HEALING GLOBAL WOUNDS '97

SPRING GATHERINGS AT NEVADA TEST SITE,
MARCH 23 TO APRIL 4, 1997

NUCLEAR FOOLS' DAY, APRIL 1

MEDIA ADVISORY
March 11, 1997

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Reinard Knutsen (702) 647-3095

DIVERSE GROUPS FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO GATHER AT THE NEVADA TEST SITE TO DEMAND NUCLEAR ABOLITION, AN END TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING AND WASTE DUMPING.

MARCH 23 - 30, LENTEN DESERT EXPERIENCE

The Lenten Desert Experience and Holy Week Walk are organized and hosted by Nevada Desert Experience. Through prayer, reflection, sharing and action, participants will explore nonviolent approaches to the violence of nuclear proliferation.

Please Call: (702) 646-4814 for more information or nde@igc.apc.org

MARCH 26 - 27, A COUNCIL OF WOMEN TO END THE NUCLEAR AGE

The meeting will include presentations on current struggles in this nation and elsewhere related to all kinds of nuclear facilities and transport, and focus on strategies and techniques for organizing women to end the nuclearage.

Please Call: Susan Lee Solar (512)-447-6222 or nukemuse@igc.org,

MARCH 27 - 31, HEALING GLOBAL WOUNDS

All Peoples' gathering to break the nuclear chain. To be effective human beings, we need to develop our 4 aspects: body, spirit, heart and mind. The HGW four day program includes: Indigenous panel on key nuclear issues, Multi cultural Alliance Building Training, International delegations, daily spiritual ceremony, and nonviolent action. Network with key leaders and groups in the anti-nuclear movement.

Please call Jennifer Viereck (408) 338-0147 or hgw@scruznet.com

MARCH 31 - APRIL 4, ACTION FOR NUCLEAR ABOLITION!

Five days of creative nonviolent direct action including blockades, parades, and actions to SHUT THE TEST SITE DOWN!

March 31: Critical Mass Action at Nevada Test Site. Day of Unity to Shutthe Test Site Down.

April 1: Nuclear Fools Day of Action. We are calling for a National Call in Day to the White house to cancel the "subcritical" nuclear weapons tests currently planned to begin this spring. In Las Vegas we will organize a Nuclear Fools Day Parade through Downtown to the Foley Federal Building.

April 2-4: Blockades, parades and actions to Shut the Test Site Down! We will attempt to block the three main entrances to NTS to stop the preparations for Sub Critical nuclear weapons testing and nuclear waste transportation and dumping Please call Reinard Knutsen (702) 647-3095 shundahai@intermind.net

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS: Action for Nuclear Abolition!, Alliance of Atomic Veterans, American Friends Service Committee, Atomic Mirror, Bay Area Action, Center for Energy Research, Common Ground Magazine, Eco-Services, Inc., Fitzpatrick Lodge, Foundation for a Compassionate Society, Healing Global Wounds Alliance, Macrocosm USA, Montana Coffee Traders, Nuke Watch, P.A.R.A.N.O.I.D.S., Shamans Drum, Shundahai Network

ENDORSING ORGANIZATIONS: European Peace Pilgrimage (Belgium), For Mother Earth, Foundation for Peace (New Zeland), Global Anti-Nuclear Alliance (Netherlands), Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Greenpeace USA, Geinsuikin (Japan), International Peace Bureau (Switzerland), Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Mouvment De La Paix (France), Nuclear Resister, Oregon Peace Works, Proposition One Committee, Peace Action, Peace Action Education Fund, Peace House, Peace Farm, Save Ward Valley, Seeds of Peace, S.M.A.R.T., Student Nonviolent Action Coalition, Tri-Valley Cares, War Resisters League, Western States Legal Foundation, Women Strike for Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

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"Global opposition has stopped nuclear testing temporarily, but deadly nuclear wastes continue to accumulate, and nuclear weapons development proceeds unchecked," warns a coalition of nuclear abolition activists who are sponsoring a series of anti-nuclear events this spring at the infamous Nevada Test Site (NTS), near Las Vegas, Nevada. The purpose of the gatherings--being organized by Shundahai Network, Healing Global Wounds, Nevada Desert Experience, and others--is to convince the Department of Energy (DOE) and the nuclear industry to start cleaning up their messes and stop making more of them.

The coalition selected the NTS as the focus of the spring gatherings for several reasons. The site is located on land illegally appropriated from the Western Shoshone Nation by the U.S. government in the early 1950s; it is the most frequently bombed place in the U.S. (more than a thousand nuclear bombs have been exploded there above and below ground); and it is being turned into world's largest nuclear waste dump.

Although there is a moratorium on nuclear testing at the NTS, the site is being kept in full readiness for future testing under the DOE's new Stockpile Stewardship and Management (SS&M) program. In fact, the U.S. recently announced that despite having signed a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)--which must still be ratified by forty-four weapons-capable nations--it intends to continue nuclear weapons development at the NTS this Spring, and to keep the facility ready to resume full-scale nuclear testing with six months notice.

The SS&M program will involve using computer technology to design and test new developments in nuclear weaponry. As part of this program, "subcritical" nuclear weapons tests are already being planned for the spring of 1997. These "test" detonations are expected to explode before "critical mass" is reached, and therefore, are not supposed to set off a nuclear chain reaction. Nevertheless, the devices to be tested will contain plutonium--and there is no guarantee that critical mass will not be reached.

Even if a chain reaction doesn't occur, these tests would undermine efforts to implement the CTBT. If the U.S. continues developing its nuclear weapons program, other nuclear-weapons-capable nations may refrain from ratifying the treaty.

The NTS already has the dubious distinction of being the largest nuclear waste site in the U.S--a nation that generates six tons of nuclear waste a day. In 1995 alone, more than 960 shipments of nuclear waste--averaging nearly three loads per day--were dumped into shallow, unlined trenches located above southern Nevada's largest underground aquifer. By 1998, the DOE intends to transport more than 15,600 more shipments of nuclear waste through forty-three states to the NTS.

The DOE has itself admitted that anywhere from seventy to three hundred accidents could occur during shipping, and that a single accident could contaminate as much as forty-two square miles. Nuclear abolitionists believe it is sheer madness to continue transporting tons of extremely toxic wastes in unsafe containers, along unsafe railways and highways, through populated communities and beautiful natural settings, to unsafe dumpsites.

The organizers of the spring events believe it is imperative that people speak out and convince the nuclear industry to realistically address the monumental problem of what to do with its waste products--not just assign those wastes to government-controlled sites which operate as if they were exempt from normal environmental regulations. People must also pressure the nuclear industry to stop generating more wastes--and the government to cease its nuclear development programs.

Organizers of the spring events are optimistic that--by using a combination of prayer and ceremony, trainings, workshops, and nonviolent direct action--"activists and organizations working together can generate significant groundswells of public opinion and political pressure." The coalition and Corbin Harney, spiritual leader of the Newe (Western Shoshone) Nation and founder of Shundahai Network, invite all peoples to join them, physically or in spirit.

"It's in our backyard...its in our front yard. This nuclear contamination is shortening all life.
We're going to have to unite as a people and say no more! We, the people, are going to have to put our thoughts together to save our planet here. We only have One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth." Corbin Harney, Newe (Western Shoshone) Spiritual Leader; Founder and Executive Director, Shundahai Network

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