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 ªthe scene of the As people operate nuclear power plants, greatest violence on Earth,º that he commended they increase the potential to make ªshould be the place of the greatest acts of more nuclear weapons. The nuclear nonviolence on the Earth.º 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 ªSecurity Site,º 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 part-time 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) egins in Maloy, Iowa. city. Although no human government st The atmospheric nuclear explosions that began at has lasted more than a few thousand !"ril 1 direct acti#n at $reech !%& during SPW the ªNevada Proving Groundº in 1951 over this land rd years, the US is arrogant enough to !"ril ' (##d %riday)SPW ends *+ direct acti#n at ,,SS- 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 .&!/ 0Shut D#*n $reech %#re1er Party2 in league *ith $#de Pink- underground tests by 1991. Only months after signing waste has subsided. It©s a serious N Se"te3 er 19th t# 21st Justice %#r 4ur Desert the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, problem, requiring an immediate however, The Unites States began a ªStockpile moratorium on nuclear waste genera- Stewardshipº 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 ªYucca 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.º 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 back-burner. Reprinted from Last April, the Sacred Peace Walk was on The Gangjeong Village Story, September 2014 We still have no long-term storage site for holding the waste from nuclear power plants, the road, just hours away from Creech when erroneously termed ªhigh level radioactive waste.º 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 ªlow-level nuclear wasteº 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 ªhigh levelº stuff. assassination by drones is not distinct from Jeju Island. I was inspired by what I read and Meanwhile, the nuclear waste called ªhigh levelº 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 YMP-style hole in the ground, somewhere. The Price-Anderson Act was last renewed in world had been made to believe. On April 15, When colleagues with Voices for Creative 2005 for another 20-year 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 super-secret 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 ªit'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 re-filled with only the sacred soil that that fliesº the CIA's missions, ªthe 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.º 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 Non-proliferation 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.