Ban Uranium Weapons Activist Damacio Lopez Receives Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award

This month, the International Uranium Film Festival in Berlin honored uranium weapons expert and activist Damacio A. Lopez with the festival’s Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award. For over thirty years, the US Air Force veteran from Socorro, New Mexico has campaigned for an international ban on depleted uranium munitions and weapons.  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/

His community in central New Mexico was an open air testing ground for DU weapons from 1972 to 1993.  Lopez has dedicated his life to educating people about the harmful effects. Many people in the Socorro area have suffered health effects similar to those who served in the Persian Gulf War and in Yugoslavia.  DU is a highly toxic heavy metal with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.  Despite its name, DU has more than half the radioactivity of natural uranium.

The Film Festival’s general director, Norbert Suchanek, said of Lopez, “The 82-year-old is probably the world-wide most experienced and most interviewed scholar and activist on uranium weapons. His recently published dossier `My Last Battle: Ban Uranium Weapons´ is after all a profound investigation of the military use of depleted uranium. The serious consequences of the use of uranium ammunition on battlefields and military firing ranges should be known to everyone.”  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/files/2025_iuff_window_rock_program_folder_us_long_kopie.pdf

Lopez declared, “We must move quickly to stop this senseless tragedy by supporting a global call to action to ban the use of uranium munitions.“

Founded in Rio de Janeiro in 2010, the International Uranium Film Festival was named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” last year by MovieMaker Magazine in Hollywood. https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/coolest-film-festival-in-the-world-2024

The festival founders, Márcia Gomes de Oliveira and Norbert Suchanek, also received the prestigious Nuclear-Free Future Award this year.  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/about-us

The Film Festival’s trophy was presented to French director and investigative TV journalist Cédric Picaud for his 2024 documentary “The Polygon (Le Polygone, Un Secret D’État).” The documentary exposes radioactive contamination during the Cold War in the region of Pontfaverger-Moronvilliers in northeastern France. Scientists there tested the detonators of French atomic bombs with radioactive elements for decades. To this day, these elements contaminate the region’s subsoil and threaten the drinking water resources.  For more information about this film, see pages 14 and 15 of the preliminary program at: https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/files/2025_iuff_las_vegas_program_proposal_1.pdf

The next two scheduled showings of the 2025 International Uranium Film Festival will be in Window Rock, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Window Rock showings are from Thursday, November 13^th through Friday, November 14^th at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona.  The preliminary schedule is available here:  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/files/2025_iuff_window_rock_program_folder_us_long_kopie.pdf

The Las Vegas showings are from Friday, November 21^st through Sunday, November 23^rd in Las Vegas, Nevada, this time in cooperation with Principal Man Ian Zabarte, Secretary of State Western Shoshone National Council of the of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians.  The preliminary schedule is available here:  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/files/2025_iuff_las_vegas_program_proposal_1.pdf

The Fall Meeting of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) will also take place at the International Uranium Film Festival in Las Vegas.  To learn more and to register, go to: https://ananuclear.org/ana-fall-meeting-registration/

1. Friday, October 17^7h from noon to 1 pm – Join us at the intersection of East Alameda and Sandoval for the weekly one-hour peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament and against expanded plutonium pit production at LANL. Join with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, New Mexico Peace Fest, Pax Christi and others. Bring your flags, signs and banners in support of nuclear weapons disarmament and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

2. Saturday, October 18^th from 8 am to 2 pm with the gate closing and the event ending at 3:30 pm – Trinity Site Open House. Entry only through the Stallion Gate located off U.S. Highway 380.  https://home.army.mil/wsmr/contact/public-affairs-office/trinity-site-open-house

3. Saturday, October 18^th – No Kings Day – the next nationwide day of protest and resistance. At 10 am a march will begin at the USPS on South Federal Place in Santa Fe to the Plaza and onto the State Capitol (Roundhouse).  https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/843563/  

4. Thursday, October 23^rd – Public comment period ends for the draft Decommissioning Plan Thermo-Eberline Facility on Airport Road, Santa Fe. For more information, scroll down to the bottom of this page:  https://www.env.nm.gov/rcb/public-notices-of-radioactive-materials-licensing-actions-and-rulemakings/  

5. Tuesday, October 28^th –Public comment period ends for the draft NM Environment Department amendments to the NM Standards for Ground and Surface Water Protection at 20.6.2 NMAC and the new NM draft regulations known as the New Mexico Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NMPDES) at 20.6.5 NMAC. For more information:

https://www.env.nm.gov/events-calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D189342697

6. New 11-Week ONLINE Course from Monday, November 3, 2025 to Monday, February 2, 2026 about Nuclear Weapons & Radiation – Health Risks & Advocacy Training by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and Generational Radiation Impact Project (GRIP) to prepare you to testify in the hearings next spring about the proposed plutonium pit production for new nuclear weapons.  We need a massive turnout by people to oppose this escalation of a new nuclear arms race. PSR and GRIP are looking to enlist a new generation of health professionals and activists who are equipped to step forward with the medical / health voice on social decisions like whether to make new nuclear weapons… whether to resume testing…

For more information, and to register

https://psr.org/radiation-and-nuclear-weapons-health-risks-and-advocacy-training/

Program Updates are coming–Registration closes at the end of this month–sliding scale and scholarship option.

7. Thursday, November 6 from 4 to 6 pm – HYBRID WIPP Community Forum at Southwest New Mexico College, Room 103, Main Building, 1500 University Drive, Carlsbad, NM, hosted by U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO). There will be a short update about the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) with a question and answer period to follow.  Bring your questions about getting the Waste Off the Hill.  To register:  https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp_news_20251001.asp   

8. Wednesday, November 12 from 3 to 5 pm – LANL Public Training Session for the Electronic Public Reading Room and IntellusNM public environmental data portal on MS Teams. IntellusNM is the data portal that provides continuous public access to the environmental data collect on and around LANL.  It is jointly managed by the New Mexico Environment Department DOE Oversight Bureau (NMED-OB) and LANL contractors, N3B and Triad.  For more information:  envoutreach@lanl.gov or call 505-551-4514.

Tags: " Cédric Picaud, "25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World, "The Polygon (Le Polygone, 2025 International Uranium Film Festival, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, ANA, Damacio A. Lopez, DU, Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award, IUFF, IUFF General Director Norbert Suchanek, Las Vegas Nevada, Márcia Gomes de Oliveira, My Last Battle: Ban Uranium Weapons, Navajo Nation Museum, Nuclear-Free Future Award, open air testing of depleted uranium weapons, Principal Man Ian Zabarte Secretary of State Western Shoshone National Council of the of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, Socorro New Mexico, Un Secret D’État), ” Window Rock Arizona