that come in to invest.
Global indigenous movement challenging mining interests
Consider that when global actors invest in Canadian or Australian mines – or indeed, when Canadian mining companies seek to operate in Latin America – they do so on the premise that title to the lands and
resources is assured. Increasingly, that premise is being called into question, as Indigenous people use domestic and international law, the press and the mechanisms of environmental activism to shut down mine sites…….
Toward an Aboriginal Grand Strategy, Global Brief, DOUGLAS SANDERSON June 21, 2013 “Classical wampum diplomacy may be dead and gone. But North America’s Indigenous people are once again power players…….today, in the year 2013, Indigenous people are resurgent: their claims to protection of their lands and interests are increasingly being heeded by the courts. Indeed, these Aboriginal interests are intersecting decisively with the economic interests of states and the profitability of major companies. Continue reading
Northern Territory of Australia hosted first World Indigenous Network Conference
…a worldwide movement of Indigenous Peoples to highlight their strong connections to ancestral territories and waters and ever greater recognition by governments and international community of the importance of these connections”.
Summary of ICCA Consortium participation at World Indigenous Network (WIN) Conference http://iccaconsortium.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/summary-of-icca-consortium-participation-at-world-indigenous-network-win-conference/ June 13, 2013 Darwin, Australia – A small yet strategic group comprising 10 delegates from countries such as Iran, Philippines, Nepal, Pakistan, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and Australia associated with ICCA Consortium participated in the first World Indigenous Network (WIN) Indigenous and Local Communities Land and Sea Mangers’ Conference, May 26-30 in Darwin, Australia. Continue reading
Uranium mining continues to radioactively poison land and water in USA
Uranium Mine Pits Continue to Leak Radiation Today
Radiation and heavy metals from uranium mines continue to pollute the land, air and water today and very little action is being taken to stop it.
America’s “Secret Fukushima”: Uranium Mining is Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Global Research, June 07, 2013 Truthout Early in the morning of July 16, 1979, a 20-foot section of the earthen dam blocking the waste pool for the Church Rock Uranium Mill caved in and released 95 million gallons of highly acidic fluid containing 1,100 tons of radioactive material. The fluid and waste flowed into the nearby Puerco River, traveling 80 miles downstream, leaving toxic puddles and backing up local sewers along the way.
Although this release of radiation, thought to be the largest in US history, occurred less than four months after the Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown that sent radioactive gases and iodine into the air, the Church Rock spill received little media attention. In contrast, the Three Mile Island accident made the headlines. And when the residents of Church Rock asked their governor to declare their community a disaster area so they could get recovery assistance, he refused. Continue reading
Heavy illness price paid by indigenous people in uranium mining
A few decades after uranium mining began in the Navajo Nation, increased numbers of cancer cases, lung cancer in particular, began to show up in the miners. A 2008 literature review in New Mexico found that the “Risk of lung cancer among male Navajo uranium miners was 28 times higher than in Navajo men who never mined, and two-thirds of all new lung cancer cases in Navajo men between 1969 and 1993 was attributable to a single exposure — underground uranium mining. Through 1990, death rates among Navajo uranium miners were 3.3 times greater than the U.S. average for lung cancer and 2.5 times greater for pneumoconioses and silicosis.”
America’s “Secret Fukushima”: Uranium Mining is Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Global Research, June 07, 2013 Truthout
“……..Thousands of open uranium mines excavated beginning in the 1950s continues to release radiation today. There have been inadequate measurements but the limited measures done show ongoing leaks larger than Fukushima. How did we get here?
It is estimated that 60 to 80 percent of uranium in the US is located on tribal land, particularly in the lands of the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations. After WWII, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created so that the US could obtain uranium for weapons production domestically. The AEC guaranteed that it would purchase all uranium that was mined. A uranium boom ensued. Private corporations jumped in and, in areas of South Dakota, individuals started mining for uranium on their private lands unaware of the dangers.
Private corporations set up thousands of underground and open pit uranium mines on tribal lands and hired local native Indians at low wages. Other than jobs, the uranium mines brought little benefit to these nations because the lands were given to non-Indian companies such as Kerr-McGee, Atlantic Richfield, Exxon and Mobil. Native Indians had little control over what took place. Continue reading
The fight to save Grand Canyon from uranium radioactive contamination
Tribes, Enviros Fight Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon KPBS, June 3, 2013 By Laurel Morales “……environmentalists and Indian tribes oppose mining near the canyon. On a recent sunny day EcoFlight pilot Gary Kraft steered the six-seat Cessna onto the tarmac of the Grand Canyon Airport and gracefully took off. He flew a group over the Grand Canyon to check out mines from above.
“As Gary brings the plane around we’ll get a little better look at the site,” said Grand Canyon Trust’s Roger Clark who served as our guide.
He has been fighting uranium mining companies for many years. Last year he scored a victory. The Obama Administration put a ban on any new mining claims on federal land surrounding the park. In the 1980s and 1990s a dozen mines pocked the landscape surrounding the park. All but a few have been cleaned up and reseeded. But a handful of older claims are still being mined. Continue reading
Northern Saskatchewan First Nation to drop lawsuit, signs up with uranium companies
Northern Saskatchewan First Nation signs uranium mining deal worth $600 million http://www.newstalk650.com/story/northern-saskatchewan-first-nation-signs-uranium-mining-deal-worth-600-million/112624 Agreement with mining giants Cameco and Areva calls for First Nation to drop lawsuit over proposed mine by Nigel Maxwell May 31, 2013 The English River First Nation in northern Saskatchewan has signed a deal with Uranium mining giants Cameco and Areva worth $600 million.
Much of money is to flow to the First Nation over 10 years through contracts with band-owned businesses and wages to band members who would work at the mines and on community development projects.
Part of the agreement calls for the First Nation to drop a lawsuit over land near the proposed Millennium mine project.
Some members of the band have raised concerns about the environmental impact of more uranium in the area.
Indigenous international co-operation strengthened – World Indigenous Network conference
Native People More Than Just Park Rangers By Milagros Salazar DARWIN, Australia, May 30 2013 (IPS) – Some good-byes can actually mean the start of a long road working together. That was how it felt at the end of the World Indigenous Network (WIN) conference in this northern Australian city.
The big challenge is to consolidate “the indigenous network so its collective voice can be heard” and to get governments to implement its proposals, said one of the 10 speakers chosen by the delegations from more than 50 countries to sum up what was discussed in four days of sessions at the May 26-29 conference.
The gathering, supported by the Australian government, enabled face-to-face exchanges among indigenous people from around the world, who shared best practices in conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity and in the sustainable use of protected natural areas in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Canada and Australia.
The delegates to the conference of the “international network of indigenous and local community land and sea managers” stressed the importance of the world recognising that for ages, indigenous people have protected the land and sea thanks to their ancestral knowledge, and that their culture and way of life depends on their territories……
In the full auditorium during the closing session, perhaps the most sensitive issue was brought up by the representatives of Latin America, whose spokespersons pointed out that the question of defending indigenous territories was glaringly absent during the conference……..
The Latin American delegation, mainly made up of people from Ecuador and Brazil, as well as activists from Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, said they went “one step further” by demanding that governments recognise indigenous rights over their ancestral territories.
“It’s not just about indigenous people taking care of parks and protected natural areas, but about a question of legitimacy, of states recognising that we have been the owners of the territory for a very long time,” Paulina Ormaza, an indigenous woman who formed part of the group from Ecuador, told IPS…….
The Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together the United Nations, governments, civil society, businesses, and grassroots organisations to build the capacity and raise the profile of local efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/05/native-people-more-than-just-park-rangers/
Navajo will block uranium transport
Navajo plans to block access for uranium transport, Yahoo 7 Finance, 28 May 13 Navajo Nation plans to deny uranium mining company permission to transport ore on tribal land By Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press |FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – A uranium mining company seeking a mineral lease on state land in northwestern Arizona could have a hard time transporting the ore off-site because of the Navajo Nation’s objections to an industry that left a legacy of death and disease among tribal members.
The section of land in Coconino County is surrounded by the Navajo Nation’s Big Boquillas Ranch. The tribe has said it will not grant Wate Mining Company LLC permission to drive commercial trucks filled with chunks of uranium ore across its land to be processed at a milling site in Blanding, Utah.
The Navajo Nation was the site of extensive uranium mining for weapons during the Cold War. Although most of the physical hazards, including open mine shafts, have been fixed at hundreds of sites, concerns of radiation hazards remain.
The tribe banned uranium mining on its lands in 2005, and last year passed a law governing the transport of radioactive substances over its land. The ranch itself is not part of the reservation, although the Navajo Nation owns it.
“Given the (Navajo) Nation’s history with uranium mining, it is the nation’s intent to deny access to the land for the purpose of prospecting for or mining of uranium,” officials from the Navajo Department of Justice wrote in response to the mineral lease application.
The parcel of state land is in a checkerboard area of Arizona, east of the Hualapai reservation and south of the Havasupai reservation and Grand Canyon National Park. Tribal officials and the park superintendent have said any mining would threaten nearby water sources,……
Documents filed with the Arizona State Land Department indicate Wate Mining had requested approval from the Navajo Nation for the proposed access route, but the tribe said it has nothing on record showing that, nor does the state have access to the property.
“We have no intention of allowing them to cross Navajo lands unless they have appropriate access rights,” Navajo Deputy Attorney General Dana Bobroff said in an email…… http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/navajo-plans-block-access-uranium-154503649.html
Navajo’s continuing fight against nuclear corporations, uranium companies
The Navajo people’s struggle to prevent the re-entry of mining corporations has so far been successful. It is fair to assume that as long as valuable resources remain on Indigenous lands profit-hungry corporations will continue to circle like vultures.
Navajo Nation battles uranium corporations, nuclear industry Decades of dealing with environmental degradation, racism, Liberation, By Bethany Woody MAY 8, 2013 “……….In early 2013, uranium companies approached the Navajo Nation in hopes they will allow them to renew mining operations on their land. These companies claim that they have developed newer and safer methods for extracting uranium, after decades of environmental destruction and abuse led the Navajo Nation to officially ban their mining. Continue reading
Foreign uranium companies rip off impoverished Niger
the grievances expressed by representatives of local populations in the mining zones and pastoral peoples as well as government representatives. Concerns relate to radioactive pollution, water resource depletion, work-related diseases for mine workers, and the appropriation of land and water resources, including legally enshrined common property regimes and pastoral territories, without required compensation.
It is widely acknowledged among government staff that the Nigerien government is not able to properly implement its environmental legislation and monitor the uranium mining industry.
Niger: Development Cooperation Must Support the Environmental Governance of Uranium Mining THE ISN BLOG, Rasmus K Larsen 2 May 2013 Niger’s new development strategy, the Economic and Social Development Plan, is also intended to guide international development cooperation. Environmental governance of uranium mining, the country’s by far largest single economic activity, appears hitherto to have constituted a ‘blind spot’ for environmentally oriented development cooperation. It is now time to remove the blinkers and include support to strengthen environmental governance of the mining sector in new programmes to assist Niger in meeting its development challenges
Niger is well known in international media as one of the world’s poorest countries, struggling with chronic structural hunger and malnutrition. UNDP ranks Niger 186 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, and in 2011, five million people (33% of Niger’s population) were at ‘high risk’ to food insecurity.
What is less well known is that Niger also hosts the fourth largest uranium production in the world. Export values totalled over EUR 348 million in 2010, representing more than twice the total development assistance finance received during the same year. However, the state retains less than one fifth of the value of the uranium ore that is exported. The exploitation of the mineral wealth by international investors is expanding, with granted and requested mining concessions comprising close to 10% of the national territory…….
Attention to environmental impacts or risks associated with the mining sector goes seemingly without mention in the guiding documents of the principal development partners, including the EU, the World Bank, the UNDP, and the African Development Bank.
Severe environmental governance issues
This is in stark contrast to the grievances expressed by representatives of local populations in the mining zones and pastoral peoples as well as government representatives. Concerns relate to radioactive pollution, water resource depletion, work-related diseases for mine workers, and the appropriation of land and water resources, including legally enshrined common property regimes and pastoral territories, without required compensation.
It is widely acknowledged among government staff that the Nigerien government is not able to properly implement its environmental legislation and monitor the uranium mining industry. The Environmental Impact Assessment Bureau has only one person in place to verify all mining project applications in the country and, although legally required, not all verification missions are undertaken. The same applies to the National Centre for Radioprotection, which lacks the necessary capacity e.g. to undertake surprise inspections. The impacts and risks highlighted by civil society must be taken seriously. Due to deficiencies in the public administration, there are considerable constraints in enforcing and implementing the legislative and administrative framework – the very same framework, which development cooperation has helped to put in place……
Any mining activity will carry with it an environmental toll. The decision to sacrifice natural resources and human health, and ultimately lives of citizens, for economic gain will be the executive decision of the mandated political authority – in this case the Nigerien government……..
The Nigerien uranium mining sector is also intricately linked to the geopolitical energy security interests of some donor countries. The mines are operated by foreign companies (the French AREVA Group and Chinese investors). EU countries such as France, which has been involved in uranium mining since Niger gained independence, remain some of the largest buyers of the uranium ore – thus directly stimulating the mining activities and their detrimental impacts. This raises the question how donor countries could better supervise the behaviour of corporations incorporated within their own territories, thus implementing the recent UN guidelines for the supervision of multinational corporations (in “Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights”). Indeed, when transparent and comprehensive problem identification is missing as the basis for donor support, then it opens for speculation that the ignorance of mining-related environmental issues and the crisis discourse on desertification and food insecurity are mobilized as instruments to divert attention from geopolitical interests in the country’s mineral wealth.
With its new development strategy, the Nigerien government emphasises the urgency of increasing mining fees and extraction tariffs to raise the state revenue and strengthen oversight with mining corporations. Importantly, specific attention is also directed at the need to improve the coordination between the mining and environmental sectors and their limited human and institutional capacities. This should be interpreted as an invitation from the Nigerien government to its development partners to proactively support enforcement of the existing environmental regulations of the mining sector……
Hopefully, the concerns expressed by people experiencing the impacts of the uranium mining industry first hand will be included in the list of priorities for the on-going negotiation between the Nigerien government and its development partners, among them the European Commission and Danida, on how to spend the EUR 3.7 billions. http://isnblog.ethz.ch/isn-security-watch/niger-development-cooperation-must-support-the-environmental-governance-of-uranium-mining
Uranium mining industries again out to mine on Navajo land
Uranium mining cos. eye new Navajo Nation projects http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/21448485/uranium-mining-cos-eye-new-navajo-nation-projects SHIPROCK, N.M. (AP) – Uranium mining companies are showing signs of renewed interest in the Navajo Nation.
The Farmington Daily Times reports that several companies during the past year have addressed the tribe, begging for permission to once again mine the uranium-rich land that the tribe sits upon.
But several environmental studies have suggested that elevated levels of uranium in and around the mines caused health problems for the people working in and living around them.
The Navajo Nation sits on more than 70 million tons of naturally occurring uranium, a radioactive ore.
Uranium mining companies say that history will not repeat itself, especially since they are using advanced technologies and take more precautions.
The tribe banned uranium mining on its land in 2005, though federal government has jurisdiction on Navajo Trust Land
Aboriginal elder saves priceless Koongarra from uranium minng
Aboriginal elder spurns million dollar offer from uranium miners http://www.mining.com/aboriginal-elder-spurns-millions-of-dollars-from-uranium-miners-58963/Marc Howe | February 6, 2013 An elder from the Djok aboriginal community has hailed a move by the federal government to prevent the mining of uranium on his ancestral lands.
On Wednesday the federal government introduced a bill to incorporate 1228 hectares of the Koongarra, the traditional land of the Djok people, into the Kakadu National Park, thus preventing efforts by uranium mines to develop the area’s resources.
Jeffrey Lee, an elder of the Djok people, welcomed the decision after fighting for over three decades to prevent uranium extraction in the area, as well as spurning million dollar offers from miners.
“I have said no to uranium mining at Koongarra because I believe that the land and my cultural beliefs are more important than mining and money,” said Mr. Lee.
A French company reportedly offered Mr. Lee $5 million to withdrawn his opposition to uranium development plans.
Although Koongarra lies within the Kakadu area, a ruling in 1979 prevented its inclusion in the park, in order to leave open the possibility of development of its uranium resources, estimated to stand at around 14,000 tonnes.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke as well as Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke joined Mr. Lee to make the announcement as well as hail the government’s decision.
Australian government kept secret on atomic bomb tests’ effects on Aborigines
a detailed description of how nuclear authorities denied diagnosis for decades, “lost” medical records, when diagnosis of survivors was made 3 decades after the event, the event which caused the symptoms was not referenced and specifically in relation to recurrent local radiation injury to skin, which can become a chronic and cyclic event, outbreaks of symptoms recurring in cycles over decades. This is diagnosed in at least some cases, one specifically known to me, not as local radiation injury (beta burn) but as psoriasis.
It is an easy thing to deny diagnosis, as was done – affected people asked for diagnosis in 1953 and later and doctors in Australia REFUSED to give a diagnosis.
Now, in 2013, British authorities claim nothing can be proven to show it is liable for the suffering and death it visited by its actions and in concert with Australian authorities upon Aboriginal people
Aboriginal Truth Buried Under Atomic Fudge, Paul Langley’s Nuclear history Blog, 19 Jan 13 The refusal of British authorities to acknowledge that British nuclear weapon testing in Australia in the 1950s and related “minor trials” which continued into the 1960s (including some which contravened the spirit if not the bones of the LTBT) and the Operation Brumby “cleanup” which resulted in a worsened situation of contamination on Aboriginal land.
For many years a sign on the road from Maralinga to Oak Valley warned people to stay in their vehicles.
On this same land Aboriginal people hunted and hunt and gather.
A Vulcan bomber fired a loaded but disarmed nuclear missile over the Maralinga Range. The missile overshot its target, resulting in the missile disintegrating and spreading plutonium dust over a wide area off of the Range.
In the 1980s the Adelaide Advertiser reported on the discovery of plutonium in the Oak Valley school yard and buildings. The white teachers refused to work and returned to Adelaide. The people of Oak Valley had to continue to live there. Continue reading
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