walking the land

The 2001 Nuclear-Free Future Awards went to: Aboriginal activist Kevin Buzzacott from Australia (Resistance category); photographer Kenji Higuchi from Japan (Education); MP Hans-Josef Fell from Germany (Solutions) -- each of these three prizes is endowed with a money prize of 10.000 Euro. This year two honorary awards go out to David Lowry from England (Special Recognition), and Solange Fernex from France (Lifetime Achievement).

The 2001 Nuclear-Free Future Awards were presented in Ireland at Carnsore Point, County Wexford on September 8-9 during a weekend of music, storytelling, and celebration. During the late Seventies Carnsore Point had been the focal point of the nationwide opposition to the government's plans to build there the first Irish nuclear reactor. The protest, initiated among others by folksinger Christy Moore, lasted four summers, and was heard in Dublin: the Irish government backed down from its nuclear plans.

Please visit http://www.nuclear-free.com

Statement by Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna Elder and Peacemaker

We Arabunna People are outraged, fuming, that the government wants to dump its radioactive waste on this area it calls the Billa Kalina Region.

WE OPPOSE THIS PROJECT OUTRIGHT!

We are putting you on notice , directing you, telling you,
Do not dump that radioactive waste on any of our land.
Do not turn Lake Eyre into a sacrificial area for the nuclear industry's poisonous waste.
Do not keep exposing our people to the harmful radiation.
Do not destroy another sacred site.

"In the past we were forced to leave our lands by the killing mobs who massacred our countrymen, our mothers and our little children. The racist system forced our Old People to leave so a few of us would survive. You see our lands as remote just like your principle of law terra nullius. This is not an uninhabited wasteland for your waste. It is our home. We became refugees but always maintained contact with our country. That is only temporary and now we need to have our land back, so we can look after it the proper way and heal ourselves. We plan to go back there and take away the evil. We have to go back whether the land has been poisoned or not. We've got nowhere else to go. Our life exists with our land. It is our foundation. It is our past, present and future."

LIVING CULTURAL SITE DESTROYED BY WMC …AGAIN!
On the 11/11/2000 the Arabunna going home camp, situated on the shores of Lake Eyre South, was destroyed by Western Mining Corporation ... again.

This is the second time since the camp was set up, in March 1999, that WMC have removed the camp and stolen the personal possessions of the residents.

Despite the Supreme Court of SA stating that there should be no more harassment from WMC towards the residents of the camp at lake Eyre. The keepers of the camp were continually harassed, on a daily basis, by WMC security.

Whilst the residents of the camp where visiting friends down the road, WMC took the opportunity to destroy the camp, without written authorization of the SA courts. WMC also failed to notify the Arabunna nation or the Keepers of Lake Eyre of their intentions. Legal advice is being sought and appropriate legal action will be taken.

The Arabunna Going Home Camp was set up by Kevin Buzzacott (Arabunna Elder/ Peace Maker) as a living cultural site and a place of peace and active reconciliation. The sacred peace fire was ignited at the camp on the 10 of June 2000 and was carried 3060km by Kevin Buzzacott on his historic journey to Sydney -Walking the Land For Our Ancient Rights, Peace and Healing.

The walk, which lasted over three months, was a journey for peace and reconciliation which many hundreds of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from all over the world took part in.

Kevin Buzzacott states:

"It is an internationally recognised peace camp and a living cultural site of the Arabunna nation. Who has given the permission for our home to be destroyed?"

"WMC are criminals and the inheritors of the genocidal practices of their forebears. When will we (the Arabunna people) be allowed to live in our own country, without being hassled, assaulted and moved on, yet again."

"We are the rightful owners of this whole country. The residents of the camp are people from all over the world who have the full permission of the Arabunna nation to live in our country, unlike WMC who are the masters of oppression, the corporation of theft and the kings of genocide".

"Is there any justice out there. When do we (the Arabunna Nation) have access to basic human rights and the right to peacefully live in our own land. When can we go home?"