Kjernefysisk kolonialisme og miljx rasisme
Kai Brethen (kaibraat@online.no)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 21:12:14 +0300
SORRY!!! Her kommer den! Hilsen Kai
>
> Nuclear Colonialism and Environmental Racism: An Indigenous Perspective
>
> Distinguished members of the NPT review panel, I am thankful for
> this opportunity to represent NGOs for a nuclear free and independent
> Pacific and all colonized people in the world to communicate our sentiments
> and positions towards the long overdue need for the abolition of nuclear
> weapons.
>
> I would like to speak to you today as an Indigenous person from the
> South Pacific. For peoples from my region and for indigenous peoples all
> over this planet, the effects of the nuclear fuel chain are an assault upon
> our lands, our lives, our cultures. Native communities in Canada,
> Aboriginal communities in Australia and bushmen in Namibia are still
> waiting for justice concerning their inherent right to self-determination,
> as promised by the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
>
> For a dozen millennia, the vast Pacific has been our home. As
> island peoples, we have lived in our mother's keeping and she in ours. But
> with the dawning of imperialism, our islands have been overrun by
> Europeans, by Americans and by Asians. The power and might of these
> colonial powers were crucial in exploiting and maintaining the Pacific as
> the nuclear arena, testing ground and dumpsite of nuclear materials.
>
> The colonial stranglehold began with the taking of ports and bases
> in the 18th and 19th centuries. It escalated with the Second World War and
> it continues with superpower nuclearization of the region, nuclear testing,
> toxic dumping, ocean and land mining, and the latest form of exploitation,
> mass based corporate tourism. This is what we mean when we describe
> Nuclear Colonialism. It describes the use of modern technology to
> perpetuate the historical devastation of Indigenous lands.
>
> In my island nation of Belau (Republic of Palau), we determined to
> create a nuclear-free island nation. That seemed like a noble idea, but as
> soon as we began to set in motion the building of our nation, our U.N.
> Administering Authority made a mockery of our genuine practice of
> democracy. We conducted more than ten referenda to deny the American
> Pentagon's plans to strike down our nuclear-free Constitution. We soon
> found out that the promotion of democracy was a mere rhetorical ploy. We
> said "NO" each time we had a referendum on the question of allowing nuclear
> weapons in our territory. Our first president was assassinated, and the
> results of each subsequent referendum were thrown out, the reason being
> that military imperatives took precedence over the democratic wishes and
> aspirations of a nation and people.
>
> The phrase "environmental racism" is of relatively recent origin,
> but the practice of siting hazardous waste production and disposal in
> communities of colour is nothing new. Environmental racism is a
> continuation of the discrimination people of colour endure at all levels of
> society, from housing and education to employment, health care and legal
> services. Environmental racism forces people of colour, in the words of
> Rev. Ben Chavis Jr., "to bear the brunt of the nation's pollution problem."
> Examples of environmental racism abound. Called by some "human sacrifice
> zones", these are areas where mining occurs, where pesticide use is
> rampant, and of course where the pollution of the military, the biggest
> source of pollution on earth, accumulates and is stored.
>
> Nuclear weapons, the focus of the NPT, are not possible without
> digging uranium from the earth. We believe that uranium should be left in
> the hands of Mother Earth - no other force is capable of containing the
> toxic menace of radioactivity. 70% of the world's uranium resources are
> located in the lands inhabited by Indigenous Peoples in Africa, Asia,
> Australia, and North and South America. These people are severely affected
> by the negative impact of mining activities.
>
> The nuclear cycle connects the Indigenous and independence
> struggles with each other: Uranium mining begins on Aboriginal and Native
> American land; testing has been carried out on Moruroa, Fangataufa, the
> Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan and Nevada; MX missiles are ejected into
> Kwajalein waters; toxic wastes are disposed in the Northern Marianas; US
> military bases are located in Guam, Hawaii, Okinawa, South Korea,
> Australia, and until 1991, the Philippines; US military spy bases are
> located in Aotearoa-New Zealand, Australia and the Antarctic.
>
> Jabiluka is a proposed uranium mine which lies within the physical
> (although not legal) boundaries of Kakadu National Park in the Northern
> Territory of Australia. The traditional owners, the Mirrar people, have
> categorically stated they oppose the construction of the Jabiluka mine.
> Yvonne Margarula, senior traditional owner of the Jabiluka region, has this
> to say about the mine: "The Jabiluka deposit is ten minutes from our
> communities, 500 metres from a major wetland system and is enclosed within
> Kakadu National Park. One spill from the proposed mine will mean that
> natural and cultural values of Kakadu National Park would be obliterated
> forever....We want the Australian government to understand and act on
> obligations which belong to all of us to protect our country."
>
> We reaffirm the correctness and relevance of the 1997 Moorea
> Declaration by Abolition 2000 which states that "colonized and indigenous
> people have in the large part, borne the brunt of this nuclear devastation
> - from the mining of uranium and the testing of nuclear weapons on
> indigenous peoples land, to the dumping, storage and transport of plutonium
> and nuclear wastes, and the theft of land for nuclear infrastructure."
>
> We therefore come here to the table as victims of the nuclear age.
> While it is difficult to transcend the nature of what it is to be the
> sacrificial lambs of military imposed "peace," we seek to transcend mere
> victimization in demanding and calling for a final cessation to these
> genocidal acts of nuclear colonialism. We are inspired by the work of the
> recently-deceased Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who spoke of strategy on
> behalf of oppressed peoples working to liberate themselves from the
> oppression that dehumanizes both the oppressor and the oppressed. Being
> the victims of the nuclear age, we ask you to listen to the suffering
> voices silenced by attribution of priority to a precarious "peace"
> maintained by military means. The Pacific, like most Indigenous
> communities around the world, is heavily militarized. Genuine peace can
> only begin to emerge when the nations of the world start to dismantle
> military and nuclear installations now dominating the entire Pacific from
> Guam to Hawaii to French Polynesia.
>
> Nuclear disarmament can begin to heal the wounds imposed on
> communities not only in the South, but in the Northern countries as well.
> The theory and practice of nuclear deterrence have been extremely hostile
> to democratic practice. Nuclear disarmament and demilitarization will
> allow communities to participate more fully in both the political sphere
> and civil society. National military strategies, on the other hand, have
> often required the absence of free democratic thought. As you meet here,
> we urge you to take strong and courageous leadership in de-legitimizing
> what, for a whole generation, gripped our imagination as we tottered in so
> close a proximity to total nuclear annihilation. As we have heard
> oftentimes, the end of the Cold War has provided a historic opportunity to
> rid ourselves of this "near-death" experience with planned obsolescence of
> the human race.
>
> Both the NPT and subsequent efforts to re-visit it, including the
> 1995 review, produced many promises which you all undertook to achieve.
> Integrity in this instance is crucial, and we urge you all to be true to
> those promises. With the next formal Review of the NPT in the year 2000,
> it will not only be logical to set ourselves on a new footing in human
> history; it will also be a crucial symbol for beginning a new millennium
> with serious efforts to begin negotiations toward nuclear disarmament.
>
> Discussions on nuclear stockpiles must eventually give way to
> development issues. In the Pacific and in many Indigenous communities
> worldwide, it is crucial that forms of political autonomy, liberated from
> the dominance of military and nuclear installations, be the basis of this
> new discourse of development. In connection with nuclear disarmament
> therefore, we urge you to support bringing to pass the end of colonialism,
> and our right to decolonization. Self-determination of peoples and their
> communities must be the basis of state relations in the coming millennium.
>
> I am saddened by the absence of many Pacific Island nations here.
> Marshall Islands Ambassador Laurence Edwards called attention, at last
> year's NPT PrepCom, to the inability of many small island nations to come
> to Geneva. But he called for the creation of an Intersessional Working
> Group which would set in motion negotiations toward nuclear disarmament.
> This will be the most significant accomplishment of this NPT, and we
> strongly urge you to do this. The South Pacific Forum, in Rarotonga last
> September, expressed their support of the enhanced NPT review process, and
> called for more action to be taken on pursuing other efforts to proceed
> with the current efforts under NPT. We urge you to do the same.
>
> Distinguished members of the panel, within the next two weeks we
> also urge you to make the following steps that will pave the way to
> disarmament and our liberation from nuclear colonialism and racism:
>
> 1. For parties to the treaty to support and respect the Nuclear
> Weapons Free Zone Treaties in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia as an
> important disarmament measure. In the spirit of Article VII of the
> Non-Proliferation Treaty which upholds that it is the "right of any group
> of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total
> absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories", the NPT
> Prepcom should support the process of establishing such zones. Protocols
> must be signed now without further conditions.
>
> 2. As an expansion of the international cooperation outlined in
> Article IV of the NPT, with due consideration for the needs of our areas of
> the world, we recommend that the PrepCom urgently request parties to the
> Treaty in a position to do so to contribute to the environmental cleanup of
> the radioactive waste and contamination that are the inevitable consequence
> of the extraction and use of nuclear materials.
>
> We wish to assert our right to preserve the nature of our relations
> with the earth, as we have for generations as Indigenous peoples. The fate
> of the earth rests on the proper care of the lands and waters, not by
> threatening to destroy the earth and its inhabitants in order to maintain
> dominance and hegemony. The wisdom of Indigenous peoples' relationship to
> the earth is the reciprocal obligation to care for the land, as it will in
> turn care for us. The voices of Native peoples, much popularized in these
> frightening times, speak a different language than old world nationalism.
> Our claims to uniqueness, to cultural integrity, should not be
> misidentified. We are stewards not of weapons stockpiles but of the earth,
> our mother, and we offer an ancient, umbilical wisdom about how to protect
> and ensure her life.
>
> The following are words from the Final Communique of the Pacific
> Islands Non-Governmental Forum, meeting in parallel with the South Pacific
> Forum Summit in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in September 1997:
>
> "Our waters are sacred waters which sustain all life forms The sea
> is where all life comes from. The ocean unites us all, as peoples of the
> Pacific. The land is our life, our history, our culture, our future
> generations.
> Our ancestors cared for these life forms, respected them and were
> their guardians. They are our guardians still.
>
> Our air and waters are sacred - we are not the dumpsite of the world.
>
> The end of nuclear testing in the Pacific does not mean the end of
> the nuclear age. We will return from Rarotonga to our homes, to press for
> an end to the transhipment, storage and dumping of nuclear wastes in the
> Pacific, the clean up and ongoing monitoring of contaminated areas and
> support for test site workers affected by nuclear testing."
>
> Thank you.
>
> Statement Coordinator Myrla Baldonado, People's Task Force for Base Clean
> Up, Philippines
> 15D CASAL Building, Anonas Road, Project 3
> Quezon City, Philippines
> tel/fax + 63 2 435 0387
> email: basecln@gaia.psdn.org.ph
>
> Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
> International Secretariat
> 1, rue de Varembe
> C.P. 28
> 1211 Geneva 20
> Tel: +41 22 733 61 75
> Fax: +41 22 740 10 63