"The grassroots indigenous people have fought on the front lines against great odds, out of the limelight, yet they have often won by relying on their traditional teachings," says Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. "By putting forth grassroots cultural resistance as a model for change, we are challenging both native rights and environmental movements to be true to their roots." Goldtooth said this as he, representatives of the Western Shoshone Nation and over 400 supporters from all over the world spent their Easter weekend at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site. With a strong unified voice, all demanded a halt to the destruction of traditional Shoshone lands and an end to violations of Shoshone religious freedoms. The best way to begin the new millennium, they said, is to honor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Ruby Valley Treaty with the Shoshone Nation by shutting down the test site.
On April 13, over 150 people entered the test site before dawn and participated in the first traditional Shoshone Sunrise Ceremony held there since the land was seized by the federal government in 1948. Led by Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone spiritual leader, the occupation continued for 24 hours with no response from the Department of Energy. Ten people who headed further into the test site were arrested later that day for trespassing. As the occupation intensified throughout the weekend, 91 people were arrested at the Circle of Rebirth Easter ceremony at the test site entrance after crossing the property lines.
"We were put here by the Creator as a native people to take care of this land and all the life on it," stated Harney. "Shoshone people have taken care of this land for thousands of years. The government has stolen this land from us, and now it is very contaminated. They have kept us from doing what we can to take care of it and heal it. For 50 years they have kept us out with fences and guards."
Healing Global Wounds, the anti-nuclear alliance hosting the gathering, pointed out the overwhelming health and environmental effects after 47 years of nuclear weapons testing on traditional Shoshone lands. In addition to renewed "subcritical" weapons testing, these problems are now compounded by shipments of low-level radioactive waste pouring into the test site from contaminated weapons facilities all over the US, at the rate of four truckloads a day. Recent reports show that four out of five trucks from Fernald, Ohio, alone have been leaking on interstate freeways. Congress continues to move forward with mandating Mobile Chernobyl, the shipping of US spent reactor fuel to Yucca Mountain, located within the test site. Current studies have shown the location is 25 percent as active as the San Andreas fault in California [see Mobile Chernobyl article on page 14].
The test originally scheduled for April has been postponed until later this summer due to safety and contamination issues at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories where the plutonium is being produced. Those gathered vowed to return in October for the fall Healing Global Wounds Gathering (October 10-13) as well as for Mother's Day 1999 to further the resistance. Shundahai Network in Las Vegas will continue to coordinate a resistance to subcritical nuclear weapons tests. To participate, contact Shundahai Network at 5007 Elmhurst Ln., Las Vegas, NV 89108-1304; (702) 647-3095; fax 647-9385; reinard@shundahai.org.