118 Arrested at Jabiluka Uranium Mines

A total of 118 people were arrested after large numbers entered an exclusion zone around the site and some locked themselves to construction machinery, according to Dr. James Warden, of the Jabiluka Alliance.

But he denied any connection by the protesters with alleged sabotage at the site, and condemned any sabotage as counter-productive.

Overnight around 70 people entered a five kilometre exclusion zone around the mine being built by Energy Resources of Australia in woodland fringing Kakadu's world famous wet country. Another 200 approached on an access road before dawn.

By the time police arrived, about 20 had locked themselves to drilling rigs and earthmoving equipment in the mine's construction compound, and another 70 formed a human chain, Dr. Warden said.

Many of the protesters are students and teachers from southern Australian cities, who each paid around AU$300 to join bus convoys that carried them north for the protest in their mid-winter semester break.

During the protest, police were reported to have found a water pipe severed and a rope stretched across bushland patrolled by motorbike riding security guards, but the protest organizers said they knew nothing about it.

"That kind of activity is completely outside the parameters of the way we operate here," Dr. Warden said.

He said the area's traditional owners, the Mirrar aboriginal people, had ruled it out. Sabotage was again ruled out during a day-long induction process that each protester had to submit to, and event organizers rejected it.

"We are going out of the way to reject that whole approach," Dr. Warden said.

There have been 358 arrests now at the site, with up to 500 protesters at one time at the Jabiluka mine site.