315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: the shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific
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315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: the shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific, https://theconversation.com/315-nuclear-bombs-and-ongoing-suffering-the-shameful-history-of-nuclear-testing-in-australia-and-the-pacific-148909, Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor, Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Dimity Hawkins, PhD Candidate, Swinburne University of Technology
November 3, 2020 The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons received its 50th ratification on October 24, and will therefore come into force in January 2021. A historic development, this new international law will ban the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.Unfortunately the nuclear powers — the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — haven’t signed on to the treaty. As such, they are not immediately obliged to help victims and remediate contaminated environments, but others party to the treaty do have these obligations. The shifting norms around this will hopefully put ongoing pressure on nuclear testing countries to open records and to cooperate with accountability measures. For the people of the Pacific region, particularly those who bore the brunt of nuclear weapons testing during the 20th century, it will bring a new opportunity for their voices to be heard on the long-term costs of nuclear violence. The treaty is the first to enshrine enduring commitments to addressing their needs. From 1946, around 315 nuclear tests were carried out in the Pacific by the US, Britain and France. These nations’ largest ever nuclear tests took place on colonised lands and oceans, from Australia to the Marshall Islands, Kiribati to French Polynesia.
The impacts of these tests are still being felt today. All nuclear tests cause harm Studies of nuclear test workers and exposed nearby communities around the world consistently show adverse health effects, especially increased risks of cancer. The total number of global cancer deaths as a result of atmospheric nuclear test explosions has been estimated at between 2 million and 2.4 million, even though these studies used radiation risk estimates that are now dated and likely underestimated the risk. The number of additional non-fatal cancer cases caused by test explosions is similar. As confirmed in a large recent study of nuclear industry workers in France, the UK and US, the numbers of radiation-related deaths due to other diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes, is also likely to be similar. Britain conducted 12 nuclear test explosions in Australia between 1952 and 1957, and hundreds of minor trials of radioactive and toxic materials for bomb development up to 1963. These caused untold health problems for local Aboriginal people who were at the highest risk of radiation. Many of them were not properly evacuated, and some were not informed at all. We may never know the full impact of these explosions because in many cases, as the Royal Commission report on British Nuclear Tests in Australia found in 1985: “the resources allocated for Aboriginal welfare and safety were ludicrous, amounting to nothing more than a token gesture”. But we can listen to the survivors.
His daughter, Karina Lester, is an ambassador for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in Australia, and continues to be driven by her family’s experience. She writes: For decades now my family have campaigned and spoken up against the harms of nuclear weapons because of their firsthand experience of the British nuclear tests […] Many Aboriginal people suffered from the British nuclear tests that took place in the 1950s and 1960s and many are still suffering from the impacts today. More than 16,000 Australian workers were also exposed. A key government-funded study belatedly followed these veterans over an 18-year period from 1982. Despite the difficulties of conducting a study decades later with incomplete data, it found they had 23% higher rates of cancer and 18% more deaths from cancers than the general population. An additional health impact in Pacific island countries is the toxic disease “ciguatera”, caused by certain microscopic plankton at the base of the marine food chain, which thrive on damaged coral. Their toxins concentrate up the food chain, especially in fish, and cause illness and occasional deaths in people who eat them. In the Marshall Islands, Kiritimati and French Polynesia, outbreaks of the disease among locals have been associated with coral damage caused by nuclear test explosions and the extensive military and shipping infrastructure supporting them. Pacific survivors of nuclear testing haven’t been focused solely on addressing their own considerable needs for justice and care; they’ve been powerful advocates that no one should suffer as they have ever again, and have worked tirelessly for the eradication of nuclear weapons. It’s no surprise independent Pacific island nations are strong supporters of the new treaty, accounting for ten of the first 50 ratifications. Negligence and little accountabilitySome nations that have undertaken nuclear tests have provided some care and compensation for their nuclear test workers; only the US has made some provisions for people exposed, though only for mainland US residents downwind of the Nevada Test Site. No testing nation has extended any such arrangement beyond its own shores to the colonised and minority peoples it put in harm’s way. Nor has any testing nation made fully publicly available its records of the history, conduct and effects of its nuclear tests on exposed populations and the environment. These nations have also been negligent by quickly abandoning former test sites. There has been inadequate clean-up and little or none of the long-term environmental monitoring needed to detect radioactive leakage from underground test sites into groundwater, soil and air. One example among many is the Runit concrete dome in the Marshall Islands, which holds nuclear waste from US testing in the 1940s and 50s. It’s increasingly inundated by rising sea levels, and is leaking radioactive material. The treaty provides a light in a dark time. It contains the only internationally agreed framework for all nations to verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons. It’s our fervent hope the treaty will mark the increasingly urgent beginning of the end of nuclear weapons. It is our determined expectation that our country will step up. Australia has not yet ratified the treaty, but the bitter legacy of nuclear testing across our country and region should spur us to join this new global effort. |
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A mixed blessing – the sudden departure of Australia’s nuclear high priest, Dr Adi Paterson
I am reminded of Hilaire Belloc’s advice to the young – ”Always keep a hold of Nurse, for fear of 
finding something worse”.
Among other sycophantic tributes, Dr Adi Paterson is lauded for encouraging women into the nuclear industry.
Adi Paterson spent several years in South Africa, trying to establish Small Nuclear Reactors. It turned out to be Tan expensive and useless exercise. Then he came to Australia, with the same dream. He quietly signed Australia up to the Framework Agreement for International Collaboration on Research and Development of Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems, without any consultation, discussion in Parliament (which rubber-stamped this later).
He quietly organised Australia’s participation with China in developing small nuclear reactors.
He rubbished renewable energy at a solar conference.
He went to Kimba to do propaganda for the nuclear waste dump plan, but admitted that there was no economic benefit in the low level waste dump, so the intermediate level waste was the real intention.
Leadership changes at ANSTO, Statement from the ANSTO Chair: Dr Annabelle Bennett 9 Sep 20, Dr Adi Paterson has resigned as CEO of ANSTO slightly ahead of time of his term. He has decided to take a period of leave before formally finishing. ……..
Mr Shaun Jenkinson will continue as acting CEO, while the Board undertakes a global search for a permanent CEO. https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/leadership-changes-at-ansto?fbclid=IwAR0cLOwne84D7XJP9UGwrf1aVAxyXgStAB6502zPYUgsqxdbjUuyUR3MYjo
Adrian “Adi” Paterson is a South African scientist and engineer best known for his work on Pebble Bed modular reactor research and development. He was appointed CEO of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in 2009
He emigrated to Australia in 2008 and was appointed Chief Executive Officer at ANSTO in March 2009.
Regina McKenzie comments on Felicity Wright’s submission about the National Radioactive WAste Dump
Regina McKenzie It not only aged me, but I have a horrible sickness due to the horrible stress and the personal attacks , this will stay with me, might even be the cause to blow my candle out, I watch Kimba with a sad heart, knowing all the heartache and the tremendous weight on the people’s back , Felicity Flowerdew that’s a strong letter from a strong woman, who I am proud to say is my friend https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/4288145791199185/?comment_id=4290354100978354¬if_id=1589981324123690¬if_t=group_comment
NUCLEAR WASTE DEBATE DIVIDING COMMUNITIES
NUCLEAR WASTE DEBATE DIVIDING COMMUNITIES Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA The Transcontinental November 06, 2019, My name is Ken McKenzie. The Flinders Ranges and Port Augusta have always been my home. I now reside in Flinders House in Quorn.
I wish to say that the radioactive waste dump being proposed for our region is going to be very dangerous for all of us and for generations to come if it is allowed to go ahead.
This is something for all South Australians both black and white to be involved in as it will have an effect one way or another on every one of us.
The area where they want to put this dump is on my tribal land. My ancestors are buried here.
The area also holds a huge connection to our women as this is their land overall. The government do not listen when we say we don’t want it.
The earthquakes and flooding stories told to me in our language goes back into time itself.
This is not the place for a radioactive waste dump. If the Lord doesn’t come down in the next few years, this is going to be a threat to all of us and our future generations to come.
I am also very concerned for people over at Kimba who are going thru the same grief that’s happening to us and my family over here.
The money the government are throwing at us, trying to get us to forfeit our land is insulting and disrespectful to us all.
They have divided my family and our communities, and now we hear that without the much more dangerous intermediate radioactive waste being dumped here as well, that there is hardly any value to the community for putting it here.
Why didn’t they tell the communities all this in the first place. We didn’t want it four years ago and we certainly don’t want it now.
This whole process needs to be scrapped and the government needs to look at a new way to get people to ever trust them again.
A Maralinga nuclear veteran’s grim story
Maralinga nuclear bomb test survivor reveals truth of what happened in the SA desert https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger/east-hills/maralinga-nuclear-bomb-test-survivor-reveals-truth-of-what-happened-in-the-sa-desert/news-story/697b17f6d3427a78aa0262b09727c169, 24 Apr 19
The nuclear bomb tests, under British Government control, at Maralinga in far west South Australia in the 1950s were conducted at the highest level of secrecy. But they had thousands of witnesses. Most were Australian servicemen, innocently used as guinea pigs and exposed to deadly radiation. Craig Cook talks to a survivor, one of the last of a group of men who built the Maralinga camp as part of 23 Construction Squadron and watched in awe as the bombs were exploded, little knowing they were risking their lives and the futures of their children.
Tony Spruzen knew the drill at the top secret Maralinga facility in the South Australian desert in the spring of 1956.
Just like hundreds of others at the nuclear site at 11-mile camp during Operation Buffalo, he was told to turn his back and cover his eyes to protect himself from the gigantic glare of the exploding atomic bomb.
What they didn’t tell the Australian Army sapper was, at the moment of the flash of detonation, he would see the bones of his hand through his tightly shut eyelids.
“It was like a massive x-ray,” Tony, 83, from Glengowrie says. ‘Unlike anything I’d ever known before.”
A week after One Tree, on October 6, 1956, Spruzen witnessed the detonation of Buffalo 2, named Marcoo.
The bomb was only a tenth the size of One Tree but this time was detonated directly above and just under the ground.
“The bomb was in an amphitheatre of hills and we were far closer to that one, maybe only 200 yards away,” he remembers.
“We were close enough to see the trenches with dummy soldiers in them holding rifles and fake aeroplanes and tanks used to test the blast effect.
“And we could see the scientists walking around in their white suits checking out the site before and afterwards but we were just in khaki shorts and short sleeved shorts. Even the dignitaries had no protection.”
Every hour, from five hours out, an elaborate PA system across the complex announced the timing of the bomb detonation.
In the final 30 seconds, and with a rising and excited inclination, the voice on the PA dramatically counted….ten, nine, eight…down to zero.
When Marcoo exploded at 7am it only took a few seconds for a heavy shower of dust to descend on the witnesses.
“We had this large piece of litmus paper attached to our shirts,” Spruzen recalls
Spruzen, originally from Victoria and a carpenter by trade, enlisted in the Army at just 16.
Four year later he was at Maralinga as part of a detachment of 23 Construction Squadron, an acclaimed unit of the Royal Australian Engineers and exclusively raised in South Australia.
Around 40 young men were selected from the unit to build a desert tent camp with cook houses and latrines for the Commonwealth military ‘high-ups’ who were having their first look at the impact of the devastating nuclear weapon.
Around 200km from the ocean, the tent city gained the facetious name of the ‘Sea View Holiday Camp’.
“It was an adventure…we were all excited,” he recalls.
“A lot of young single guys together and we had some fun.”
The lads knew it was serious too as this was a hush-hush operation. They weren’t even allowed to take a camera along for snapshots so Spruzen has no personal photos from Maralinga.
“Then we all turned around to see this mushroom cloud climbing into the sky. The next thing was the blast. The boom was deafening…and then the wind came about thirty seconds after that blowing dust and soil and debris all over us.”
But he does have a terrible reminder of his three months spent in far western South Australia.
“Of the 40 men who went up with me I only know of three of us still around,” he says. “The rest have all died – many from cancers.”
The first Maralinga bomb, Buffalo 1, with the nickname One Tree, was detonated after being dropped from a 31m high tower.
At 15 kiloton it was the same size as Little Boy, the bomb dropped by the US air force that demolished the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945, killing more than 100,000 instantly and tens of thousands slowly in the aftermath from burns and radiation poisoning.
“They said, keep an eye on that and if it changes to pink come and see us. Well it turned pink for every one of us.
“Had I have known what I know now I wouldn’t have been so close.”
Transferred to Sydney on a training course, Spruzen missed the final two detonations at Maralinga that year: on October 11, 1956, Buffalo 3 (Kite) was released by a Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant bomber, the first drop of a British nuclear weapon from an aircraft; and then on October 22, and again dropped from the 31m tower, (Buffalo 4) Breakaway exploded.
There were a total of seven nuclear desert tests at Maralinga performed during Operations Buffalo and Antler.
The 1985 McClelland Royal Commission heavily criticised the detonations, declaring the weather conditions were inappropriate and led to the widespread scattering of radioactive material.
The radioactive cloud from Buffalo 1 reached more than 11,000m into the air and with a northerly wind blowing radioactivity was detected across Adelaide.
Radioactive dust clouds from other bombs were detected in Northern Territory, Queensland and across New South Wales, as far away as Sydney, 2500km from Maralinga.
Around 12,000 Australian servicemen served at British nuclear test sites in the southern hemisphere between 1952 and 1963.
In recent years, the British Government’s claim that they never used humans “for guinea pig-type experiments” in nuclear weapons trials in Australia has been revealed to be a lie.
Tony Spruzen has struggled to come to terms with being placed in danger by his own government who had full knowledge of the consequences of exposure to radiation.
“Once we all found out later what we’d been exposed to at Maralinga it makes you very angry,” he says.
“We believed them when we were told we would be safe — but we haven’t been.”
Spruzen met his wife Shirley, the daughter of an army veteran, in Adelaide where they settled after marriage in June 1960. He left the army seven months later to work in civil construction. He thought his Maralinga days were well behind him but soon after they came to haunt him.
In the first four years of marriage, the couple agonisingly suffered six miscarriages, including twins.
Alarm bells started ringing when he was sent a survey from Veterans Affairs asking about his general health and, specifically his history of cancers.
“It turned out those involved in the atomic tests had a 30 per cent higher chance than getting cancers than the general public,” he says.
“Most of those got them within the first five years and a majority of those were dead before a decade had passed.”
Spruzen, who eventually had three children with Shirley, didn’t get cancer at that time, although he has since had several melanomas removed.
But when his son was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at the age of 41, he wondered about the possibility of faulty genes, damaged by exposure to radiation, as has been documented in Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs, jumping a generation.
“My son was told by the QEH (Queen Elizabeth Hospital) there was nothing could be done for him but we went up to Queensland and after a bone marrow transfer from his sister he survived,” he adds.
“A decade on he’s working as strong as he has but I don’t think his condition was a coincidence given my history.
“There’s been nothing (compensation) for those of us who were there although they gave us a white card for our cancers and now we have a (full health) gold card.”
Ken Daly, President Royal Australian Engineers Association says it is the least the men, who literally put their bodies on the line, deserve.
“You get these young men, aged around 25-30, with a history of exposure to radiation, coming down with cancers in those numbers and you just know what has caused it,” he says.
“Many died within a few years of being exposed to the fallout and many passed on generational health problems and birth defects to their children.”
Mr Daly, who was based at Warradale Barracks for 15 years, where 23 Construction was based until being disbanded in the early 1960s, hadn’t heard of the Squadron until around five years ago.
Since then he has been central to the group gaining due recognition.
In its earliest days the Squadron, with a strength of eight officers and 160 in other ranks, built the El Alamein Army Reserve camp, part of which later became the Baxter Detention Centre, outside of Port Augusta.
It also assisted the South Australian community by providing aid during bush fires, the grasshopper plague of 1955, and significant infrastructure construction.
During the record flood of 1956, while those squad members were at Maralinga, the rest of 23 Construction were out sandbagging River Murray towns and then cleaning up after the water receded.
In 2011, the Royal Australian Engineers constructed a memorial at Warradale to all who have served in its ranks.
This year a bronzed engineer’s slouch hat, of actual size, by Western Australian sculptor and former army engineer Ron Gomboc will be incorporated into the memorial.
“The hat will be mounted on the memorial in such a way it will look like it’s suspended in mid-air,” Daly adds.
“It acknowledges the ultimate sacrifice of the more than 1250 engineers who died in World War I and the remarkable service and sacrifice of 23 Construction Squadron that has never been recognised before.”
The slouch hat, costing $6,000 and one of only six to have been cast, will be unveiled during a service at Warradale Barracks at midday on Sunday April 28.
Contact Ken Daly at dailydouble@bigpond.com for further details.
Yes, Prime Minister, I’m striking from school: consider it a climate lesson
Canberra Times, By Veronica Hester 29 November 2018 I am Veronica, 15 years old, from Scott Morrison’s electorate. Despite our Prime Minister’s calls for students not to strike from school on Friday, we’re choosing to no longer be powerless. We will be striking with thousands of other students, to show we will not stand for our government’s inaction on climate change………Seeing this, we students do not shout at each other across the classroom. We sit in a shocked silence. Afterwards, we shout, with our signs and our demands. Because how can an educated person know all we know, and do nothing?
Mr Morrison and his government continue to overlook the danger of climate change, while not seeming to have a problem helping coal miners such as Adani dig up and burn more coal. It’s surreal to watch nothing significant happening on the parliamentary floor, when the solutions have been made so clear. We are one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world, yet our government chooses to burn more coal.
When Mr Morrison refuses to implement a climate policy that keeps fossil fuels in the ground and transition to 100 per cent renewable energy, he isn’t representing us, our community, or the majority of Australians who want urgent climate action.
Tackling climate change isn’t just about looking out for our young people. We’ll all live with extreme heat and changing weather patterns, not to mention the sense of helplessness in losing our natural world.
By making a stand and organising our communities, we can push our politicians to represent us, not lumps of coal…….That is all we want – for a serious problem to be treated seriously by our politicians. We need the fire of climate change to be confronted, not left to engulf my generation.
Veronica Hester is a school student from the Sutherland Shire. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/yes-prime-minister-i-m-striking-from-school-consider-it-a-climate-lesson-20181127-p50iqd.html
Friday November 30 – Australian students Strike For Climate Action
Students in each state capital and across 20 regional Australian centres will walk out of their classrooms this week to tell politicians that more of the same climate inaction is not good enough.
Here are some of the lessons they hope to teach.
‘If we really want a better planet Earth’ Continue reading
A cry from a brave indigenous heart
Heather Mckenzie Stuart Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 4 June 18 Hmm, Regina McKenzie Vivianne C McKenzie I feel that our intelligence has been insulted by DIIS especially how we have been disrespected and ignored in our stand against the proposed nuclear waste dump Barndioota on Adnyamathanha yarta.
Honestly people, we might be Aboriginal and are still part of the flora and fauna and not in the Australian Constitution, but we have a mind of our own and can go between the non Aboriginal world and our culture.
We started our campaign against the dump talking to media etc, attending protest marches, visiting politicians. Vivianne and Regina went to Melbourne to see the then minister Frydenburg. Regina and my grand daughter went to Canberra campaigning with others. Regina’s daughter attended functions in Sydney.
I dropped out attending functions interstate, due to the loss of my only son. The grief of a loss of a child, no matter how old is horrendous, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but at the time, the DIIS lot didn’t care about me my feelings, my hurt, my sorrow as a human being, a mother who was in mourning, they still persisted liaisoning with my family organisation and visited family homes in Port Augusta causing unrest among our once close family. During this time, culturally at different times, I should have had my loved ones around me, but due to the unrest among everyone that those lot caused, me and my family were left on our own. Everyones world was turned upside down as we had already lost a dear family member 4 months before my son’s passing, we were already grieving for a nephew.
I love all my family no matter what, but I with my sisters and my family will trudge on against what we believe in and that’s standing up and say NO to a nuclear waste dump on Adnyamathanha yarta. We will never forget the hurt that has been caused through this dump by DIIS dividing and conquering. We have had enough of our family been destroyed bad enough our mum was stolen from her family. #WeWillKeepSayingNoToNuclearWaste#EnoughIsEnough #WeWillNeverGiveUp https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/
Maralinga Britain’s guinea pig land for toxic nuclear bomb testing
Australia’s Least Likely Tourist Spot: A Test Site for Atom Bombs, NYT,
Group of Montebello nuclear test veterans have no medical insurance, not entitled to gold card
Montebello nuclear testing veterans exposed to radiation vent anger over gold card refusal http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-15/nuclear-testing-veterans-hold-protest-at-wa-parliament/9551658 By: Jacob Kagi My people are still suffering from Australia’s secret nuclear testing
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/my-people-are-still-suffering-from-australias-secret-nuclear-testing-20171208-h01a3l.html Sue Coleman-Haseldine,
My name is Sue Coleman-Haseldine. I was born into poverty on the margins of Australian society on the Aboriginal mission of Koonibba in 1951. At this time my people were not allowed to vote and we had very few means to be understood, let alone be heard.
I was born into one of the oldest living cultures known on Earth and into a place that I love – a dusty, arid paradise on the edge of a rugged coastline. Our land and waters are central to our outlook and religion and provide the basis for my people’s health and happiness.
And I was born just before the desert lands to our north were bombed by the deadliest weapons on Earth in an extensive, secretive and devastating manner by the Australian and British governments.
In the 1950s, areas known as Emu Fields and Maralinga were used to test nine full-scale atomic bombs and for 600 other nuclear tests, leaving the land highly radioactive. We weren’t on ground zero, but the dust didn’t stay in one place. The winds brought the poison to us and many others.
Aboriginal people, indeed many people at that time, knew nothing about the effects of radiation. We didn’t know the invisible killer was falling amongst us. Six decades on, my small town of Ceduna is being called the Cancer Capital of Australia. There are so many deaths in our region of various cancers. My grand-daughter and I have had our thyroids removed, and there are many others in our area with thyroid problems. Fertility issues appear common.
But there has been no long-term assessment of the health impacts in the region and even those involved in the botched clean-ups of the test sites have no recourse because they cannot prove their illness is linked with exposure to nuclear weapons testing.
The impact of the Maralinga and Emu Fields testing has had far-reaching consequences that are still being felt today. Ask a young person from my area, “What do you think you will die from?” The answer is, “Cancer, everyone else is”.
I have lived my life learning about the bomb tests and also learning that the voice of my people and others won’t always be understood or heard. But I learnt from old people now gone that speaking up is important and by joining with others from many different places and backgrounds that our voices can be amplified.
Through these steps I found the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), or perhaps ICAN found me.
ICAN – as an organisation, as a collective of passionate, educated people working for a clear goal – has been so important to me. To know that my story and my voice helps bring recognition to the past and can shape the future of nuclear prohibition has strengthened my resolve.
Being involved in ICAN has been a double-edged sword. On one hand and for the first time in my life, I no longer feel alone or isolated. I have met others from many parts of the globe who have similar stories and experiences and who are passionate advocates for a nuclear-free future.
But the flip side of this is my understanding of just how widespread and just how devastating the nuclear weapons legacy is across the globe. To learn that so many weapons still exist sends fear to my heart. ICAN is a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – in a short time we have gathered support for a treaty to finally outlaw nuclear weapons and help eliminate the nuclear threat.
The vision was reached in part with so many nations adopting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017. And we should celebrate this win and the opportunity to work together to stop the suffering and assist countries to make amends to nuclear weapons victims by acknowledging the permanent damage done to land, health and culture.
Unfortunately, the Australian government, along with other first world nations, didn’t even participate in the treaty negotiations, and they haven’t signed the treaty yet, but over time we feel confident they will.
A lot has changed since I was born. Aboriginal people now have the right to vote in Australia, but still we battle for understanding about our culture and the Australian nuclear weapons legacy. My home is still remote and most of my people still poor. But we are also no longer alone. We have the means and the will to participate – to share and to learn and to bring about lasting change.
ICAN’s work is not done, our work is not done. We will continue to work together. A world without nuclear weapons is a world we need and are creating. I stand here in hope and gratitude for the opportunity to participate. I stand here with pride and I stand here for our future and the generations to come.
Sue Coleman-Haseldine is a Kokatha woman who lives in Ceduna, South Australia. This is an extract of her speech in Oslo marking the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN.
Yami Lester’s daughters continue his fight against the nuclear industry
Yami’s daughters take up anti-nuclear fight https://nit.com.au/yamis-daughters-take-anti-nuclear-fight/ – Wendy Caccetta –reporter@nit.com.auSisters Karina and Rose Lester know all too well the tragedy nuclear weapons can bring.
Their late father Yami Lester, a Yankunytjatjara man of northern South Australia, lost his sight after 
being exposed as a boy to nuclear testing by the British Government at Maralinga in remote SA.
He went on to become a prominent anti-nuclear campaigner.
Now his daughters have taken up the battle, collecting and sharing stories that have helped the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) win a Nobel Peace Prize.
The prestigious prize will be presented in Oslo on December 10, with an event at Melbourne Town Hall to be held the same day.
Karina Lester, who lives in Adelaide, said when she was growing up her father did not talk much at home about what had happened to him as a boy when the nuclear testing took place.
But in public Mr Lester, who passed away in July at the age of 75, felt it was important to share with the world the events that shook the Wallatina community in the ’50s.
“There’s a role a parent plays in protecting your children from really knowing some of the sad, sad stories that did take place across our community,” Ms Lester said.
“He spoke a bit about where the camp was, he remembers that day, he remembers the ground shaking and this black mist rolling and the fear in the community.
“There was a huge loss for us as an Aboriginal community and we were so badly done by when the British came in and tested in our backyard that we still suffer to this day.”
Ms Lester said conditions in the community deteriorated over a week after the testing.“When the fallout happened, that evening, people were violently ill,” she said. “There was a lot of vomiting going around in the camp. People became sick. Their eyes started getting sore and tender.
“By day two, people were really starting to suffer. By week two, people’s eyes were either burnt out or people had bad burns on their bodies. “There were lots of rashes appearing and there was a trail of black-like soot that fell over the whole of the community.
“The oranges had shrivelled up and by that week were non-edible.”
Ms Lester said the story was a painful one, but needed to be heard. She said it was important to take a stand against anything nuclear from weapons to waste storage facilities. The Lester sisters gave NIT permission to reproduce the photo of their late father.
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.net/
Submissions to the Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Management Amendment Bill. 2020. Go to our summaries of significant submissions, conveniently listed in alphabetical order at Kimba waste dump submissions or see all submissions listed at Read the Submissions
