Australian Atomic Confessions

Script by Mark Hertsgaard
LinkTV, Sep 1, 2006

INTRO:

Welcome to Spotlight, Link TV's weekly series of investigative reports from around the world. I'm Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco, and this episode the spotlight is on nuclear weapons in Australia.

Australia has never possessed nuclear weapons, but its people and ecosystems have suffered their effects just the same. Uranium mining has polluted soil and water while sickening miners and nearby residents. The deadliest effects, however, came from 12 nuclear weapons that were deliberately exploded on Australian territory during the Cold War.

The bombs were detonated between 1952 and 1963 (1958) by Great Britain, Australia's former colonial ruler. The goal was to test the bomb's effectiveness. The bombs were exploded above ground and released vast amounts of radioactivity, most of which fell back to earth in Australia.

British and Australian authorities repeatedly assured the public there was no danger. But people on the receiving end of these nuclear tests—including Australian military personnel and Aboriginal tribes people—soon found out differently.

We'll be back afterwards with an update. For now, from New South Wales Productions in Australia, here is, Australian Atomic Confessions, on Link TV, your connection to the world.

OUTRO:

You're watching Spotlight on Link TV. I'm Mark Hertsgaard.

The Australian and British governments are by no means the only ones to endanger and lie to their own people about nuclear weapons. That has been standard procedure for every one of the world's nuclear weapons programs, whether in totalitarian states like Russia and China or democracies like France, India, Israel or the United States.

In 1993, the U.S. Department of Energy admitted that for many years it had conducted radiation experiments on largely unsuspecting populations. As a result of U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and 1963, an estimated seventy to eight hundred thousand people worldwide will die prematurely from cancer.

Some 200,000 U.S. military personnel were exposed to radiation, usually without their knowledge. Congress has repeatedly approved compensation for these so-called atomic veterans, but the veterans complain that the bureaucracy still reject their claims. Above ground weapons tests were banned in 1963, but forty years later some Americans are still paying dearly for our government's commitment to atomic weapons.

If you want to find out more about these issues, check out the resources listed at the end of this program. You can also find those resources at our website, www.linktv.org.

Following those listings you'll see a clip from next week's program. Until then, this is Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco for Spotlight. Thanks for joining us.