Reprinted from The Common Good, No 9, Spring 1998

www.catholicworker.org.nz

 

EDITORIAL - Ploughshares Action - Blockade Of Australian Uranium Mine

Two Christian activists were arrested at the Jabiluka uranium mine in north western Australia during protests against the mining and export of uranium for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Jabiluka is located in the world heritage listed wilderness of Kakadu in the Northern Territory, 280kms east of Darwin. The Mirrar people, the traditional owners of Jabiluka, have repeatedly said ‘No’ to the uranium mine. It is their land and they have said ‘No’ insistently, resolutely, repeatedly for more than 20 years. Beginning on 24 March 1998, the aboriginal owners have attempted to blockade the mine and have sought outside support in their campaign. There have been more than 600 arrests. The blockade camp reached a peak of 500 over the university break period and is currently about 300 strong.

Ciaron O’Reilly and Treena Lenthall, both of Brisbane, have been remanded in custody on charges of trespass and criminal damage. Both are in prison awaiting trial in Darwin later this year.

Their action took place in the early hours of Sunday morning, 9 August 1998, on the 53rd anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. They sought the non-violent disarmament of uranium equipment at the mine. Both poured human blood on the equipment, symbolic of the blood spilt by

Nuclear weapon strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki;

Nuclear weapons testing in Pakistan, India, Australia, the Nevada Desert, the Pacific and Khazakstan;

Nuclear accidents at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and nuclear waste dumps worldwide;

The use of depleted uranium rounds against the people of Iraq that has left radiated battlefields and the citizenry with soaring cancer rates.

They released a statement before their Nagasaki Day action:

The uranium mines of Australia are the first stage of the nuclear war assembly line. Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) is attempting to open Jabiluka uranium mine in Australia - and with it the floodgates to a potential 20 more uranium mines. ERA has 46% of its present contracts with the United States, the world’s largest possessor and producer of nuclear weapons systems. The US is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons to bomb civilian populations. The US has made no apology for its nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead it has invested its immense wealth, resources and scientific talent to make sure it can repeat these atrocities on a grander scale with increased efficiency. ERA also sells uranium to the nuclear armed nations of Britain and France.

Both the US and Britain also fired thousands of rounds made from depleted uranium during the 1991 Gulf War. This toxic depleted uranium has left much of the desert radioactive. It has left thousands of Iraqi civilians and US and British veterans with cancer, leukaemia and radioactive poisoning.

There has never been a guarantee that Australian uranium won’t be used in nuclear weapons, only government lies, smokescreens and denial. The ‘peaceful’ nuclear industry is the core component of the nuclear arms race. The French defence minister pointed out the hypocrisy of Australia allowing the production of uranium while condemning French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll.

Nuclear weapons and war are constructed on a huge international assembly line where participants shed any responsibility of the end product. The Australian Government’s ethical rationale is similar to that of the heroin dealer, ‘If we don’t sell it to them, some one else will.’

The uranium mines of Australia are the first stage of the nuclear war assembly line. Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) is attempting to open Jabiluka uranium mine in Australia - and with it the floodgates to a potential 20 more uranium mines.

We come to the beautiful wilderness of Kakadu to resist our government’s complicity and the profiteering of ERA. We come in non-violent repentance of own silent complicity. We have come to take responsibility for disarmament at the very beginning of the nuclear war assembly line. We have come to confront Australia’s original sin of on-going theft from, and genocide of, the aboriginal people. We have come to confront what threatens to be Australia’s final sin - its complicity in nuclear war making and radioactive poisoning of our ecology.

We have been inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy to ‘beat swords into ploughshares’. We have been mandated by Jesus’s commandment ‘to love our enemies’ - and by implication, not to prepare to incinerate and poison their children. Today, we attempt to bring do the hammer on the very beginnings of this uranium mine. We act in the tradition of more than 70 Ploughshares actions since 1980, that have initiated nonviolent disarmament of the nuclear and interventionary war machine.

The nuclear assembly line begins here at the Jabiluka uranium mine. Today, we end it here with this nonviolent act of disarmament - the prophecy of Isaiah. The road from Jabiluka leads to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Mururoa. With this act of disarmament we begin to prepare the way of the Lord, a path of nonviolent resistance towards building justice and peace.

We act out of solidarity with Phil Berrigan, Mordechai Vanunu, Susan Crane, Fr. Carl Kabat, Fr Steve Kelly and all the brothers and sisters imprisoned for the sake of peace and justice. We act on behalf of a disarmed world. We claim a future from the despair, malaise and fatalism that abounds. We celebrate the resurrection, the victory of life over death.

You have been told what Yahweh requires of you: to do justice, to love mercy and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:3)