Activists' Sacred Run For A More Peaceful World

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Activists' Sacred Run For A More Peaceful World
Sacred Run Participants Hope Their Action Will Lead to a More Peaceful World

Interview with Marcus Atkinson, Australian peace activist, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Listen in RealAudio:
http://www.btlonline.org/atkinson041406.ram


Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 1:14 pm -- Every year for the past 28 years, an international Sacred Run for Peace and Mother Earth has been organized by Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement. This year, in addition to crossing the U.S. from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., participants took a detour of almost a thousand miles to visit the Houma tribal nation in the bayous of southern Louisiana. They added "hurricane recovery" to the causes they are running and walking for.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus walked with the group along the bayou through Golden Meadow on March 27, home to many of the 15,000 Houma people scattered through this fragile land that was battered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Marcus Atkinson is a peace activist from a small town near Melbourne, Australia, who has participated in Sacred Runs since 1993 and is co-founder of another group of peace walkers and runners called Footprints for Peace. With the sounds of Buddhist prayer drums and passing trucks heard in the background, Melinda Tuhus spoke with Atkinson about his group's peace walks and why he believes grassroots movements such as these will lead to a more peaceful world.

MARCUS ATKINSON: In 2003, I organized a walk with my partner, and we organized a walk from Roxby Downs in Australia, which is very close to where the English tested nuclear weapons in the 1950s. It had a devastating effect on the aboriginal communities out there, and a lot of servicemen and the surrounding farming areas and stuff. So, 2003 was the 50th anniversary of those tests, so we decided to walk from there to Hiroshima, because of the connection to nuclear weapons. But also, Roxby Downs is one of the largest uranium mines in the world, and a lot of that uranium goes to fuel the over 50 nuclear reactors in Japan.

interview: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00221.htm

For more information, visit www.footprintsforpeace.net. To contact the Sacred Run, which is scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C., on Earth Day, April 22, call [phone] or visit their website at http://www.sacredrun.org