Uranium Mining and
Hynniewtrep People
Benjamin Thabah
I follow the culture of my people. We belong to
the land. We are the caretakers for the land. We first take what God
has provided to us over the soil. Our lifetime on this earth is only
a blink in time(Shi khyllip mat), so our lifetime is spent
protecting and caring for this land for future generations.
A leader of an American Indian tribe has this to
say about uranium: "Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the child
of the earth. People did not weave the web of life; they are merely
strands in it. Whatever they do to the web, they do to
themselves".
I want to tell you how I feel about uranium and
how the whole nuclear cycle affects our land, our lives, and our
traditions.
In preparation for this article I have read
widely and consulted widely, but rarely have I seen or heard a word
from the people who I believe to be among the worst affected by the
nuclear cycle : my people, the people of Domiasiat areas of West
Khasi Hills
It is our land where the Government of India
through its Agencies extracts the poisonous yellowcake, and it is on
our land where they dump the polluted tailings.
It is on Hynniewtrep land that the British, with
support from the Indian Government of the that time, mined and
depleted our Sillimanite and Corundum deposits of Riangdo
(Sonapahar), with no regard for our people, their land or their
future.
And it is on Hynniewtrep land that the
government is examining the possibility of dumping deadly
radioactive waste in untried synthetic rock.
I say to you, when you consider your attitudes
to Indian Government�s involvement in the uranium industry that you
think first about what you are doing to our people.
Our Environmental
Concerns
I turn now to some of our grave concerns about
the controls on environmental damage resulting from uranium mining.
For example:
�
seepage from the tailings dam;
�
concentration of radioactive contaminants in
the water systems;
�
erosion;
�
radon gases escaping from the tailings;
�
cyclones could disperse contaminated dust from
strip mining operations;
But what do the Hynniewtrep people of
Khasi Land know of these dangers. Our
people in Khasi Land and throughout
U Bri U Khun U Hynniewtrep are not sufficiently informed about the
extent of damages occurring from uranium mining. Nor do we know the
extent to which they are being exposed to radiation in the
atmosphere. Nor do we know the extent of contamination already
present in the food chain.
There is simply no proper information given to
Hynniewtrep people living in the area about the effects of uranium
mining on the land. There is no monitoring scientists of the
Government of India Agencies who have made an
attempt to interpret their findings to the
effected people.
No Inquiry said that a certain amount of
environmental impact into the area was to be expected. The impact is
now being realised. There are scores of scientists in the Atomic
Mineral Division, but none have made it public the likely
implications that would be dredged upon the people of the State in
the long run.
This is also true in the coal mining and
Limestone belts of the State. The local Tribal community have total
involvement in this and the Government must depend on royalties from
Coal and Lime stone mining to run its ever depleting Exchequer.
This dependency, I believe, is a form of ransom.
Under dogs Tribals i.e. Youth says to the Government and other
fledgling outstation movement, "You can have money for esteems
and mobiles cell phones, and if mining stops, the money stops
too.
We must break this dependency on mining activity
for money for essential services. It is morally bankrupt. No Tribal
community should be put in the position of deciding on development
that is tied to the Coal & Limestone industry.
Until all Tribal service needs are met by direct
grants from Central Government, our people have little choice in
this matter.
Coming back to Uranium mining, no real
substantial study has been done on the radiation levels in West
Khasi Hills people's diets in the uranium regions. We can only guess
what amount of radiation they have in their bodies or in the food
chain.
Without this information, how are we to make a
proper decision. It is not correct to say that any Tribal community
has made a real decision on uranium mining until all the facts are
presented to all of our people, and they must be presented in Tribal
languages in a manner that has meaning to our people.
Tailings Can Bring
Ecological Disaster
For each tonne of ore mined only three kilograms
of yellowcake [uranium oxide -
U3O8] are recovered.
So the Domiasiat mine with an annual production of say1,000 tonnes
of yellowcake can only mean that millions of tonnes of radioactive
tailings will be produced each year.
Uranium tailings retain 80 per cent of the
radioactivity of the excavated ore and this radioactivity will be
emitted for thousands of years.
Tailings are considered to be a major source of
pollution because they are readily dispersed by wind and rain.
Dust particles from the tailings very soon get
into the ground water which in turn becomes contaminated. Once
this happens it is very hard to clean a river system of its
radioactivity.
Radioactive gases from the submerged or
wetted-down tailings can travel great distances. People can breathe
in this gas up the 80 kilometres downwind from the tailings. It has
already been proven that miners working in uranium mines are
threatened with lung cancer.
All this affects our people living near uranium
mines. It causes the greatest biological damage if it gets into the
human food chain.
Anyone living near tailings from uranium mines
will be breathing in radioactive dust which emits alpha radiation.
This type of radiation poses the greatest threat to human life.
The lifespan of radioactive waste materials from
tailings may be 250,000 years. How will this affect the environment
and our culture over all those years?
Radioactive
Wastes
Synroc is a method for the storing of nuclear
waste. It is being developed by a Professor Ringwood [of the
Australian National
University]. I am concerned whether Synroc is a
safe method for waste storage.
I have recently read an article in Australia
Habitat entitled "Certainty and Uncertainty in the Disposal of
Nuclear Waste", by Dr E.H. Hirsch, who is a physicist
experienced in the problem of nuclear waste. He questions the use of
Synroc at this stage.
Whatever the result of the Synroc storage
method, or any other method of storage, I don't want nuclear waste
stored in my people's land. If anything should happen I believe it
will bring about disastrous consequences to our underground water
supply.
This is my land. We need the information and all
Tribal people should have the right to decide what befalls us and
our future generations.
The Navajo's
Experience
There is a very real water problem to the Indian
people of North America in areas where large tailings
dams have resulted from uranium mining.
Navajo Indians living in uranium districts now
find that amongst their people there are many birth defects. They
find there are many Indian miscarriages. A lot of children are born
underweight. Many children have learning difficulties. A number of
children are deformed.
The Indian people don't know if these things are
happening because of the men who worked in the mines, or from the
explosions of nuclear bomb tests, or from eating contaminated food,
or drinking contaminated water.
But they do know that these things are happening
to people living near tailing piles. It has already been established
in America that :
�
there is a high incidence of lung cancer in
miners working in uranium mines;
�
there is a high incidence of chromosome damage
in miners working in uranium mines;
�
damage to the genes passes from generation to
generation.
Exposure to radiation in a uranium environment
can cause a number of early ageing problems. It can be the cause of
liver problems, respiratory diseases and heart diseases. It can
cause a person to be very susceptible to infectious diseases and
override the body's natural immune system.
�The survivors of a bomb test in
Japan are often shunned by those
wishing to marry because of fears that their children could inherit
mutations�. Will this also become the fear of my people when
exercising Tribal customary laws relating to
marriage ?
What will happen to people affected by the
nuclear bomb testing at Pokhran ?Or, for that matter, to many
thousands of Indian citizens of inland and North West India who
became targets of the scientists who ordered bombs to be exploded
when the winds could only take the nuclear fallout on an inland
journey of radiation contamination?
Royal Commission into
British Nuclear Weapons Testing
The Pitjantjatjara Council called for a Royal
Commission into the circumstances surrounding the nuclear tests in
South Australia in the 1950s and '60s. Council
representatives went to London to lobby over
the issue. Leading the delegation was Yami Lester who lost his sight
after the fallout cloud from the first Emu test descended on him and
his people. A Royal Commission was set up in July 1984 under the
presidency of Justice Jim McLelland. The Commission reported in
November 1985.
The Pitjantjatjara and Yaknunytyara people
believe that many of the deaths around this time were related to the
fallout from the bombs. Clouds of fallout passed over and around
them. (The Royal Commission found that an Aboriginal community at
Wallatinna had been exposed to a black mist of radioactivity and
that this could have caused harm to the people's health. The
Commission also found that Aboriginal people had been denied access
to their traditional lands and that the plutonium-contaminated areas
at Maralinga must be cleaned up. In 1994 the British Government
agreed to a limited clean-up whereby the plutonium- contaminated
soil would be gathered into existing pits of radioactive rubbish
where it would be 'fused' into a solid.)
No one told the people about the tests at the
time and only now, after a barrage of leaks and statements, is the
Australian government considering holding a full inquiry into the
matter. But the full extent of cancers and other illnesses being
suffered by my people may never be known.
The land in the immediate test area may not be
useable for 50,000 years. This is the same timespan widely believed
by non-Aboriginal people to represent the existence of our culture
in this country.
All this was caused by well-meaning scientists
at the time who were unable to forecast the consequences of their
actions. We have well-meaning scientists today who still cannot
accurately predict the consequences of their actions when it comes
to uranium.
The health of the people throughout Aboriginal
Australia is already so poor that it cannot take any more damage.
The continuing 200 years of exploitation of their lands and r
existence must stop.
We wish to remind the Atomic Mineral Division of
its public relation policy commitment to Hynniewtrep people on
uranium mining. This policy states that :
"...it would turn Domiasiat area into a model
village, but the pertinent question here is after 19 years what will
happen to the inhabitants of the proposed village".
We demand that our rights and well-being are
recognised. All of our people need to be fully and equally informed
of the problems of mining uranium on our Hynniewtrep lands.
Consulted from a Paper given to the
Australian Labor Party, Northern Territory State Conference in
Darwin in 1984.
Vincent Forrestor was the chairperson of the Northern Territory
National Aboriginal Conference.
Kyrmen Ryntathiang <