Divine Strake violates international law

Comments Of
Western Shoshone Nationals
Mr. Ian Zabarte And Mr. Joe Kennedy
In Regard To
The Revised Environmental Assessment
Of The US Department Of Energy
"Divine Strake" Experiment

February 7, 2007

Prepared by
Ian Zabarte,

Sent by fax to the United States Department of Energy: (702) 295-0625

Context Statement

The United States sought to purchase specific rights and interests from the Western Shoshone people by entering into formal relations under International Law through treaty with the Western Shoshone Nation in 1863 known as the Treaty of Ruby Valley obligating both nations to maintain “peace and friendship” and restrain acts that threaten that peace including the prevention of act of aggression from any source against both peoples. Native Americans are a vulnerable populations that bear a disproportionate burden from US nuclear technology for the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Western Shoshone have a past experience of adverse health impacts due to unique lifestyle differences. Western Shoshone cite violations of tribal custom, tribal domestic laws, International Law, and violations of basic human rights law by the US through it's institutions, contractor agents and foriegn nation collaborators such as the United Kingdom (UK).

Genocide

The US Department of Energy (DOE) must take notice of activie programs that restrain and interfere with Western Shoshone nationals who seek access and active spiritual interaction with the air, land, plants, animals and waters within Western Shoshone treaty defined territory. Interaction with Newe Sogobia, the peoples Mother Earth, engaged in by Western Shoshone people, are a living life way in communion with the land that is prevented and severed by the US/UK clandestine development and testing of WMD. The technical processes used to access Western Shoshone treaty defined territory by US agents and institutions to host foreign nationals and nuclear industry subcontractors effect genocide. The acts used to clear land, access testing sites meet, at a minimum, the threshold of the crime of genocide under the United Nations (UN) Convention of Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Proxmire Act -- the US enactment of the UN Convention.

Standard Effects

These comments direct the US Department of Energy (DOE) to take notice of the standard effects of test event preparation both nuclear and non-nuclear that disturb and destroy the land within the boundaries of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. Roads, facilities and test experiments disturb tribally significant sites. The pestilence of cancer suffered by the Western Shoshone people and destruction of Newe Sogobia are the most damaging results of US testing of WMD including 24 test events in collaboration with the UK. Adverse health impacts are known to be plausible from exposure to radioactive fallout and, are intolerable, and not an appropriate manner of honoring the debt owed the Western Shoshone Nation by the US -- as friends and allies.

Special Effects

Further, the US DOE must take notice of the special effects that impact the Western Shoshone, Goshute Shoshone and Southern Paiute peoples. The potential for the resuspension of radiation from this test event poses a unique threat that evoke a special affect or stigma associated with past nuclear weapons related testing’s impact on Native American populations. Western Shoshone people are afraid of the ongoing threat to their health from past WMD testing and development -- stress and heightened anxiety associated with the new threatfrom Divine Strake to resuspend radiation also evoke fear. Tribal awereness to ongoing threats has an adverse impact on Native American quality of life, meaning of tribal identity and sense of place on the land. Western Shoshone treaty territory, the high desert, was clean and safe -- now it is not. The Western Shoshone people were healthy and self-sufficient -- now they are prohibited from maintaining those social, cultural and spiritual life ways that nourish their existence. Interference by US agents, institutions, contractors and foriegn government collaborators effect genocide.

Violations of International Law

Violations of Western Shoshone custom and International Law including rights, duties and obligations vested by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley that does not contain a provision sought or purchased by the US to dispossess, destroy and consequently result in homelessness of Indian people by acts of the US and the UK by making Western Shoshone territory uninhabitable; and, Article 11 of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo wherein the US solemnly agreed not to make the Indians homeless is also in violation by the US DOE. Nothing in the treaty ever assumed that our nation would be made uninhabitable and our people killed by WMD and their development by the US and UK. Collaborative acts by both nations violate the UN genocide convention and the Proxmire Act;

Questions of Jurisdiction and Conscience

The acts aforementioned leave questions to be answered by the US, the UK, the world community and ultimately by the Western Shoshone Nation if all other agency fail to take responsibility. They are:

1) How can the US claim moral authority to blithely tear apart the spiritual relationship that has existed between the Newe people and their treaty defined lands for a thousand generations?

2) What authority can the US claim to justify ongoing genocide, the technical and systematic destruction of the Newe people?

3) Who or, whom will take responsibility for ending the acts of terrorizing the Newe population?

4) Are we not human?..do we not bleed?..do we not have feelings?

5) Is it unconscionable and immoral for US government institutions and scientists to conduct experiments that test the capacity of a vulnerable people to their exist?