CALL TO ACTION: Saturday, April 5th at 9 am at the Stallion Range Station entrance to the Trinity Test Site at White Sands Missile Range, Hwy. 380, east of San Antonio, New Mexico
The only color photograph available for the Trinity blast,
taken by Los Alamos scientist and amateur photographer
Jack Aeby from near Base Camp. As Aeby later said,
“It was there so I shot it.”
On July 16, 1945, just before dawn, the government of the United States of America conducted the first test explosion of a nuclear device in the Tularosa Basin in central New Mexico at the White Sands Army base. Without warning, the 30,000 people living in the immediate vicinity were engulfed in a radioactive cloud and rained on with radioactive particles.
What the US Government did next was astounding; they packed their bags, turned their backs and walked away.For 69 years the US Government has takenno responsibility for the health repercussions and the effects of exposure to radiation from the Trinity Test for these citizens of the United States of America.
Las Mujeres Hablan (LMH) and the Tularosa Basin Downwind Consortium (TBDC) are working together on a project to tell “the rest of story” not found in history books and we need your help.
Together we will stage a peaceful demonstration coordinated with the “open house” at the Trinity Test Site on Saturday, April 5th at the Stallion Gate entrance to the site. http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx Our theme is to remember and honor the dead through a Dia de los Muertos action. It will be a somber occasion to recognize and expose the pain that secrecy can impose.
A rough sketch of the Dia de los Muertos action is to have as many people as possible painted with skeleton faces as we share death with those that have passed. We need people to make cardboard skeleton masks for those wishing not to paint their faces.
We need signage with messages such as “the rest of the story” or “the untold story”,”65 years of silence” and crosses leading up a mile to the site and cintas muerte blanca (white death ribbons) will be tied along the fence leading to the site. At all times we will remember that our message is conveyed out of love and remembrance, honoring the suffering and death from this atrocity.
This action is part of a bigger project that LMH is coordinating with the National Institute of Health. This work includes a study to understand and reconstruct the amount of radiation people were exposed to by the detonation of the atomic bomb.
Our goal is to tell the rest of the story…the involuntary exposure and the suffering that ensued during 69 years of silence. Our goal is to move forward the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to those downwind populations exposed by the Trinity Test and to all New Mexicans.
“The United States Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) is a federal statute providing for the monetary compensation of people, including atomic veterans, who contracted cancer and a number of other specified diseases as a direct result of their exposure to atmospheric nuclear testing undertaken by the United States during the Cold War, or their exposure to high levels of radon while doing uranium mining.”
Additionally:
“U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) led a bipartisan group of senators in introducing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Amendments of 2011, which would provide expanded restitution for Americans sickened from working in uranium mines or living downwind of atomic weapons tests.” Each year Senator Udall continues to bring the amendments to RECA but they have never seen a minute of time before a Senate Committee. http://www.tomudall.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1272, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d113:3:./temp/~bdM6D0::|/home/LegislativeData.php|, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d113:2:./temp/~bdM6D0::|/home/LegislativeData.php|
A Memorial in support of RECA was introduced at the 2014 state legislative session by Senator Howie Morales (SM35), and in the House (HM36) by Rep. Brian Egolf where it passed unopposed. http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/legislation.aspx?Chamber=S&LegType=M&LegNo=35&year=14, http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/legislation.aspx?Chamber=H&LegType=M&LegNo=36&year=14
At the site, we will provide literature about the Trinity Test, RECA and ways people can support Downwinders.
For more information please contact Tina Cordova at tcordova@queston.net or 505-897-6787, or Joni Arends, of CCNS, at ccns@nuclearactive.org or 505-986-1973.
Comments
No comments so far.