Jim Green, Adelaide
Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Adelaide's Campaign Against Nuclear Dumping are hosting a tour of South Australia's nuclear sites on April 15-23.
FoE has organised many similar trips over the past decade, attracting people from all over Australia. They have helped build support for campaigns against the nuclear industry. The tour emphasises meeting and staying with Aboriginal communities, hearing their stories and sharing their experiences of the nuclear industry.
This year's trip is especially timely because of a wave of new uranium exploration driven by rising uranium prices, propaganda about "greenhouse-friendly" nuclear power, and by recent pro-uranium statements made by South Australian Labor Premier Mike Rann — who wrote an excellent book in 1982 arguing against uranium mining.
As in the past, the main victims of the renewed push for uranium mining in SA will be Aborigines. During the expansion of the Roxby Downs uranium mine in the 1990s, WMC Resources used outrageous, racist divide-and-rule tactics in order to secure a water pipeline across Arabunna land.
Jan Whyte and Ila Marks noted in the July 1996 issue of Chain Reaction: "It appears that WMC has embarked on a course of side-stepping consultation with the Arabunna as the traditional custodians. It has also taken similar actions in regard to the Kokotha, the traditional custodians for the actual mine site. One method used by mining companies to side-step proper consultation processes is documented in North America and Canada as well as Australia.
"Mining companies incorporate small Aboriginal groups in areas under dispute and give them financial support. These groups are then regarded as the official representatives for that area and mining companies proceed to consult with them. Thus, it seems as if the companies are going through the correct legal processes whereas, in fact, they are ignoring parties who have legitimate interests."
Heathgate Resources was no less ruthless with its push to mine uranium at Beverley in SA. Jillian Marsh from the Adnyamathanha people wrote in the April 1998 edition of Adelaide Voices: "Agreements between Heathgate Resources and the two native title claimants registered in December 1996 were drafted and signed without the knowledge of the wider Adnyamathanha community. These details have never been made public, either by the claimants or the company. However, Heathgate Resources continues to flaunt the idea that these agreements were signed based on a 'consultation' process with the Adnyamathanha community. This is totally false."
This year's Radioactive Exposure Tour will visit Woomera (to speak to Kokatha and Arabunna people and to visit the missile park and museum as well as the Roxby Downs uranium mine); Lake Eyre; the Mound Springs (ecologically fragile oases threatened by WMC's extraction of vast amounts of water from the Great Artesian Basin); and Nepabunna (to speak with Adnyamathanha people and to tour the Beverley uranium mine).
There will be other stops along the way, including a visit to the large uranium tailings dump at Port Pirie, and a meeting with Maralinga veteran Avon Hudson.
Places are still available on the Radioactive Exposure Tour. For more information, email Joel Catchlove (Adelaide) at <radtour05@yahoo.com.au>, or phone 0403 886 951; or Michaela Stubbs (Melbourne) at <michaela.stubbs@foe.org.au>, or phone 0437 757 362.
From Green Left Weekly, April 6, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.