The Wikileaks cables reveal that U.S. diplomats posted in a number of African countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Niger, and Burundi, among others - have had direct knowledge of the poor safety and security standards in these countries' uranium and nuclear facilities.
The cables also highlight the involvement of European, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean companies in the illegal extraction and smuggling of uranium from Africa. Most European nuclear reactors use uranium imported from African countries.
In one classified document, dated Sep. 8, 2006, the U.S. embassy in the DRC capital Kinshasa reported that several U.S. diplomats and security service personnel toured the Kinshasa Nuclear Research Centre (CREN-K) on Jul. 27 that year in order to assess the facility’s security needs.
CREN-K houses the DRC’s two nuclear reactors. Neither reactor is currently functioning, but staff conduct nuclear-related research and teaching at the facility.
Although inactive, CREN-K stores significant amounts of uranium and nuclear waste. This radioactive material includes 138 nuclear fuel rods, at least 15 kg of enriched and non-enriched uranium, and some 23 kg of nuclear waste.
At CREN-K, "external and internal security is poor, leaving the facility vulnerable to theft," Roger A. Meece, U.S. ambassador to DRC, reported in the 2006 document.
Meece's detailed description of the security measures at CREN-K suggests that security is not just "poor," but non-existent. According to the report, the fence surrounding CREN-K "is not lit at night, has no razor-wire across the top, and is not monitored by video surveillance.
"There are numerous holes in the fence, and large gaps where the fence was missing altogether," Meece wrote.
"University of Kinshasa students frequently walk through the fence to cut across CREN-K, and subsistence farmers grow manioc on the facility next to the nuclear waste storage building," he added...
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Julio Godoy @'truth-out'
If anyone is trying to tell you that the nuclear industry is "SAFE" and "GREEN" they have obviously been spending too much time wandering around this facility in Kinshasa and their brains have been radioactively melted. The complicity/complacency of such "august" governments/companies in this ecological nightmare verges on insanity, and places the whole world at risk by these "eco-deniers", let alone the interminable legacy for the people of Africa.
and here's the crux of "developmental" solutions to our problems: we are already WAY TOO DEVELOPED!!! by expanding to the limits of our technologically-enhanced capacities, we're outstripping the natural carrying capacity of the planet. i'm no anti-tech luddite, but it doesn't take a freaking genius to see that our little noggins aren't quite up to the task of toying around with nuclear energy. we don't know how to deal with the waste (which keeps piling up by the day), and we sure as hell don't seem to be able to deal with each other in a way that precludes annihilating the planet, politically and ecologically. what's that famous quote about world war IV being fought with sticks and stones?
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