Australia’s environment groups call for abandoning sales of uranium to India
URANIUM SALES TO INDIA Friends of the Earth is today releasing a joint statement (attached) from leading environment groups calling on the government to abandon plans to sell uranium to India or any other country refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty − the centrepiece of the global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament architecture.
The statement notes the harm suffered by Indigenous people, workers and the poor at the hands of the nuclear industry in India; brutal state repression of peoples’ movements against nuclear projects; and the inadequacy of labour laws and environmental protection regulations in India.
Gem Romuld, Nuclear-Free Campaign Co-ordinator with Friends of the Earth, said: “Having visited India and spoken with many people living in the shadow of dangerous nuclear plants, and witnessed their heroic resistance to brutal state repression, I am appalled that the Abbott government is implicating Australia in these gross human rights abuses.”
“There is strong public opposition to uranium sales to India − a 2012 Lowy Institute poll found that 61% of Australians opposed uranium sales to India, with just 33% in support. A 2008 Lowy Institute found that 88% agreed that Australia should only export uranium to countries which have signed the NPT.”
“India accounts for just 1.4% of world uranium demand.[1] Claims from government and industry that the uranium deal will result in a jobs bonanza and significant export revenue must be exposed for the lies they are. Likewise, claims that uranium sales to India will indirectly boost trade by fostering trust and goodwill ignore the fact that bilateral trade grew six-fold from 2000−2011 despite Australia’s principled ban on uranium exports to countries refusing to sign the NPT.”[2]
“India’s nuclear safety regime is ‘fraught with grave risks’, India’s Public Accounts Committee said in a report last year, adding that the country’s nuclear regulator was weak and under-resourced. In 2012, India’s Auditor-General found that 60% of regulatory inspections for operating nuclear power plants in India were either delayed or not undertaken at all.”
“There are further risks arising from domestic and international political tensions. For example, transport of uranium ore from India’s Bagjata mine to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited processing plant was suspended after an ore-laden truck was torched by Maoists on 7 May 2014.”
“Australia should be helping India shift towards a future that it renewable[3] not radioactive,” concluded Ms Romuld.
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1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
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