MAPW Presidents (past and present) condemn Australian sales of uranium to China
Released April 5, 2006
Doctors who have served as President of
the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia)
over the past 25 years have expressed their grave concern
at the deal signed this week between Australia and China allowing
for uranium to be exported to this nuclear weapons state.
The main points of concern include:
China’s nuclear weapons program:
China currently has approximately 400 nuclear warheads. China
has signed and ratified the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, under which it is obliged to work towards and achieve
nuclear disarmament. China and the other nuclear weapons states
signatories to the Treaty have failed to fulfil this obligation.
China’s track record on nuclear proliferation:
China has a track record of exporting nuclear weapons technology
and equipment to other countries, which have included Pakistan,
Iran, North Korea and Libya. In Pakistan, China is believed
to have supplied nuclear bomb plans and sufficient highly
enriched uranium for two bombs, as well as assisting in the
construction of an unsafeguarded plutonium production reactor
and the completion of a plutonium reprocessing facility.
A lack of accountability:
The Chinese regime is authoritarian and repressive. The levels
of scientific openness, official accountability and public
and media scrutiny, which are essential to responsibly manage
nuclear materials, are lacking.
China has a large nuclear weapons and material production
complex. The level of control and security at these facilities
is uncertain.
In China - a nation that has released no official data relating
to the radioactive fallout and other environmental contamination
of its nuclear weapons test program - the health effects of
nuclear waste will again be borne by a people who have no
democratic rights.
An inadequate international safeguards system:
As with many nuclear weapons states, there is close coupling
between military and civilian nuclear activities. The China
National Nuclear Corporation – with the status of a government
ministry – is responsible for production, storage and
control of all fissile material for civilian as well as military
applications.
There are significant limitations to the safeguards established
by the International Atomic Energy Agency and full-scope safeguards
do not even apply to China as a nuclear weapons state under
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A bilateral safeguards
agreement with Australia would provide no meaningful additional
assurance that Australian uranium does not contribute to nuclear
weapons. Australia has no people and no capacity on the ground
to verify anything in relation to Australian uranium in addition
to limited IAEA safeguards.
Regardless of the adequacy or otherwise of safeguards,
any uranium sent to China will free up other sources
of uranium for possible use in China’s nuclear
weapons programs. To deny this is to simply turn a blind
eye to the inevitable consequences of Australia’s
actions, on a matter relating to the most destructive
weapons in existence. Three years ago Australia joined
an invasion force on the basis of spurious allegations
of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. Now we are prepared
to provide the raw material that can be used by China
for its nuclear weapons program. Such duplicity renders
our world significantly less safe and makes Australia
a short-sighted and unscrupulous dollar-driven quarry.
Increased Australian uranium exports
means more Australian uranium mines and more waste:
The strong community opposition in Australia to uranium mining
has prevented more mines opening up, despite an aggressive
push from industry and currently from the Federal Government.
Such opposition has not waned, and is soundly based on the
radioactive contamination and environmental damage caused
by mining, usurping of the custodial rights of indigenous
Australians, on nuclear power’s excessive costs, accident
and terrorist risks, inability to combat global warming, and
well-established links with nuclear weapons, and by the intractability
of the nuclear waste problem.
No Australian state is prepared to deal with nuclear waste,
because it is toxic for the long term.
In addition, the nuclear power industry’s strong history
of surviving on public subsidies appears set to continue,
with proposals for the likely expansion of the Olympic Dam
mine in SA to have water supplied by a major desalination
project.
An expansion of uranium mining in Australia
to support China’s or any other nation’s nuclear
industry will further delay real solutions to climate change.
In addition, sales of uranium to China will magnify the already
grave nuclear weapons threat which looms over humanity.
The Australian Government could do much more to strengthen
the existing IAEA safeguards, including by:
- making it an indefinitely binding precondition of
sale that Australian uranium will not be reprocessed to extract
plutonium able to be used in nuclear weapons
- obliging importing countries to demonstrate a proven track
record of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons technology
to other nations
- ensuring all nations receiving our uranium are full signatories to relevant international agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
- refusing to sell our uranium to nations which have existing nuclear weapons programs. <
Australia should lead the global community in working towards
a nuclear weapons free world, which requires a nuclear power
free world, due to the inextricable links between the civilian
and military nuclear industries. Anything less than this is
an inadequate, unsustainable response to the most important
security issue we face: the continued existence of nuclear
weapons.
Signed,
Assoc Prof Tilman Ruff
Dr Sue Wareham OAM
Dr Harry Cohen OAM
Professor Ian Maddocks AM
For comment,
please contact:
Assoc Prof Tilman Ruff, current MAPW President 0438 099 231
Dr Sue Wareham, Immediate Past President 02 6241 6161(w)/02
6259 6062 (a/hours)
Dimity Hawkins, MAPW Executive Officer 0431 475 465