Reposted from Green Left Weekly by kind permission of Mel
By David T. Rowlands
Nearly 60 years have passed since Totem 1, a British nuclear test in the Australian desert, was recklessly conducted in unfavourable meteorological conditions.
Nuclear testing of any sort, even in the most "controlled" of circumstances, is inherently abusive, a crime against the environment and humanity for countless generations to come. Yet the effects of Totem 1 were particularly bad, even by the warped standards of the era.
The mushroom cloud did not behave in the way it was supposed to. Instead of rising uniformly,
part of it spread laterally, causing fallout to roll menacingly at ground level over a remote yet still
populated corner of South Australia, sowing injury, illness and death in its wake.
The number of casualties is unknown because the secretive and unaccountable nuclear
establishment has always declined to investigate the full impact of its own criminal negligence.
But it has been suggested by investigators that perhaps 50 short-term Aboriginal fatalities
resulted.
In addition to those who died, many others were exposed to harmful levels of radiation. The
long-term health effects on these individuals have never been charted - but anecdotal reports of
high cancer rates and horrendous birth defects in isolated "downwinder" communities have
circulated.
At the time of the tests, it was well known by authorities that communities of Aboriginal people
were close by. Yet the official attitude was that the concerns of a "handful of natives" could not be
allowed to interfere with the "interests" of the British Commonwealth.
Imagine you are out with your family one morning when suddenly a loud explosion issues from the
distant horizon. The ground rumbles and shakes, as though it were about to open up. Minutes
later, a thick, churning dark dust cloud engulfs the surrounding desert countryside.
Terrified, with all your senses in recoil from these unnatural developments, you wonder if an event
of apocalyptic proportions is taking place. And your troubles are only just beginning.
This is what happened to 22-year-old Yankunytjatjara woman Lallie Lennon and her three young
children at Mintabie on October 15, 1953. A 10-kiloton device (roughly two-thirds the yield of the
Hiroshima bomb) was detonated 180 kilometres away at Emu Field, near Maralinga.
Lallie and her son Bruce, aged 3, were covered in the gunpowder-smelling dust and smoke that
came rushing through the trees with such intensity that it apparently created eclipse-like visibility
conditions. "It went dark and dark," recalled Lallie in 2006. "Dark - we couldn't see anything. The
place was black, you couldn't see nothing."
The levels of beta radiation contained in this toxic plume were so great that it felt like being "rolled
in a fire". The "kids were [vomiting] ... it was terrible ... We was glad we was alive but we got sick.
We were sicker and sicker."
About a year later, both Lallie and her son Bruce developed a debilitating skin condition that
involves the periodic eruption of oozing, agonising sores all over the body.
Lallie said: "It went away and then came back and the sores were getting bigger and bigger every
time ... I was in a mess after the sores." Her two daughters, who were in a tent at the time the
mist swept through, were spared the beta burns, but developed other symptoms consistent with
radiological contamination.
Lallie's story first achieved public recognition when she spoke about her experiences for a 1981
documentary, "Backs to the Blast".
Since then Lallie, Bruce and Jessie Lennon have continued to provide convincing testimony. Lallie
spoke with oral historian Michele Madigan in 2006 and again in 2009, adding further details.
A powerful manuscript entitled "The Black Mist and its Aftermath - Oral Histories by Lallie
Lennon" (2010) was submitted to the South Australian and federal governments as well as to the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
Now aged in her 80s, Lallie has never had her health issues properly investigated, much less
received any compensation. She continues to suffer from the beta burn-related skin condition to
this day.
The official diagnosis is simple psoriasis, in spite of the consistency between Lallie's symptoms
and other beta burn survivors from the Marshall Islands.
Another Totem 1 fallout survivor, Yami Lester, was a young child at Wallatinna Station. He recalls
hearing a "big bang" followed by "black-like smoke ... coming from the south." The elders tried to
scare this "evil spirit" with their woomeras.
Afterwards, there was widespread sickness, with diarrhoea, vomiting and rashes. Yami was
immediately blinded in one eye. A few years later, he lost the other eye due to an ongoing
condition that started with the Black Mist. The full story can be read in Yami Lester's
autobiography, a remarkable piece of Australian writing.
There were also many non-Aboriginal witnesses to the Black Mist event, such as Almerta Lander,
whose testimony is reproduced in Roger T Cross's "Beyond Belief": "A black cloud was slowly and
quietly rolling through the scrub. To us it was quite sinister because of its blackness and because
it seemed to be creeping upon us."
Shortly after, "word went around that a sickness was laying low the Aboriginal people living at
Wallatinna and Mintabie. Old people and young children were dying, their bodies covered in sores
and their eyes weeping. No medical specialists visited them."
Like Lallie Lennon, Almerta Lander suffers from a skin condition and her son developed an
undiagnosed lung complaint.
In addition to their physical injuries, Lallie, Yami and other Totem 1 survivors have also had to
endure the added insult of decades of official denialism.
Although the 1984-85 McClelland Royal Commission revealed evidence that was absolutely
damning of the conduct of British nuclear testing in Australia, the establishment's damage
controllers have effectively suppressed the issue.
Professor Sir Ernest Titterton, the duplicitous architect of nuclear testing in Australia, typified the
official contempt for survivors when he dismissed the Black Mist event as a "scare campaign".
More recently, the ultra-right wing Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has repeated this line.
According to Bolt, the Aboriginal survivors of British nuclear testing have concocted their claims
about fallout exposure to scam welfare payments out of the Australian taxpayer. Since then, Bolt
has gone on to deny the harmful effects of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters.
The saga of British nuclear testing in Australia, which covered not only central Australia but the
entire continent in harmful radiation, should occupy a more central position on the stage of our
national historical consciousness. The precise number of casualties among Aboriginal groups,
military veterans and the general population should be thoroughly investigated.
October 15 - the day of the Black Mist - would be an appropriate anniversary date to set aside
as one for official annual remembrance of all the victims of this Australian atomic massacre.
From GLW issue 971
- See more at: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54394#sthash.9nD54Jip.dpuf
