Navajo activists for another way, beyond coal and nuclear, after Japan

Lori Goodman of Diné CARE, lifelong environmental
activist, of Citizens saUnited Against Ruining
Our Environment, and the Navajo Nation.
Photo:  Craig Barrett

http://www.kpfa.org/

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest:  In 1979, the same year as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Navajo Nation suffered the worst uranium mining accident in U.S. history, when 1100 tons of mining tailings and 100 million gallons of radioactive water burst through an earthen dam, into the Rio Puerco, at a uranium mine in Church Rock, New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation.  


In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed the world's first and only indigenous ban on uranium mining, but mining corporations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have attempted to ignore or override that ban.  KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to lifelong Navajo environmentalist Lori Goodman, with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment about the Navajo response to the Japanese nuclear catastrophe:  


KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Lori, how have the Navajo people reacted to the Japanese nuclear power catastrophe?

The Navajo Reservation is 26,000 square miles, in
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.   With a quarter
million people, it is the largest native nation in
the U.S.

Lori Goodman:  Well, the Navajo people understand what's happening in Japan, and that the situation that they're in is because of the electrical power that they were receiving, in that case from a nuclear power plant.  And, in the case of the Navajo people, we have two of the largest coal-fired and most polluting power plants in the western United States on the Navajo Nation.  And so they see that as one and the same, and they also understand that there's a better way to generate electricity, by harnessing the sun and the wind.


KPFA:  What is the stage of your renewable energy proposal.  A lot of intellectual infrastructure but no capital source---is that still the case?

Lori Goodman:   Ah, yes, it is.  We really need the California ratepayers to go back and say "OK, we will buy energy from the Navajo Nation, from renewable energy sources."


KPFA:  And are the mining corporations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still pressuring you, trying to ignore or override the historic uranium mining ban?

Lori Goodman:  Yes, the day after it was signed, they all went into action to try and lift the ban, or sidestep.  That's going on.

Warning not to  drink
 from the Rio Puerco,
1979, after the earthen dam at
U.S. Nuclear's uranium
mine burst. Eleven
hundred tons of tailings
and 100 million gallons of
radioactive water spilled
into the the river, before
Navajo miners, working
without protective gear,
could repair it. 

KPFA:  And what's the state of the attempt to clean up the toxic mess left by the many years of uranium mining?


Lori Goodman:  Church Rock now is a Superfund site, but we have three other Superfund sites on the Navajo Nation from uranium mining.  And there's also a need to have 20 or 30 more other Superfund sites, but unfortunately the Superfund has not been reauthorized, so there are no funds there, so people are dying and getting polluted daily.

KPFA:  Lori, you're also on the Board of the Peace Development Fund.  Would you like to say anything about the connection between nuclear power, weapons, and war?


Lori Goodman:  Well, I think the Peace Development Fund sees that as one and the same.  There's no such thing as peaceful nuclear energy.  It's all destructive, as we see that being played out right now in Japan.  And I do want to say that Peace Development Fund has set up donations for the communities that live next to the nuclear power plants in Japan, because we understand those people that live next to these plants are also environmental justice communities.   So Peace Development Fund wants to ensure that those people get help because most of the time they're overlooked, just as we saw in Katrina.

KPFA:  Lori, thank you.  It's an honor to speak to you for KPFA.

Lori Goodman:  Thank you for having me.

KPFA:  Goodman also said that if California stopped using nuclear power, they would hugely reduce the pressure to overturn the Navajo uranium mining ban, the only native claim to resource sovereignty of its kind.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

KPFA Radio archive URL:  http://goo.gl/NMkAS.

Radioactive spill in Arlit, Niger, home to "significant quantities of uranium from Africa"

French physicist and anti-nuclear activist Bruno Chareyron
took this photograph of chidren in Arlit, Niger, who often lay
near garbage contaminated by France-Areva's uranium
mine there.

Arlit, Niger, in the Sahara Desert, surfaced in international news in January 2003, when George W. Bush, in his State of the Union Address, said what came to be known as "the sixteen words," which became a central pretext for the Iraq War:

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

At the time, no one noted that France had used its former colony, Niger, as its national uranium mine, ever since the conclusion of World War II, as it developed its nuclear power and weapons industries, or that it had severely contaminated Niger, home of the legendary Touareg nomads, in the process.

Last week there was news of yet another radioactive waste spill in Arlit, that has contaminated 2 hectares, or, roughly five acres, of land in Arlit, since December 11th, 2010.

Areva Uranium Mine in Niger Has Waste Spill, Greenpeace Says Saturday, December 18, 2010 Print E-mail Share Comments (0) Font | Size:  3 MOST POPULAR BLOOMBERG HEADLINES `Grotesque' Basel Rules May Kill Danish Bonds Alcoholics May Stop at One Drink With Help From Lundbeck Pill Billionaire Ambani Borrows in China With Local Rates Surging: India Credit Rio Offers $3.9 Billion for Riversdale to Get Africa Reserves Obama Says Recent Weeks Marked a `Season of Progress' Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- At least 200,000 cubic liters of radioactive waste has leaked at the Areva SA-operated Somair uranium mine in Niger, Greenpeace said today in an e-mailed statement. "Almoustapha Alhacen who carried out an inspection of the spill for NGO Aghir in'Man confirmed to Greenpeace that two hectares have been contaminated by the spill since Dec. 11," Greenpeace said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/12/18/bloomberg1376-LDMEY66K50XS01-37Q8NVU55V7GF6BDR807O9GC28.DTL#ixzz18wVeGaHe

Why did the Commonwealth accept Rwanda?

Commonwealth leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government 

meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 11.28.2009.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government, meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on 11. 28.2009, admitted Rwanda to the Commonwealth, despite the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative's objections to Rwanda's miserable human rights record, compromised courts, compromised elections, and repeated invasions to loot the mineral wealth of neighboring D.R. Congo, objections reported in the London Guardian and many other sources.

On 11.26.2009, on the BBC's Have Your Say, Interim Rwandan Democratic Green Party President Frank Habineza and Sam Okudetsu of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)  argued that the Commonwealth should not consider Rwanda's application unless and until Rwanda's upcoming election, in August 2010, is free and fair.

Professor Yash Pai Ghai, a Kenyan legal expert, wrote, in a report for the CHRI:

"We believe that overwhelming evidence, conveniently ignored by leading Commonwealth states, demonstrates that the government of Rwanda is not sufficiently committed to the protection of human rights and to democracy." 

But, that wasn't enough to block acceptance of Rwanda's application this year. 

Nor did Commonwealth leaders question Rwanda's pending gay imprisonment legislation, which makes the sincerity of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and British Prime Minister Gordon' Brown's reported "fury" over neighboring Uganda's pending gay death penalty highly doubtful.

This makes it even less likely that Uganda will be expelled from the Commonwealth, despite international outcry, if its gay death penalty bill passes, as expected.

Indeed, as reported on Slap Upside the Head, a gay blog in the U.S., Prime Ministers Harper and Brown expressed their "fury" over Uganda's gay death penalty by reproducing a U.S. government press release, much of it word for word:

Slap Upside the Head

So why did the Commonwealth, and, most of all, Britain and Canada, ignore everything they claim to stand for---human rights, democracy, secure borders, and the rule of law---to champion Rwanda, the African darling of English speaking politicians and CEOS?

Because Rwanda has served the interests of the U.S., Britain, and Canada, and their allies, since the mass slaughter known as the Rwanda Genocide of 1994, during which Rwandan exile Paul Kagame led the Rwandan Patriotic Front into Rwanda, from neighboring, English-speaking, Uganda, to seize power.   Rwanda is now re-establishing diplomatic ties with France, and the Commonwealth's French equivalent, La Francophonie, but English is now the official language of Rwanda, even though most Rwandans speak only Kinyarwanda and French.  The U.S. and its allies use Rwanda and its proxy army to secure their interests in the region, which include:

--Rwanda's rich agricultural land, planted in coffee, tea, and biofuels for export, while Rwandans go hungry,

--natural gas reserves,  an estimated $20 billion worth, in Lake Kivu, on the border of Rwanda and D.R. Congo,

--the unparalleled mineral wealth of Eastern D.R. Congo, including fossil fuels, uranium, coltan, cassiterite, diamonds, and, the world's cobalt reserves, in the Katanga Copper Belt.

The U.S. has long been committed to controlling the cobalt reserves in the Katanga Copper Belt to ensure U.S. military industries ongoing ability to manufacture for war.