Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
page 1
Foreword
by Claus BiegertInitiator of The World Uranium Hearing
The vocabulary of our industrial society contains the well-known and continuously used term of the "peaceful use of nuclear energy". A well functioning international system to suppress disturbing information has enabled the nuclear industry to promote itself as safe and environmentally sound. But this label is a lie.
At The World Uranium Hearing held in Salzburg, Austria in September
1992, witnesses from all continents including indigenous speakers and
scientists testified to the falsity of the terminology used and
sanctioned by industry and governments world-wide. Fifty years of
military and civilian use of nuclear power meant war for those whose
homelands have been used for mining and processing of uranium and
chosen for atomic weapons testing, atomic energy production and atomic
waste disposal. Every day human life and the natural world are
sacrificed along the radioactive trail of our nuclear way.
One of the tasks of this book is to empower the people living on the
exploited areas, however remote, as well as to carry it onto the desks
of the decision makers. Each statement of this historic week serves
as evidence of the urgent need for world responsibility. On a
radioactive planet all plans for the future will become meaningless.
May the spirit of the Salzburg hearings travel around the world and
help break the wall of silence which surrounds the nuclear industry and
all of its victims.
May the teachings of the indigenous witnesses on whose lands most of
the destruction has taken place remind us that the Earth is sacred.