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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 21, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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March targets Pentagon nukes--old and new

By John Catalinotto

Some 300 people marched from the Veterans Administration Building in Washington to the headquarters of the Department of Energy Aug. 9 to commemorate and protest the 1995 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The new element in this year's demonstration was that it protested current Pentagon programs using radioactive weapons.

These programs include the new "bunker-buster" nuclear bomb, designed to burrow 50 feet underground before it detonates, and the use of radioactive depleted uranium in shell casings and tank shields. The demonstrators also protested the National Aeronautics and Space Agency's plans to launch the Cassini space probe of the planet Saturn in October.

The Cassini rocket will contain 72.3 pounds of dangerous plutonium fuel. One expert said an accident with the rocket could cause 10 million to 20 million extra human deaths on earth.

At the Aug. 9 rally, Frank Alexander of the International Action Center spoke of the dangers of DU weapons. Made from the waste material of the nuclear-arms and power industries, DU is suspected of being a major cause of Gulf War syndrome, the collection of unexplained ailments that have afflicted over 100,000 U.S. Gulf War veterans.

Dr. Gwendon Plair, vice president of the Association of Radiation Victims, told how decades ago his mother was injected with radioactive material in an experiment to determine radiation's impact on humans. She died a painful death.

The government has recently admitted to carrying out such experiments on 22,000 people. Plair said his group suspects the real number is closer to 100,000.

These reports on government lies and cover-ups cannot help raise big questions about all the current Pentagon denials that DU weapons are dangerous.

A speaker from the Japanese Victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave the commemorative side of the demonstration its focus. Speakers from other struggles, such as Marie Jay from the National People's Campaign/Workfairness and William Mason for Workfairness, showed that the organizers drew other sectors of the population into this year's anti- nuclear protest.

Native organizations, Peace Action, Women Strike for Peace, the Iraq Action Coalition and the Bruderhof community also supported and participated in the demonstration.

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