**********************Irati Wanti********************
[the Poison-Leave it!]
Campaign Office of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta -
Senior Aboriginal Women of Kupa Piti, SA
PO Box 1043 Ph[08] 8672 3413
Kupa Piti, 5723 Fax[08] 8672 5483
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thursday Jan 25, 2001
"THE DUMP IS NOT A DONE DEAL"
Elders announce website launch in their fight for protection of
country.
www.iratiwanti.org
Today the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, Senior Aboriginal Women of Coober
Pedy, South Australia have stepped up their campaign against the
proposed national nuclear waste dump for their country. They have
announced the launch of their website: http://www.iratiwanti.org.
The site is to be launched in the main street of Coober Pedy today,
Thursday 25 January 2001, and chronicles the relentless and inspiring
campaign of the elders against the nuclear industry. The website
relays stories of the effects of atomic testing on the elder's lives
in the fifties and of the Kungka Tjuta's current struggle to stop
more poison returning to their country, in the form of the proposed
nuclear dump.
The launch of the site is a timely response to Senator Nick Minchin,
who yesterday announced `Site 52a' within the Woomera Prohibited
Area, as the preferred final site for the nuclear dump. This country
is the traditional lands of the Kokatha people, who have never been
properly consulted or entered into negotiations with concerns to the
dump. This is despite the Minister's claims of "extensive
consultation with regional stakeholders".
Spokeswoman for the group, Ms Rebecca Bear Wingfield said: "Senator
Minchin has just confirmed what we've known all along. That the
community consultative process has been a sham and has actively
excluded traditional owners from dialogue and negotiations as to the
proposal for the dump."
For further media comment please call Ms Rebecca Bear Wingfield on
0404 204 527
For details and progress of the website launch : Lucy Brown 0409 694
864
Please also find the following statement from Rebecca Bear-Wingfield:
I really want to call you a liar Senator Minchin, but I realise that
this issue has to be dealt with using rational academic and
scientific discourse.
My name is Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, I am a senior Aboriginal woman
from Kokatha country.
I am responding to your press release today that announced the three
final site location with site 52A being the preferred site for the
location of this 'nuclear waste repository' (dump).
Your government and all the successive governments dating back to
Menzies's government of the 1950's, the 15th October 1953 when the
first atmospheric test was conducted at Emu Plains three years before
the Maralinga tests. Are guilty of committing 'ecocide' and genocide
against the first nations of this ancient country. By the way the old
people are still waiting for a 'sorry' when many of them were exposed
to the black rain clouds that spread shortly after the test at Emu
Plain.
This is why the Kungka's are talking up about this issue because they
know first hand about the dangers of nuclear byproducts, bombs,
contaminated lands and health problems that have resulted over the
last 47 years.
Using discourse to disempower Indigenous people in our attempts to
oppose the dumping of nuclear waste by products which are always
quantified as mainly hospital waste products and low level waste is
misleading, a lot of this waste under international standards of
classification is medium level. But it does not matter if it is low,
medium or high the fact remains that some of us have a moral and
cultural responsibility to educate you and your parliamentarians
about the facts. Australia talks of reconciliation but how can we
reconcile when this waste is going to be dumped on the ancestral
lands of the Kokatha people. How can the government continue to
negotiate and make decisions about stolen lands, without the consent
of all the Kokatha people who are the custodians and who have already
had their lands stolen back in the 1950's when their lands were
annexed by the Commonwealth Government using the doctrines of ' Terra
Nullius'.
This is morally wrong and this why the Kupa Piti Kungka's have always
opposed this proposal. We know the country, because of our
connection to the land that dates back to at least 40,000 years.
Scientists don't have the history like us. How can they offer
guarantees that this is the perfect environment for storage?
If you don't wish to be a member of this group, please send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
All previous messages have been archived (and can be viewed)at the website :
www.egroups.com/iratiwanti-news
Irati,Wanti!! means The Poison - Leave It!!
in Yankunytjatjara language, Aboriginal language of the Western Desert,
Central Australia.
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