Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe
Arab Cause Solidarity Committee
PO Box : 14.180
Madrid, 28080
Tlf./Fax : 91.531.75.99
E-Mail : csca@ nodo50.org

Depleted Uranium: Health and Ecological, Economic and Legal Aspects of the Use of Radioactive Conventional Weapons

Gijón (Principado de Asturias) - Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th of November, 2000

ORGANISED BY:
Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe
Arab Cause Solidarity Committee
(Campaña Estatal por el Levantamiento de las Sanciones a Iraq
Spanish Campaign for Lifting the Sanctions on Iraq)

SUPPORTED BY:
Consejería de Asuntos Sociales del Principado de Asturias.
Consejería de Medio Ambiente del Principado de Asturias.
Agencia Local de Promoción Económica y Empleo del Ayuntamiento de Gijón.
Sociedad Mixta de Turismo del Ayuntamiento de Gijón.
Conseyu de la Mocedá del Principáu d'Asturies.
Conseyu de la Mocedá de Xixón.
Universidad de Oviedo.
CajAstur.

PRESENTATION: WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM?
Depleted uranium is a waste obtained from producing fuel for nuclear reactors and atomic bombs. The material used in civil and nuclear military industry is uranium U-235, the isotope which can be fissioned. Since this isotope is found in very low proportions in nature, the uranium ore has to be enriched, i.e., its proportion of the U-235 isotope has to be industrially increased. This pocess produces a large amount of radioactive depleted uranium waste, thus named because it is mainly formed by the other non-fissionable uranium isotope, U-238 and a minimum proportion of U-235.

American military industry has been using depleted uranium to coat conventional weaponry (artillery, tanks and aircraft) since 1977, to protect its own tanks, as a counterweight in aircraft and Tomahawk missiles and as a component for navigation instruments. This is due to depleted uranium having characteristics making it highly attractive for military technology: firstly, it is extremely dense and heavy (1 cm3 weighs almost 19 grammes), such that projectiles with a depleted uranium head can penetrate the armoured steel of military vehicles and buildings; secondly, it is a spontaneous pyrophoric material, i.e., it inflames when reaching its target generating such heat that it explodes.

After more than 50 years producing atomic weapons and nuclear energy, the USA has 500,000 tonnes of depleted uranium stored, according to official data. Depleted uranium is radioactive also and has an average lifetime of 4.5 thousand million years. This is why such waste has to be stored safely for an indefinite period of time, an extremely costly procedure. In order to save money and empty their tanks, the Department of Defence and Energy assigns depleted uranium free of charge to national and foreign armament companies. Apart from the USA, countries like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Taiwan, South Korea, Pakistan or Japan purchase or manufacture weapons with depleted uranium.

When a projectile hits a target, 70% of its depleted uranium coating burns and oxidizes, bursting into highly toxic, radioactive micro particles. Being so tiny, these particles can be ingested or inhaled after being deposited on the ground or carried kilometres away by the wind, the food chain or water. A 1995 technical report issued by the American Army indicates that "if depleted uranium enters the body, it has the potentiality of causing serious medical consequences. The associated risk is both chemical and radiological". Deposited in the lungs or kidneys, uranium 238 and products from its decay (thorium 234, protactinium and other uranium isotopes) give off alpha and beta radiations which cause cell death and genetic mutations causing cancer in exposed individuals and genetic abnormalities in their descendents over the years.

In its 110,000 air raids against Iraq, the US A-10 Warthog aircraft launched 940,000 projectiles with depleted uranium, and in the land offensive, its M60, M1 and M1A1 tanks fired a further 4,000 also uranium coated projectiles. It is estimated that there are 300 tonnes of radioactive waste in the area which might have already affected 250,000 Iraqis. After the Gulf War, Iraqi and international epidemiological investigations have enabled the environmental pollution due to using this kind of weapon to be associated with the appearance of new, very difficult to diagnose diseases (serious immunodeficiencies, for instance) and the spectacular increase in congenital malformations and cancer, both in the Iraqi population and amongst several thousands of American and British veterans and in their children, a clinical condition known as Gulf War Syndrome. Similar symptoms to those of the Gulf War have been described amongst a thousand children residing in areas of the former Yugoslavia where American aviation also used depleted uranium bombs in 1996, the same as in the NATO intervention against the Yugoslavia in 1999.

Saturday, 25th November

10:30-11:30 Opening Session
Welcome form the Organization Committee and local institutions representatives.

Inaugural speech by Hans C. Graf Sponeck, former Coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Program to Iraq and former Assistant to the UN General Secretary, Germany: "1990-2000: Ten years of war and sanctions against Iraq. The need for a public debate on the international responsibility on the suffering of the Iraqi people".
11:30-12:00 Pause

12:00-13:30 First Session (I)
What is Depleted Uranium? Human health and environmental consequences of the use of weapons with DU: the cases of the Gulf (1991) and The Balkans (1996, 1999) regions. The 'Gulf War Syndrome' in the international coalition against Iraq veterans.

Introduces and conducts:
Aurora Bilbao, Professor at the Bask Country University, President of the Spanish section of IIPNW, Bilbao, Spain.

Participants:
Siegwart-Horst Günter, Physician, President of the Yellow Cross International, Austria.
Rosalie Bertell, Epidemiologist, President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Chef Editor of International Perspective in
Public Health, Director of international evaluation commissions of Bophal and Chernobil catastrophes, Canada.
Dan Fahey, Depleted Uraium Researcher, author of "Don't Look, Don' Find: Gulf War Veterans, The US Government and Depleted Uraium", Washington, US.
Malcom Hooper (to be confirmed), Chief Scientific Advisor to UK Gulf War Veterans, United Kigndom.
13:30-14:00 Public Debate
14:00-16:00 Lunch

16:00-17:30 First Session (II)
What is Depleted Uranium? Human health and environmental consequences of the use of weapons with DU: the cases of the Gulf (1991) and The Balkans (1996, 1999) regions. The 'Gulf War Syndrome' in the international coalition against Iraq.

Introduces and conducts:
Nacho García Alonso, Professor at the Oviedo University, former Scientific Adviser of the European Union Institute of Thansuranic Elements at Karlsurhe (Germany), Oviedo, Spain.

Participants:
Mona Kamas, Professor of Pathology at Baghdad University and national responsible of the Committee for Pollution Impact by Aggressive Bombing, CPIAB), Iraq.
Akram 'Abdel Muhsen, Physician, Director of University Hospital of Basora, Iraq.
Slobodanka Matiljevic, Physician, Professor at Belgrado University, Yugoslavia.
17:30-18:00 Public Debate
18:00-18:15 Pause

18:15-19:30 Second Session
The use of radioactive conventional weapons and the International Law. The military and civil nuclear industry and the international production and commercialization of depleted uranium weapons.

Introduces and conducts:
Paz Andrés Saez de Santa María, Professor of Public International Law, Oviedo University, Oviedo, Spain.

Participants:
Bernice Boermans, Executive Director of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), Holland.
Catherine Euler, Representative of Campaign Against Depleted Uranium
(CADU), Written Report DU Weapons, UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, 51st Session (August 1999), Manchester, United Kingdom.
Sara Flounders (to be confirmed), Coordinator of the International Action Center, editor of "Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium. How the Pentagon radiates soldiers and civilians with DU weapons" (Depleted Uranium Education Project/International Action Center), Washington US.
19:30-20:00 Public Debate

Sunday, 26th November

10:30-12:30 Third Session

Informative manipulation and official hidden of facts. Media cover-up and armed conflicts in XXI Century threshold. Investigation process in US, United Kingdom and France on the consequences of the testing and use in the Gulf and The Balkans of DU weapons.

Introduces and conducts:
José Ramón L. Patterson, Journalist, Director of the TVE Asturias Territorial Center, Oviedo, Spain.

Participants:
George Galloway, British MP, Labor Party, United Kingdom.
Carol H. Picou, US Army Sergeant in retirement, Gulf War veteran affected by Gulf War Syndrome, witness before US Congress Commissions, US.
Ray Bristol, British Gulf War veteran (Surgical Team at the 32nd British Field Hospital) affected by DU.
Ernesto Pérez, Representative of the Committee for the Rescue and Develpoment of Vieques, Puerto Rico.
José Manuel Martín Medem, TV journalist, Madrid, Spain.
Representative from the French Gulf War veterans Association Avigolfe, France (to be confirmed).
12:30-13:00 Public Debate
13:00-13:15 Pause
13:15-14:00 Closing Session
Ramsey Clark (to be confirmed), President of the International Action Center, former General Attorney of the US, Washington, US.