INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE BRINGS DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS EXPERTS AND ACTIVISTS TOGETHER FROM 13 COUNTRIES

Manchester Town Hall, 4-5 November 2000

Several distinguished speakers from England and abroad will be available for interview at the International Conference Against Depleted Uranium Weapons, Saturday 4 - Sunday 5 November 2000, at Manchester Town Hall, 10.00 am - 6.00 pm.  Over 200 people are registered to attend, from all over the world.

Certified members of the media and veterans of the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, whatever their nationality, will be admitted to the conference without charge. Persons wanting to register now must come to Manchester Town Hall Saturday, 4 November, between 9-9.45 am.  Flights are available into Manchester International Airport, and there are regular trains to the Town Centre. There will be a media suite in the conference venue.

Interviews with the speakers listed below can be had by prior arrangement with the conference organiser:

This conference has been sponsored by Manchester City Council and the Wainwright Trust.

Contact:
Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU) on
Tel.:   +44 (0)161 834 8176     Fax.:   +44  (0)161 834 8187.
E-Mail: gmdcnd@gn.apc.org

Depleted uranium weapons, which are radioactive and chemically toxic, are believed to contribute to the Gulf War Syndrome among tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans in the UK, US, Australia, France, Denmark, Iraq and other participant nations.  They have also been linked to birth defects, cancers and other illnesses among Iraqi civilians, particularly in southern Iraq. Last year, the United States again used this alpha, beta and gamma-emitting heavy metal during the bombing of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.  KFOR troops in Kosovo are also rumoured to be complaining of unusual illnesses, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has reportedly banned pregnant staff from working in Kosovo.  Some 320 tons of DU were fired in Iraq, and some 10-11 tons in Yugoslavia, with a lesser, unknown amount, used in the bombing of Bosnia in 1994-1995.  Bosnian refugees in Serbia reportedly have twice the levels of cancers of other refugee groups. Albanian refugees in the region have received little if any information on how to reduce their exposure to DU dust particles. Recently in Paris, Dr Asaf Durakovic reported that 70% of the 17 veterans tested for DU had elevated levels of depleted uranium in their urine (European Association of Nuclear Medicine conference, 3 September 2000).

CONTROVERSIES

In both Yugoslavia and Iraq, sanctions mean that inadequate health care is available for the general population, and cancer screening levels have been reduced.  Local activists in Puerto Rico, New Mexico and Scotland, where DU ammunition has been tested, also report increases in miscarriages and cancers in their communities.  Activists from South Korea will also be attending the conference.  They believe the US Air Force may be test-firing DU there as well.  In NATO countries that sent troops to the Gulf War, veterans are engaged in a struggle for recognition of their illnesses as well as adequate health care and compensation.  Meanwhile, the international authorities which establish the radiation dose-risk estimates repeatedly maintain that the levels of radiation involved are too low to cause these effects.  State and international health authorities also refuse to carry out large-scale long-term epidemiological studies among these cohorts to look for statistical correlation between uranium contamination and illnesses, thus making it more difficult to provide empirical evidence which might undermine the current dose-risk theoretical models.  Some international humanitarian lawyers maintain that DU is already banned under existing war-related protocols and laws, including laws against the use of chemical weapons, the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention, and that nations continuing to use them are in breach of these.

NEW EVIDENCE

New evidence about the world-wide locations where DU has been used will be presented at the conference, and international scientists will present papers which question the current radiation dose-risk models.  Dr Rosalie Bertell (Canada), a member of the UN Environment Programme’s Global 500 and an Alternative Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will also be launching her new book at the conference, titled Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War. This details the environmental effects of a range of new weapons-related technologies.

Besides Dr Rosalie Bertell, other speakers available for interview include:

Mr Ray Bristow, one of the first UK veterans to test DU-positive;

Dr Doug Rokke (USA), who served in the Gulf War as a Radiation Safety officer, and whose health has been badly affected by his DU contamination;

Dr Chris Busby (UK), a physical chemist researching the biological effects of radioactive pollution, who has just returned from a trip to Iraq, where he took measurements of radioactivity levels near some of the remaining burned-out vehicles;

Mr Marco Saba (Italy), director of the European Network Against Depleted Uranium, who has been instrumental in achieving several European Parliament and Italian Parliamentary statements on the issue;

Mr. Ernesto Pena, who has campaigned for many decades against the toxic weapons firing of the US Navy on the island of Vieques, and who suspect that DU has contributed to the elevated cancers in their community;

Mr and Mrs Michel and Solange Fernex (France), an activist and scientific couple who have worked extensively on the limiting effects and conflicts of interest inherent in a 1959 agreement between the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Authority;

Prof. S. Gunther (Germany), who first drew the world’s attention to DU after a medical trip to Iraq soon after the Gulf War;

Dr Malcolm Hooper (UK), Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Gulf War veterans;

Karen Parker, JD (USA), an international humanitarian lawyer who facilitated the statement from the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights naming DU as a 'weapon of indiscriminate destruction' (1996/16);

Ms Felicity Arbuthnot (UK), a journalist who has visited Iraq on numerous occasions and reported on conditions there;

Ms Masako Ito (Japan), director of a Japanese campaign against depleted uranium and organiser of several humanitarian expeditions to Iraq;

Mr Han, Chong-Mok (South Korea) from the Korea Truth Commission, who campaigns against US Air Force test-firing, including the possible use of DU there;

Mr Henk van de Keur (The Netherlands), director of the LAKA Foundation, a research institute on nuclear and radiation issues which insisted on DU testing following a 1992 Amsterdam plane crash;

Mr Damacio Lopez (USA), director of the International Depleted Uranium Study Group, who organised residents of a small town in New Mexico against the testing of DU weapons there;

Mr Ciaron O’Reilly (Australia) a non-violent direct action campaigner recently released from prison after protesting against the mining of uranium;

Mr Jack Cohen-Joppa (USA), member of a grassroots Tucson, Arizona group called Ban DU, and editor of the Nuclear Resister, a well-known and well-respected publication within the international peace movement,

Ms. Avril Macdonald, a representative of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), which debated the legality of DU munitions at their recent meeting in Aachen, Germany (9 September 2000).

This Conference Marks
The Twentieth Anniversary of Manchester City Council’s Nuclear Free Policy and
The United Nations International Year for a Culture of Peace

***NEW CADU CONTACT DETAILS PLEASE READ CAREFULLY***

The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU) can also be contacted at the above address and fax number, BUT the phone number is: +44 (0)161 834 8176

The CADU web site is:  http://www.cadu.org.uk

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