New inspections of NATO announced for May 29
Invitation for the press - NATO headquarters - Honeywell 11:00 a.m. Saturday May 29
Brussels, May 28 1999 - This evening a group of 6 Scandinavian inspectors were arrested after cutting their way through the fence at NATO headquarters. It is not clear yet when and where they were arrested. Five nationals from Finland and one from Norway made a new attempt to find secret and controversial information about NATO's nuclear plans. In the coming days inspections will continue. Meanwhile Magda Aelvoet, President of the Green Party in the European Parliament, urgently contacted the President of the EP demanding an official complaint against the Belgian authorities for interfering with the work of the Parliament. Yesterday the Brussels police stopped most international guests from attending an official welcoming at the European Parliament which was given in their honor.
For Saturday morning 11 a.m. new actions are announced at NATO headquarters. A German group plans a 'gold digging action' in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples. Other groups will plant sunflowers seeds. The sunflower is the symbol of the worldwide movement demanding a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. Other people will continue to look for the documents compromising the Nuclear Planning Group.
The Indigineous Peoples have suffered as no other people the consequences of uranium mining, nuclear testing and radio-active waste-dumps on their traditional lands. Thereto Daniel Zapata from the enviromental research group "Peabody Watch" states: "Indigenious peoples were, are and will be the forefront of the anti-nuclear movement. We have to draw all our attention to the beginning and to the end of this atomic monster - to indigenous land as well as to our own backyard. The indigenous cannot manage on their own. We need all of us, alltogether, side by side, individual activists, groups, political parties and nations to make a nuclear-free world come true. Not for our present pleasure, but for the future grandfathers and grandmothers." Worldwide indigenous peoples are heavily effected by the atomic contaminations on their land, because more than 80% of the uranium for the industrial nations comes from indigenous land. They are even more effected as their way of life depends on an intact environment. That is why already the beginning of the nuclear chain, the uranium-mining, causes the genocide of indigenious peoples. The main uranium-mining areas in the world, for example, are situated on the territory of the Cree and Dene Indians in Sascatchewan, Canada, the Mirrar aborigines in Australia; in Africa, in Namibia and Niger among others the Tuareg are concerned.
Also the use of depleted uranium in the NATO ammunition is being condemned as irresponsable. Marion Kuepker from For Mother Earth Germany declared : "The depleted uranium not only brings radiotion illnesses and environmental contamination in Yugoslavia. The destruction started with the uranium mining on the lands of Indigenous Peoples and every new step in the nuclear chain. The use of depleted uranium is totally irresponsable for the people who live or want to return to their lands ".
Letter to Solana http://www.motherearth.org/walk99/tonato.htm
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