image below from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-05/barngarla-women-protest against-nuclear-waste-at-kimba/102053982
Total admiration and support’ for Kimba fight
Four British anti-nuclear groups have written to an Aboriginal campaign group to express their ‘total admiration and support’ in solidarity with their struggle against a Federal Government plan to dump nuclear waste on their Traditional Land in South Australia. They have also strongly objected to the plan in a joint response to a government consultation. The NFLA, Radiation Free Lakeland, Millom against the Nuclear Dump, and Guardians of the East Coast are all engaged in campaigns to oppose nuclear waste dumps in Cumbria or Lincolnshire All four campaign groups could immediately see the comparisons between the treatment of the Barngarla people in South Australia and the local people they represent. In the UK and Australia, citizens are angry at having their views ignored by politicians and the nuclear industry and fearful of the impact on their lives, those of their family, their community, and the local economy of a nuclear dump. NFLA Chair, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, said: “In the past, Indigenous Australians have been the victims of atom bomb testing, and uranium mining. Now they face the threat of a nuclear waste dump. This yet another example of nuclear colonialism”. Marianne Birkby, Founder of Radiation Free Lakeland, commented: “Plans for a dangerously polluting Kimba nuclear waste dump resonates very deeply with us here in Cumbria. “The nuclear waste industry ‘heartland” on the Lake District Coast began by dispossessing farmers from their fertile land. Not only farmland was immediately lost to the sprawling nuclear waste site but also the last stretch of the river Calder. Once abundant with salmon and freshwater pearl mussels the river was turned into a gutter for contaminated runoff from the site. “Nuclear waste continues to arrive every week in Cumbria and the latest plan for a heat generating nuclear waste dump under the Irish Sea is utterly unconscionable – as are the plans in Kimba”. Jan Bridget, Co-Founder of Millom against the Nuclear Dump, added: “We see at Kimba that the nuclear establishment and politicians are using the same approach worldwide = not listening to local people.” Ken Smith, Chair of Guardians of the East Coast, added: “The only reason governments are imposing these poisonous dumps on their people is to hide the problem they are continuing to create. Geological Disposal is simply sweeping the problem under the carpet”. Thanks to the Nuclear Free Local Authorities for organising the letter of support which can be seen here in the NFLA’s latest newsletter
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