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Clinton St _____Quarterly_____ VOL. 6, NO. 4 WINTER 1984 STAFF Co-Editors David Milholland Jim Blashfield Lenny Dee Peggy Lindquist Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistants David Milholland Sharon Niemcyzk Camerawork Laura DiTrapani Proofreaders Stan Sitnick Betty Smith Marketing Director Anne Hughes Ad Production Stacey Fletcher Beverly Wong Ad Sales — Portland-Eugene Lenny Dee Anne Hughes Dru Duniway Neil Street Sandy Wallsmith Ad Sales — Seattle Joe Racek Christopher Mascis Contributing Artists Michael Cacy, Claudia Cave, Fay Jones, Tom Prochaska, Barbara Sekurka, Isaac Shamsud-Din, Steve Winkenwerder Contributing Photographers Doniphan Blair, Lynn Darroch, Eric Edwards, Janice Pierce Gus Van Sant Typesetting Archetype, Richard Francis, Marmilmar, Pendragon Graphics, Sherry Swain, Jill Wilson Printing Tualatin-Yamhill Press Public Relations Cramer/Hulse Thanks Linda Ballantine, John Bennett, Michael Coan, Lorna Dawson, Stephanie Denyer, Bill Fletcher, Stuart Landefeld, Tyra Lindquist, Paul Loeb, Melissa Marsland, Laurie McClain, DNA, Brad Shaw, Kay Sohl, Jim Styskel, Sue Jane Widder EDITORIAL Intolerance and prejudice are frightening, tracing back to fear of the unknown and the desire to protect one’s own. While few of us admit comfortably to such unseemly character flaws, fewer still could claim to have banished them from their innermost being. It is still, however, shocking to come across blind intolerance in our “civilized” culture. And despite its seeming universality, no excuses can be made for behavior which makes minority groups into scapegoats and worse. Although immigrants from around the world have met prejudice, and sometimes violence on their arrival here, the U.S. experiment in developing a multi-ethnic culture is paralleled in few other countries on the planet. People have flocked here for the economic opportunity, the overall lack of repression and a chance to begin again. Few imagine the rigors they will face in this land of free enterprise. But though some return home, most settle in and adjust, and a few succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Here in the Northwest, our lives have been enriched a thousand-fold by the successive waves of Latinos, Asians, Africans, Europeans Scene from Bill Plympton and Jules Feiffer’s animated film, Boomtown. and even immigrants from other regions of the U.S. Yet an insularity remains, a nativism which has shown a “dark side” too frequently in recent years. A few years ago there were the Iranians, appearing nightly in our homes to pour out years of pent-up resentment against the U.S. and the suffering they’d experienced under our quisling, the Shah. No one wished to see our overseas personnel held, but the reaction quickly turned ugly. Iranian-Americans experienced incidents that left them shaken. Americans had an easy target, and they went for the jugular, no less here than elsewhere. Recent S.E. Asian and Latin American refugees have often been targeted, as immigrants of earlier eras had been, with the charge that they were taking away jobs that could have gone to “Americans. ” The fact of the matter is that our jobs are currently being exported by even mid-size U.S. companies eager to become multinational. Many refugees of necessity have created their own opportunities, turning their industry and social cohesion into economic stability, ifnot success, and have found social acceptance more readily than black residents of long-standing. No less here than elsewhere, blacks have had to organize and struggle for the small peice of the action they’ve obtained. And while it was heartening to see Jesse Jackson receive the media attention and voter recognition he obtained, it is still clear that most Americans found it difficult to look beyond his racial background to the true qualities of leadership and vision he offered. And on the community level, blacks still face discrimination in the job market, in access to housing and adequate schools, and especially in the eyes of law enforcement officials. In the wake of the Reagan victory, it is even more incumbent that the needs of blacks and all minorities are kept high on the agendas of state and local government. The noble experiment to meld together people of all nations and viewpoints, into "one nation unto all” is one of the greatest challenges we face as citizens. It requires forebearance, tolerance, understanding and vision.We look forleaders to help lead us along this path, and we must hope they emerge. But the real task rests with all of us, in our hearts and in our actions. DM CONTENTS Cover Claudia Cave Last Night in Managua Doniphan Blair 4 Radiation on the Rocks Melissa Laird 8 The Lighter Side of Being Paralyzed for Life John Callahan 14 Carino Kim Antieau 16 Christmas Gifts for Jim Blashfield Chickens & Will Spray Drawings by Steve Winkenwerder 20 Bud Clark Close Up Rich Rubin 24 Black South Africa: One Day Soon Alexis de Veaux 26 Streetwise Dennis Eichorn 30 Advertising Index 31 The Clinton Street Quarterly is published in both Washington and Oregon deitions by Clinton St. Quarterly, Inc. Washington address: 1520 Western Ave., Seattle, Wk 98101, (206) 682-2404. Oregon address: Box 3588, Portland, OR 97208, (503) 222- 6039. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright ©1984 Clinton St. Quarterly. SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR THEM I trust you and I believe in Santa. Send the following folks a subscription to the CSQ. I have enclosed $6 for four issues. They will receive a card saying I sent it. T O _____________________'.__________.____________________________________________________________________ • ADDRESS C I T Y STATE_____ ZIP FROM _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . ______________________________________________ Send these folks a subscription, too. TO _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS CITY STATE_____ ZIP F R O M ___________________________________________________________________________________ ■_________________ N A M E _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS C I T Y STATE_____ ZIP SUBSCRIPTION FOR Y O U ? i^ ^ ^ Yeah sure. I have enclosed.$11 for 2 subscriptions... one for me, one for them, (or make up a list of friends . .. each additional subscription only $5.) N A M E ____________________________________________________ ADDRESS C I T Y STATE_____ ZIP Mail to: CSQ, 1520 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101. Thank you. Clinton St. Quarterly 3
H e couldn’t stop laughing almost the whole way to Managua. Bit by bit the other passengers were getting that way too, even though some of the younger men, between guffaws, were exchanging quizzical looks. It was obvious; after listless, colorless Honduras he was happy to be home. A middle-aged singer with a tiny Chaplin mustache, he was back from a tour of the Honduran “hot spots” where he probably enter tained his share of counter-revolutionaries. We met at the last of the three custom houses entering Nicaragua, 30 miles east from where I had crossed into the country in 1978. Even back then, in spite of the “civil war” and the pernicious welcome of the Guardia Nacional, with their chipped teeth, sun glasses and low-slung forty-fives, pecking away at the Kafka- esque immigration forms, I was relieved to be out of Honduras. Now, I was delighted to be back in Nicaraqua. Sure, the initial vision of the bombed- MjR > out customs house might have boded ill to some. I was mollified by the soldier, bedecked with flowers in his boots, waving me through while his buddies “siesta-ed” barefoot in the back. The tinge of the macabre was effaced by the nonchalance of the stocky border official who filled out the simple immigration form long-hand. A tiny brass bar on the collar distinguished him from his colleagues lolling about the 6' x6' concrete shed and he was more interested by the game blasting out of the box in the corner. It was the finals of the amateur world series in Cuba and Nicaragua was tied one-one, with two outs and two men on for Panama. His “office” had no desk, no files—not even a phone through which to run a security check on me (he was issuing me my visa) or perhaps to notify H.Q. if he saw any tanks roll by. For a country at war, it was a pretty relaxed border and because there were no buses, the musician and I plus a couple of others began hitchhiking south. The sun was still hot over the low scrub cover that cascades down the foothills from the Honduran highlands. The rumor that the forests had all been auctioned off by Anastasio Somoza was evinced by the distinct lack of trees and the loaded lumber trucks arriving from the north. One Honduran teamster, who gave me a ride, told me he always returns empty— Nicaragua has no more exports! As we drove on, we saw soldiers everywhere, riding on vehicles, marching single file along side the road; the silhouette of the AKM (a U.S. made automatib rifle), with its curved cartridge clip, forever catching the eye. One long bridge was so well protected we could barely get across for the crowds of soldiers chatting and strolling lackadaisically. On the far end, a pair of boxing gloves hung from the rafters of the guard booth—apparently the pugilistic arts are in—but no guard emerged to demand “papers” as is the routine everywhere else in Latin America. Here and there the hills began to be speckled with banana plants and small mango trees—sometimes colored by purple bougainvillaeas— indicating gardens. When we got to the junction with the road from Ocotal, where Augusto Cesar San- dino and his small army first challenged the U.S, Marines, we waited for a through bus. As a rainbow appeared to the south, I began talking with a Sandinista soldier who had just hiked out of the brush. When the bus arrived, he also boarded, accompanied by his Sancho Panza, a grenade thrower who couldn’t have been much older than 15. Then, relaxing his chin on the muzzle of his AKM, we continued the discussion. Since the barrel was also a few inches from my face I told him right off I was a little nervous. I had never been that close to an automatic rifle before—“Had he ever killed any- * 4 Clinton St. Quarterly
one?” I asked without thinking. “I don’t know, I didn’t stop to look., It’s war out there,” he answered. He was also of a thick build, with clear, hazel eyes in an educated face expressing an almost art- ist-like intensity that sharpened perceptibly when he pronounced words like im- perialismo or Sea-ya (C.I.A. in Spanish). He wanted to know what were Americans’ feelings towards Nicaragua, would Reagan be re-elected, the size of our army, etc. Then we got into the merits of the AKM (it fires underwater), the odds of a Sea-ya invasion, the strength of the Sandinista Army (“We could easily go all the way to Guatemala but they have to do it on their own.”), the best Nicaraguan beer (Victoria), the amount of leave time he was permitted (“I just ask my com- madante permiso whenever I want. . . ”). Finally, with no antipathy, he asked specifically why we were supporting the contras. I attempted to extract a facsimile of motivation for such activities until my feeble explanations were drowned in laughter. The musician had commandeered the bus and-was taking us all the way to Managua. When we arrived the musician came up and, placing his hand rather sexually on my arm, he asked me where I wanted to go. A bit surprised, I disavowed his information and spent the next two hours in a cab trying to reconstruct his directions. And finding a location in Managua is no moot point. A real city hardly exists, there are few marked streets and no house numbers. Addresses are merely the estimated distance east or west, towards or away from the lake in comparison to a known landmark. In testament to the graft ability of Somoza and the THE MANAGUA MACDONALDS IS DOING A LANDOFFICE BUSINESS, RETURN OF THEJEDI IS PLAYING DOWN THE BLOCK AND CAMPESINO LAND HOLDINGS HAVE JUMPED FROM THREE TO 44 PERCENT IN FIVE YEARS. non-documentary film making of Under Fire there is absolutely no city center. It disappeared, along with some 15,000 people, just after midnight Dec. 23, 1972 in the massive earthquake, and was never rebuilt. Somoza pocketed the overseas relief and merely bulldozed the rubble off the streets. All that remains of the 200 or so square blocks of three and four story structures is an eerie pastiche of overgrown lots, slices of walls, the cracked half-collapsed super-structures of a few apartment buildings and the intact Bank of America and Central Post Office. Now, poor families “squat” in servicable sections of wreckage, horsemen herd cows to pasture from one block to the next, and the city has spread out in a vast network of suburbs. It just happened to augment another income for Somoza whose cement and road-building companies built the connecting highways. With no inner city congestion, traffic isn’t bad and in spite of the lack of spare parts the streets are full of buses, trucks, taxis, private cars—even a sprinkling of Mercedes-Benzes. Apparently, it was a bourgeois revolution. Once I got my bearings and adjusted to the heat—it’s three-showers-a-day- plus-siesta weather—I headed out. Nicaragua’s status as this hemisphere’s second or third poorest country became obvious, even though the dogs, who are generally the first to go, looked alright. The bright green foliage grows before your eyes in the heat and hides the garbage, small lizards sunbathe on the piles of brick, men relax in open porches on slat walled bars, women with umbrellas drag children sucking sodas from the corners of tied-off plastic bags, businessmen in guayaberas with purses tucked under arm hurry on, while kids— many with Japanese mitts—play sandlot baseball everywhere. Judging from the faces, the original Spanish were not prudes and black and Indian features are well represented. Rafael Stevens, a Miskito Indian I met at a bus stop, did lower his voice and switch to pidgin english whenever a Sandinista soldier walked by, but he insisted racism was minimal, female equality has been embraced by the Sandinistas and they even decreed that men must help with the house work. If sparks of the indefatigable latin machismo still fly, they are Clinton St. Quarterly 5
a bit more polite than elsewhere. On the love front, I saw couples walking hand in hand, necking publicly and women who unabashedly stared me down. A romantic people, young Nicaraguans are, according to one young lady I talked to, liable to abide their hearts more than their parents or the church, and for whom, to marry for money, is almost sacrilegious—a stance similar to their own political leaders. Neighborhoods are also an odd mixture, flopping from middle-class to poor on the same block. No one escapes the graffiti. The red-over-black slash of the Frente Sandinista Liberation National (FSLN) is ubiquitous as well as No Pasaran, (th’ey will not pass!—a message to us Yanquis.) Except for the lack of certain luxuries like light bulbs and soap, life amidst revolution seems quite normal. The Managua MacDonalds is doing a land-office business, Return of the Jedi is playing down the block and campesino (poor farmer) land holdings have jumped from three to 44 percent in five years. I then went to the press center and heard the lovely captain Rosa Pasos give a military briefing. All was not roses. The large map was sprinkled with red arrows indicating counter-revolutionary incursions, some reaching as far as Esteli, 90 miles north of the capitol. She reviewed the statistics for the first three weeks in October: 92 combats, 240 contras and 84 Sandinistas dead, 28 contras captured, 4 civilians dead, 20 wounded and 163 kidnapped, 34 air space violations, etc. Using her pointer efficiently but with a visible absence of military bearings, smiling luxuriously and unintimidated by the banks of cameras and microphones, she easily fielded the questions. Most importantly there were still no MIGs coming and Bluefields, on the Atlantic coast, was still closed to foreigners. Indeed, the map graphically illustrated that the state of Zelaya, which is the eastern half of Nicaragua and includes some 200,000 Miskito Indians was under siege. The next day, over a couple of gaseosas (soft drinks), I got a taste of how Machiavellian it really was. Raphael was happy to tell me his convoluted account of things, even though waves of nervousness sometimes played across his slightly weather-beaten, brown face, and living broke in the streets had not afforded him a good night’s sleep. He has grown up in the semi-idyllic benign neglect of the Somoza years and became relatively well-to-do as a lobster fisherman. Then a lack of spare parts and international politics strangled the business. His two brothers refused to join the contras and were subsequently killed. This incurred a certain suspicion and, in spite of a professed neutrality, he was arrested, tortured with electricity and nearly drowned by the Sandinistas. Only a magic spell cast into his food by a brujo (witchdoctor) which his sister brought to him in prison initiated his release. They are devoute Christians, he assured me, but the complete lack of doctors makes them wholly dependent on indigenous “medicine." I guess the brujos double as lawyers as well. I “lent” Raphael some money until he found a job and left town to see the Fiesta de San Geronimo in nearby Masaya. Fog rolled up from Lake Managua as we drove by but the threat of rain did little to dampen the festivities. People in their Sunday best or fully costumed were flocking from all over to see the parade. The town was jammed and the floats bearing brass bands, outrageously dressed individuals or dancers, many of whom were men cross-dressing, had trouble squeezing through. Scores of other revelers in drag, costume or out, marched jubilantly in-between. The colorful panorama was suddenly interrupted by a pair of gigantic oxen towing a black cart suspended high between two 12- foot-wide wheels. Underneath the vehicle hung a bucket filled with motor oil in which sat a completely blackened boy. Above him, the drivers were also covered with oil, and behind the cart, his wrists fettered at the end of a twenty-foot chain, was another “black” youth. Swinging wide arcs on the end of his chain, he sent the crowd screaming in an effort to avoid being stained by one of his “oily” limbs. A tribute to the devil one man told me. My surrealist reverie was pierced by the eyes of a nica (young Nicaraguan woman), staring me down and inviting me into a small courtyard. There for the benefit of a private party, an elderly, highly proficient marimba player was flailing away. Soon I was dancing with all the women and some of the men; swigging down shots of rum—to their wild cheers. One red-cheeked fellow endeavored to educate me in the local dance steps, to more crowd approval, especially when I imitated the apparently gay moves. The young, obviously gay member of the group that had just adopted me, Omar, claimed it was fairly prevalent. Not all the transvestites J saw earlier were gay, he said, some were put up to it by dares or. bets, but homosexuality was condoned by the people and the new government. About eight of us, led by his Aunt Rosaria and including his 14-year-old, dressed- to-kill cousin, Annabella, proceeded to dine, drink and dance our way into the night. About three a.m. I found myself staggering down a country road to grandmother’s house where, disregarding my SOON I WAS DANCING WITH ALL THE WOMEN AND SOME OF THE MEN: SWIGGING DOWN SHOTS OF RUM-TO THEIR WILD CHEERS. ONE REDCHEEKED FELLOW ENDEAVORED TO EDUCATE ME INTHE LOCAL DANCE STEPS, TO MORE CROWD APPEAL, ESPECIALLY WHEN I IMITATED THE APPARENTLY GAY MOVES. protests, they pulled the mattress right out from under her. They plunked that down in the tiny living room between the four over-sized carved rockers (a Masaya specialty) for me and Omar. So while the women nestled in amongst the chilidren, sometimes two or three to a bed and grandma snored on her bed frame, I spent the night suffering the retroactive fire-power of rum and unsuccessfully trying to convince Omar I wasn’t gay. The next morning, after I had been brought back to the land of the living by three or four coffees, I marvelled at their hospitality. Grandma beamed benevolently as Omar prepared the typical breakfast of beans and eggs for everyone. Aunt Rosaria’s older son, who was a permanent resident, piled all the rockers onto the beds and mopped the living room. The children, after an initial shyness in my presence, scampered around playing sing-song games. They invited me to come back and stay whenever I felt like it and I left a little groggy but completely refreshed. For some reason I longed for a cool breeze, so after getting rained out'one afternoon, I hopped a bus for Matagalpa. In the seat behind me, reading a Bible through a pair of fashionably-framed glasses, I found a recent draftee out of Nicaraguan soldier at ease— “the coolest people I had met in a long time” economy school—Francisco. He wasn’t at all happy with the government and he made no bones about it irregardless of the fact that the rest of his unit and his comandante were sitting right behind him. His father had a small shop that was devastated by the earthquake and now he sold lottery tickets on the street. Francisco was working himself through university with a job at the Central Bank and fast becoming a yuppy until his untimely draft call. He complained of the absolute paucity of consumer goods, the Marxist economics he had to study, the lack of good novels in the bookstores and the marriage of party and state. According to him, with one-third of the GNP going to the military, the government was breaking the people’s back. In Matagalpa I offered to treat him and his whole unit to a beer, hoping to hear their view on things but they had to report directly. Matagalpa is a wealthy cattle town in the cooler foothills and some of its more spiritual citizens have formed a yoga institute, in the de la Ferrier tradition (a French mystic who came to Latin America in ’47 and had disciples from Guatamala to Peru). I discovered it the next day and after a spiritual-cum-politi- cal discussion, I took a delicious steam bath and left immediately for San Raphael del Norte—the war zone. It was beautiful country, small, steep hills leading up to the rolling high plateau that was Sandino’s old stamping ground—in fact, San Raphael is where he was married in 1933. Some 20 kilometers out of town, waiting at a small dirt, fork in the road, I looked up at an overhanging bluff and as my eyes adjusted to the shade, I watched a battalion of guerillas dissolve out of the trees. At least a hundred, some women, and they were all watching me—grinning broadly. It looked a lot cooler up there than on the road waiting for a ride would be, undoubtedly, long in coming, so I climbed up. What a crew!! The comandante had raced back on important business to Managua and they were just bivoacking here until his return. They had been in the mountaiins for weeks and their camouflage uniforms were ripped and covered with mud. At least half of them were too young for a razor, but even the women were battle-tested and tough. One kid, with grenades hanging off everywhere and an AKM on his back was teasingly poking a woman’s behind as she struggled up the steep, muddy slope. She turned around and whomped him one hard in the shoulder. Other malefemale relations were more relaxed. One couple was snuggling in the grass, and I asked the older, mustachioed fellow holding the machine gun, who seemed, without rank, to be the second in command, what policy was. “As long as they fight” he replied with a twinkle. “But don’t all the guys chase the girls at first and when one finally gets her, aren’t the other jealous?” I wondered. “She goes with who she wants,” he said puckering his lips in the couple’s direction, which is actually how they point in Nicaragua, “What can we do?” So, as a small kitchen was set up in the back and as soldiers climbed into the trees, hung hammocks and joshed with each other, I chewed the fat. Between questions about lifestyles in New York and where I intended to tour in Nicaragua, a realization started to invade my thoughts. Yes, in all my travels in the 3rd world, these were the first soldiers who didn’t finger their machine guns nervously, who didn’t fan their barrels in your face when they wanted you to do something or bask in the glow of your paranoia as they transferred some of the boot they were under to you. Not only were these some of the coolest soldiers, but the coolest people I had met in a long time. They weren’t cocky or arrogant or violent. They were living close to the edge — and they had that look of extreme satisfaction that one can get only when one is ready and willing to give up ones life for a just cause — your people. And not only that, they had absolutely no animosity toward me — the gringo. Nor had I felt one iota of anti-gringoness in the whole country — not one shove in a bus, not one drunken confrontation (typical elsewhere), not one off-color passing remark (I understand Spanish perfectly). And here they were, sitting in the cross hairs of my people, my army. Waiting on tenterhooks for that massive B-52 strike that was going to initiate the D-Day style invasion. “... and we’re going to have to fight the Yanqui invader,” shouted Daniel Ortega from the podium of his last campaign address, “town by town, street by street, block by block, house by house. Everyone — men, women, children, cripples — and they will not pass (No pasaran). But,” he said, lowering his voice, “when the coffee harvest comes next month, there are going to be 200 North Americans up there with us, in the war zone, helping us cut the cafe." That humanist streak runs deep in this revolution, you can feel it in your bones. It comes out in the little things — the subconscious things, like the way their soldiers must have been inculcated with a respect for life, as they always keep their guns pointed straight up or down. It comes from the poets that have carried this revolution; Father Ernesto Cardenal -— the minister of culture, Rigoberto Lopez Perez — who assasinated Anastasio Somoza Garcia (the old one) in 1956, or one of the many unknown poets of Sandino’s original band who wrote: Long live the patriot, sehores, whose fight is always delicious, with pride he has confronted the gringo so ambitious. That humanity became law when they abolished the death penalty and refrained from revenge on the Somocistas, even when they found their actual torturers. “We learned that from Carlos Fonseca,” said Tomas Borges, the only surviving founding member of the Sandinistas, who spent months in jail, shackled and completely hooded. If anyone has the right to hate the gringos it’s the Nicaraguans. Only a couple other countries around the world supercede its claim to the most and most absurd Yanqui intervention. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt so astutely recognized — Somoza was a son- of-a-bitch — so we continued to use our strength to keep him firmly fastened to the juglar vein of Nicaragua. Even when the Somozas had reduced the country to one finca (farm) and amassed one of the world’s biggest fortunes, the esteemed government of the United States could still not comprehend why Nicaragua might need a revolution. Sure, five years later it’s not all peaches and cream. With the economic base sucked to the bone by Somoza, with the bourgeousie reluctant to invest under the new government, with Russia afraid to bankroll her for fear of a swing to the right — and the West vice versa — with a super power breathing down her neck and forcing her to put all her eggs into armaments, it’s still pretty amazing that in 8 years the infant mortality rate has dropped from 121 to 58 per 1000. The air is cool, the soldiers are friendly; so even if it is an armed camp, San Rafael del Norte is still kind of quaint. The streets probably don’t look that much different then when Sandino walked them arm in arm with his betrothed, Blanca Arauz. There are still a lot of Arauzes left. In fact, one burst in on me as I sat quietly trying to compose the beginnings of this article. He looked pretty funny in his jogging suit — Adidas, shag hair cut and sunglasses — considering it was the middle of the night. I thought I had another chico pfestico (plastic boy) on my hands, until he switched back to Spanish and told me how alienated he had felt during his 9 months in Seattle. The people were nice sometimes, but he sensed a certain prejudice against him as a Latino and an unexplainable coldness that was frightening. This was his country and he was never 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
going to leave again, except, he told me later, if Nicaragua makes a deal with the Russians, he’s going to join the contras. Gilmar is only 18, so he’s a bit idealistic; anti-imperialist, yes, but like Sandino — no deals — liberty or death. Later, out walking, we saw the news of the FSLN rally in Managua on television. There were quite a few sets and the reception wasn’t bad in this far out of the way town. When Daniel Ortega finally came up to address the 3-to-400,000 gathered, the men came in off the street, the women out from the kitchen, and everyone, including me, was transfixed. When Ortega reached the “house by house, even the cripples” section of his Yanqui Invador speech, Gilmar turned his sun-glassed eyes to me and lifted up his fist. It looked like he meant it. The next day, the Day of the Dead, while the San Rafaelenos were all in church or at the cemetery praying and placing wreathes for their deceased, I snuck back to Managua to fulfill my commitment as a completely independent election observer. I don’t know how scrupulously “democratic” the United States’ first election was — when we elected the leader of our own Revolution to the presidency — but I would venture to guess there weren’t as many international observers. Admittedly, things looked pretty confusing when the night before the elections the Partido Independiente Liberal (PLI) candidate Virgilio Godoy swore up and down he was boycotting the race, but come morning he placed third in a contest of seven parties. True, it was a little hard to get your party organized, since the ban had been lifted just a few months ago. Harder still to go up against the Goliath FSLN, which not only has the built-in infrastructure of the Army and the government to aid its networking, but the party as well. But I think the FSLN has gone out of its way to be pluralist, considering its not easy to have a democracy when half the population is illiterate, the economy is bankrupt and you’re in a state of siege. Arturo Cruz, the favorite son of the right, who would have supposedly swept the polls, except he didn’t want to run, was invited into the government after the SHE WAS 13, THROWING MOLOTOV COCKTAILS, FIRING GUNS OUT OF HER LIVING ROOM WINDOW, RUNNING FOOD AND AMMUNITION TO HER BROTHERS. NOWSHE’SSHAKING HER HIPSTO A HOT SALSA BAND BLASTING OUT TO 100,000 OF HER COMPAS. Revolution. First as president of the Central Bank, then in the Governing Junta and as an ambassador to the U.S. . . . What more does he want? An invitation with his name embossed? Is this a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship or what? He’s so popular that upon his well-publicized return from the States, a total of 300 not so screaming fans showed up at the airport. It’s ridiculous — the supposedly leftist Junta has another conservative, Rafael Cordoba Rivas, sitting in its triumverate. As the Newsweek photographer said to a writer, “How are you going to explain this to a reader.” It’s even more absurd here trying to figure things out between the three politically divided papers — each one run by a Chamorro — brother, brother and uncle. I wonder what the Christmas dinner-table conversations sound like? Considering that it would be presided over by the widow of Joaquin Chamorro C., who led the prensa (press) into battle against Somoza until the Guardia assasinated him. No, it’s not so easy growing up in the middle of an earthquake, dictatorship, civil war, revolution, reconstruction and threat of invasion. At the big day of the elections party that the FSLN threw for the kids of Managua, I ran into an 18 year old girl who was telling me about her experiences in El Triunfo — the six weeks of open warfare that took place all over, but was extra deadly in Managua. She was 13, throwing Molotov cocktails, firing guns out her living room window, running food and ammunition to her brothers. Now she’s shaking her hips to a hot salsa band blasting out to 100,000 of her com- pas. The FSLN won the election, of course, but after they didn’t get too much response to their shouting out the statistics of victory, they gave it up to let the kids x party. Daniel Ortega was there as was Dr. Sergio Ramirez, the Vice President, but they saw no need to make a speech. I met my friend Francisco — the economist — and he gave me a wry smile and mentioned that they let him out on leave again. “Good party,” he said, as he passed me a milk of magnesia bottle filled with rum. The country was supposed to stay dry until the next day, when all the votes were tallied, but already beer was being served publicly. I looked around; big arc lights illuminated everyone clearly. You better party, I thought, and party hard, because this might be the last. The gringo election is in two days and its outcome is going to give the gringo king fillibuster-rights to your life and all its natural resources. Sure, if the invasion comes and all you kids are drafted out to the front, I don’t doubt you have the guts and the stamina to kick our ass, but it’s going to cost you. And maybe, just like Vietnam, your struggles will inflame a whole generation in the U.S. and bring down a couple of administrations and even liberate millions of your oppressed Latino brothers and sisters, but you’re going to have to become the martyr for it — and you won’t be laughing then. 5:45 AM, Wednesday, the 7th of November, 1984, Hotel Mesa, Managua, with tears in my eyes. Doniphan Blair is a writer-filmmaker now travelling in Central America. His last story in the CSQ was “Becoming the Wild Man.” Ten our advertisers you saw it in CSQ! EAT UNDERGROUND Music 7 days a week 12 Beers on draught 2110 N. 45th SEATTLE 634-2110 SEATTLE’S OLDEST RESTAURANT LUNCH •DINNER •COCKTAILS •ENTERTAINMENT 109 Yesler Way, Pioneer Square 624-1515 We’re Expanding! Housewares Woodstoves GRAND OPENING IN OUR NEW HOME DECEMBER 1ST!! City People’s Mercantile and the Woodstove Store 500 15th Ave. East Clinton St. Quarterly 7
/ he proposed high-level radioactive waste repository, which currently 1 is most likely to be sited at Hanford in Southeastern Washington about 6 miles from the Columbia River, could alter our place in the universe more significantly than anything constructed hereabouts to date. The Department of Energy (DOE) anticipates that this first repository will bold half of the high-level commercial wastes that have been generated in this country by nuclear power plants from their beginnings until the year 2000. It will be the first technology in the world to permanently store nuclear wastes. Currently these commercial wastes are in temporary storage in water-filled pools near nuclear power plants. Through the DOE, the federal government is tied into a contract with the utilities to accept the waste by the year 1998. In early 1981 there were about 8,000 tons of spent fuel assemblies from commercial nuclear power plants in temporary storage which would occupy about 104,000 cubic feet of space—about the equivalent of one football field two feet deep. By the year the Washington Dept, of Ecology. Ultimately, the decision to accept or reject a repository rests with the governor and the legislature. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 states that either the 2000, spent fuel is projected to total about 79,000 tons, or about 950,000 cubic feet. From the DOE standpoint, land-use difficulties would be minimal, since the federal government already owns the reservation. Further, the Hanford reservation is already contaminated, due to the storage of high- level radioactive Defense Department wastes since World War II. Promoters of Hanford have spoken for years about promoting the entire nuclear energy-weapons chain. Plutonium has been produced at Hanford since its use in the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Since 1976 Hanford has been promoted by the DOE as a potential waste storage site through its Basalt Waste Isolation Project in Richland. Basalt, a fine-grained solidified lava, has been considered favorable to the containment of radioactive wastes. Hanford has an accumulation of layered flood basalts which are part of the Columbia River Plateau. Hanford is the only basalt site which has been named. Other sites under consideration are salt sites in Mississippi and Texas, a bedded salt formation in Utah under Canyonlands National Park and a tuff rock formation site about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. In late spring of 1985, after the government’s Environmental Assessments are complete, three sites will be chosen for the more technical site characterization. Supporters of the repository project anticipate a state revenue of at least $8- 10 billion. Most of the jobs gained by the project would not be for Tri-Cities residents, however, but would be construction jobs for temporary residents. If the decision is made to construct three repositories, the total cost would be $26 billion in 1980 dollars, according to DOE estimates. Right now the DOE has a drilling rig at the Hanford Site—the Reference Repository Location—ready to be used as soon as drilling is authorized. The rented rig costs $5,800 per day and has been on site since March, 1983. Managers of the repository project say they have held onto the rig to avoid the cost of over one million dollars to tear it down. The soonest it is expected to be used is May, 1985. When approval is granted, they intend to dig a shaft 6 feet in diameter to through the water table to a depth of 3000 feet to perform tests of basalt at actual repository depth. Criticisms in the scientific world have been raised about the Hanford site in terms of the paths of underground streams that flow in the Columbia River region and hazards of groundwater contamination. There is concern about the behavior of the basalt formation in terms of melting, fracturing and faulting leading to possible leaks of radionuclides. Many observers note that the real reason Hanford was chosen was political expediency. Washington State’s Response Unlike other states under consideration, the government of Washington State has cooperated with the federal government by forming a Nuclear Waste Board to evaluate a possible site, has formed a negotiating team to draft a Consultation and Cooperation (C&C) agreement with the DOE, has been conducting monthly hearings on the topic and with the aid of the State Department of Ecology plans to make recommendations to the governor and legislature regarding the advisablity of locating a repository at Hanford. The governor has also appointed a Nuclear Waste Advisory Council consisting of 15 members with the role of advising the Nuclear Waste Board. Monthly meetings of the Board and Council are open to the public and take place in Lacey, near Olympia. Schedules can be obtained from governor or the state legislature can file a Notice of Disapproval if a site is nominated. This state disapproval can be overridden at the federal level by a Joint Resolution of Congress. Other states under consideration have demonstrated outspoken opposition to becoming federal dump sites. Richard Bryant, Governor of Nevada, objects to a dump site there because Nevada has “done more than its share for the nation” in developing atomic energy. The proposed site in Utah is less than a mile from Canyonlands National Park. Utah’s Governor Scott Matheson has denied permits for DOE studies to take place there. A moratorium on DOE studies has been imposed in Mississippi as well. Being the first state to enter into Consultation and Cooperation agreements with the DOE puts Washington into a position that will be highly visible to the rest of the country. It also suggests that a gubernatorial or legislative veto against siting a repository in Washington must be based on a highly technical analysis on the DOE’s own terms. State Senator Margaret Hurley (D-Spo- kane), a current member of the Nuclear- Waste Board, said that during its formation there were very few legislators on the board. While the legislature was not in session, Governor Spellman decided to initiate a group to cooperate and communicate with the DOE The group drafted an Radiation on the ROCKS By Melissa Laird Illustration by Tom Prochaska initial C&C agreement. When the legislature convened and found that its members were not considered on the board, some legislators became very concered and suspicious, particularly about issues related to liability. Hurley said she did not think it is in the state’s best interest to sign a C&C agreement. “The DOE could take a signed agreement to another state and Washington would be contributing to that state’s selling out to the DOE.” Hurley said that David Stevens in the Office of High-Level Nuclear Waste Management in Washington has been paving the way for a repository at Hanford, making it easy by not bringing in controversial items. “Rather than cooperating from the start, what we should have done was to have the legislature pass a bill vetoing the repository,” said Hurley. “In the early stages, the DOE has been reluctant to override a state that has shown opposition by the legislature or governor. It’s too bad that one little area down there can destroy the state. It is the paramount problem that we face today—more than education, more than economics, more than welfare. It should be faced by the legislature this year. But it will probably be covered up.” State Sen. Al Williams (D-Seattle), Chairman of the Senate Science and Technology Committee and member of the Nuclear Waste Board, said that the governor’s initial task force, created by executive order, was comprised of about six administration people and four legislators. Two of the legislators—Max Benitz and Shirley Hankins—were from Richland and carried a strong political bias. In the second and third years the Nuclear Waste Board was reconstituted with wider representation and more autonomy. “By and large we have been cautiously pessemistic as a board. I think we’ve been very considerate in letting the federal government attempt to demonstrate site suitability,” Williams stated. Referring to hearings by Congressman Morris Udall (D-Arizona) of the House 8 Clinton St. Quarterly
Interior Committee in May, 1983, regarding the repository program, Williams said: “We got hold of a promotional memo which was basically very hyped up. The language indicated a very strong bias in terms of promoting the Hanford site which was not objective and not appropriate to the carrying out of a scientific investigation.” In an internal memo, Dr. Raul Deju, Director of the Basalt Waste Isolation Project run by Rockwell International, stated that BWIP employees should make every effort to get Hanford named as the repository site by January, 1985. “That director is no longer there. We didn’t go to the press and make a big noise about it,” emphasized Williams. “But I think Rockwell shaped up a little bit.” “If I were in a position of federal authority, I don’t think I would allow the same contractors to evaluate the site and build the project. There’s a credibility problem, a ton state and the DOE, the issue of liability has been the primary bone of contention. The current draft of the C&C Agreement states: The State insists that the United States be strictly and absolutely liable, without regard to fault, for any damages caused by a nuclear incident at the repository within the State of Washington or associated with the transport of radioactive material to or from such a repository, regardless of the cause of such an incident. Currently, industry liability for accidents at commercial nuclear plants is limited by the Price-Anderson Act to $585 million. The DOE has not guaranteed any liability beyond this amount, although government studies estimate that an accident at a nuclear power plant could cause more than Criticisms in the scientific world have been raised about the Hanford site in terms of the paths of underground streams that flow in the Columbia River region and hazards of groundwater contamination. as i 0 • temptation not to be objective,” Williams added. Rockwell International has been contracted to study the feasibility of a waste repository at Hanford since 1976 through its Basalt Waste Isolation Project and has been named by the DOE to conduct the project if Hanford is the first selected site. Rockwell has also been in charge of defense waste storage facilities and was responsible for cover-ups of leaks of radioactive liquid identified in the late ’70s and early ’80s. In negotiations so far between Washing- $100 billion in damage. The amount of $585 million was initiated in Congress in 1957, but it was arbitrary and has never since been revised. The DOE has not acceded to the state’s position in these negotiations. A second issue critical to Washington’s negotiating team concerns defense waste. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 is concerned with commercial waste from nuclear power plants. However, the Hanford Reservation already holds massive amounts of defense wastes which are stored in 149 tanks. 450,000 gallons of radioactive liquid are known to have leaked A high-level waste repository threatens to contaminate natural food sources such as berries, roots, celeries, birds, waterfowl, wild game and salmon, which is not only a vital food source but a part of the religious and cultural background of Northwest Indian peoples. Clinton St. Quarterly 9
from the single-shelled tanks made soon after WWII. Although most of the old tanks have been replaced by double-shelled tanks, much of the waste remains untapped and cannot be monitored due to dangers of increasing contamination through drilling. In 1980, an inspector for the DOE found that Rockwell International had attempted to cover up these leaks rather than expose their existence to the public. State Rep. Dick Nelson (D-Seattle), a member of the Nuclear Waste Board and a former nuclear research scientist at Hanford, urged the board not to sign an agreement with the federal government until it agrees to clean up the stockpile of defense wastes at Hanford. The DOE has not yet issued the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which is to describe the method of handling waste at Defense Department facilities. The “Defense Waste Plan,” as it is called, is expected to recommend that waste be put in dirt-layered landfill called the Hanford Engineered Barrier. This landfill will probably be within 30 feet of the surface of the earth, inviting problems, if—in another era—humans begin to disturb the earth for mining, oil drilling or any other purpose. In addition to waste in storage tanks, the Defense Dept, has placed more than 1.25 tons of plutonium in non-retrievable landfills and trenches. Clearly there is a contradiction between the proposed handling of commercial waste and that produced by the Defense Dept. The state’s C&C agreement also concerns issues related to transportation. The state wants to have the right to conduct inspection of vehicles carrying high-level radioactive waste, to participate and concur in the designation of routes within the state, and have access to DOE shipping records and documents. Like liability, the transportation issue raises the question of “final authority” between the state and the federal government through its various agencies. A study by Battelle estimated that by the year 2000, a trailer truck carrying a half-ton of spent but highly-radioactive fuel rods would arrive every 90 minutes at the nation’s first repository site. The trucks would keep coming 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Although most of the sites under consideration are in the West, 80 percent of the nation’s waste would be coming from east of the Missisippi. Nick Lewis, a Nuclear Waste Board member and Chairman of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council said: “We have to take a strong position in Washington State to get more than one repository. To ship this stuff across country is crazy.” Spokespersons at Rockwell International under contract with the DOE stated recently that there were no plans for accepting foreign waste into the first repository in the U.S. Dick Nelson said that there were no current trade agreements with other countries to accept foreign waste, but that there has been talk of accepting waste from China. Some of Washington’s willingness to cooperate with the DOE is based on lobbying efforts by the Tri-City Chamber of Commerce and legislators such as Rep. Ray Issacson (R-Richland), who is also a chemist for Rockwell International at Hanford. Others maintain an attitude of resignation based on the idea that ultimately the federal government can put a repository where it wants to. This is in spite of the initiative three years ago in which state voters approved by a 3-to-1 margin a ban on the burial of out- of-state nuclear waste in Washington. The initiative was declared unconstitutional by federal courts. However, U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Washing- ton) reiterated the results of that initiative during congressional debate on the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. “Throughout the discussion on high-level nuclear waste legislation during this Congress, there has been a common misconception. This misconception is that the people of the state of Washington want a repository located in Washington State. To be fair, this is not the case. Were the disposal of nuclear waste in the state of Washington put to the people of the state, as a general proposition, the ovenwhelming majority would answer no." On Yakima Land The Hanford Reservation is part of the original territory of the Yakimas which they ceded to the Federal Government by treaty in 1855. They were the first tribe to be designated in the Nuclear Waste Act as an affected Indian tribe. Since then the Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes have also A trailer truck carrying a half-ton of spent but highly-radioactive fuel rods would arrive every 90 minutes at the nation’s first repository site. been officially designated. The act provides for veto power to such tribes if a proposed repository location is on reservation land. Since the Hanford location is not directly within the reservation's current boundaries, whether or not the Yakimas do have veto power is unclear and yet to be resolved. The current site of the proposed repository is at Gable Mountain which is Wana- pum Sacred land. The Wanapums are part of the Yakima Federation. The mountain was used for ceremonial functions and now has been drilled into by the DOE. As chairman of the Yakima Tribal Council, Watson Totus stated in a position paper on nuclear industries that the industry in the Pacific Northwest poses a threat which is more than an interim health hazard, but a threat more akin to’cultural genocide. He states that the nuclear industry and the establishment of a high-level waste repository threaten to contaminate natural food sources such as berries, roots, celeries, birds, waterfowl, wild game and salmon, which is not only a vital food source but a part of the religious and cultural background of Northwest Indian peoples. Indians rely more on local indigenous foods than do whites and are thus more vulnerable to contamination. Russell Jim, Manager of the Yakima Indian Nation’s Nuclear Waste Program, states that the DOE’s initial Environmental Assessment was an advocacy piece rather than a scientific document. “If they follow the letter of the law, it would have to be done in a scientific manner.” The Nuclear Waste Policy Act provides for grant funds to affected Indian tribes in order to study the geology and hydrology of the proposed site. Russell Jim stated that representation of the Yakimas on the Nuclear Waste Advisory Council had to be sought, demanded and diligently pursued. “I wish the contemporary society would erase the stereotype of the Indian which people have had through history,” Jim stated. “You and I reside here. The earth does not provide us with a back door to run out of when it becomes contaminated. We appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers and the natural foods and medicine that we have here in this Hanford area. But now we are interested in a truly scientific investigation on this issue.” Responses in the Scientific Community Since 1978, Rockwell Hanford Operations has administered the Basalt Waste Isolation Project (BWIP) under the direction of the DOE to determine if Columbia River basalts would be suitable as a host rock formation for a deep mined geologic repository. Considerable skepticism has mounted in the scientific community over the stability of the basalt formation. Even Rockwell’s own Hydrology and Geology Overview Committee observed in September, 198'1 that “there is only one solid justification for studying this site and it is the sociopolitical fact that the land is a U.S. nuclear reservation. From a hydrological perspective, the Columbia River Basalt Group as a whole is not well suited for a high-level waste repository. It may be that with further data and/or careful engineering design it can be shown to be acceptable, but it cannot be stated that the ‘geology is favorable’.” BWIP selected a site of mostly flat, featureless land about five by eight miles in the center of the Hanford Reservation, naming it the Reference Repository Location (RRL). The Cold Creek Interbed at about 1000 feet below ground level was »initially considered as the repository location, but was eliminated partly because of the presence of high-yield aquifers (layers of permeable rock through which water flows). The unconfined aquifer—the “water table”—lies about 450 feet below the surface of the RRL. The Cohasset flow in the Grande Ronde Basalt at about 3000 feet below the RRL is the current site under investigation for a repository. Basalts in the region are layered due to successive eruptions alternated with sediments laid down by floods and volcanic ash deposited by eruptions in the Cascades to the west. “Basically I have troubles with the concept of drilling through the water table and burying the waste in the Columbia River Basin,” says Senator Al Williams. “If that river js threatened in any way, who knows what kind of disaster would result? In Nevada, for instance, you could bury the waste 3000 feet deep without drilling through the water table. There are still some problems regarding the speed of migration of water around the Columbia River.” Investigators agree that the most likely means by which radionuclides would eventually escape a repository in the Hanford basalts is by groundwater migration. The period of time for this to occur is referred to as “travel time.” Rockwell developed a conceptual model for BWIP resulting in calculations of travel times which exceeded 20,000 years. However, using the same data, the NRC presented travel time calculations demonstrating that radionuclide releases to the Columbia River could occur in as few as 20 years. According to Golder Associates, a consulting firm in Bellevue, overprediction of travel time by Rockwell resulted in part from inaccurate porosity measurements. Actual field measurements of vertical and horizontal hydraulic conductivities, rather than the use of predicted values, would have altered travel time as well. In 1983, the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) reported in its Review Comments: “Groundwater movement is three dimensional throughout the Columbia River Basalts. The general pattern of movement appears to be downward in areas of groundwater divides (on major anticlines), and upward in areas of major streams, regardless of the depth of the basalt formation, and whether it is in contact with the rivers. With the exception of the water-level data collected by Rockwell, all the water data in the Plateau supports this concept of flow.” In its geologic critique,.High-level Nuclear Waste Disposal at Hanford, March, 1983, Washington’s Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG) points out: “There is a strong possibility that escaping radionuclides may be carried by groundwater flow to aquifers outside the Hanford Reservation, to the Columbia River itself or to the surface, where this contaminated water may be utilized for crop irrigation or human consumption. As was noted, major wells just outside the Hanford Reservation already tap deep basalt aquifers for irrigation water. A clear and definitive analysis of the possibility of serious contamination of groundwater used for irrigation in the vicinity of Hanford is imperative.” The USGS review pointed out that fractures or faults may be as abundant as several per kilometer. Whether faults are active or not, they serve as vertical conduits for groundwater flow. Other analysts including the NRC and Goff (1981) at Rockwell have indicated the presence of faults beneath the Hanford site on eastern Umtanum Ridge. Some of the measuring techniques used by the DOE have been criticized, such as the effect of drilling mud bore holes in water-level test. The limited quantity of measurements, reliance upon predicted values, and assumptions based on a steady-state rather than a changing model of groundwater flow have also been cited as flawed. Barry Moravek in the Public Affairs Dept, at Rockwell stated recently that more dialogue is taking place between Rockwell and agencies such as the NRC and the USGS pertaining to technical questions. According to Gail Hunt, Manager of Project Integration of Performance Assessment and Development at Rockwell, “We are using a baseline of groundwater flow to measure vertical conduits. These tests are scheduled to begin in March or April of next year to include a summer pumping cycle and a winter recharge. The USGS has reviewed our monitoring data to date and concur that we can establish a baseline for pumping within about a year.” Hunt also noted, “We have agreed with the NRC and the USGS that we would do one test before the shaft would reach repository depth. This would be a hydrological pumping test using state-of-the-art tracers which might tell you about vertical conduits and might get wider acceptance by the technical community.” Rockwell people indicate that the utilities have accepted the Hanford reservation as safe for nuclear power plants and that this 10 Clinton St. Quarterly
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