Hospitals & Asylums
Dear Anthony J. Principi:
1. To cancel the Divine Strake
Test, once and for all, Anthony J. Principi, Chairman of the BRAC Commission is
sought to exercise his authority under 41USC(2)§101
to give notice of the termination of the $23 million est. war contract for the
test consistent with the national security interest of the United States to protect
the health and culture of its citizens by prosecuting this fraud before it
becomes another act of God. When the
funds to research the development of nuclear bunker busters and robust nuclear
earth penetrators (RNEPS) were not appropriated, it was believed this would be
the end to further development of nuclear weapons by the United
States. The Department of Defense (DoD) itself announced in late October
2005 that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrating (RNEP) weapon project was being
dropped in favor of a more conventional methodology. However
this Spring, DoD confirmed
U.S. plans to detonate a 700 ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil explosion set
off by C-4 explosives at the Nevada Test Site on 2 June 2006 in a test called
"Divine Strake” whose explosive power will be equivalent detonating 593
tons of TNT, 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas, that will be nearly 50 times
bigger than the largest conventional weapon, leaving a crater 196 feet across
and throwing up a plume of dust that is expected to reach 10,000 feet, larger
than the 430-ton yield produced by the Danny Boy nuclear bomb that was set off
in a basalt crater at the test site in 1962. This gigantic experimental blast will use 280 times the amount of
ANFO that demolished Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building in 1995, that killed
168 people and damaging or destroying more than 300 buildings. A lawsuit filed by the Western Shoshone
Indian Tribe and others over concerns that the explosion would continue the degradation
to the public health caused by nuclear tests pushed the date of the test back
to 23 June.
2. At the 67th session of the
UN Human Rights Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination on 19 August
2005, the requests submitted by the Western Shoshone National Council, and by
the Western people of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, Winnemucca Indian Colony and
Yomba Shoshone Tribe for the resolution of claims regarding the gradual
encroachment upon lands presented by reinvigorated federal efforts to open a
nationwide nuclear waste repository and other means on Western Shoshone land in
abrogation of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley for which the 2004 Western
Shoshone Claims Distribution Act, is neither fair or adequate. At
its 68th
session in Geneva, 20 Feb. - 10 Mar.2006 the Committee for the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination issued Early Warning & Urgent Action Procedure Decision 1 (68). The
location of this test would be on Western Shoshone land, and would be in direct
violation of a recent decision by the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). In its decision, made public March
10, 2006, the CERD Committee urged the United States at
paragraph 10 to adopt the following measures until a final decision or
settlement is reached on the status, use and occupation of Western Shoshone
ancestral lands in accordance with due process of law to:
a)
Freeze any plan to privatize Western Shoshone ancestral lands for transfer to
multinational extractive industries and energy developers;
b) Desist from all activities planned and/or conducted on the ancestral lands of Western Shoshone or in relation to their natural resources, which are being carried out without consultation with and despite protests of the Western Shoshone peoples;
c) Stop
imposing grazing fees, trespass and collection notices, horse and livestock
impoundments, restrictions on hunting, fishing and gathering, as well as
arrests, and rescind all notices already made to that end, inflicted on Western
Shoshone people while using their ancestral lands.
3. It is left to Us to interpret
this law for the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD) who shall hear reports on the actions of the US until 15
July 2006. We have no legal alternative
to protecting the State of Nevada from a threatened strike as it clearly
infringes upon the environment and right to health
and cultural rights of the Western Shoshone and Nevadan people in general,
which may be infringed upon by activities threatening their environment and/or
disregarding the spiritual and cultural significance they give to their
ancestral lands. The United States must
defend itself against criminal responsibility by canceling the Divine Strake. Las
Vegas, NV and St. George, UT are among the fastest growing cities in the
country. Hundreds of thousands more people live there now than when
underground nuclear testing ended in the 90s. There is reason to be
concerned about the immediate and harmful effects of exposure to ammonium
nitrate particles on those downwind as a plume of hazardous and radioactive
dirt and debris will shoot 10,000 feet into the air and float over these two
cities and points further east and north be good for them. Hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted
about eight miles west of the proposed blast site between 1950 and 1992.
Thousands of people now suffering from various cancers say their health
problems stem from radiation released by those nuclear tests. The federal
government's Radiation Compensation Exposure Act provides a one-time settlement
from $50,000 to $100,000 to down-winders who qualify under the program's
guidelines.
4. The National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) is hosting the
test, known as “Divine Strake”, for a Defense Department agency. The NNSA was established by Congress in 2000
as a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible
for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear
science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and
performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing;
works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the
U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear
and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad. Since construction of the
1,100-foot-long tunnel was completed in 1999, the agency has conducted 45
tests, including live munitions dropped by Air Force warplanes. That is in
addition to small-scale laboratory experiments for the project and a pair of
medium-scale explosions at the Mitchell limestone quarry, about 35 miles south
of Bloomington, Ind. Those tests in 2004 and 2005 were powered by 3,000 pounds
of nitro methane. NNSA announced on 28
March 2006 the selection of National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec) to
manage and operate the Nevada Test Site (NTS) for the NNSA Nevada Site Office.
The contract, valued at approximately $500 million annually, is for five years.
There are potentially five additional performance-based award-term years
available under this contract. NSTec is
made up of Northrop Grumman, AECOM, CH2M Hill, and Nuclear Fuel Services. Under
this contract, NSTec will be responsible for managing and operating the NTS and
satellite facilities in North Las Vegas, Nevada; Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada;
Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Livermore,
California; and Santa Barbara, California.
The work includes remote field experiments and operations; physical and
environmental science; design and fabrication of electronic, mechanical, and
structural systems; remote and robotic sensing; management of multi-laboratory
facilities; engineering, construction, and mining operations; chemical,
explosives, and hazardous materials systems and technologies; and waste
management for various categories of waste.
The NTS is located approximately 65-miles northwest of Las Vegas,
Nevada. The 1,375 square mile site supports NNSA's national security missions,
first responder training, and environmental restoration and waste management
activities. NNSA however makes no easily
discernable report of the controversial test(s) on their website that brings
the annual $500 million of the program into jeopardy.
5. Sen. Orrin Hatch has joined a
group of Congress members voicing concerns about "Divine Strake," a
massive explosion planned this summer at the Nevada Test Site that critics say
could have nuclear implications. Hatch sent a letter Friday to the Defense
Threat Reduction Agency, seeking assurances that the test would not disperse
any radioactive material left over from past nuclear weapons tests at the
Nevada site. "The more I look into this, the more upset I become,"
Hatch said in a statement. "The good people who live downwind from this
test site have already been through enough, and I've given them my word that
I'll never allow any nuclear testing that could harm them again. I have
directed my staff to check into this very closely, and if I'm not satisfied
that this will be safe, I'm going to do everything I can to put a stop to
it." The agency has originally said
that its environmental assessment determined there was no radioactive material
at the site however environmental assessment first listed the blast site as
being 2.5 miles from any prior radioactive testing, but in another location
listed it as being 1.5 miles. Then in response to an inquiry, the actual
location was determined to be 1.1 miles from prior testing. The Nevada Test
Site, previously known as the Nevada Proving Ground, was the United States main
nuclear weapons testing site between 1951 and 1959. Some arms-race experts
believe that, even after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the
Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the United States conducted underground tests
for many more years. Scientists have linked increased cases of cancer and
leukaemia in areas surrounding the test site to exposure to radiation from the
nuclear testing. The proposed blast is an even more striking case of fraud
because of recent US government actions regarding nuclear science both in
signing a treaty to bolster Indias nuclear capabilities, and US efforts to
thwart the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
6. Weary of the environmental
degradation of these tests and wary of a larger explosion Utah Gov. Jon
Huntsman spoke out against the testing, and repeated his opposition to the
blast on Thursday through his spokesman, Mike Mower. "We feel that testing
shouldn't take place when we are downwind," said Mower. "Utahans have
suffered generations of adverse effects due to prior testing in Nevada." The
Winnemucca Indian Colony and a group of down winders - people who have
contracted cancer believed to be caused by their exposure to fallout from Cold
War nuclear tests - have sued to stop the Divine Strake test and succeeded in having
it postponed until after June 23 from its originally scheduled June 2 date. Nevada
environmental officials continue to say they might not allow a massive
non-nuclear explosion planned at the Nevada Test Site because the federal
government has failed to provide complete information about the possible fallout.
“A number of questions have been raised regarding radiological contamination that
could be injected into the atmosphere from the test”, state Air Pollution
Control Bureau Chief Michael Elges wrote in a letter to Kathleen Carlson,
manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Nevada Site Office.
7. Raymond Yowell, Chief of the
Western Shoshone National Council stated, "We're opposed to any further
military testing on Shoshone lands. This is a direct violation of the CERD
finding and an affront to our religious belief - Mother Earth is sacred and
should not be harmed. All people who are opposed to these actions by the U.S.
should step forward and make their opposition known." The International
Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World,
2001-2010 of 1
December 2005 recalls that the Constitution of
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, states
that, “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the
defenses of peace must be constructed”.
Anthony J. Principi, as Chairman of the BRAC Commission and counsel to
the Armed Services Committees, whose military judgment has previously been sound,
is therefore sought to prosecute this fraud by requiring the immediate cancellation
of “Divine Strake”.
8. Whereas hundreds of nuclear
tests were conducted about eight miles west of the proposed blast site between
1950 and 1992 and thousands of people now suffer from various cancers reported
by the victims to have been caused by radiation released by those nuclear tests
whose residue is very likely to be disturbed by this blast with possibly dire
consequences to the public health of a people who have clearly stated their wish
to prohibit this and other fraudulent scientific military experiments
detrimental to their health the contract for Divine Strake must be immediately
terminated. To do the USA justice
before the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
on 15 July 2006 the Divine Strake war contract must be immediately terminated before
Memorial Day, 29 May 2006, so that we can claim victory against the threat of
death in our speeches.
9. At this time is would be fair
to appropriate the entire $23 million cost of the cancelled Divine Strake
program for administration to the political campaign of Anthony J. Principi for
Secretary of Defense, Hospitals & Asylums, the UN Human Rights Committee on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Disrimination (CERD), Shoshone and
Nevadan people politically organized under 26USCI(F)(VI)§527
for bravely defending Us from harming them, paving the way for further
proceedings under 41USC(2)§101
regarding whether the National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec) merits the
$500 million annually from the NNSA, after this treason.