CADU News 4 - Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

NEWS
Issue 4
Spring 2000
Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, One World Centre, 6 Mount St, Manchester, M2 5NS
Tel: +44 161 834 8176 Fax: 834 8187 E-mail gmdcnd@gn.apc.org
NATO FUDGES ON DU IN KOSOV@
NATO finally responded to
a request from UN Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, for
information on use of depleted
uranium munitions (DU) during
the conf lict in the Balkans
last year. However, not only
did NATO take 5 months to
respond to Kofi Annan, in
typically uninformative manner
they provided as little information
as they could get away
with. This in itself is indicative
of the way in which NATO
views both its own role and
status in world affairs, and that
of the UN.
NATO’s secretary-general,
George Robertson wrote to
Kofi Annan saying that American
A-10 ground attack aircraft
used armor-piercing depleted
uranium rounds against Serb
armored vehicles during NATO’s 78-day air campaign
last spring. The ammunition was part of the aircraft’s
standard load.
“DU (depleted uranium) rounds were used whenever
the A-10 engaged armour during Operation Allied
Force, therefore, it was used throughout Kosovo, during
approximately 100 missions.”
The NATO letter said U.S. jets had fired approximately
31,000 rounds of depleted uranium during the war
against Yugoslavia. That translates to about 10 1/2 tons
— or 21,000 pounds — of ammunition, experts say.
By comparison, the United States and Britain fired
630,000 pounds of depleted uranium in Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War, according to the
Pentagon.
The U.N.’s Annan had requested the information on
NATO’s map of DU use in the Balkans
depleted uranium targets last October. A U.N. team
sent to Kosovo last summer to investigate the habitability
of the region after the war could not assess the threat
posed by depleted uranium contamination, because the
Pentagon and NATO refused to divulge where the ammunition
had been fired.
NATO has now provided a map of where DU was
used with their letter, (see above) but the map is totally
inadequate as it is in no way detailed enough to assess
environmental pollution caused by DU
“The major focus of these operations was in an area
west of the Pec-Dakovica-Prizren highway, in the area
surrounding Klina, in the area around Prizen and in an
area to the north of a line joining Suva Reka and Urosevac,”
the letter said.
continued over page

continued from front page
Robertson noted in NATO’s letter
that the map was not complete, saying
“many missions using DU also
took place outside of these areas.”
He concluded: “At this moment it is
impossible to state accurately every
location where DU ammunition was
used.”
The Pentagon has tried to downplay
the risks of exposure to depleted
uranium dust and debris since the
1991 Persian Gulf War.
Dan Fahey, of the Military Toxics
Project in the US, said the map
raised questions about the safety of
people living in areas contaminated
by depleted uranium dust and debris,
as well as the health of peacekeeping
troops and relief workers.
“It is NATO’s responsibility, and
specifically the responsibility of the
United States, to go in there and
start doing a clean-up, especially
considering the fact we were fighting
the war to protect the civilian
populations and enable them to live
in their land free of external harm,”
Pentagon spokesman Vic Warzinski
said depleted uranium contamination
was “not that major of a threat”
in Kosovo.
For more information, try website:
www.homepage.jefnet.com/gwvrl/
NATO Report on DU and Kosov@
A draft special report, from the Civilian Affairs Committee of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly released a report which makes interesting reading for
those of us involved in the DU issue. Rapporteur, Volker Kroning of Germany
suggests in this report that the lawfulness of the use of DU in Kosova could be
challenged under International Humanitarian Law.
The report, entitled ‘Kosovo and International Humanitarian Law’ examines
which aspects of NATO’s intervention may have clashed with International
Humanitarian Law (IHL), and what NATO members can do to improve the
application and enforcement of this law by all members of the international
community.
The relevant section, ‘The Use of Certain Weapons’ begins by stating that “one of
the most controversial aspects of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo was the use of
certain types of weapons, in particular cluster bombs and depleted uranium (DU)
munitions”. In relation to DU specifically, the report has the following to say:-
“Depleted uranium is 0.7 times as radioactive as naturally occurring
uranium, and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. While the type of radiation
emitted by depleted uranium (alpha particles) has little penetrative capabilities,
DU attacks often result in the dispersion of fine radioactive dust, which, when
inhaled, is likely to be trapped in the (DU is insoluble), where it can have a more
serious effect. Furthermore, DU bears many of the same poisonous characteristics
as other heavy metals such as lead, whose effects are known to be hazardous.
So far, although scientific inquiries into the toxicity of DU are underway, there
is insufficient information to conclude that DU munitions have a long-lasting
nefarious effect which could affect civilian populations. Nevertheless, in light of
media coverage of its use in both the Gulf War and Kosovo, of the imposition
of safety guidelines issued to KFOR soldiers, and indications that DU promotes
growth of cancerous cells in lab cell cultures, the lawfulness of its use could
challenged under IHL.
One of the chief problems is that spent DU munitions may be a source of danger
long after hostilities have ceased. Should DU munitions be recognised as posing
a lasting radioactive and chemical poisoning threat, their prohibition may be
invoked through Article 23(a) of the 1907 Hague Convention, which prohibits
the use of poison. Even if DU munitions are recognised as radioactively and/or
chemically harmful, whether they qualify as poison is a
debatable issue. Another issue is whether DU munitions qualify, as they do in
the opinion of some, as a type of nuclear weapon. The question then is the use
of nuclear weapons is permissible under IHL, although no international legal
instrument specifically prohibits them. In the eyes of many legal experts, as
well as the International Court of Justice, the requirement to avoid attacks of an
indiscriminate nature (Art. 51/4 and 51/5 of PI) intrinsically prohibits the use of
nuclear weapons, as well as the use of weapons which have lasting environmental
pollution effects.”
[Italics are mine]
The report concludes that NATO’s reliance on air power, to fulfil its ‘zero-casualty’
aim is “if not legally, then morally objectionable”. The report goes on to quote
Henry Kissinger (of all people) “What kind of humanism expresses its reluctance
to suffer military casualties by devastating the civilian economy of its adversary for
years to come”
The full report can be seen on the following NATO website: www.naa.be/
publications/comrep/1999/as245cc-e.html
By Cath at CADU

Yugoslav study claims more DU
rounds were used
In a report from the Yugoslav Defence Ministry, issued
last month, it was claimed that NATO in fact used far
more rounds of depleted uranium than was admitted
by western leaders. Gen. Slobodan Petkovic, Deputy
Defence Minister, who presented the report said NATO
used about 50,000 rounds containing depleted uranium,
whereas the letter from NATO to the United
Nations earlier this year mentioned only about 30,000
(see front page).
A team of Yugoslav experts undertook the study of all
the environmental effects of the NATO air strikes. They
say NATO warplanes used depleted uranium rounds
on eight sites in Yugoslavia during the alliance’s 78-day
bombing campaign last year.
The locations contaminated by the depleted uranium
and described in the 75-page document include six sites
in Serbia and one in Montenegro, Serbia’s smaller partner
in the Yugoslav federation.
The eighth location is in Kosovo, Serbia’s southern
province. The region is now run by U.N. and NATO
peacekeepers, preventing examination of the contamination
by a Yugoslav team.
The Yugoslav authorities accuse Nato of polluting the
soil, air and water through its attacks on oil refineries
and chemical factories. Petkovic said most of the rounds
were fired on Kosovo along the border with Albania.
For the first time, the Yugoslav army has admitted that
radioactive materials were dropped outside Kosovo as
well. Petkovic said the areas had been sealed off and
Yugoslav experts had detected radioactivity well above
safe levels. Some of the affected areas are said to be in
parts of southern Serbia, where there is a high ethnic
Albanian population.
Gulf War Veterans
In view of the conclusion to the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly Report (see page 2), which states that NATO’s
zero-casualty war is ‘morally objectionable’, it is worth
noting that this ‘zero’ isn’t quite what it seems. During
the Gulf War of 1991, only 49 British soldiers were
killed - testimony to the new era of modern warfare
which relies heavily on airpower, and weapons such as
DU munitions.
However, since this time, over 400 Gulf War veterans
have died. Only 40 out of the 35,000 British forces in
the Gulf have been tested for DU poisoning; but all
have tested positive. This is the new warfare - when the
war is over, the killing continues. And this killing is
entirely indiscriminate.
VIEQUES
UPDATE
In the last CADU
news we reported
on the situation in
Vieques, an island
in Puerto Rico,
where the US Navy
has been testing
munitions inclusing
DU for 50 years.
Locals had been
camped out on
the testing ranges
to prevent the US
military from re-commencing testing there. As CADU
news goes to press, the latest on the situation is featured
below:
“On May 4 federal authorities began to arrest the
people conducting Civil Disobedience in Vieques.
This has been considered as an offence of the U.S.
Government against the will of the people of Vieques
and Puerto Rico that took back their land for one full
year to prevent the bombing and shelling of the Island.
The U.S. Government’s response to the demands for
Human Rights of the people of Vieques was a military
invasion of Vieques that was met with no resistance by
the protestors that from the outset had vowed to nonviolence
Civil Disobedience.
The diverse group of protestors that have been arrested
is composed by grassroots community leaders and
members of the community at-large, religious leaders,
elected officials from Puerto Rico and the US, including
two members of the U.S. Congress and members
of the Puerto Rican Legislature; leaders of the Puerto
Rican Independence party, students, union members,
and known artists. Spirits where high and protestors
were calm as they promised to be back to prevent the
resumption of the bombings. The struggle of David
versus Goliath has reached a new stage and will surely
continue and intensify until the final goal of a Navy-free
Vieques is achieved.
This is the moment to put forward all planned activities
of protest or to plan protest events in your community.
Today and tomorrow many protests will take place in
U.S. and Puerto Rico.”
The protesters in Vieques have called for supporters
to write to Clinton to condemn the use of force by the
federal authorities to remove the protesters. - President
Clinton, The White House, Washington DC 20500.
More information from their website on www.viequeslibre.org

DU, NATO, UN and the WHO!
The following is an unedited article
from the San Francisco Examiner,
of May 1st, reproduced here because
it offers some insight into DU on
the world stage.
‘Depleted uranium’: A tale
of poisonous denial
By Robert James Parsons
GENEVA - When a United Nations agency
announced that NATO had officially confirmed
using depleted-uranium munitions
in Kosovo, the story hit the world’s media,
then quickly faded.
The agency went on record as saying that
there was too little information for firm
conclusions but no cause for serious concern.
The Pentagon officially echoed this,
and attention shifted elsewhere.
For those following the story, this was another
episode in a game of hide-and-don’ttell
that the U.S. government has been
playing for years, both at home and abroad.
But as the game continues, there is cause
for serious concern.
The U.S. government denies there is anything
harmful about depleted uranium that
would prevent its use in battle situations
anywhere. Numerous independent experts
say depleted uranium is deadly and will pollute
indefinitely those areas struck by the
munitions. They blame it for most of the
illnesses of Persian Gulf war syndrome.
The Military Toxics Project, a nongovernmental
organization that has been
tracking depleted uranium for years, has
just published an update. Dan Fahey, its
author and the project’s research director
for depleted uranium, draws primarily on
declassified government documents and
public statements, building a grim indictment
of irresponsibility that is nothing
short of criminal.
Since the first use of depleted uranium in
the Iraq war (a use that continues today
with the bombing of the no-f ly zones), the
controversy has spread into the international
arena, including the United Nations.
During the Kosovo war, the Pentagon
brought out a R AND Corporation think
tank study to prove once and for all that
depleted uranium is harmless. Independent
experts, contesting the use of depleted
uranium in Kosovo and Serbia, protested.
Later, in a paper entitled “Fear of Falling,”
Fahey analyzed the study in detail, showing
it to be a sham. Yet the U.S. government
still cites it as a proof that the depleted
uranium problem has been laid to rest.
But NATO’s admission, even unofficial, of
depleted uranium use in the Kosovo war
alarmed aid agencies operating there.
The World Health Organization was asked
to investigate. The WHO, however, has an
agreement with the International Atomic
Energy Agency giving the latter the last
word over anything touching public health
and radiation.
A fact sheet on depleted uranium announced
as in the works, was canceled.
(The Atomic Energy Agency was set up in
‘50s by the nuclear powers of the time to
push the nuclear industry on a public wary
of living with nuclear waste and with radiation
in general. The United States plays a
dominant role within it. Holding the only
mandate in the U.N. system to promote
a part of the private sector, it has been
repeatedly denounced by non-governmental
organizations as incompatible with the ideals
expressed in the U.N. charter.)
An initial U.N. mission to Yugoslavia in
May produced a report of serious contamination
by depleted uranium. The report’s
sponsor, the United Nations Environment
Program’s director, Klaus Toepfer, suppressed
it - under pressure from Washington,
according to inside sources. It nonetheless
eventually leaked out.
The program’s Balkans Task Force brought
out a major study in October, but the
section on depleted uranium had been
whittled down from 72 pages to two on orders
from Toepfer, again apparently under
pressure from Washington. The task force
had tried to involve the WHO, but the
Atomic Energy Agency, in keeping with the
agreement, excluded the WHO from the
radiation appraisal. Measuring was done using
Geiger counters incapable of detecting
the particular alpha radiation that depleted
uranium emits, and none was found.
Meantime, in August, the WHO had
announced it was undertaking a “generic”
(general) study of depleted uranium, but
no details were available. In March, it
became known that the study was under
the WHO’s Dr. Michael Repacholi, an
electro-magnetic field expert, who, it has
since been discovered, has delegated it to
Barry Smith, a consultant in England, who
is a geologist.
Faced with the Atomic Energy Agency’s opposition
to studying radiation and health,
the WHO has opted to study DU as a
heavy metal pollutant.
This is hardly of help to those exposed to
tons of virtually indestructible radioactive
dust particles, including the international
aid agencies awaiting an official pronouncement
from the WHO.
The recent NATO confirmation of depleted
uranium use in Kosovo, complete
with a map, should have finally sounded
the alarm.
After being put on hold for six months by
NATO, the task force finally had something
specific and official, but the pressure
was on to play it down. The publication of
the map in a Geneva daily on the day that
the task force was meeting to decide on
strategy forced its hand.
When the task force chairman, former
Finnish environmental minister Pekka
Haavisto, called a press conference to
disclose the map and its accompanying
letter, it was Toepfer’s spokesperson, the
man who had cut out the 70 pages from
the October report, not Haavisto’s, who
orchestrated the event.
Not surprisingly, Haavisto was kept on a
leash. Hence the announced conclusion: no
cause for serious concern.
But there are indications that not everybody
agrees.
The U.N.’s High Commissioner for
Refugees, the main coordinator of aid to
Kosovo, has quietly decided to refrain
from sending pregnant staff to Kosovo,
to offer those assigned there the option
of going elsewhere and to put a note into
the personnel files of those sent there - to
facilitate compensation claims for illnesses
that might develop from depleted uranium
contamination.
The German and Dutch governments,
whose occupation zones coincide with the
areas hardest hit by depleted uranium,
according to NATO’s map, have ordered
their soldiers not to eat anything outside
their post mess halls, especially not from
the surrounding countryside. This echoes
independent experts’ claims that the dust
has entered the food chain of the region.
Dutch soldiers stationed last fall in part of
the same heavily hit area (around Prizren)
had to hand in all clothing and equipment,
which was then shipped back to the Netherlands
sealed in heavy-duty plastic.
The government claimed asbestos contamination,
but a Dutch military source points
to DU, noting that the vehicles, also sent
back, ended up in a radiation decontamination
plant.
Fahey’s “Don’t Look, Don’t Find” discusses
a U.S. Army report issued well before the
Gulf War: “Though no anti-DU movement
existed at the time, the Army predicted that
DU munitions might be removed from the
arsenal by political force once the health
and environmental impacts of DU were
widely known.”
Although the U.S. government seems
intent on keeping those impacts unknown,

Mariam Appeal Day for the People
of Iraq
by Cat Euler
Over 1,000 people attended the immensely successful
Mariam Appeal conference in London last month.
Iraqi artists displayed the amazing range of creativity
for which the Tigris and Euphrates region has long
been known. Middle Eastern food and music added
to the celebration of culture which must continue, despite
the horrendous effects of sanctions and depleted
uranium. This is when human beings reach their
finest hour: to create, to live, to survive with dignity
and art in the midst of deprivation and death. It is an
inspiration to all of us.
Both the showing of the Hugh Livingstone video,
The Ultimate Bullet, and the DU workshop which
followed, were also well attended, with some 50
people at each. The video is a sobering and well
documented account of the journey of a US Gulf War
vet to Iraq to meet with Iraqi veterans of the same
war, to discover the similar sufferings which both
have experienced. It is a good teaching tool for those
of you who are organising local meetings on depleted
uranium.
I began the workshop with some overheads showing
the US DoD map of the extensive area of southern
Iraq where DU munitions were used. I quickly
discovered the difference between presenting information
on DU to people who have no thought that
they or their loved ones might be contaminated, and
presenting the same information to people who have
relatives living in Basra. Rather than being concerned
with theoretical or strictly scientific information
about isotopes, the questions on practical matters
came thick and fast. “My nephew lives in Basra,
are all the buildings there contaminated?” “Is it
possible to clean it up?” “Is there any hope for us?” I
tried to answer these moving questions as simply and
accurately as possible. It is unlikely, I said, that the
heaviest contamination travels more than a few dozen
or, at most, hundred metres from the point of impact.
However, we have documented evidence that DU
particles can travel on the winds as far as 40 km. Further
documented measurements need to be carried
out in order to establish the maximum distance. We
can’t know how much contamination exists in Basra
without a full radiological survey. There are probably
spots which have greater and lesser or no contamination.
Yes, I said, it may be possible to ‘clean it up’
in the sense that it can be isolated from the human
environment for a long time if it is properly buried.
However, the known methods would cost billions of
pounds for an extensive geographical area, and the recently
announced chemical binding methods, though
perhaps less costly, are untried. I feel as though I
don’t have enough information on their effect on
both soluble and insoluble dust particles. I said the
US and British governments should take responsibility
for funding the clean up. I said it was important
that people in the area drank distilled water whenever
possible, but the look of despair on some people’s
faces told me how impossible it seemed in conditions
of sanctions to obtain even this. Yes, I said, I always
believe there is hope, that while there is life there is
always hope. I must believe this, and why not?
The people from the region are deeply concerned,
and do not have sufficient information. Their concerns
and fears were echoed by many I spoke to
during a trip to Belgrade last month. Women do not
know how their babies will be affected; they do not
know where the contamination is, and they must
continue living and surviving in sanctions-deprived
circumstances despite the fear that comes with not
knowing. I now hold very close to my heart the difference
between providing information to the interested
and providing information to the victims. In
Serbia, too, the music and art continue.
Other DU activists also contributed valuable information
at the workshop. One woman told us of her constant
letters to members of parliament and the civil
service. She had been told, in one response, that the
Department for International Development (DfID)
was in partnership with the World Health Organisation
(WHO) to carry out cancer and other health
surveys in Iraq. However, they were only looking at
health effects and had no plans to look at causation,
and no plans to survey DU contamination. This
attitude on the part of WHO, also expressed at the
UN, may very well be related to the 1959 agreement
WHO signed with the International Atomic Energy
Authority (IAEA), which mandates mutual agreement
for overlapping research interests, and agrees on
secrecy for ‘sensitive’ information.

What is DU in YU action?
DU in YU is non-government, non-profit
organization that gathers people that are willing to
act in anti DU campaign in Yugoslavia.
Also, it covers wider problems of ecology and
danger from nuclear and radioactive sources.
DU in YU action center is located in Nis, second
biggest town in Yugoslavia, 250 km southern of
Belgrade, and only 50 km eastern from Kosovo.
The DU danger is very real here, although DU
probably hadn’t been used in the town itself (the
nearest location where DU traces were found is
Nis Airport, located 5 km from town center). The
biggest threat to the citizens of Nis came from the
south; more that 80% of food that people of Nis
consume came from zones of high risk: Vranje,
Bujanovac, Presevo, Leskovac, Prokuplje, areas
where it’s confirmed that DU had been used.
We will try to inform people of Nis about DU
in our local environment, as well as citizens of
towns where DU was used. We plan to organize
public lectures, TV and radio campaign, and to
demand from our authorities to protect the sites
where DU is found. We would also try to make an
international impact as the only NGO in Yugoslavia
whose main task is to protect people from DU. We
also hope that we can make a network
of local ecological organizations in southern Serbia,
and, in future, on the national level.
We will try to cooperate with all relevant people
and institutions in Serbia as well as from abroad.
We’ve already got a response from some nuclear
physicist from “Vinca Nuclear Institute” in
Belgrade, Prof. Dr Vladimir Ajdacic among the
others.
We are looking forward to any kind of cooperation
and help from all organizations and people that are
working on DU topic.
Our address is: Bul. Februar 65a, 18000 Nis,
Yugoslavia
Phone: 381 18 43 166, Fax: 381 18 43 828
You can contact us on the following e-mail
addresses:
DEPLETED UR ANIUM PRO-
TESTERS CONVICTED OF
TRESPASS
Minnetonka, Sixty-three human rights, peace
and anti-war activists were convicted of trespass
following a 2 1/2-hour bench trial in Hennepin
County District Court here.
The group walked onto the property of Alliant
Techsystems, Inc. Nov. 1, 1999 to protest the
company’s manufacture of depleted uranium-238
(DU) weapons.
The demonstrators, were all fined $25, except for
ten who spent more than eight hours in custody
after their arrest. They were sentenced to time
served.
Char Madigan, a peace activist with Minnesota
Alliant Action and the Midwest Institute for Social
Transformation, said the defendants had “won the
lowest fine ever,” in the long series of protests at the
company’s gates.
Judge Gary Larson appeared to listen patiently as
seven of the defendants testified as representatives
of the larger group. Several testified to the
international and U.S. Air Force laws that forbid
the use of poison or poisoned weapons in war. The
argument was presented as an affirmative defense
known as a “claim of right.” Trespass is permitted
in Minnesota law if the defendant can show that
some higher authority allows the intrusion.
In spite of testimony regarding the international
treaties and U.S. military law that prohibit the
government from employing weapons such as
“poison gas and all analogous materials, liquids
or devices,” or weapons that “kill our wound
treacherously” or that “cause serious or longterm
damage to the natural environment,” the
Judge ruled that the claim of right had not been
established.
The Constitution of the United States holds that
treaty law is the “supreme law of the land” and that
it binds “every judge in every state.”
Alliant Techsystems assembled 15 million so-called
PGU-14 rounds, a “depleted uranium penetrator”
for the A-10 Warthog, the U.S./NATO plane used
to shoot DU munitions into Kosovo in 1999, and

DU TANK ARMOR PRODUCTION
PART OF MAJOR US Department of
Energy (DOE) INVESTIGATION
The Department of Energy next month plans to finalize
an extensive report that investigates whether workers
were subjected to greater exposure hazards than previously
thought in the recycling of uranium for use in various
projects, including the creation of tank armor.
The DOE is trying to track the f low, over nearly 50
years, of recycled uranium throughout the DOE complex
and its characteristics to determine possible health and
environmental issues, according to a memo from DOE
Deputy Secretary Glauthier. The project, called the
Historical Generation and Flow of Recycled Uranium in
the DOE Complex but commonly known as the mass
balance project, will identify any additional exposure hazards
related to recycled uranium and estimate the number
of workers exposed. DOE needs to determine “whether
radioactive fission products and plutonium in the uranium
feed or waste streams existed in concentrations that
present a potential health or environmental concern,”
Glauthier said in the memo. Transuranic materials such
as plutonium and neptunium are more radioactive than
natural uranium.
In part, the project looks at material sent to the Specific
Manufacturing Capabilities (SMC) facility at DOE’s
Idaho National Engineering Lab to determine whether
potential additional worker exposures exist due to transuranic
contamination. The SMC facility received metallic
depleted uranium (DU) from DOE plants in Ohio and
Colorado, and from that manufactured tank armor for
the military, DOE sources say.
DOE officials say they have dismissed concerns over
whether tank armor itself is more dangerous to soldiers
due to the possible transuranic contamination. A DOE
source says this is because the level of transuranic materials
that would be present is miniscule. The department is
also characterizing metallic DU at Paducah and its Fernald,
OH, facility, which commercial facilities could have
received to make DU rounds. In a Jan. 20 letter to an
environmental group regarding the project, DOE names
three commercial businesses that produced DU rounds.
The Fernald Environmental Management Project is now
“compiling data on the depleted uranium and the shipment
of this material,” the letter says.
DOE launched the massive project last fall, in response
to workers and the public’s concern over potential effects
on workers at the department’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant in Kentucky.
From the US Dept. of Defense website, thanks to Dan Fahey
for posting
GERMAN GREENS BEGIN
ANTI-DU INITIATIVE
The parliamentary group of the Greens in the Federal
German Parliament on May 17 announced the start of
an initiative for the ban of DU weapons. The initiative
comprises the following steps:
1) formulation of a parliamentary motion (together with
the Social Democrats) for the ban of DU weapons; the
motion would at the same time instruct the Federal
Government to work for an international ban of DU
weapons,
2) the Federal Government shall try to make NATO
release more detailed information on DU use in
Kosovo,
3) sufficient protective measures are to be taken in the
areas concerned from DU weapons use,
4) the Ministry of Defense shall conduct
preventive measures for the protection of German
soldiers in Kosovo, and shall instruct them on possible
compensation claims.
This is clearly excellent news for all anti-DU
campaigners, and we hope that other parliamentarians
in other countries follow this lead. For anyone who is
interested and can read German, the full text of the
announcement is on the web, at http://www.gruenefraktion.de/aktuell/neu/index-uran.htm

CADU Petition
Enclosed in CADU news this month is a copy of
a petition which we would like supporters to get
signatures for. Please photocopy and distribute - if
you don’t have access to photocopying facilities, we
can send you more. We hope to have thousands of
signatures by the autumn, and add to the growing
pressure on the government to ban DU. The petitions
should be returned to us by the end of October, as we
will be collecting them together to hand in during the
international conference on 4th November (see inside).
However, please get htem to us as soon as they are
completed, particularly if signatories have ticked the
box requesting more information - then we can respond
quickly.
DU found in scrap yard
A rubbish tip manager in Suffolk, England, thought
the large lump of metal he found in a skip might have
some scrap value - until he found out that he had
been carrying 20lb of depleted uranium in his van
for 6 months. According to a report in the national
newspapers, Nicholas Remblance had forgotten all
about the metal until his van set off the Geiger counter
at a weighbridge. Firemen in protective clothing and
experts from the nuclear power station in Sizewell were
brought in to investigate and the yard was sealed off.
Initial tests on Mr Remblance indicated he had not
been affected, but further investigations will be carried
out in a few weeks time. The Environment Agency
has ordered an investigation into how the block of DU
turned up in Mr Remblance’s scrapyard.
CADU website - volunteer wanted!
CADU now has its own website, as we said in the last
newsletter. The address is www.cadu.com - easy to
remember. We have only just got this website up so
please bear with us if we have teething problems - we
are new to this technology. If any of our supporters
has web technology skills, and would like to volunteer
to be responsible for maintaining and updating our
website - we would love to hear from you. It would
really help us out, as we are overstretched as it is. It is
a job which could be done fairly easily from any part
of the country - so get in touch if you think you may
be the person to help.
CADU
International Conference on Depleted
Uranium
4th - 5th November 2000
Note change of date due to venue difficulties
Bringing Together Speakers and
Campaigners from All Over the World
We hope this international conference will be an
opportunity not only to provide accesible information
to those not familiar with the issue, but also provide a
working platform for activists to collaborate on key global
strategies for removing the threat of depleted uranium
from all peoples, and for putting pressure on governments
to respond appropriately to this threat.
The conference will begin at 9am on Saturday
4 November and conclude at 5 pm on Sunday. The
plenary sessions will include speakers from Iraq, Serbia,
and veterans groups. Scientists will present the latest
information on the testing programmes and medical
effects. Workshops on the huge range of issues related
to DU include: law, the nuclear industry, UN work,
government responses, Gulf War and Balkans veterans,
clean up operations, practical support for those affected,
the role of the World Health Organisation and the IAEA,
environmental effects, non-violent protest actions, etc.
There will be time for questions from the f loor as well as
spontaneously organised workshops.
Speakers already confirmed include: Dr Rosalie Bertell,
Doug Rokke, Military Toxics Project, Dr Chris Busby of
the Low Level Radiation Project, Bernice Boermans of
IALANA, Prof. Malcolm Hooper of the University of
Sunderland
Leaf lets with registration details will be available shortly,
and conference programmes will be sent out with your
registration pack.
For further information contact Cat Euler, Conference
Organiser, at the CADU office
BAE Systems wins DU contract
Jane’s Defence Weekly reported several months ago,
that the Ministry of Defence (UK) selected the Royal
Ordnance Division of British Aerospace Systems to provide
the 120mm CHARM 3 Training Round (the name
for the DU bullet) for use in the Challenger battle tanks
in service with the British Army. It reports that they
will be produced at Royal Ordnance facilities in Birtley
and Glascoed, in a contract worth up to £100 million.
Do any readers live near any of these production plants,
or have any more information about them? Please get in
touch.