PAGE 1 PAGE 4 Desert Voices Newsletter MAIL ME TO A FRIEND!
Abolish Nuclear Nevada Desert Experience Weapons and drone warfare! 1420 West Bartlett Avenue Autumn 2014 Las Vegas, NV 89106 Volume 27 Issue No. 2
Join us for the 2015 Yucca Mountain: Let's Sacred Peace Walk Fill Up The Whole Hole by Brian Terrell by Marcus Page-Collonge For many years I have been an occasional Historically and tactically the nuclear participant in events sponsored by the Nevada Desert weapons system is inextricably linked Experience to witness at... a place named by the late with nuclear powered electricity plants. Dom Helder Camara of Brazil as “the scene of the As people operate nuclear power plants, greatest violence on Earth,” that he commended they increase the potential to make “should be the place of the greatest acts of more nuclear weapons. The nuclear nonviolence on the Earth.” Since spring of 2009, after chain keeps grinding out nuclear waste, participating in the first nonviolent direct actions and civilian power plants in the US against killing by drones perpetrated from Creech Air have never found a permanent storage Force Base, located on the road from NDE’s center in site for this totally toxic waste. The US Save These Dates For NDE Events Las Vegas to the “Security Site,” I have been coming government first pased the Price to the desert from my home in the Midwest more Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity often and this September I became NDE’s Event N th Act in 1957, giving eternal support for January 19 MLK Day Parade in Las Vegas Coordinator. This is a parttime position and I will the first batch of nuclear waste as the continue working with Voices for Creative responsibility of the government, not Nonviolence and living at the Catholic Worker Farm N th the producers or consumers of electri March 28 Sacred Peace Walk (SPW) begins in Maloy, Iowa. city. Although no human government st The atmospheric nuclear explosions that began at has lasted more than a few thousand April 1 direct action at Creech AFB during SPW the “Nevada Proving Ground” in 1951 over this land rd years, the US is arrogant enough to April 3 Good Friday—SPW ends w/ direct action at NNSS. stolen from the Western Shoshone nation were driven think we can handle this communal underground in 1963 by the Partial Test Ban Treaty. problem for the next 50,000 years or Antinuclear activists successfully ended the N more, until the toxicity of radioactive Date TBA: “Shut Down Creech Forever Party” in league with Code Pink. underground tests by 1991. Only months after signing waste has subsided. It's a serious N September 19th to 21st Justice For Our Desert the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, problem, requiring an immediate however, The Unites States began a “Stockpile moratorium on nuclear waste genera Stewardship” of nuclear weapons program that tion, so that people of the USA can first includes subcritical explosions at the site to this day. deal with the past toxic waste before Renamed the Nevada National Security Site in 2010, considering starting new toxic projects. This place remains a key site in preserving and Because of NDE's love for the desert Communicate With Us—& Help Us Create Social Justice Environmental Justice expanding the US nuclear weapons program in and awareness that the nuclear chain violation of international law and of any standard of includes weapons and waste, NDE has human morality. always offered solidarity support for the We all care about honoring each other's time and resources. As our consciousness grows and is a source Creech Air Force Base was a modest installation sacred snake mountain called “Yucca of blessing for the world, we keep exercising our spiritual muscles. To be most effective, we wish to when I first saw it in 2009. Since then armed drones Mountain.” Although not our focus, we have become the weapon of choice for the Obama consistently oppose the Yucca Mountain communicate clearly, so NDE's Council asks YOU to please let us know if your contact info has changed, administration’s escalating wars around the world. or if you wish to be in a different kind of contact with us. Phone, write, or type to us (e-mail is our current Project (YMP) of the Department of Creech Air Force Base has dramatically expanded Energy (DOE). Our main focus at NDE preference, but any contact is better than no contact). Send us email via [email protected] and so has the number of drone operation bases in continues to be the nuclear weapons communities around the US. My work with Voices for scourge. Creative Nonviolence has brought me to the scenes of We are coming to the end of two years of grants and we need your support. Please donate By 2011 the US government put the drone crimes in Afghanistan, the CIA headquarters at YMP on the back burner, and within a what you can, via mail or on-line with the green donate button on our website. Langley, Virginia and at the gates of drone bases in year recommended that our national New York, Iowa, Missouri and Michigan and in heritage (the growing pile of nuclear Our postal mailing address is above on this page. England as well. waste) should not be subject to political CONTINUED PAGE 3 PAGE 3 PAGE 2 Sacred Peace Walk Fill Up The Whole Hole CONTINUED From Page 1 Jeju Island Visit CONTINUED From PAGE 1 by Brian Terrell control like the DOE, which is now (late 2014) warming up the YMP on that backburner. Reprinted from Last April, the Sacred Peace Walk was on The Gangjeong Village Story, September 2014 We still have no longterm storage site for holding the waste from nuclear power plants, the road, just hours away from Creech when erroneously termed “high level radioactive waste.” The NNSS continues to take in regular the story broke in the media that the Central For years I heard of the nonviolent struggle shipments of “lowlevel nuclear waste” which is buried unsafely as an intentional biological Intelligence Agency’s covert program of against the construction of a naval base on hazard to our environment. That NNSS waste can be just as toxic as the “high level” stuff. assassination by drones is not distinct from Jeju Island. I was inspired by what I read and Meanwhile, the nuclear waste called “high level” lays around in more populated areas, waiting for the drone program of the US Air Force as the by the reports of friends who visited the island. an alleged YMPstyle hole in the ground, somewhere. The PriceAnderson Act was last renewed in world had been made to believe. On April 15, When colleagues with Voices for Creative 2005 for another 20year guarantee that nuclear power plants can continue poisoning the future this distinction was exposed as a lie as Nonviolence, Hakim and Kathy Kelly, spoke of with untold levels of toxic waste. Why do the people of the USA continue to allow such former Air Force drone operators, veterans of their visit in May, I decided to go to Jeju irresponsible behavior? Even if we fill the huge hole in Yucca Mountain to capacity, it's not a supersecret Squadron 17 at Creech, myself. On September 2, with the support of enough space for all the currently existing radioactive waste, let alone the amounts being revealed that “it’s always been the Air Force Voices, I met Sherri Maurin in Seoul and we generated until 2025. The hole in the mountain needs to be refilled with only the sacred soil that that flies” the CIA’s missions, “the CIA might went on to Gangjeong. was removed for unsafe storage of nuclear waste. be the customer, but the Air Force has always flown it.” Over the years since April The next ten days we experienced extra 2009, the promises of a new era of better war ordinary hospitality and a beautiful culture of through drone technology have been steadily resistance in Gangjeong that actively seeks to unravelling, each of them proving false. It is create inclusive and peaceable ways of living Report Back: Justice For Our Desert together in the face of the construction of an For 63 years the Nevada Desert portion of increasingly clear that rather than limiting the scope of war, drones expand and ecologically devastating and politically desta Newe Sogobia (Shoshone homelands) has been bilizing naval base. The hellish conspiracy that undergoing spiritual and environmental violence proliferate it, killing more civilians both on battlefields and far from them, endangering includes Samsung, the US, the Republic of due to nuclear attacks on the soil, water and air. Korea and other corporate and government For 33 years Nevada Desert Experience has been our soldiers and the safety of our communities. entities is confounded daily by fervent and part of the tradition of creating healthy spaces for peaceful liturgies and exuberant songs and peace and justice to flourish, starting with dances. enjoying the beauty of the desert. For six years As the United States government commits NDE has been helping resist the physical and its resources to intensifying wars in Iraq and Syria and as it approaches the After five days spiritual violence of drone warfare and pickling peppers at assasinations. This year NDE started an Autumn Nonproliferation Treaty Review at the United Nations in May with only the feeblest my home on the desert weekend witness called Justice For Our farm in Iowa, I was Desert to supplement the Springtime peace walk pretense of compliance, the Nevada National Security Site and Creech Air Force Base are on the road again, with a few days of nonviolence education and to Nevada to mark celebration. The focus is the overall need for apt places for people of faith and conscience to visit this spring. the International environmental and social justice. As our friend 15 people gathered for a Sunday liturgy near the Mercury Day of Peace at the entrance to the Nevada National Security Site. This NDE event The Sacred Peace Walk is a seven day nuclear test site was in synch with Campaign Nonviolence and the International and Creech Air st pilgrimage, a 60 mile trek through the Holiday of Peace, September 21 . Mojave Desert starting on the Las Vegas Force Base, center of the military and Corbin Harney used to say (God rest his soul in Strip on March 29, stopping at Creech Air Force Base and ending at the Nevada CIA killer drones. The Nevada desert does not peace), “We, the people, gotta take matters into our look like tropical Jeju Island, but both are far own hands” for protecting the planet from the National Security Site on April 3 marked as Good Friday by many. Walking by snow from the centers of power and the beauty of violence of drone assassins and nuclear waste both are exploited and poisoned by greed for disposal. This event ended with eight people on covered mountain ranges, sleeping under the nd desert sky, participating in the ceremonies of domination and resources. Just as coastland Monday the 22 of September peacefully blockading was taken from the people of Gangjeong by the Creech Air Force Base main entrance, while the Western Shoshone friends who join in the walk and welcome us to their land, building stealth and violence, so the sacred land of the another dozen people prayed for peace along the side indigenous Western Shoshone Nation was of the road, near three counterdemonstrators community, listening and praying with each For five minutes the blockaders were nonviolently other, acts of resistance... are cleansing for stolen and defiled. In both places, communities reclaiming the pavement in the name of the sacred desert. supporting drone violence. The County Metro Police have formed to restore what has been lost. Pictured here are Fr. Jerry Zawada, Mark Kelso, Susan and Creech security redirected traffic during the the spirits of all who participate and we pray, cleansing for our planet at risk. Dillon, Derek Minno-Bloom, Kelley Kolberg, Evy Slodzina, blockade, arrested four people and released them Such communities on the world’s geographical Robert Majors and Dennis Duvall. Half of the group onsite (possibly due to the fact that the and political margins are all that bring hope to avoided arrest during the final warning. nonarrestees were heading back to Vegas at the Please come to Nevada and join us along the way for a few hours, for a day or for the these perilous times and I cherish oppor same moment the police were ready to transport tunities to be part of them. defendants back to Vegas). Join us next fall, from September 19th to 21st. Again we will seek whole walk. For more information, see Justice for Our Desert! NevadaDesertExperience.org