The devils of Jabiluka 1461 we/
Australia's uranium industry is being outflanked by a dynamic protest movement combining urban protests with a permanent camp in the far north of the country, where a monster uranium mine is being dug in a national park, on sacred land. Jonn lully was there.
* Australia The recent visit by a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) delegation has again focused the world's attention 200km east of Darwin. The visit follows the winding down of an extraordinary seven month long blockade of the mine and the shifting of the focus of the antiJabiluka campaign to the big cities and
The mine is on leased land, specially "excised" from the Kakadu National Park. The UNESCO visit is in response to a delegation of Aboriginal people who visited the UN's World Heritage Bureau in Paris earlier this year. Representatives of the Mirrar Gagudju people, the traditional landowners, asked the Bureau to put the Kakadu National Park on its list of world heritage areas "in danger" by mining.
The visit has embarrassed even the thick-skinned Australian federal government. Prime Minister John Howard lacks the numbers in the Senate to ram through his government's pro-uranium policies. The government and the uranium industry face growing public opposition. One opinion poll released in July indicated that 67% of Australians are opposed to the mine. A long battle
The battle to keep Australia's uranium in the ground has ebbed and 6 International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 flowed for over two decades. At one stage the movement persuaded both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Congress of Trade Unions (ACI), to oppose the mining and export of uranium. But these policies
"watered down" by right wing forces led by former ALP Prime Minister
Nevertheless, the strength of the loose alliance of indigenous peoples, environmentalists and radical labour movement activists did manage to restrict the number of uranium mines to three: Nabarlek (mined out in 1988); Roxby Downs in northern South Australia; and Ranger 22 kilometres away from the new site at Jabiluka in the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory.
election of the right-wing Howard Government in 1996 encouraged the uranium mining lobby. As many as 20 new mines are planned, mostly in the Northern Territory. And over 30 applications for uranium exploration are in the pipeline. The first - and largest - of the new mines is being developed at Jabiluka.
Meanwhile, many uranium-importing countries are either reconsidering the wisdom of the nuclear road, or, as in Germany, deciding to phase out nuclear power completely.
Corporate greed
The push to exploit Jabiluka shows the corporate world at its most rapacious. By any standard - social, environmental or cultural - the mine is a disgrace. It is situated in the Kakadu National Park, which was bequeathed to the Australian people by the traditional Aboriginal landowners, including the Mirrar people. Kakadu is one of only 17 of the 469 World Heritage areas named by UNESCO for both its natural and
Kakadu is of enormous ecological significance. One third of all Australian bird species live there, along with many species of reptiles, fish and amphibians and one quarter of the country's terrestrial mammals. Many of these species live in the wetlands which are menaced by uranium mining.
The cultural significance of the Park lies in the fact that Aboriginal people, including the Mirrar, have lived there for 40,000 years. The region is a treasury of archaeological and sacred Aboriginal sites, including ancient rock paintings of exquisite colour and design. Negative impact on Aborigines
The mine's apologists claim that the new mine will bring social and economic benefits to the local Aborigines. But the experience of the nearby Ranger mine indicates otherwise. Most jobs there were taken by white outsiders. As a Mirrar spokesperson Jacqui Katona put it: "We have heard for 20 years of these extraordinary claims about how Aboriginal people are going to benefit from mining, but the reality is that Aboriginal people are still living in Third World conditions."
Katona also points out that "The pressure was on Aboriginal people to spend their royalty money on providing water, power, roads and road maintenance." This is not the case when mines are situated in white areas. The mines have also exacerbated the alcoholism problem. "Until the Aboriginal people have the ability to control their affairs on their land then nothing is going to change."
These facts are not denied by the federal government. Indeed a study commissioned by the Minister for the Environment recognised that "key social indicators such as health, housing and education were sub-standard" and that the Ranger mine had impacted negatively upon Aboriginal communities. The Minister, however, concluded that the
findings would not influence his decision on Jabiluka! Negotiations under duress
The mining company and the federal government acknowledge that the Mirrar people are opposed to the mine but maintain that agreements negotiated over 15 years ago give them the right to go ahead. The Mirrar insist that both agreements are invalid as they were negotiated under duress.
The Jabiluka mine will exploit Australia's largest remaining deposit of uranium. Government approval for the mining company, ERA, to go ahead was given after receipt of an amazingly shoddy environmental impact statement.
drinking water for the mine had been connected to processing water!
Small wonder that the company has run into such strong resistance from the Mirrar people and their European allies. As the Mirrar elder Yvonne Margarula told the court when she was arrested for "trespass" at the mine site in May this year: "It is Mirrar land... I have the right to go there, because I am the traditional owner." That simple, but powerful statement has reached millions of ears, despite all the lies and mystifications of ERA and their Government allies. *
The fight continues The mine workings are situated on a floodplain in a region that experiences the extremely volatile and unpredictable natural conditions common to the tropical monsoon forests of Australia's Top End." This means torrential rain, floods
The project involves the clearing of 80.5 hectares of land, in the middle of the world's second largest national park. The ore will be extracted from a 400 metres deep underground mine. Underground mines increase the radiation doses received by the workers in comparison with open cut mines. Uranium for French bombs
ERA plans to transport the ore in open trucks along 22.5 kilometres of new road to the existing milling facilities at Ranger. It is envisaged that the mine will yield 19.5 million tonnes of ore over a 28 year period and that this will be refined into 90,400 tonnes of yellowcake (uranium oxide) for export overseas.
EERA claims that it will sell uranium only to countries which have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The company continued to sell uranium to the French Government throughout the period of French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
But as the Northern Territory Jabiluka Alliance points out, "regardless of its use, be it for peaceful purposes or otherwise, every ounce of Jabiluka uranium is destined to become radioactive waste".
The mine will put at least 20 million tonnes of radioactive tailings into the Kakadu Park's ecosystem. These tailings will retain up to 85% of their original radioactivity for hundreds of thousands of years. No safe mines
Basically, there is no such thing as a safe mine. A spokesperson for the Friends of the Earth uranium collective points out that over the 17 years of its operations, Ranger has been "plagued" with problems, including the periodic melease of radioactive water from containment ponds and the discovery in
1983 that for an unknown period of time,
The struggle against the Jabiluka mine has been fought on a number of fronts. The Mirrar people have sent delegations overseas, including to the United Heritage Bureau in Paris.
The Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation, has also mounted a challenge to the mine in the Australian Federal Court.
Yet without the dimension of mass action, it is doubtful that these measures could succeed. Supporters of the Mirrar have staged large demonstrations in Australian cities, and there has also been international solidarity.
The most extraordinary aspect of the campaign has been the seven month long blockade of the mine. Although the blockaders were unable to prevent the development of the mine, they certainly hindered it and the protest kept the issue alive.
Launched in March by the Mirrar people, the protest attracted thousands of people from around the country and even from overseas.
Protesters were issued with "Aboriginal passports" enabling them to camp on an old buffalo mustering ground a few kilometres from the mine site. They were asked to abide by special rules including a strict ban on alcohol and drugs and respect for Mirrar sacred sites. arrested. This is enough to clog up the court system of the sparselypopulated Northern Territory for many months. On one occasion, 200 protesters wearing caricature masks of Prime Minister John Howard over the fence and
Those arrested include Mirrar people - charged with trespass on their own land. Some will appeal their convictions, others have said that they will refuse to pay any fines. Mirrar leader Jacqui Katona said that the traditional owners have had their basic human rights trampled on. She lambasted the authorities removing the traditional owners' land rights even when a mining company excludes them illegally.
The Northern Territory, like most Australian states, has a paramilitary police unit, known as the "Tactical Response Unit." This gang, described by one protester as
, responded brutality. They batoned peaceful protesters, using gouge eyes and pressure points. On at least one blisteringly hot and shadeless day, they took great delight in pouring the water from demonstrators' bottles onto the ground. This gang are trained only to obey orders: and there can be little doubt that they were doing exactly what the prouranium Northern Territory government told them to do.
The Mirrar people made the decision to close down the blockade last month because of the impend ing onset of the wet season. Like most Aboriginal people, terribly solicitous of the welfare of guests on their land and believed that the harshness of the summer "Wet" might be too much for many protesters. Rather than have the protest fizzle out, they decided to close it down in a disciplined way.
The Mirrar also recognised that the stress of having thousands of people in their backyard had taken its toll on their community.
Whilst the blockade had ended, the protest would go on, with the focus shifted to the cities where most Australians live. * found on the Northern Territory labiuka Allances wed- Further information about the. site at www.jabiluka.net. Messages of support can be sent to the Alliance at PO Box 2120, Darwin, Northern Territory 0801, Australia.
International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 7
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
1908