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NEWS & LETTERS, October-November 2006Tewa women vs nukesTewa Pueblos, N.M.—Tewa Women United is an indigenous women's organization from the northern pueblos of New Mexico. Our mission is to promote wellness of mind, heart and spirit in our sovereign nation communities. Presently, we are concerned about the loss of community members from cancers that are rare or attributable to the nuclear industry, linked to radioactive materials and chemicals used when producing war weaponry. We are near Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), an active war weapons research, development and production site. The laboratory created the first atomic bomb around 1943 in our sacred mountain areas. They were supposed to return the lands after the war. They did not admit they were still creating new nuclear weapons until five or six years ago. We have been getting reports that our surface water, groundwater, air and land are contaminated, and they still want to expand storage for nuclear waste. Our children and our children’s children are getting leukemia, skin rashes, lung illness, reproductive ailments: ovarian, prostate, breast, thyroid cancers. We say no more harming us and our Mother Earth. We were against nuclear weapons then and even more now. The for-profit business, Los Alamos National Laboratory Securities, plans, with less federal oversight, to upgrade their germ warfare testing, which means they will be using live organisms. We appealed to the New Mexico Environmental Department and were able to stop open burning of depleted uranium. Another operation they merely changed to be done under another permitting system. But as Indigenous nation women we will not be silent. Our whole genetic pool is at stake again. Tewa Women United, with five other organizations, has filed notice of intent to sue over violations of the Clean Water Act. There are more than 1,405 documented contaminated sites at LANL, and every time it rains or snows, these contaminants move through our canyons and springs to the Rio Grande. Our land borders the laboratory facility, which sits on a plateau. The surface water comes into our drinking and irrigation water. Los Alamos sits on the rim of an active volcano. The Rio Grande is about eight miles away, on an active fault line. All of the Southwest should be concerned. At our Annual Gathering for Mother EARTH on Sept. 23-24, we welcomed all to seek peace, speak the truth and find holistic ways to heal from the trauma of violence. People need to hear the truth of how the U.S. came into existence. We indigenous peoples have borne the brunt of genocidal practices of the colonizers. Our San Ildefonso population of about 5,000 in the early 1500s dwindled down to 99 in the early 1900s. The cruel and racist practices to get the land and do away with land-based people, is the means used by a culture of violence. I am hoping the U.S. will be transformed to a culture of peace without nuclear industry, without perpetrator mentality, but with love for all relations in our native lands and in the world. We are a global family. Each and every one of us deserves to be happy, healthy and spiritually connected. —Wan Povi, a Tewa woman from New Mexico |
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