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Indigenous
peoples from around the world, victims of uranium mining,
nuclear testing, and nuclear dumping, issued a global ban on
uranium mining on native lands.
 The
declaration, signed during the Indigenous World Uranium Summit,
held Nov. 30-
Dec. 2,
2006
on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock,
Arizona
, brought together Australian aboriginals and villagers from
India
and
Africa
. Pacific islanders joined with indigenous peoples from the
Americas
to take action and halt the cancer, birth defects, and death
from uranium and nuclear
Nuclear Free Future Award Recipients and
Presenters
industries on native lands.
Villagers from India testified to the alarming number of babies
who die before they are born or are born with serious birth
defects, and of the high rates of cancer that are claiming the
lives of those who live near the uranium mines.
Australia Aboriginal Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, stolen as an
infant and now an activist, told of the death threats for those
who oppose the expansion of uranium mining in
South Australia
. Corporations have attempted to buy Aboriginals' approval for
new uranium mining projects on native lands.
From
northern
China
came the voice of Sun Xiaodi, a whistleblower who has exposed
massive unregulated uranium contamination. Xiaodi is now under
house arrest in
Gansu
Province
after he was "disappeared" and imprisoned in
2004-2005.
Xiaodi,
along with five other anti-nuclear activists, was awarded the
Nuclear-Free Future Award in 2006. The awards highlighted not
only the personal and collective achievements of the recipients
but also the international collaboration that has grown within
the movement. Those honored came from several continents. To
read more visit: http://americas.irc-online.org/amcit/3963
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