By Zsombor Peter
Gallup Independent Staff Writer

Dec.2, WINDOW ROCK–Mining companies selling unsuspecting villagers radioactive waste rock from their nearby uranium mines. Cattle grazing on the grass sprouting from radioactive tailing piles. Locals coming down with uncommon diseases in striking numbers.

The stories are familiar to many Navajo, whose people still live with the often deadly legacy of the country's first uranium mining boom and now stand on the unwelcome verge of a second.

But as told to a captive audience in a quiet conference room of the Navajo Nation Museum Thursday afternoon, the stories were not about the Navajo Nation. Nor were they about the United States, or any other place in North America. They were about Jaduguda, India, as told by Shri Prakesh, an Indian activist fighting the same fight against nuclear energy as the Navajo, only half a world away.

Prakesh was one of some 250 panelists from 14 countries expected to converge on Window Rock over the coming days for the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, a grassroots effort to stop the mining of uranium on indigenous lands across the world. That his story could just as easily have come from a village down the road highlights just how universal their struggle is.

The summit continues what was started in 1992 in Salzburg, Austrian, where delegates from around the world ratified a declaration opposing all uranium mining on indigenous lands. Carletta Tilousi, a Havasupai councilwoman who was there, recalled a pair of local mountaineers who took their declaration and buried it in a nearby glacier so that its message would live on. But that many of those same delegates are back in Window Rock 14 years later making the very same demands shows that their fight is far from over.

If anything, it's only begun. With the market price of uranium reaching new highs, mining companies are, as New Mexico Environment Department Cabinet Secretary Derrith Watchman-Moore put it, "pounding on the state's door" for permits. More than half-a-dozen uranium mining companies have some stake on or near Mt. Taylor alone. Still others have their eyes on Church Rock and Crownpoint.

But the new boom is hardly confined to American shores, let alone New Mexico. Western Europe may have the most nuclear reactors currently in operation, according to the World Nuclear Association; France alone gets 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. But Asia, in search of ever more power to fuel its booming economies, outstrips every other region in the world when all reactors under construction, planned or proposed get added to the mix. India alone is in the process of building eight, more than any other nation.

And to hear the summit's participants tell it, the story for indigenous people is the same the world over.

"(The Indian government and mining companies) never told anything about the danger of uranium mining to the community, to any of the people at all," said Prakesh's colleague Karunabala Murmu.

"The danger in Brazil is no communication," echoed Norbert Suchanek, who is fighting that government's attempts to build more nuclear power plants in the rain forests of South America. "Nobody is telling the people what is the danger."

Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, an Australian Aboriginal, spoke of her government's persistent silence on the fallout from nuclear bomb tests carried out half a century ago.

Manuel Pino, who was in Salzburg in 1992 and now teaches at Scottsdale Community College, knows what they're up against. He's been fighting uranium mining around Laguna-Acoma most of his life and likened to struggle of indigenous peoples against multinational corporations and the national governments backing them to David and Goliath.

The language in declarations like the one crafted in Salzburg may be able to generate global awareness, Pino said, "but to have nation states of the world and the corporations ... adhere to that language is one of the most difficult things."

"It is an almost impossible task to save the world from nuclear proliferation," said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. in his welcome address to the summit-goers Thursday morning. "But in my way of life, in the Navajo way of life, there are no impossibilities."

Lynnea Smith, of the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, attributed the mining companies' interest in indigenous lands to the minority status of its inhabitants. But Pino finds it ironic that the land the U.S. government granted the Navajo in 1868, having little use for it itself, is the same land the government and mining companies are pining for now. And now that the Navajo and other indigenous people are trying to express their sovereignty, he said, they feel threatened.

Pino finds power in that threat.

The summit officially kicked off Thursday, with two days full of specialized panel discussions, although participants who arrived early had a chance to visit a few uranium mining sites in the area Wednesday. The summit will end Saturday with the drafting of a covenant encompassing the participants' goals.

And although it's been 14 years since the last summit, organizers hope to make it an annual event. They'll announce next year's host Saturday.

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/dec/120106zp_urworldwrock.html

By Sararesa Begay Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK–Lynda Lovejoy told audience members who filled the Navajo Nation Education Center auditorium Thursday evening that "it's not the government that looks after us, it's the people in this room."

Lovejoy who gave the introductory speech to conference members attending the Indigenous World Uranium Summit "Testimonies from the Four Directions," dinner presentation said, "The wonderful thing about it is, if we are successful. We won't allow any uranium mining."

The summit began Thursday with opening ceremonies at the Navajo Nation Museum and a traditional blessing by a Navajo medicine man, and will continue until Saturday, Dec. 2.

"We want good, safe drinking water," Lovejoy said, recalling her Navajo Nation presidential campaign travels across the Navajo Nation. "I've heard widows talk about how they lost their husband due to uranium exposure. I came across so many people who would die for their land, they saw politicians as those who are heavily influential. I see (the uranium industry) fluttering around with their money and influence."

Lovejoy, a Crownpoint native, shared with the audience members that if she became the Navajo Nation president she made a determination that she would substantially consider "human lives, health risks," and overlook the monetary gains when making decisions about uranium and its affects.

"It's about taking care of our land and our people," Lovejoy said, acknowledging that representatives from Native communities in 14 countries traveled to the Navajo Nation for this summit. "I saw so many people in pain with broken hearts because they didn't know if their land was going to be taken over. They didn't trust our politicians. I see it in Crownpoint, in our community. That's why you've traveled far to forward that cause.."

Lovejoy said in Crownpoint there are uranium tailings.

"They can mine somewhere else, but the fact that they prey on indigenous communities, the corporate knows what they are doing," Lovejoy said. "We are poor people. Promote this good cause and take a strong stance against using non-renewable energy."

She said that if she had become Navajo Nation President she would forward the use of renewable energy. "We have enough wind," she said, adding that there is also enough sunlight for solar energy. "Wind power is something the Navajo Nation needs to do."



Australia

Tireless Australian Aboriginal activist Rebecca Bear-Wingfield said she was "actually thinking of retiring," from her activist work "or human rights and building a better Australia whether if we are indigenous Australians or a newer Australian."

Bear-Wingfield said she regularly attends community members, and shared with the audience about one memorable meeting where uranium mining representatives and government officials were in attendance.

She said the community members were in the beginning negotiations of expanding to the current uranium mine in order to create numerous jobs. Bear-Wingfield said when she was asked to speak she told the community members, "We shouldn't be talking about this. We've been bombed, damaged and we're sick."

"I've always wanted to be a mother," Bear-Wingfield said. "When the hospital told me there was a problem, I was told I had three ovaries." She said that the Australian Aboriginal people have lived on lands that have been "bombed and tested" since 1953 because "Aboriginal people didn't exist as people."

Bear-Wingfield there is an Australian policy that classifies Australian Aboriginal people "above the apes."

"It makes sense," Bear Wingfield said. "They don't want to talk to us because we are invisible."

She said she is participating in this summit "to find people who can give me the technical expertise," and told the uranium activists that she hopes for a successful lawsuit to prevail against uranium mining.



Brazil

World citizen Norbert Suchanek who represents the Village Bracui delivered a message on behalf of his in-laws and adopted family the Cacique tribe near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Suchanek delivered a special gift, a turtle, that is a holy animal to the Cacique tribe, to the Seventh Generation Fund organization.

He also shared a message from the Cacique Village Elder, Joao de Silva, whose image was projected by a laptop computer onto a screen backdrop. de Silva spoke in his native Cacique tongue, and in Portuguese, and shared his beliefs about uranium mining, how it affects his village, the Native people and mankind.

The 94-year-old de Silva whose indigenous name is Vera Mini said, "I'm very alarmed about the nuclear power plant because it's very close to my village. This is very dangerous, a nuclear accident will affect my village. We live very close to a nuclear plant."

"I am very deeply concerned," de Silva said. "We, indigenous and non-indigenous, wants to create families and live well. I speak about the whole of Brazil we are a big family where indigenous people live. There's suffering, there's no help. If they continue, then will be power plants all over Brazil. We are all equal, only the language is different."

"They do not inform us Indios," de Silva said. "But, we are people, too. We have meat, bones, blood and many things to tell...and later they'll be only power plants."



Worldwide

The other speakers from the four directions were a delegation from East India and Western Shoshone elder and activist, Carrie Dann.

Summit participants were scheduled to be given a tour of former uranium mining sites near Church Rock, including the United Nuclear abandoned uranium mill and tailings disposal facility, now a Superfund site. On Saturday, a special concert is scheduled at 7 p.m.

According to Robert Tohe of the Sierra Club, the summit goals are:
Organize resistance to current and new uranium mining in Native communities.
Support enforcement of the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005.
Stop nuclear waste dumping on Native lands.
Develop national and international collaborations on the nuclear fuel cycle.
Promote sustainable development and renewable energy for Native peoples.
Information: (928)606-9420 or visit: http://www.sric.org/uraniumsummit/index.html.

(Sararesa Begay can be reached at venisondine@hotmail.com or by calling 505-371-5443.)

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/dec/120106sb_urnmtestimonies.html

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