Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 123-125
Technology has made many things
possible today, and it has also made it possible
that the victims of technology cannot testify or
prove technology accountable for its destruction. . . .
They say the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. Here it's good intentions creating
a hell. The extra uranium ore is used to mantle
roads and houses and other things. . . .
He is Dikhu Murmu(?), a person who's
worked for 25 years in the underground, and he
did not know what is being mined. He couldn't
pronounce the word uranium -- you should hear it
on the tape. He has skin abnormalities, stomach
problems, and the company has not told him
anything about his ailment. By the way, when I
interviewed two doctors who refused to speak on
tape, who work for the Uranium Corporation
hospital, they said that they are unaware of any
radioactivity cases. Secondly, what they said
was, when I asked them what happens to the
blood samples, the biopsies, the results of all
that, they said, all those results are taken and
sent to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in
Bombay, and those results of the blood tests on
patients are never shown to the concerned doctors
nor to the patients. It all goes under the Official
Secrecy Act. Probably our government would be
afraid that if Pakistan comes to know about the
effects of radioactivity they could attack us.
Xavier S. Dias
Xavier S. Dias, Village Duccasi, Bihar,
India. Co-founder of Jharkhandis Organization
for Human Rights.
Respected Elders, Brothers, Sisters! I bring you
greetings from the people of Jharkhand, the
central tribal areas of India.
Technology has made many things
possible today, and it has also made it possible
that the victims of technology cannot testify or
prove technology accountable for its destruction. I
have a series of slides that we have taken. We
are part of the Tribal Jharkhand Movement, and I
work with the All Jharkhand Students Union as
well as with the Jharkhandhis Organization for
Human Rights, two political organizations
fighting for a Jharkhand state, and I think the
organizers of this Hearing would be happy to
know that news of this Hearing has given us a
new impetus to take on the question of uranium
mining as part of our political agenda. It is not in
our culture to say "thank you", but I would like to
really say that we appreciate the organizers and
the organization, especially those who cannot
be seen -- in the office, in the kitchen, the
interpreters and all the people who worked to
make this Hearing a very big event in our
struggle, the struggle of the indigenous people
against uranium mining.
Could we have the lights dimmed,
please? The first slide, please.
This is a village, Radjgao(?), it is just
between Jaduguda and the Bhatin Mines, two
kilometers East is Jaduguda, two kilometers
West. The first three, four slides will just show
you something of the Santal way of life, the
Santal village life, and most of the photos you
are seeing, within a year's time these people are
going to be displaced for the Narwapahar uranium
mine that is coming up in this vicinity. I chose
this slide because it gives the atmosphere of how
happy the children are before mining and industry
could come and take it over.
This is women transplanting rice just
below the tailing pond. -- A Santal person making
his fishing nets. -- A woman just returning from the
river after a bath and collecting little fire-wood
fuel. -- This tribal society is much more egalitarian
than the other non-tribal Indian society, and men
take care of the little ones.
This is a Santal house, it is a house of
a family that doesn't have much land, and you
could see how just beautiful it is and this
would give you an idea of the culture of the
place.
This is Jaduguda Mines, a bird's eye view
of the mine taken from the tailing pond. Right up
there, you see the shaft from where the workers
go down, it's 2,000 feet below the ground.
That's where the pipeline comes which
brings in the tailings to the tailing pond. -- This
is inside Narwapahar Mines, where the ore has
just been brought up and is being loaded by a
tribal contract labor, not permanent labor, onto
trucks.
Here is a worker returning home inside
the mine. This is prohibited area, but we
managed to get these photographs. -- Here they
are taking the uranium ore from one mine to the
mill for processing.
This is the new uranium mine, Narwapahar
Mine, built with Russian technology. If you
could read that board, it gives you some
idea of the British legacy that we have of
speaking English, and these boards are found
around all mines in our area, because every year
there is a competition in safety, and the mine that
produces the best board, the best hoarding -- in
English, of course -- gets the first prize.
Here is another board, but I don't think
it's very clear. -- This is the beginning of the
tailing pond, and this is probably the end of this
person's rich cultural life; he is one of the
displaced people of that tailing pond area and
he now sustains his family by selling fuel.
Here we are standing on the dam of the
tailing pond; on the left of the photographer is
the area where a new tailing pond is going to be
constructed, so the village is going to be
evicted; and on the right is the old tailing pond,
the radioactivity here is very high.
We are standing on the tailing pond,
where in 1986 the dam burst and the material
from the tailing pond all flowed into the village
nearby. Now the management is trying to patch
it up with cement.
This is a very interesting photograph, it's
the tailing pond, the lower level. The upper level --
there is water where the material is flushed
into. The lower level, if you see, there is a couple
carrying a child, returning from the doctor as the
child is sick. And they are using the tailing pond
as a pathway.
These are probably footprints on the sands
of time. The pipe there has burst and somebody
has gone and drunk the water, and we've got the
footprints.
They say the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. Here it's good intentions creating
a hell. The extra uranium ore is used to mantle
roads and houses and other things.
This is the area for the new tailing pond. --
The uranium is refined in Jaduguda, up to 80
percent purity, and it goes down 1,500 kilometers to
a place called Hyderabad in South India, where
you have the Nuclear Fuel Center. And there
the radium is extracted -- forgive
me, I cannot use the technical languages -- the
uranium is extracted and the yellowcake is sent
back to be dumped on our lands. So, on the 25th,
I managed to get these photographs, just being
unloaded at the Rakha railway-station.
When the drums are unloaded we found
about a dozen drums that were burst. -- This is an
interesting photo because here you have the drum
and in the background you have this woman
transplanting rice in a village further up.
That's also a pathway where people go
and come. -- And this little child is just
returning or going to school.
Here these workers, these are all tribals
and mostly people who have been displaced by the
Uranium Mining Corporation from their lands. Now
they are landless, they work loading these
drums whenever the train comes with the drums,
and they are paid maybe a mark extra to do this
work, so they prefer doing this work. And I have
tape-recordings, which I have transcribed into a
paper where they are giving their individual
stories: At the end of the day their hands turn
white. They cannot work for more than three
months. Most of their co-workers are dead and
they suffer from all sorts of ailments.
This is a gentleman, Manghal Majhi. He
is one of the first tribals in India who worked for
the Atomic Energy Commission. At that time it
was a British company, in 1945, when India was
still under British rule. Manghal need not have
worked and he didn't want to work, but in his
interview he says: "The foreigners would always
come to our house with their jeep and take us to
work, and they took me all around India, drilling
holes, searching for uranium." He called it a
holding company which was later taken over by
the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. Manghal
has since retired and has returned to Jaduguda
where he is leading a retired life. But his story is
a very sad story. He says that from the day he
returned to Jaduguda, he has been a sick person
and he has been treated for tuberculosis by the
company hospital; but he went to a private doctor
who told him that he does not have tuberculosis
as a result of which he has lost his hearing, and
he has a lot of stomach problems. He showed me
a big box of empty bottles of medicine he has
taken, and nearly ten cages of prescription
receipts. He also said: "I am sick because of
drinking uranium-contaminated water." When I
asked him why does he think he is sick because
of that, he says, because he remembers there was
a tree next to a river that slowly died -- because it
was passing by the same river where he takes his
water. And because the tree died and a lot of
animals and the fish died in that river, he thinks
it has affected him.
This is Manghal's daughter. We have
had many cases, but because of shortage of time
I just have to take a selection of these. She has
lost her first two babies, stillborn or spontaneous
abortions, this is the third child. It was born
normal. Her husband is a contract worker in the
mines.
He is Takhur Majhi of Elejerajhgan(?),
and when I see him I get the impression that he
is just coming out of a cancer ward after taking
cobalt rays. He says that no one in his family, his
father's side or his mother's side, has ever lost
their hair. But he has lost his, he's worked 20
years in the mines, his body is full of skin
abnormalities. I couldn't get it very well on the
camera. He works as underground miner.
This is Ludia Majhi(?). The day I met
him he ran away from a TB-sanatorium. He was
being treated for the last six months with
tuberculosis, and he couldn't stand it any
more. He ran away and he came back home. He works
as underground miner, doing the drilling work. He
drills 40 holes a day in the mines below.
He is Dikhu Murmu(?), a person who's
worked for 25 years in the underground, and he
did not know what is being mined. He couldn't
pronounce the word uranium -- you should hear it
on the tape. He has skin abnormalities, stomach
problems, and the company has not told him
anything about his ailment. By the way, when I
interviewed two doctors who refused to speak on
tape, who work for the Uranium Corporation
hospital, they said that they are unaware of any
radioactivity cases. Secondly, what they said
was, when I asked them what happens to the
blood samples, the biopsies, the results of all
that, they said, all those results are taken and
sent to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in
Bombay, and those results of the blood tests on
patients are never shown to the concerned doctors
nor to the patients. It all goes under the Official
Secrecy Act. Probably our government would be
afraid that if Pakistan comes to know about the
effects of radioactivity they could attack us.
He's a non-tribal, Amulja(?). He and his
wife were working in another hospital, in another
town. They got a job in Jaduguda, they've come
to Jaduguda. Ever since they landed in Jaduguda,
they're having health problems. His wife has to
have a valve insertion in her heart, and he has
had a lot of problems. He says that in the hospital
where he works, a lot of abortion cases are there,
a lot of TB-cases are there, but they are not being
shown. He says this on tape. He also says that the
tribals who are not working for the plant, they
have no access to the hospital. If they want to be
admitted for anything in that hospital, they have
to pay a very high deposit which they cannot
afford.
She is a very interesting woman. She has
been a midwife or an assistant midwife from the
age of twelve. Today, she's about 55 to 60 years
old, she lives next to the mines, and when we
interviewed her we asked her: "Could you tell us
how many babies you helped to deliver in your
whole life span?" So she says: "Really, I can't
count them", but she says: "Most of the boys here
standing around, most of you boys, I have helped
your mothers to deliver you." And then she went
on to tell us that in the beginning, when she was
a young girl, there were not so many abnormal babies
born and abortion cases as there are now. She says,
it is the evil spirits of Jaduguda that are
eating the babies; that's her understanding of the
situation. But she says something much more
interesting, which I have not heard in these two
days of deliberation. She says that for the last
three years they are getting a very funny disease
among the children where the crown of the skull
has not yet been formed of babies just being
born. And it is still a fine membrane. She calls is
"talka", and she says, last year out of ten babies
she delivered one that had "talka".
He is Fago(?), a young boy whose mother
was from this village, and the first child to be
conceived. As I said, we cannot relate cause and
effect, but his house is just below the tailing
pond.
This is the village priest of Chatigora(?)
village which is going to be submerged by the
next new tailing pond. And he says that he's very
disappointed that the sacred groves of the tribals
and the ancestral stone grave yards are going to
be taken away. But he says that, whenever they
went to the management of the mines to discuss
about the land acquisition, the management
always said: "Your government has decided it for
you", and he says it's going to create a lot of
problems.
This is one of the victims who has
lost land and he is on the railway-station
working.
These are the sacred graveyards of the
tribals within the mining areas. -- This too, another
one. -- This is -- we were going from village to
village telling them of The World Uranium
Hearing, showing them the leaflets that were sent
to us, and one person had to come, he couldn't
get his passport, so he didn't come; we were
collecting signatures of 5,000 villagers to be
presented here, but unfortunately, we couldn't get
them before the Hearing.
This is the village of Hartopha(?) which
is going to be taken over by Narwapahar Mines,
and they were having a meeting and they have
sent it on tape to you all in one voice
saying: "We do not want uranium mined in our lands, we
want to live in peace and harmony as before."
Thank you very much.