Shooting down Canada's peaceful image
By Jennifer Kennedy
The uranium-mining industry in Canada is largely based in
Saskatchewan OTTAWA
Made in Canada that's what one nuclear specialist says about the uranium
that rained down on Yugoslavia.
"There is absolutely no doubt that every bit of depleted uranium (in the
munitions used in the Balkans) has Canadian uranium in it," says Gordon
Edwards, president of the Montreal-based Canadian Coalition for Nuclear
Responsibility.
For a country that prides itself on its reputation as a peacekeeper, Canada
isn't so pious after all, adds the high-profile anti-nuclear activist.
"I think Canada could do much better. We are not as innocent as we
would like people to think." Last March, NATO revealed that its forces dropped
about 31,000 depleted-uranium bombs or shells during the 78-day campaign in
Kosovo in 1999. NATO also acknowledges that it used depleted-uranium ammunition
in Bosnia in 1994-95.
More than a dozen European soldiers who served in Kosovo have recently died
of leukemia. Some doctors and NATO veterans are blaming the deaths on contact
with depleted uranium, a radioactive waste.
Bombs or reactors
Uranium, the world's heaviest metal, has only two uses, says Edwards in
nuclear bombs or reactors. Before it can be used, it must be enriched, meaning
its composition has to be changed. This process produces depleted uranium as
waste.
For every pound of enriched uranium, four pounds of depleted-uranium waste
are produced, says Edwards.
Canada is the world's largest producer and exporter of uranium, according to
Statistics Canada data. This country produces about 30 per cent of the world's
supply, and ships almost as much of the metal as it does salt or cement.
Saskatchewan is home to two of the world's largest uranium deposits.
In 1999, the latest year for which data is available, Canada shipped more
than 10 million kilograms of uranium, worth about $500 million.
About 60 per cent of Canada's uranium exports go to the U.S., where the
depleted-uranium ammunition used in the former Yugoslavia was made.
Canada exports uranium to the U.S. to be enriched because Canada has no
enrichment plants. But Canada has no jurisdiction over how the U.S. uses the
depleted uranium left from the enrichment process.
"It melts its way through armour." Depleted uranium is primarily used
in plutonium bombs, Edwards says, but the Gulf War saw the beginnings of
another use of depleted uranium ammunition.
The metal is used in weapons because it burns easily and it has great
penetrating power it's almost twice as dense as lead.
"It melts its way through armour," Edwards explains.
Peaceful purposes
"We have a policy that we don't supply uranium for weapons purposes," says
foreign affairs media spokesman Carl Schwenger. With the Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission, the department oversees Canada's uranium exports.
Barrels of depleted uranium are stocked outside an enrichment plant
in the U.S. It is "very doubtful" Canada's depleted uranium was used in the
weapons NATO launched in the Balkans, Schwenger claims.
Canada has a bilateral nuclear co-operation agreement with the U.S. that
states uranium exports to the U.S. can be used only for peaceful purposes.
This includes "control over the high enrichment of Canadian uranium and
subsequent storage and use of the highly enriched uranium," a Foreign Affairs
document states. The same rules that apply to uranium apply to depleted
uranium, Schwenger says.
"It's fair to assume that some of Canada's depleted uranium goes into these
ammunitions (used in the Balkans)," says Robert Del Tredici. The Canadian
author spent six years researching the nuclear weapons industry for his book At
Work in the Fields of the Bomb.
"The Canadian government is taking directions and orders from the
nuclear industry." The U.S. doesn't keep track of where their stockpiled
depleted uranium originated and Canadian government policy doesn't require them
to.
"I think Canada could do much better," Del Tredici says. "We are not as
innocent as we would like people to think."
Canada may have the policy, but it's not enforced, Edwards agrees.
"The Canadian government is taking directions and orders from the nuclear
industry."
The uranium industry has a vested interest in ensuring its depleted uranium
waste makes a profit and is not just left in storage. That's why some of
Canada's depleted uranium is ending up in weapons, Edwards says.
"The Canadian government can't even think for themselves."
For more information, please visit:
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
NATO's statement on the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans
http://temagami.carleton.ca/jmc/cnews/19012001/n1.htm
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
ICIS-Institute for Cooperation in Space
3339 West 41 Avenue
Vancouver, B.C. V6N3E5 CANADA
TEL: 604-733-8134
FAX: 604-733-8135
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICIS: http://www.peaceinspace.com
CAMPAIGN: http://www.peaceinspace.org
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