In Episode 18 [1] of the CounterVortex podcast [2], Bill Weinberg looks back at the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement [3] of the closing years of the Cold War, when the Western Shoshone [4] people, whose traditional lands were being contaminated by the nuclear blasts at the US government's Nevada Test Site. made common cause with the Kazakh people [5] of Central Asia who opposed Soviet nuclear testing at the Semipalatinsk site. Kazakh activists travelled to Nevada to join protests at the Test Site [6], while Western Shoshone leaders travelled to Kazakhstan to join protests at Semipalatinsk [7]. This initiative eventually evolved into the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons [8], which as recently as 2016 held an International Conference on Building a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World [9] in Astana, Kazakhstan, again attended by Western Shoshone leaders. The Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement provides an inspiring example of indigenous peoples and their supporters building solidarity across hostile international borders and superpower influence spheres.
Photo: National Digital History of Kazakhstan [7].
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