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Thursday Jan 25, 2001
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?
Irati Wanti
[the Poison-Leave it!]
Campaign Office of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta - Senior Aboriginal Women
of Kupa Piti,
SA PO Box 1043 Kupa Piti,
5723
Ph[08] 8672 3413
Fax[08] 8672 5483
kungatjuta@iratiwanti.org
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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