India's  Navajo Nation

Since 1967, when UCIL first started uranium mining in Jadugoda, the lives of people have been inflicted with unknown diseases, deaths and poisoned environment. The foundation of these mines has been laid on lies and misinformation by UCIL about the impact of uranium mining, radiation and toxicity in Jadugoda. Till the '90s the tailing ponds (where uranium mine liquid waste is stored to evaporate) was in close vicinity of areas in the villages used as children's playground, open grazing area and other public use. The radiation levels and related sickness were never revealed by UCIL, even though for years the local population has suffered from the extensive environmental degradation caused by the mining operations which are also responsible for the high frequency of radiation-related sicknesses and developmental disorders found in the area. Even though India's Atomic Energy Act states that there should be no habitation within five kilometers of a waste site or uranium-tailing pond and even though Jadugoda has been in operation for more than 30 years, seven villages stand within one and a half kilometers of the danger zone. One of them, Dungardihi, begins just 40 meters away.

It was only in 1996 when a group of people working in the mines and living in close vicinity started questioning the legitimacy UCIL's free rein to pollute the environment and lives of indigenous people. This led to the formation of a local anti-uranium mining group called Jharkhandis Organization Against Radiation whose mission is to resist further nuclear development, and to educate the local Adivasis about the dangers of radioactivity. JOAR is also a winner of the 2004 Nuclear-Free Future Resistance Award. Even after the documentation of severe damage caused by uranium mining in Jadugoda in a documentary titled "Buddha Weeps In Jadugoda" by Shri Prakash, UCIL still admits to no wrongdoing, claiming that none of the prevalent congenital diseases in the area are due to the radiation from their uranium mines and milling operations.

The name of the documentary "Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda" is somewhat ironic.  My hometown is not very far (200 km or so) from where Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree, meditated and attained salvation.  It is doubly ironic because India's first nuclear test (which occurred in 1975, and not in 1998...contrary to popular opinion in the US) was codenamed "The Smiling Buddha"... because it was a "peaceful nuclear test" meant to harness nuclear energy for miscellaneous peaceful purposes, including the rapid construction of dams by blowing up whole mountains.

And here is that documentary.  Bewarned:  if you have a heart, you will not be able to watch without shedding a few tears !

The part about women having spontaneous abortions was very painful for me: my parents had 7 children, but 3 were either stillborn or died minutes after birth.  I will never know why: I have not had a single conversation about those stillbirths with anyone in my whole life (other than when my father acknowledged it, and then declared that he did not wish to discuss it).  

Under current Indian law, it is very difficult to hold UCIL (the Uranium Corp of India, which is owned by the Indian Government) responsible.  For one thing, the court system is dysfunctional ~ it can take decades to dispose of cases.  Secondly, current law sides with the mining company ~ in order to hold them liable (or to force them to make improvements), it is necessary to prove that their actions are responsible for the skeletal deformities, the cancer, and the stillbirths.  But how does one "prove" such a thing ?  Cancer, and skeletal deformities, and stillbirths occur even amongst those who are not exposed to any radiation.  The mere fact that cancer etc occurs more often when one is exposed to radiation does not "prove" that the two are linked... as per current Indian law.

And that brings me to the real reason I support the US-India trade deal:   under the terms of that deal, all civilian Indian nuclear facilities (and this would include the mines at Jadudoga) would be subject to IAEA safeguards.

Those IAEA safeguards would mean that Buddha would, finally, stop weeping in Jadugoda.

I hope you will support it too... or at least be less vehement in your opposition to it !!
   

Update [2008-6-22 18:1:19 by SevenStrings]: Thank you semiquaver, louisprandtl, Canadian Gal and alyssa chaos. 4 recs puts this on the rec list (must be another slow MyDD day =)