Hon Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela Foundation
Private Bag X70000
Houghton
2041
South Africa
Tel: 021 930 3622 Fax: 021 930 0995
RE: Nelson Mandela Foundation Anti-Nuke Legacy
The year 2013 will see the twentieth anniversary of the historic 1993 announcement of the dismantling of South Africa’s atomic weapons programme. As an anti-nuclear activist and world peacebuilder whose association with Earthlife Africa and other environmental groups has lasted nearly twenty years, I would like to urge you and your foundation to add your name to the International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW).
South African uranium products, such as depleted uranium continue to be exported to countries involved in conflict areas. Chapter 8 in Terry Crawford-Browne’s latest book, Eye On The Money details the exchange and export of this technology during the apartheid era.
Nearly 15 years after the advent of democracy in South Africa, the issue remains divisive, both within cabinet, at parliamentary level and on the ground. The Iraq Children’s Tooth Project and Basra epidemiological study, for example, are ongoing projects conducted by the ICBUW in conjunction with Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU-UK) and supported by the recently formed national Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (CANE).
Briefly, depleted uranium is left after enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium in order to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. During this process, the fissionable isotope Uranium 235 is separated from uranium. The remaining uranium, which is 99.8% uranium 238 is misleadingly called ‘depleted uranium’.
According to ICBUW researchers, depleted uranium is chemically toxic. It is an extremely dense, hard metal, and can cause chemical poisoning to the body in the same way as lead or any other heavy metal. However, depleted uranium is also radiologically hazardous, as it spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolised glass particles which are small enough to be inhaled. These uranium oxide particles emit, alpha, beta and gamma, radiation and can be carried in the air over long distances.
Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years, and the presence of depleted uranium ceramic aerosols can pose a long term threat to human health and the environment.
Both of the ICBUW studies are documenting high levels of depleted uranium contamination in children who live in or near areas contaminated with uranium oxide dust particles, derived from the use of depleted uranium weapons. Large volumes of DU weapons were used in Southern Iraq during 1991 and 2003.
As one of the foremost statesmen involved in the peace process, I call upon you and your foundation to re-affirm commitment to peace and a world free from the scourge of war. I quote from a recent article of mine published by Biophile Magazine: “Can one ever measure the cost of lives lost as a result of the use of depleted uranium weapons by the US and UK military in the Gulf, weapons ironically created from the metal originating from uranium mines in South Africa?”
“Can one factor in the health of workers who are exposed to radioactive tailings during mining, milling and processing, and the lives of communities effected by continuous radioactive emissions from nuclear plants such as Koeberg, and square this with the children still living in Bazra, Southern Iraq, who continue to be exposed to radioactive dust, not to mention sufferers of “Gulf War Syndrome” – the “obscure” medical condition associated with exposure to war munitions?”
Without a concerted effort to protect South Africa’s legacy as the only country to completely dismantle an atomic weapons programme, our prestige and your heritage in the global arena as 21st century peacekeepers will be damaged irreparably. Generations of our compatriots will be doomed to a resurrection of a nuclear ambition, as we will all pay the price for continuing support for uranium munitions in the Gulf and other conflict regions.
Yours truly,
David Robert Lewis
Founder member, Coalition Against Nuclear Energy
