www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, October 2002
Over 500 protest Army's toxic weapons
Anniston, Ala.--A crowd of over 500 marched in protest here
in September against the Army's plan to burn chemical weapons. A third of them
were African American. Over 30 groups participated. Many of us came from out of
town, such as Defense Depot Memphis Tennessee--Concerned Citizens Committee, and
Pine Bluff Citizens for Safe Disposal. Food Not Bombs made food for the whole
group. We heard Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King III, who spoke
out against burning chemical weapons in that small town and asked why the
federal government had chosen to put the incinerator in the midst of the Black
community. The protest was organized by the Berea, Kentucky, Chemical
Weapons Working Group and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The
Kentucky group fights against the unsafe disposal of military chemical weapons.
They believe in neutralizing the weapons rather than incineration. There is
technology that can break down lethal gasses, making them less toxic, instead of
burning these chemical weapons in toxic incinerators that have been proven
unsafe. Any accident with a toxic waste incinerator can kill or
endanger all those in the area of exposure. Over 35,000 mostly Black people live
in the six-mile radius of the incinerator and could receive lethal doses of
nerve gas if there was an accident at the Anniston Army depot where the weapons
to be burned are stored. The technology used to burn weapons is dangerous, there's
always a chance of a leak and exposure. The reason we're so upset about Anniston
is that neutralization technology is proven and the kind of incinerator they
want to use at Anniston has failed over and over again--as in Utah and Hawaii.
The first facility is built and has failed the first three tests. The second
facility is built and they don't even want to test it, just start burning. It's
racist that they want to put these toxic sites in the Black communities in Pine
Bluff, Ark., and Anniston, Ala. Employees from Utah, where the incinerator was shut down,
were at Anniston because the Utah incinerator failed and exposed the workers to
toxins that made them sick. An Anniston activist said he got a FedEx package
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency--a big roll of plastic and duct
tape. He was told if there was a release he should put plastic over their
windows and seal it with the tape. That was in the white community. In Memphis
they told us the same thing, but for our Black community, they didn't send us
the plastic or tape. It just shows the little bitty ways they discriminate. One thing that Rev. Shuttlesworth said is that instead of
Bush worrying about the chemical weapons in Iraq, he should worry about them
right here in Anniston. I thought he was brave to say this. He said if the army
didn't do what they were supposed to do in Anniston, they were going to come
back. But marching can only do so much. It's fine, but without a boycott, or
some kind of muscle behind it, it only goes so far. --Doris Bradshaw |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
