Breslau and Dresden to Be Liberated After Berlin

Yuriy RUBTSOV | 06.05.2015 | 00:02

The last days of the Great Patriotic War the Hitler’s troops often fought in despair realizing that the regime they defended was doomed. What could have saved Breslau (Wroclaw, Poland) encircled by the 1st Ukrainian Front on February 14? …Germany was losing one line of defense after another; the government led by Karl Dönitz replaced the government of Hitler who committed suicide. Berlin fell. But the forces concentrated in Breslau continued to resist. There were different reasons. The Goebbels propaganda promised a “miracle weapon” to change the tide of war. There were hopes the anti-Germany alliance would split apart leading to the start of separate talks between Germany and Anglo-Americans. Hitlerites were dead scared trying to delay the time they will be held responsible for what they have done. The 1st Ukrainian Front refused to storm Breslau immediately. The 6th Army led byLt. GeneralVladimirGluzdovsky had limited strength but it was strong enough to maintain the encirclement. Other forces went to the west crossing the NeisseRiver to approach Berlin. Two and a half months have passed till the 1st Ukrainian Front cracked down on the 40-thousand strong concentration of forces. The Prague Offensive Operation was conducted in a short period of time (5-12 May, 1945). The Front commander Marshall of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev issued an order to launch offensive on May 4. It said the right flank was to rapidly attack along the both shores of the Elbe River in the direction of Prague to strike the enemy’s forces concentrated in the Dresden-Görlitz area.The forces rapidly advanced. The 4th Tank Guards Army of General D. Lelushenko and the 13th Army led by General N. Pukhov led the way. The sudden strike by the Soviet forces allowed to encircle the group deployed in the area of Breslau. There were strong lines of defense along the Oder River. Everything was turned into fortifications. Trenches allowed the enemy to freely move forces and defend the suburbs, airports and railway stations. Hitlerites organized an air bridge which happened to be ineffective and did not last long. Artillery and aviation delivered constant strikes. Storm groups fought incessantly. There were tactical units formed especially for urban warfare. Each consisted of an infantry battalion reinforced by two tanks or self-propelled artillery pieces, a battery of 76mm guns, a group of 14-16 sappers with 800-900 kg of explosives and groups armed with flame throwers. Soviet soldiers used captured panzerfausts to strike the enemy’s fortifications. Trying to evade bloodshed, the Soviet command issued an ultimatum to guarantee life to those who would surrender. German Field MarshalFerdinandSchoerner, who headed the Army Centre Group, issued the orderto General Hermann forbidding to meet the ultimatum. In early May air strikes precisely delivered by Soviet aviation made Niehoff ask the Soviet command to stop fire and send representatives for talks. An ultimatum was issued to demand immediate surrender. There was no timely reply. Soviet soldiers started an offensive. On May 6, white flags were hoisted over Breslau to be replaced by red banners afterwards. The 1st Ukrainian Front started an offensive as part of Prague Operation. The 5th Guards Army of GeneralAleksei Semenovich Zhadov was ordered to take Dresden. The city was in ruins because on February 13-15 the allied aviation delivered a strike that produced the damage comparable with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. At least 25 thousand lost lives as a result of this barbarous action. There was no reason for this operation from military point of view - there were no elements of defense industry infrastructure in the city overcrowded with refugees. The allied command did not conceal its plans to show Russians when they get to the city (according to the Yalta Conference decisions, the city was to be taken by Red Army) what the Anglo-American air forces could do. Encircling Dresden from north-west and north-east, the Red Army captured over a hundred of populated areas. On May 7, it appeared at the outskirts of the city. On May 8, the fighting continued all day and night. By 1400 hours, May 8, the garrison was defeated and capitulated. Right after the Soviet forces entered the city of Dresden devastated by Anglo-America aviation the suffering population received aid. Foodstuffs were distributed among city dwellers. Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and People's Commissarfor Externaland Internal Trade, was sent to the city in the capacity of Special Representative of the State Defense Committee. The 1st Ukrainian Front filled the storages at the disposal of the city’s Oberburgermaster (mayor)with food. Member of the of the military council of 1st Ukrainian Front Lieutenant-General Krainyukov remembers that around 10 thousand tons of grain, over 1, 1 thousand tons of meat, 512 tons of fat and 30 thousand tons of potatoes were allocated as food aid to city dwellers. The Front’s engineers contributed into the restoration of the communal services. The Soviet soldiers saved the Dresden Picture Gallery famous throughout the whole world. Many important masterpieces were found in a mine in Gross Cotta.The pictures of Rubens, Rembrandt and Titian were in a narrow gauge railway. They were covered by mould. Water was running from the walls. There was a box with the famous “The Sistine Madonna” by Raphael inside. More masterpieces were found in the town of Pockau -Lengefeld. N. Sokolova, an acting corresponding member of the Academy of Arts, rushed to Dresden from Moscow. She remembers how she went to the mine accompanied by soldiers. “Self-Portrait with Saskia” by Rembrandt came into torchlight. The vets were captivated by the view watching the creation of the famous Dutch. The was a long pause. An old sapper asked “Who does the painter offers to raise glasses to? She said, “Rembrandt raises his glass for you, brave soldiers. He is happy that you saved his picture and returned it to people.” Perhaps that was the moment the soldiers felt they did something important for the whole humanity. The pictures were taken to the USSR for restoration to be returned to Germany in 1955. …In 2009 Ted R.Bromund, Senior Research Fellow, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and Adjunct Faculty, Strategic Studies, published a paper with recommendations for Barack Obama before visiting Dresden. The fighter for freedom wrote the following, “On June 5, President Obama will visit the German city of Dresden. This visit will be intensely controversial. Dresden is most famous for the Anglo-American bombing raid against it on February 13, 1945. The Dresden raid did cause serious loss of life, but in the Second World War it was not unprecedented or unusual. The myths that have grown up about the raid were fostered by the Nazis and spread by post-war Soviet propaganda. Because of this spurious symbolism, President Obama's decision to visit Dresden is ill-advised. During his visit, the President must absolutely reject any equation of the Western Allies and the Nazis. He must avoid accepting as true the claims of the Nazi and Soviet propagandists about the Dresden raid. Finally, he must stoutly defend the Anglo-American air campaign, which served vital military purposes (! –the exclamation mark by author) and which led to the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis in 1945.” These are the examples for comparison: the barbarous bombing of Dresden by Anglo-American aviation and saving Dresden Picture Gallery masterpieces by Red Army. Perhaps, TedBromund and the like would perceive it as Russian propaganda. Let them say so! The Bromunds do not represent the whole world… http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/05/06/breslau-and-dresden-to-be-liberated-after-berlin.html

Once again, the West fails to understand Russia

EDITOR'S CHOICE | 05.05.2015 | 18:02

Why are Western countries by and large so indulgent of the anniversaries that contribute to their own nationhood, and so insensitive towards those of others? On Saturday, President Vladimir Putin will take the salute at a grand military parade in Moscow’s Red Square. Victory Day – 9 May is when Russia commemorates its part in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany – is at once the most solemn and overtly patriotic occasion. It is one of the few public holidays to have made the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet calendar intact. Victory Day was a highlight of the year I spent as an exchange student in Voronezh – a city rarely mentioned without the accompanying phrase “the last front before Stalingrad”. Preparations took weeks: placards were painted; bunting and flags adorned the streets. It was a huge honour to bear the university standard. Food stocks in the shops miraculously improved. Reporting from Moscow over a decade later, I recall the barriers piled up around Red Square, the overnight arrival of the tanks and, above all, the suffocating stench of their fuel, as the iron monsters waited to join the triumphal formation. The Victory Day parade was something to cling to, even as the Soviet Union neared collapse. This year’s commemoration will be second to none. As the 70th, it is a round-number anniversary. As with the plethora of Second World War anniversaries being commemorated this year, this is probably the last time that there will be anything like a quorum of those who actually participated in or witnessed these events able to attend. Then, of course, there is the trickier, most contemporary and specifically Russian, aspect. This year is an opportunity for the Kremlin to demonstrate that Russia, as a great power, is back. The advance of the decadent West has been halted in Ukraine and the sacred territory of Crimea has been returned to the motherland. All this is why Western leaders – who went to Moscow en masse for Victory Day’s 60th anniversary – are staying away. They do not wish to associate with Putin – certainly not while Ukraine’s very existence as a sovereign state is under threat. They especially do not want to appear at a Russian military occasion, which could be seen as signalling acceptance of the events of the past 18 months. Strictly speaking there is no Western boycott, and there are degrees of absence. The Czech president will go to Moscow, but not attend the parade. Angela Merkel will arrive a day later and lay a wreath – an act that might anyway seem more appropriate for a German Chancellor at a wartime anniversary. As for the UK, who knows who the prime minister will be by Saturday? Declining the invitation was excusable, regardless of Ukraine. Some may see the attendance list, headed by the Chinese and Indian leaders – but not by North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, who has just cried off – followed by the autocrats of Central Asia, as evidence of where Russia’s foreign policy is now heading. Maybe. But the Kremlin’s response to the Western stay-away suggests otherwise. It has been peevish, but also shot through with incomprehension. For Russians, what is happening in Ukraine and Russia’s part in the victory of 1945 are qualitatively and quantitatively quite different things. Each 9 May, Russia does not just celebrate victory over Nazi Germany; it mourns the loss of more than 20 million war dead, and it reconsecrates the idea of Russian suffering to save Europe. In conversation with Russians in recent weeks, I have had to field a stream of injured questions along the lines of “has the West ever understood Russia’s sacrifice?” and: “Will the West ever appreciate it?” The notion that Ukraine is a real stumbling block here is beyond comprehension; the stay-away is rather seen as further proof that Russia will never, ever, be considered  “one of us”. Countries keep memories alive, often unrealistically flattering ones, for many reasons. Last June, in a recognition of the wartime alliance, Putin was controversially invited to join the Allied commemoration of the Normandy landings, at a time when Russia’s seizure of Crimea was even fresher in the memory than it is now. But this offered an opportunity for Western leaders and for Putin to speak their minds, while preserving dignity on either side. One result was the first formal meeting between Putin and Ukraine’s newly elected president – without which Ukraine’s situation might be even worse than it is today. To join Putin on the podium for Saturday’s parade would not be politic; but to dine in the Kremlin or take part in a wreath-laying would surely not be out of place. Most Westerners might not fear any resurgence of fascism in Ukraine, but discussion with Putin and others – whose fathers fought on that front and others – could afford an understanding of why many Russians might. In recent years, the West has missed one opportunity after another to understand how Russia’s past influences its present. And here is another gone.  independent.co.uk

Griechenlands aktuelle Entschädigungsforderungen an Deutschland und das Recht

NS-Zwangsanleihe von 1942, staatliche Reparations- und private Schadensersatzansprüche

u.a. mit Prof. em. Dr. Hagen Fleischer

Dienstag, 12.05.2015 von 18.00-21.30 Uhr | Festsaal der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Luisenstraße 56, 10115 Berlin

Wir sind überzeugt, dass es eine friedlichere Welt ohne Stärkung des Rechts nicht geben kann. Dafür setzen wir uns ein – auf vielen Ebenen und Themenfeldern. Dabei bewegt uns auch die Frage, welche Rolle die Geltendmachung und Durchsetzung finanzieller Ansprüche von Opfern militärischer Maßnahmen für die Delegitimierung von Kriegen und die Verhinderung künftiger militärischer Konflikte spielen können.

Dies betrifft nicht nur das Einklagen von Amtshaftungsansprüchen vor deutschen Gerichten, wie im Falle des Kosovo-Krieges ("Brücke von Vavarin") und des Afghanistan-Krieges ("Kundus-Massaker"). Das gilt auch für Entschädigungsansprüche von Einzel-Opfern (wie z.B. im Falle des NS-Massakers in Distomo/Griechenland) und staatliche Zahlungsansprüche. Aktuell geht es dabei u.a. um die Forderungen der neuen griechischen Syriza-Regierung wegen des NS-Zwangskredits von knapp 500 Millionen Reichsmark, der heute umgerechnet einen Wert von ca. 11 Milliarden Euro haben soll. Die deutsche Bundesregierung entzieht sich einer Rückzahlung – wie ihre Vorgängerinnen seit 1949 – weiterhin mit historisch und rechtlich fragwürdigen Argumenten. Das wollen und können wir nicht hinnehmen. Wir suchen deshalb den öffentlichen Dialog mit der Politik.

Die Veranstaltung der IALANA will informieren. Wir wollen ein Forum bieten, kontrovers und öffentlich mit Fachleuten und politischen Entscheidungsträgern über die griechischen Forderungen zu diskutieren.

Das Programm entnehmen Sie bitte dem Anhang oder unter: http://www.ialana.de/aktuell/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungen-in-2015/1144-12-05-15-griechenlands-aktuelle-entschaedigungsforderungen-an-deutschland-und-das-recht.

Anmeldung: kongress@ialana.de, Betreff: Griechenland

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1620101201536380/

Programm

18.00 Uhr	Eröffnung und Moderation RA Otto Jäckel (Vorsitzender IALANA) Prof. a.D. Dr. Rosemarie Will (Rechtswissenschaftlerin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
18.15 Uhr	Vortrag Geklärt und abgeschlossen? Die deutsche Besatzung in Griechenland 1941-44/45 und ihre problematische „Bewältigung“ Prof. em. Dr. Hagen Fleischer (Historiker)
19.00 Uhr	Völkerrechtlicher Kommentar zum Vortrag Dr. Dieter Deiseroth (Richter am BVerwG)
19.15 Uhr	Die Position der Bundesregierung Bundesfinanzminister Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) (aus Termingründen abgesagt) Staatsminister im Auswärtigen Amt Michael Roth (SPD) (aus Termingründen abgesagt)
19.45 Uhr	Kommentar aus Sicht der Regierung der Hellenischen Republik Griechenlands N.N. (Zusage des Außenministeriums)
20.00 Uhr	Diskussion mit Abgeordneten des Deutschen Bundestags MdB Katja Keul (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) MdB Wolfgang Gehrcke (DIE LINKE) MdB Dr. Eva Högl (SPD) (angefragt) oder N.N. SPD
21.30 Uhr	Ende

--

IALANA

Marienstr. 19/20

10117 Berlin

Tel.: +49 30 20654857

Fax: +49 30 20654858

E-Mail: info@ialana.de

Internet: www.ialana.de

Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War (II) The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) played an important role during the Second World War. It was created as an outpost of American interests in Europe and a link between Anglo-American and German businesses...Switzerlandbecame the place where gold seized by Germany in different corners of Europe was transported to for storage. In the March of 1938, when Hitler captured Vienna, part of Austrian gold was transferred to BIS vaults. The same thing happened with the gold of Czech National Bank (48 million USD). As the war started, the flows of gold poured into the Bank of International Settlements. Germany got it from concentration camps and as a result of plundering the wealth of occupied countries...  Valentin KATASONOV | 05.05.2015

Glenn Greenwald | Samples of Israel's Horrific Brutality and War Criminality in Gaza

Reader Supported News | 04 May 15 PM It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News Glenn Greenwald | Samples of Israel's Horrific Brutality and War Criminality in Gaza Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept Greenwald writes: "The Israeli group Breaking the Silence issued a report this morning containing testimony from Israeli soldiers about the savagery and criminality committed by the Israeli military during the attack on Gaza last summer." READ MORE

Mit hochradioaktiven Uran-Geschossen gegen russische Panzer ?

 

Soll Militär wieder Ton angeben?

Von Rudolf Hänsel

Geehrter Herr Dr. Hans Rühle!

Sie plädierten in der „Welt am Sonntag“ vom 26.04.15 für eine Ausrüstung der Leopard-2-Panzer der Bundeswehr mit hochradioaktiver Uran-Munition für „den Kampf gegen den russischen Panzer T90“. Sie setzen sich also als Experte für Massenvernichtungswaffen wegen eines angeblich bevorstehenden Kampfs gegen russische Panzer für die Anschaffung einer Massenvernichtungs- bzw. Ausrottungswaffe ein, deren Ächtung wegen seiner verheerenden Folgen für Soldaten, Zivilbevölkerung und Umwelt seit Jahren international gefordert wird. In wessen Auftrag tun Sie dies? Erlauben Sie mir, Ihnen als Mitbürger, der nach den unvorstellbaren Gräueln der Nazi-Diktatur in der Hoffnung aufwuchs, dass nie wieder Krieg von deutschem Boden ausgehen würde, zu sagen, was ich empfand, als ich Ihren manipulativen Artikel las.

Als aufgeklärter Bürger, der sich seit vielen Jahren mit der völkerrechtswidrigen Kriegsführung der USA-NATO mit Uranmunition vor allem in Serbien, in Afghanistan, in Somalia und im Irak auseinandersetzt, war ich entsetzt, empört und zugleich menschlich beschämt ob einer solch perversen und skrupellosen Forderung eines Juristen, der wider besseren Wissens von einer „nur minimal strahlenden“ Uran-Munition spricht. Ich muss es so deutlich sagen!

Von Professor Siegwart-Horst Günter, dem inzwischen verstorbenen „Vater der Bewegung gegen Uranwaffen“, vom Filmemacher Frieder Wagner („Deadly Dust“ /„Todesstaub“) und von engen Freunden aus den genannten Kriegsgebieten wurde ich bereits in den 90er Jahren aus erster Hand informiert über epidemisch auftretende Missbildungen bei Neugeborenen und sehr hohe Raten von Leukämie und andere multiple Krebsarten als Folge des radioaktiven, hochgiftigen Staubs beim Aufschlag und der Explosion der Uran-Geschosse sowohl bei den beteiligten Soldaten und deren Ehefrauen als auch bei der jeweiligen Zivilbevölkerung (alles im Internet nachzulesen!). 

Serbische Experten haben die Konsequenzen der NATO-Bombardierung ihres Landes 1999 wissenschaftlich ausgewertet und in einem Buch mit dem Titel „Crime in War – Genocide in Peace“ (Verbrechen im Krieg – Völkermord im Frieden) niedergeschrieben. Nach einer verbrecherischen Kriegsführung beginnt – oft zehn oder mehr Jahre nachdem die Soldateska abgezogen ist – ein weiteres endloses Sterben des geschundenen Volkes. Auch das Entlaubungsmittel „Agent Orange“, mit dem die USA das vietnamesische Volk in den 70er Jahren vergiftete, ist bis heute – also noch 40 Jahre danach – eine tödliche Waffe.

Da die von Ihnen geforderte Munition für deutsche Panzer aus abgehärtetem Uran (Depleted Uranium – DU) wie auch die in den beiden Weltkriegen eingesetzten chemischen Waffen bzw. Gase eine deutsche Erfindung sind, wird man an den Dokumentarfilm und das Buch über die Jugendvernichtung in Nazi-Deutschland mit dem Titel „Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland“ erinnert. Soll das weiter von Deutschland behauptet werden können? Die permanente Kriegshetze unverantwortlicher Politiker, Militärs und Journalisten gegen Russland und Ihre Forderung nach dem Einsatz von Massenvernichtungswaffen lassen das befürchten.

Die USA, Großbritannien, Frankreich und Israel stimmten im Dezember 2014 gegen eine von der UN-Vollversammlung eingebrachte Resolution, den Ländern, die unter den Folgen von Uran-Munition leiden, internationale Unterstützung zuzusichern – und lehnten damit ihre eigene Verantwortung für den Einsatz von DU-Munition ab. Mit dem sehr wahrscheinlichen Einsatz dieser Munition bei den jüngsten US-Angriffen gegen den „Islamischen Staat“ in Syrien und im Irak sowie der Verlegung von A-10 Erdkampfflugzeugen (ausgerüstet mit Uran-Munition) von den USA nach Osteuropa kann also die völkerrechtswidrige Kriegsführung „munter“ weiter betrieben werden. Doch zumindest Deutschland sollte hier „vorbildlich sein und keine Uran-Munition verwenden“ – wie es die SPD bis jetzt fordert.

Herr Rühle, Sie haben in dem erwähnten Artikel auch geschrieben, dass man diese Uranmunition schon vor über 30 Jahren hätte anschaffen wollen, dies aber politisch nicht durchsetzbar gewesen sei, weil in den frühen 80er-Jahren „die Friedensbewegung den Ton angab“. Sollte Ihrer Meinung nach heute – exakt 70 Jahre nach Ende der Nazi-Diktatur – wieder das Militär den Ton angeben? Sind Sie der Meinung, dass die unaufhörliche Kriegspropaganda bereits so gewirkt hat bei uns Bürgern, dass wir Ihrer menschenverachtenden Forderung zustimmen würden? Nein! Man kann uns nicht endlos belügen, täuschen, manipulieren. Wir werden als aufgeschreckte mündige Bürger die Entwicklung weiter verfolgen.

Wenn wir Bürger uns daran gewöhnen, dergleichen widerspruchslos hinzunehmen, gibt es nichts mehr, was wir nicht hinnehmen.

Dr. Rudolf Hänsel aus Lindau (Bodensee) hat diesen Offenen Brief einige Tage vor dem 8. Mai 2015, dem Gedenktag an die Befreiung Deutschlands von der Nazi-Diktatur geschrieben.

Er ist Diplompsychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler. Sie erreichen ihn unter www.psychologische-menschenkenntnis.de

vo tv-orang am 3. Mai 2015 11:46

in weitere Soziale Netzwerke verteilen

The Caretaker and the Plague - British Nuclear Weapons Testing in Australia Ursula Gelis

Global Women’s Association against Nuclear Testing and ‘No-to-Nuclear-Weapons’, Norway

“What is it that lies, kills and steals in us?” Georg Büchner (Woyzeck)

Ursula Gelis, Executive director of the ‘Global Women’s Association against Nuclear Testing’ works for the rights and needs of victims of nuclear weapons explosions and nuclear testing. Her partners are in Kazakhstan and other states, affected by the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing. At the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in December 2014¹, she interviewed an anti-nuclear activist and nuclear test victim from Australia.

Sue Haseldine in front of the Black Death column. Vienna/Austria, December 2014. Photo: Ursula Gelis

The Plague column in Vienna convincingly depicts human suffering; in this case - the tragedy of the Black Death epidemic from 1679 in Austria which killed about 30 000 to 75 000 souls. A Black Death does not distinguish between a noble and a beggar, and a nuclear weapon explosion does not either.

In today’s Australia, Aboriginal communities are still suffering from European racism that came in the aftermath of Captain Cook (1770) who looked at the Aborigines as lucky people, even if they did not own many material goods!

The first inhabitants of Australia, the people who were there ab origine, from the beginning, were food-gathering and hunting people. They arrived about 50 000 years ago.²

From region to region, Aboriginal tribes have clear cultural distinctions and their ability to co-exist with nature in a sustainable way could serve as a paradigm for human survival.

America and Australia. Sculpture in front of the National Science Museum in Vienna. Photo: UG.

Western cultures, still proud of their technological achievements, and apparently committed to poison and to destroy the whole Earth, should listen to indigenous civilizations in order to prevent human extinction.

Aborigines survived best by avoiding contact with ‘White people’. The invaders brought diseases indigenous people had no immunity to resist. Children were taken away by missionaries, claiming that the parents were infidels.³ Interestingly enough, the church and social Darwinism partnered in suppressing Aborigines. Evolution theory served to justify any brutality: massacres, plundering of goods, rape, etc. The ‘savage’ had to be domesticated and was defined as a race doomed to be extinct.⁴

“In the meantime, you can exist on ‘waste land’!”

Map showing nuclear test sites in Australia

www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/the-united-kingdomsnuclear-testing-programme/.

In 1947 the British government decided to develop their own nuclear weapons program. “In August 1954, the Australian Cabinet agreed to the establishment of a permanent testing ground at a site that became named Maralinga⁵ in North West South Australia.

The United Kingdom conducted 12 atmospheric tests between 1952 and 1957 on Australian territories at Maralinga, Emu Fields and Monte Bello Islands. […] During the testing period, roughly 16,000 Australian civilians and servicemen involved in the tests and 22,000 British servicemen were exposed to nuclear fallout.⁶

“Aboriginal people living downwind of the tests and other Australians more distant […] came into contact with airborne radioactivity.”⁷

“Plutonium and uranium fallout […] contaminated Aboriginal lands. Although the British government declared the Maralinga site safe following a 1967 cleanup, surveys in the 1980s proved otherwise, prompting a new cleanup project. Conflicts of interest, cost-cutting measures, shallow burials of radioactive waste, and other management “compromises” have left hundreds of square kilometers of Aboriginal lands contaminated and unfit for rehabilitation.”⁸

Civil disobedience

Sue Coleman-Haseldine (64) from the Kokatha-Mula nation is a survivor of British nuclear weapon testing and spoke at the Vienna conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in December 2014⁹.

Sue was born at Koonibba, which at the time of her birth was a Lutheran Mission. Koonibba is near the small township of Ceduna, about 800 kilometers west from Adelaide, South Australia.

Her community, including the local farmers, consists of approximately 4000 people. She grew up nearby, lived in the region all her life and can trace back the family’s history up to her great grand-mother.

“Our knowledge about colonialism started with Captain Cook. My grand grand-father was an Irish man who eventually went back to the white people. Our old people told us not to hate him. They were singing Irish songs to us around the camp fire. My first language was Kokatha, which is also my tribe’s name. Later at school, we had to learn English.”

Sue’s mother’s generation had to follow the colonizer’s order of only speaking English, so Sue was educated to speak her native tongue by her grand-parents as the cultural tradition-keeper. She went to an English school and grew up at a German mission.¹⁰

Sue always tried to combine traditional life-style with the governmental request of following the ‘British way’. She went out in the bush, kept Aboriginal traditions and educated herself and others. “This was maybe already an act of resistance, I guess”, she said smiling. Sue won the South Australian premier’s award for excellence in indigenous leadership in 2007 for her work as an activist, cultural teacher and environmental defender.¹¹

More and more cancer…

https://www.google.com/search?q=maralinga+nuclear+test+site+map

“The elderly people had talked about the Nullarbor¹² dust storm, not knowing that they had seen the fall-out from Maralinga. I knew about Maralinga and started questioning the amount of cancer deaths. This was at the time when I started my own family.

More and more people were dying of leukemia and thyroid cancer. I had doctors remove my thyroids. My grand-daughter got it as well. The official city doctors offered us a radioactive drink to kill the cancer cells but we refused. My husband has heart problems and his family members died from leukemia too. Sometimes people die from ‘unknown causes’.

We learned that the effects of radiation can pass from one generation to the other and can also ‘jump further’ to the third one. I have been teaching about bush foods for a long time. I felt terribly guilty when I found out about the contamination of the soil. When I spoke to our doctor he simply said that I should carry on teaching about traditional food because we could not do anything about the contamination.”

Entertaining workers of the nuclear program

British servicemen could feel at home among friendly people from the Kokatha-Mula nation. Soldiers were accompanied to the beach during their holidays and Sue vividly remembers those encounters. “They were just ordinary soldiers, away from home and lonely. We became simply friendly with them. Also they had been misused as guinea-pigs. We had no clue that dying might have been already begun.

We were just innocent. We were not allowed to go to Maralinga. I know that the area was poisoned yet we did not know a lot. The old people could feel it, I guess.” -

Recently, “a […] case-control study examined miscarriage in wives and congenital conditions in offspring of the 2007 membership of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, a group of ex-servicemen who were stationed at atmospheric nuclear weapon test sites between 1952-67 [was conducted]…”¹³

No suitable information

“My people are still living on contaminated land, because clean-up operations were not sufficient. Before testing, many Aboriginal people to the north of where my family live had to leave their territories. Officials told us that the displacement is for governmental purposes. We had no idea what really was going on in terms of nuclear explosions. After testing people were sent back, for instance to a place called ‘Oak Valley’ on Maralinga lands but Maralinga village was closed off. The government is now thinking to open it as a tourist site.

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/travel/destinations/2010/05/gallery-woomeras-prohibited-area/

In terms of measuring radioactivity we are totally cut off from acquiring information because it is illegal to have a Geiger counter! We are particular concerned of the uranium mining industry, exploiting sands found near the former testing site. Plutonium testing took place at the Woomera rocket range site. The place is military territory and we do not know what actually is going on there.”

Overturning the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one)

“There was a fellow called Eddie Koiki Mabo fighting for that the native Australians had a prior title to land” ‘taken by the Crown since Cook's declaration of possession in 1770’.¹⁴ “Normally rules are not very nice for Aboriginal people. Property rights are splitting communities and devastate families. The government wanted us to prove that we had lived on our land for the last two hundred years. I said no, because this land was given to me by birth and not by the British government. So finally we could seek recognition but the minerals belong to the Crown.”

The Australian Nuclear Free Alliance. ANFA (http://anfa.org.au).

“Our alliance is well connected and once a month the community leaders link up by phone and we talk about what to do next. During meetings, governmental people are absent. We have international visitors from France, Japan and so on. People from all over the world should know that we do exist, that we are humans (laughter).

We want to stop uranium mining, let us start with banning it for a year first. Then we could probably breathe better…and of course, I do not want any nuclear weapon testing. Nuclear weapons should not exist.

In order to understand our complex societies, it is best to be with us for a while. Our strong connection to the land might be valuable for you to experience. We do not own the land, the land owns us. Come over, a week is plenty of time to convert you into one of us.”

Oslo, January 2015

Sources:

ANFA meeting statement 2014. “The meeting heard that around 40,000 rounds of depleted uranium weapons have been deployed in Australian military training exercises. This raises serious concerns about where they were used and any subsequent health impacts from these weapons. We recognize the intergenerational health impacts from nuclear weapons testing as well as the documented use and impacts of depleted uranium weapons. The meeting called for all uranium weapons and nuclear weapons to be banned.” http://anfa.org.au/.

West Mallee Protection is an alliance of Aboriginal cultural custodians from the Kokatha Mula Nation Far West Division and conservationists. Please donate to West Mallee Protection and help look after the amazing rockholes and unique mallee country near Ceduna in SA far west from further mineral exploitation. www.givenow.com.au/foewestmalleeprotection. FILM: Our Generation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcq4oGL0wlI and http://ourgeneration.org.au/contact. http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/travel/destinations/2010/05/woomera-nuclear-danger-zone/.

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/guide-law-landmark-cases-under-racial-discrimination-act-1975.

1 http://www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/HINW14_Austrian_Pledge.pdf.2 (http://www.visitmungo.com.au/aboriginal-remains).

3 Gerhard Leitner. Die Aborigines Australiens. München 2006, p. 8.

4 Leitner, p. 21/22.

5 Chapter 16: A toxic legacy: British nuclear weapons testing in Australia. Published in: 

Wayward governance : illegality and its control in the public sector / P N Grabosky
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1989 (Australian studies in law, crime and justice series); pp. 235-253. http://aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/lcj/1-20/wayward/ch16.html.

6

From 1957 to 1958, nine atmospheric tests followed over Christmas Island (Kiritimati) and Malden Island in the central Pacific Ocean, some of which were considerably more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The remaining 24 UK nuclear tests were conducted jointly with the United States at the Nevada Test Site.

7 http://aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/lcj/1-20/wayward/ch16.html.

8)M&GS 2002;7:77-81. http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/mgs/7-2-parkinson.pdf.

⁹ http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/vienna-2014/8Dec_Coleman.pdf.

10Occasional Paper 3: The struggle for souls and science, constructing the fifth continent: German missionaries and scientists in Australia. The 16 papers in this volume, edited by Professor Walter Veit, explore the contribution of late nineteenth and early twentieth century German scientists and missionaries in the emerging fields of Australian ethnography and linguistics.

Themes within the papers include the study of Aboriginal religion, language, and art, and the conflict between missionaries and the emerging discipline of academic anthropology in Australia and Britain.

Occasional Papers Number 3 also addresses the academic influences, research agendas and methodologies of the German scholars who worked in Australia, as well as the extent to which those scholars dominated the creation of an image of Australia in Europe in both theory and practice. http://artsandmuseums.nt.gov.au/museums/strehlow/manuscripts/publications.

11 Black Mist. The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Australia. http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BlackMist-FINAL-Web.pdf.

12 http://www.exploringaustralia.com.au/showplace.php?p=176.

13http://omicsonline.org/epidemiology-open-access-abstract.php?abstract_id=30829.

14The Mabo decision altered the foundation of land law in Australia by overturning the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) on which British claims to possession of Australia were based. This recognition inserted the legal doctrine of native title into Australian law. The judgments of the High Court in the Mabo case recognized the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their islands in the eastern Torres Strait. The Court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people in Australia prior to the establishment of the British Colony of New South Wales in 1788. In recognizing that Indigenous people in Australia had a prior title to land taken by the Crown since Cook's declaration of possession in 1770, the Court held that this title exists today in any portion of land where it has not legally been extinguished. The decision of the High Court was swiftly followed by the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) which attempted to codify the implications of the decision and set out a legislative regime under which Australia’s Indigenous people could seek recognition of their native title rights.

http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/ntru/resources/resourceissues/mabo.pdf.