Antinuclear

“Our ancestors knew of the uranium,” he said, “They called the places (of uranium deposit) ‘Poison Country.’ It meant: ‘Don’t go there to hunt. Don’t go there to collect food. Don’t go there.’ “

However, in 1975, the uranium deposit beneath the Arabunna people’s land was “discovered” by Western Mining Corp. Despite opposition from Aboriginal groups, in 1988 the company started mining the deposit, which is the largest uranium deposit in the world. In 2005, the Olympic Dam mine, as it is called, was taken over by the world’s biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, and it currently produces 4,000 tons of uranium oxide a year.

Watts said that he is very concerned about the negative impact that radiation released from the uranium mine is having on the health of people living close to the mine and those who hunt wild animals for food.

And though he admitted that he cannot prove the link between the radiation from the mine and health risks, Watts added that it takes many years after exposure before radiation causes diseases such as cancer. He also warned that it is possible that workers at uranium mines in Australia have been exposed to radiation.

“Once, at the Ranger uranium mine (in the Northern Territory), the company put a pipe in the wrong way so that the radioactive water was going into the shower and drinking water for the workers,” Watts said. In 2005, the company that manages the site, Energy Resources of Australia, was convicted for breaching environmental guidelines.

In addition to the fear of radiation, Watts pointed out significant damage to the local environment in South Australia.

“We had a lot of streams and springs in our country … But we have no springs anymore,” Watts said angrily. “All of them are dry, because they (BHP Billiton) used all of the water in our country for free.”

Watts also stressed that even before uranium mining began in South Australia, Aboriginal people in the state suffered from the nuclear tests conducted by Britain in the 1950s and 1960s at Maralinga, part of the Woomera weapons testing range.

In the ’50s, Watts’ grandmother and mother lived near the test sites where, he maintains, they were exposed to a strong wind that came from the blast of a nuclear test.

“My grandmother died when she was 34 years old. She had six children. Her youngest daughter, my auntie, who was born after the nuclear test, cannot have children,” Watts said.

According to Watts, after the nuclear test his mother gave birth to a boy, his younger brother. But the boy only lived for a few days. Watts believes the boy’s body was then taken somewhere by government officials to be examined for radiation.

“So they knew, before my little brother died, where my mother was and my father was. So we were like living breeding experiments,” he said.

During a symposium at the nuclear conference in Yokohama, Watts voiced his sympathy for the victims of radiation in other countries, as well as his own. At the symposium, speakers from around the world talked about their work with victims of radiation, including those who suffered the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear tests in Tahiti and the Marshall Islands, and the nuclear power disaster in Chernobyl…..

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120219x3.html