PMA ALERT ! Nuclear Weapons Test

15 December 2000

Kia ora,

The US Department of Energy yesterday detonated a sub-critical nuclear weapons test ('Oboe 6') at the LYNER facility in Area 1 of the Nevada Test Site which is on stolen Western Shoshone land. This is the twelfth sub-critical nuclear weapons test since the US suspended full scale underground testing in 1992.

We have also received information from the Alliance of Atomic Veterans[*] that over the past two weeks there has been renewed activity at the 'Icecap' test site and substantial numbers of new workers have been added at LYNER (Low Yield Nuclear Experiment Research) underground facility. 'Icecap' was to be the next critical nuclear wespons test in 1992 when the US testing program was terminated. It has been kept in a state of low readiness ever since.

The Alliance of Atomic Veterans are extremely concerned about the activity around the 'Icecap' test site, and have linked it to the revived discussion in the US about 'mini-nukes'. As but one example of this, there is an extremely informative (and scary) article from 'The Santa Fe New Mexican' which was published last week - 'Scientists consider new breed of nuke' - it is too long to circulate via e-list, but we can email it to you on request. It will be uploaded to the PMA website in the next couple of days.

To read 'Scientists consider new breed of nuke', or if you would like more information about previous US nuclear weapons tests, check out PMA's nuclear weapons tests index page at

*** Who you can protest to:

1) You could contact the US ambassador giving her your views on the US government’s ongoing nuclear weapons testing programme - Ms Carol Mosley-Braun, US Embassy, PO Box 1190, Wellington; tel (04) 472 2068; fax (04) 471 2380 or 472 9804.

2) You could contact the offices of various NZ government politicians and ask them to publicly condemn the latest US nuclear weapons test -

* Phone calls and faxes (all to be prefixed by 04 by those of you out of Wellington, by + 64 4 by those of you receiving this overseas) - Helen Clark, Prime Minister, office - tel 471 9998, fax 473 3579; Jim Anderton, Deputy Prime Minister, office - tel 471 9011, fax 495 8441; Phil Goff, Minister of Foreign Affairs, office - tel 471 9370, fax 495 8444; Matt Robson, Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control, office - tel (04) 470 6561, fax (04) 495 8462; The Cabinet (collectively), office - tel 471 9743, fax 472 6332.

Additionally, it would be useful if you could send copies of your letter/s to Keith Locke, Green Party Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, tel 470 6709, fax 472 6003; and a copy of your correspondence and of any replies to PMA for our files.

* Letters should be addressed to the relevant person and posted (no stamp needed) to Parliament Buildings, Wellington.

3) You could also write with your views about this to the national / nationally distributed media :Christchurch Press, fax (03) 364 8492, ; Dominion, fax (04) 4740257; Evening Post, fax; (04) 474 0237, ; New Zealand Herald, fax (09) 373 6434, ; Sunday Star Times, fax (09) 309 0258; Press Association, fax (04) 473 7480; Radio New Zealand, fax (04) 473 0185; Listener, fax (09) 360 3831,

[* the Alliance of Atomic Veterans is a group of US armed forces veterans who were deliberately exposed to radiation during the above ground tests during the 1950s and 1960s.]

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Peace Movement Aotearoa
the national networking peace group
PO Box 9314, Wellington, Aotearoa / New Zealand.
tel +64 4 382 8129, fax 382 8173,
website
Internet Peace Gateway
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