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#nuclearTesting

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Over the weekend, the Marshall Islands marked 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted were unleashed.

The Micronesian nation experienced 67 known atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, resulting in an ongoing legacy of death, illness, and contamination.

rnz.co.nz/international/pacifi

RNZ · Seven decades on, Marshall Islands still reeling from nuclear testing legacyBy Lydia Lewis

@jalefkowit
Not same situation but reminds me of being in Australia in 1995- everyone was annoyed with France as they were #nucleartesting bombs in the Pacific.

So someone went round keying the paint on #Renault cars. I thought it was one of the daftest protests I'd ever heard of. It did absolutely nothing to even mildly annoy the French government. It created hassle, upset and aggression amongst innocent fellow Australians.

But even I have to admit the #Swasticar situation is different...

Commentary: #WaterProtectors on trial again as #Greenpeace case begins in #NorthDakota

by #WinonaLaDuke
February 24, 2025

Excerpt: "North Dakota v. USA

"In March of last year, I was a federal witness in the North Dakota v. United States of America trial in Bismarck, where North Dakota charged that the United States Army Corps of Engineers had caused the #StandingRock #resistance by issuing a conditional use permit for the flood plain. Attorneys asked if I came to Standing Rock resistance camp because the Army Corps issued a permit. My response: No. I came for the #water,and I came because #LaDonnaBraveBull Allard asked me to come. I came because #Enbridge, the Canadian #pipeline company, had proposed a Sandpiper #pipeline across our territory in northern Minnesota and we defeated them, only to find that they later financed 28% of the #DakotaAccessPipeline. I came for the water.

"#EnergyTransfer v. #Greenpeace

"There’s another big trial starting Monday in #MandanNorthDakota, too, in Morton County District Court. There, Judge James Gion will preside over a jury trial in the case of Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace. Energy Transfer charges that Greenpeace effectively orchestrated and was a force driving the Standing Rock resistance. That allegation is pretty surprising to the thousands of people who came to Standing Rock without even hearing about Greenpeace being there. That case will be heard behind #ClosedDoors, no livestreaming, and yet somehow a judge in a small county without a law clerk will make sure the justice of a jury trial is carried out. The case with a multitude of pretrial motions is described as the largest in North Dakota history, so carrying out justice, well that’s a challenge.

"'This is a pretty ludicrous accusation,' noted #DeepaPadmanabha, Greenpeace’s senior legal counsel, responding to charges that Greenpeace effectively orchestrated and was a force driving the Standing Rock resistance. 'Standing Rock was one of the largest #Indigenous-led protests in history. It was a grassroots-led resistance, and the idea that Greenpeace orchestrated it is a #racist attempt to erase #IndigenousHistory.'

"But it might be what you’d expect from a company whose CEO once said that protesters who damaged construction equipment should be 'removed from the gene pool.'

"I’d encourage you to watch the trial online, but unfortunately, Judge Gion has denied a motion to arrange for the trial to be streamed online.

"As The Wall Street Journal reported in September, 'both sides expect a #FossilFuel - friendly jury.' Check out the
'community' page on the company’s daplpipelinefacts.com website and you’ll understand why. There’s a picture of Mandan town employees appreciatively holding up a giant check representing Energy Transfer’s $3 million donation to upgrade the town’s library and other infrastructure.

"Energy Transfer is suing Greenpeace for damages, initially proposed at $300 million, in what Greenpeace has called an effort to bankrupt the organization. Greenpeace is the 50-year-old environmental organization which has been part of opposing #NuclearTesting in the Pacific, saving #whales from factory #trawlers, and challenging #BigOil. That’s something you are not supposed to do in North Dakota, it seems, where oil money slicks through all the systems. In North Dakota, the message seems to be, No one should oppose a pipeline project. No one."

Read more:
northdakotamonitor.com/2025/02
#WaterIsLife #StandWithStandingRock #NoDAPL #KelcyWarren #Trump #StandWithStandingRock
#CorporateColonialism
#BigOilAndGas #EnvironmentalRacism #StandingRock #SLAPPs #NoDAPL #WaterIsLife #SLAPPsLawsuits #SilencingDissent #ACAB #EnergyTransfer

Unfortunately, the #ShundahaiNetwork's website is no longer maintained by the group. #CorbinHarney founded the group years ago. I managed to find it on the #InternetArchive. Here's a snapshot from 2002. I had a link to their website from the now-defunct What? Magazine Online back when I first heard about Shundahai back in 1998/1999.

"Shundahai Network was formed at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site in 1994, by a council of long-term nuclear disarmament activists, at the request of #CorbinHarney, a #WesternShoshone Spiritual Leader. We have evolved into an international network of activists and organizations bridging the gap between the environmental, peace and justice and indigenous land rights communities.

"Shundahai Network opposes all nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production. We actively seek to close down the Nevada Test Site to all nuclear weapons programs except for radioactive contamination containment and cleanup. Shundahai Network also opposes all nuclear waste dumping on indigenous peoples lands. We are fighting to halt the proposed high-level nuclear waste dumps at #YuccaMountain and #SkullValleyReservation. We work to educate about the dangers of #RadioactiveWaste transportation and promote a safe and sane energy policy based on conservation and #renewable resources. To this end, Shundahai Network organizes and participates in nonviolent direct actions, demonstrations, workshops and conferences.

"Shundahai Network Mission Statement

"Shundahai Network, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to breaking the nuclear chain by building alliances with #indigenous communities and #environmental, #peace and #HumanRights movements. We seek to abolish all #NuclearWeapons and an end to #NuclearTesting. We advocate phasing out #NuclearEnergy and ending the transportation and dumping of #NuclearWaste. We promote the principles of #EnvironmentalJustice and strive to insure that indigenous voices are heard in the movement to influence U.S. Nuclear and environmental policies. All of our campaigns and events incorporate the values of community building, education, spiritual ceremonies and nonviolent #DirectAction.

"Our staff and volunteers work on a wide range of community outreach, education and public action campaigns. Through our events and campaigns, Shundahai Network helps train activists in community organizing and the use of nonviolent direct action to generate public awareness and apply political pressure on nuclear and #IndigenousRights issues."

Here's the URL:
web.archive.org/web/2002112208

web.archive.orgShundahai Network "Peace and Harmony with All Creation" Shundahai Network an international network of activists and organizations bridging the gap between the environmental, peace and justice and indigenous land rights communities.

Open access:

The beat goes on...

"Sickened by U.S. Nuclear Program, Communities Turn to Congress for Aid.

In St. Louis and around the country, people harmed by the drive for an atomic bomb have been shut out of a federal law enacted to help such victims."

#NuclearTesting #NuclearPower #ColdWar

nytimes.com/2024/04/06/us/poli

The New York Times · Sickened by U.S. Nuclear Program, Communities Turn to Congress for AidBy Catie Edmondson

1/2

January 27th is the National Day of Remembrance for America’s Downwinders in the USA. These are people who lived downwind of the Nevada Nuclear Test site, and were exposed to radioactive fallout. Much of that fallout remains radioactive and is now embedded into the ecosystem.

The US government has paid a token compensation to a minuscule portion of this community through #RECA.

#NTS #NNSS #nuclear #NuclearTesting #ColdWar @histodons

August 2023 - Seascape: the state of our oceans

Endless fallout: the Pacific idyll still facing nuclear blight 77 years on

The film Oppenheimer has shone a global spotlight on the dawn of US nuclear weapons tests. In the #MarshallIslands, where 23 of those earth-shattering blasts happened, people have never been able to forget

by Lucy Sherriff
Fri 25 Aug 2023 03.00 EDT

"At first glance, the aquamarine waters that surround the Marshall Islands seem like paradise. But this idyllic #Pacific scene hides a dark secret: it was the location of 67 #nuclear detonations as part of US military tests during the #ColdWar between 1946 and 1958.

"The bombs were exploded above ground and underwater on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, including one device 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb. Chernobyl-like levels of radiation forced hundreds from their homes. #BikiniAtoll remains deserted. At the US government’s urging, residents have begun returning slowly to #Enewetak.

"Today, there is little visible evidence of the tests on the islands except for a 115-metre (377ft)-wide cement dome that locals nickname the Tomb – for good reason.

"Built in the late 1970s and now aged and cracking, the huge concrete lid on #RunitIsland covers more than 90,000 cubic metres (3.1m cubic ft) – or roughly 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools – of radioactive soil and nuclear waste. Unbeknown to the #Marshallese people, the US shipped the waste from #Nevada, where it was testing nuclear weapons on #NativeAmerican land.

"The legacy of America’s nuclear testing on #IndigenousCommunities both on the US mainland and its territories has come under renewed scrutiny with the release of Oppenheimer, the blockbuster film about the physicist who led development of the atomic bomb.

"Although his team tested the nuclear weapons on Native American land – there were 928 large-scale nuclear weapons tests in #Nevada, #Utah and #Arizona during the cold war, dispersing huge clouds of radioactive material – the film never mentions the impact of the testing on the local Native Americans.

"'The film completely ignores the experiences of our people,' says #IanZabarte, principal man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation – who have been described as 'the most bombed nation on earth'.

"Zabarte is attempting to forge connections with those Pacific Islanders who were similarly affected by #NuclearTesting. Earlier this year, he met representatives from the Marshall Islands when they visited Nevada to discuss the effects on their health from nuclear weapons testing.

“'The health impacts on our people have never been investigated,' Zabarte says. 'We have never received an apology, let alone any kind of compensation.'

"Separately, a band of Marshallese activists are now sailing around the country’s 29 atolls, along with #Artists and #ClimateScientists, on a 12-day tour that aims to raise awareness of nuclear testing on the archipelago.

"The 520-mile ocean voyage is being operated by Cape Farewell, a cultural programme founded by the British artist David Buckland and funded by the Waverley Street Foundation, Laurene Powell Jobs’s climate charity.

"'Cancers continue from generation to generation,' says Alson Kelen, a master navigator and community elder who grew up on Bikini Atoll and is joining the expedition.

"'If you ask anyone here if there’s a legacy of nuclear impact on their health, the answer would be yes. The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claim Tribunal has a list of #cancers that are related to nuclear throughout our people. These cancers are hereditary.'

"The US maintains that the Marshall Islands are safe. It seized them from #Japan in 1944, and eventually granted the islands independence in 1979, but the fledgling nation remained in 'free association' with the US. Under this system, along with #Micronesia and #Palau, the Marshall Islands are self-governing but economically remain largely dependent on Washington, which also retains a military presence. Today it continues to use the US dollar, and American aid still represents a large percentage of its GDP.

"In 1988, an independent international tribunal was established to adjudicate between the two countries, and it later ordered the US to pay $2.3bn (£1.8bn) to the Marshall Islands in healthcare and resettlement costs.

"The US government has refused, arguing that its liabilities ended when it paid $600m in the 1990s. In 1998, the US stopped providing medical care for cancer-stricken islanders, leaving many in financial hardship."

Read more:
theguardian.com/environment/20

The Guardian · Endless fallout: the Pacific idyll still facing nuclear blight 77 years onBy Lucy Sherriff
Continued thread

Most of this material is from attempts to “decontaminate" ships irradiated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. You may have seen images of the navy ships beneath the low hanging mushroom cloud. The US Navy towed many of these ships to the Bay Area and one by one tried to decontaminate them at Hunter's Point. They failed to decontaminate them, but succeeded in contaminating the shipyard.

They later sunk the irradiated ships at the #Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, which is now the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

2/3

#OperationCrossroads #BikiniAtoll #RMI