Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
page 180-182
Last Friday, 10 September 1992, another
delegation of the IAEA investigated the mine for
ten days. In their preliminary finding is stated
that the radiation and general occupational safety
program at Roessing is of high standard, the
medical surveillance program for the workers and
their families is excellent, radiation exposure
levels at various facilities are very low.
That is the finding of the IAEA. However,
our union is very dissatisfied, and I want to put it
for record with the preliminary conclusions. The
IAEA relied completely on the information which
they received from the company. Our union has
also given documents to the IAEA with a list of
people who are already dead because of lung cancer,
people who are currently complaining. We have 130
names of people who are complaining about lung
diseases and lung problems. But the International
Atomic Energy Agency didn't at all look at these
names, they just completely ignored them. They
didn't evaluate the impact of seepage from the
tailings as I said already before 1981 which, as
I said, was a very serious problem.
The IAEA officials told our union that
the allegation that Roessing had failed to monitor
whole body doses in the past was a "political
issue" which the MUN would have to take up
with the government, it was not a concern of the
IAEA. No one interviewed or examined a single
medical case from our list, the people which we
gave to them to investigate; they never looked at
them.
Father John (Moderator)
Thank you. From the Grand Canyon we go to Africa, to
a country called Namibia. Namibia is just 1.3 million
people. Very few. They just got independent two years
ago. But even after two years of independence, they
have something to tell us. Our guest speaker is
Cleophas. Please, go ahead.
Cleophas Mutjavikua
Cleophas Mutjavikua, Namibia. Secretary-General of the
Mineworkers' Union of Namibia.
First of all, I would like to thank The World
Uranium Hearing for giving us an opportunity to
explain also our experience. I'm the General
Secretary of the Mineworkers' Union of Namibia,
and with me is Joe Hangula who is the Safety
Committee Chairman at the Roessing Uranium
Mine.
I will first introduce my country, since many people
will not know where Namibia is. Namibia is
Africa's newest nation. We achieved our
independence on 21 March, 1990. Namibia is
on the southwest coast of Africa, just a bit above
South Africa. Namibia has undergone 25 years of
colonial rule under German and British
occupation and almost 75 years of South African
colonial and military rule. Namibia is a country which is
boasting with its two beautiful deserts -- as today
is the Day of Deserts. One of our deserts is the
Kalahari Desert in the East and the Namib in the
West. The Namib Desert used to be a beautiful
landscape which once has been referred to by an
European tourist as "the smile of Africa".
The desert from which the name Namibia
originated is where the world's largest open pit
uranium mine is located. This mine, Roessing
Uranium Ltd., is controlled by the British company
Rio Tinto Zinc. The German company
Urangesellschaft and French firm Total are some
of the other shareholders. Uranium mining at Rio
Tinto Zinc started in 1976. Its workers were and
are still accommodated in Swakobmund, about 65
kilometers from the mine, and Arandis, which is
13 kilometers from the mining area, that means it
is near the uranium mine. Near the mine we also
find the Khan River which feeds into the Swakob
River, which runs into the sea. The seepage from
the tailings dam runs into the Khan River. Now
you see the connection, the seepage runs into the
Khan River, the Khan river into the Swakob River
and into the sea. This is very clear if you come
there, it is shown by the pumps which the mine
eventually installed up to the Khan to recycle the
seepage back to the tailings dam. There are small
farms along the Khan and Swakob Rivers also.
We have all sorts of animals as Namibia
is a very rich country when it comes to animals
moving around the Khan River. And we fear that
this seepage will cause damage to their well-being
and the natural environment as a whole. It
does not often rain in the desert, but what will
happen if it does? The Khan River will carry all
the contamination over to the Swakob, which will
flow into the sea. How much damage will be done?
Before independence, the mine was
closely monitored by international organizations
because it was breaking Decree No. 1 of the
United Nation Council for Namibia, which
prohibited mining and export of Namibian
minerals. Roessing was also known the world
over for having the worst safety conditions in
southern Africa. The company came under
pressure from an earlier phase of our union,
which fought a major strike in 1978 and from the
prospect that Namibia might soon gain
independence under the 1978 UN plan.
The company began to tell everyone how
important they were for Namibian society. Their
slogan was "Roessing -- Working for Namibia",
and under this heading they ran educational,
training and development facilities throughout
the country. After independence in 1989,
Roessing was generally seen as important for
Namibia and did not need to continue with this
propaganda. The company got rid of the
Roessing Foundation which offered training
and development and dropped most of the
facilities for workers.
In 1991, shortly after independence,
Roessing claimed the difficult economic situation
of the company as grounds for retrenching one
third of the workers. They were not prepared to
negotiate the retrenchment with the union and
delayed the negotiation on retrenchment
benefits. The management is still protected by South
African legislation which prevented the union from
forcing the company to open its books so that their
financial figures could be checked independently. About
750 workers and their families were dismissed with
only minor compensation and nowhere to go.
Arandis, in the midst of the Namib Desert,
is a desolate site. No one had ever chosen to
settle there before. It only exists to accommodate
the black workers of Roessing. Senior personnel,
most of whom are white has been housed in
Swakobmund. That is a trend in Namibia that
most of those who have money are whites and
most of the people who have to do the hard work
are blacks. That is coming from the colonial
history of apartheid. The company ran the medical
and social activities and offered sports and
recreation facilities. Tourists came to us gaining
the impression that Roessing offered a kind of
model township for its workers.
In response, the Namibia Support
Committee in England started to look into health
and safety at Roessing. They examined internal
company documents which they had obtained
during the war to liberate our country. These
documents proved that Roessing had violated the
radiation control system of the International
Commission for Radiological Protection, ICRP. It
confirmed our own experience, since we know
that workers, employed in the early days from
1976 to 1982, were exposed to very high dust
levels -- in some cases without any respiratory
protection.
The company's own chief environmentalist admitted
in an internal report that they did not measure the
dose of alpha radiation in the lungs of workers who
inhaled uranium dust. The Namibia Support Committee
and PARTIZANS, People Against Rio Tinto
Zinc and Subsidiaries published their findings last
March in Past Exposure. This book is available
at the counter. It reveals many problems from the
years before 1985.
Because of the complaints of the workers
about lung diseases etc., our government invited
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
to investigate Roessing. A group arrived in March
under the leadership of Mr. Ahmed and, according
to the company, Mr. Ahmed expressed complete
satisfaction with the health and safety conditions
at Roessing. However, according to recent
reports in a Namibian newspaper, Ahmed's visit
did not raise concerns about dust levels in the
secondary ore crushers, radiation exposure of the
workers handling or cleaning drums of uranium
oxide.
Last Friday, 10 September 1992, another
delegation of the IAEA investigated the mine for
ten days. In their preliminary finding is stated
that the radiation and general occupational safety
program at Roessing is of high standard, the
medical surveillance program for the workers and
their families is excellent, radiation exposure
levels at various facilities are very low.
That is the finding of the IAEA. However,
our union is very dissatisfied, and I want to put it
for record with the preliminary conclusions. The
IAEA relied completely on the information which
they received from the company. Our union has
also given documents to the IAEA with a list of
people who are already dead because of lung cancer,
people who are currently complaining. We have 130
names of people who are complaining about lung
diseases and lung problems. But the International
Atomic Energy Agency didn't at all look at these
names, they just completely ignored them. They
didn't evaluate the impact of seepage from the
tailings as I said already before 1981 which, as
I said, was a very serious problem.
The IAEA officials told our union that
the allegation that Roessing had failed to monitor
whole body doses in the past was a "political
issue" which the MUN would have to take up
with the government, it was not a concern of the
IAEA. No one interviewed or examined a single
medical case from our list, the people which we
gave to them to investigate; they never looked at
them.
Our union is questioning whether the
IAEA officials really carried out a full
independent and objective examination, and we
do not accept the assessment. Accordingly, the
MUN is seeking to assemble an independent team
to investigate the medical cases, radiation doses,
tailings seepage and decommissioning plans of
the mine.
Thank you very much.
Father John (Moderator)
That is after about two years of the independence and they have something to tell us! Thank you, the two gentlemen from Namibia.
Now we go down south to South Africa. . . .