Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day (March 1st)

[This post is from Peace Movement Aotearoa, New Zealand, and was originally published in 2009]

Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day ('Bikini' Day), 1 March, marks the anniversary of the US 'Bravo' nuclear bomb detonation at Bikini Atoll [*] in 1954. The explosion gouged out a crater more than 200 feet deep and a mile across, melting huge quantities of coral which were sucked up into the atmosphere together with vast volumes of seawater. The resulting fallout caused widespread contamination in the Pacific.

Powdery particles of radioactive fallout landed on the island of Rongelap (100 miles away) to a depth of one and a half inches in places, and radioactive mist appeared on Utirik (300 miles away). Radiation levels in the inhabited atolls of Rongerik, Ujelang and Likiep also rose dramatically. The US navy did not send ships to evacuate the people of Rongelap and Utirik until three days after the explosion. The people in the Marshall Islands, and elsewhere in the Pacific, were used as human guinea pigs in an obscene racist experiment to 'progress' the insane pursuit of nuclear weapons supremacy.

Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day is a day to remember that the arrogant colonialist mindset which allowed, indeed encouraged, the horror mentioned above continues today - the Pacific remains neither nuclear free nor independent.

It is a day to think about the many faces of colonisation - physical, cultural, spiritual, economic, political, nuclear, military - past and present; the issues of independence, self-determination and sovereignty here in Aotearoa New Zealand and the other colonised countries of the Pacific; and the ability of Pacific peoples to stop further nuclearisation, militarisation and economic globalisation of our region.

It is a day to acknowledge and remember those who have suffered and died in the struggle for independence around the Pacific; those who have opposed colonisation in its many forms and paid for their opposition with their health and life; and those who have suffered and died as a result of the nuclear weapons states' use of the Pacific for nuclear experimentation, uranium mining, nuclear weapons testing and nuclear waste dumping.

It is a day to celebrate the strength and endurance of indigenous Pacific peoples who have maintained and taken back control of their lives, languages and lands to ensure the ways of living and being which were handed down from their ancestors are passed on to future generations.

It is the day to pledge your support to continue the struggle for a nuclear free and independent Pacific, as the theme of the 8th Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Conference said: No te parau tia, no te parau mau, no te tiamaraa, e tu, e tu - For justice, for truth and for independence, wake up, stand up !

- Peace Movement Aotearoa

[*] In 1946, a military officer representing the US government asked the people of Bikini if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars". They have been prevented from returning to their home ever since because of the level of radioactive contamination remaining there.

In April 2006, together with the people of Enewetak, they filed a lawsuit against the US government in the US Court of Federal Claims. The lawsuit sought compensation for the taking of their property, and damage claims resulting from the US government’s failure and refusal to adequately fund the orders of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. In 2000 and 2001 the Tribunal awarded compensation totaling around $948 million for loss of the islands, clean-up and resettlement costs, and personal injury and hardship. So far the Tribunal has only paid out about $3.8 million.

On 29 January 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against the people of Bikini and Enewetak, saying an agreement between the governments of the United States and Marshall Islands in 1986 is a settlement that is beyond judicial review - affirming the US Court of Federal Claims ruling on 2 August 2007. The decision of the Court of Appeals is
available here, and the people of Bikini's response to the 2007 Court of Federal Claims ruling is here. A history of Bikini Atoll and the people's struggle for justice is on this web page.
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Editor's Note: The following is their most recent call for negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

This year, New Zealanders have the opportunity to help turn the hope of a nuclear weapons-free Pacific, and indeed a nuclear weapons-free world, into a reality by adding their signatures to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Aotearoa New Zealand (iCAN ANZ) petition to parliament.

The petition calls on the New Zealand government to actively engage with like-minded governments committed to abolishing nuclear weapons to launch, without delay, an initiative to start the process of negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention; and it will be considered by a parliamentary Select Committee later this month. The petition form is available on the iCAN ANZ website at http://www.icanw.org.nz

Largest Demonstration and Civil Resistance against U.S. Missile Test in almost 30 years

by Jim Haber, Coordinator, Nevada Desert Experience

The United States Air Force test-launched a first-strike, nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) early in the morning on February 25 despite the largest anti-test demonstrations in almost 30 years. The launch took place in the dark fog of night at 2:46 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) on the central California coast to the other end of the Ronald Reagan Missile Range in the Marshall Islands over 4000 miles away.

Testing warhead, bomb and delivery systems all violate the spirit of working towards nuclear disarmament to which the United States has obligated itself. The February 24 protest began at 5 minutes to midnight—the current setting of the “Doomsday Clock” of the Federation of American Scientist's Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—in the hopes that public pressure would force President Obama to turn away from his pro-nuclear budget (with increases for both nuclear weapons and power). The test-launch of ICBMs makes hypocrites of U.S. foreign policy planners who demand a stand down of nuclear ambitions from countries we're hostile to, while furthering the upgrade of our own weapons of mass destruction. The quantity and quality of U.S. nuclear weapons dwarf all others; we must not wait for other nations to pull back but must increase the rate of dismantlement of our own nuclear weapons.

Daniel Ellsberg, who as a military analyst for the RAND Corporation in the 1960s developed strategic plans for the Secretary of Defense MacNamara and who later leaked the lies of Vietnam war planners in what became known as the Pentagon Papers, crossed the line at the base and was taken into custody along with 6 other men and 8 women in an act of civil resistance. “They cannot be allowed to test these lightning rods of doomsday without arresting American citizens. We need to push this. It takes public pressure through education and public protest,” Ellsberg said at the rally before entering the base. Twenty-nine years ago, Ellsberg was also arrested at VAFB with hundreds of others who went into the back-country of the huge base to disrupt launch plans for another ICBM, the MX missile which ultimately was not deployed, largely due to public pressure. Ellsberg continued by stating, “No one in this country should have their hands on the destruction of the world. We can't trust these folks with the future of humanity.

From left: David Krieger, Fr. Louis Vitale & Daniel Ellsberg (photo by Jim Haber)

(As a student at nearby UC Santa Barbara, the author also went back-country in 1983 at Vandenberg and was arrested along with Ellsberg and 55 others at the U.C.S.B.'s administration building in opposition to the continued management of the U.S. national weapons laboratories by the University of California.)

Ellsberg also pointed out that Cold War deterrence was based on various lies and mistakes like when U.S. plans were based on the thought that the U.S.S.R. had 1000 missiles but actually only had 4 at that time. Current war plans continue to be based on misrepresentations, including those regarding Iraq, Iran, North Korea and the ongoing nuclear programs of Israel, Pakistan and India.

Our peace actions and civil resistance at VAFB, and at the Nevada Test Site, Y-12 Plant in Tennessee and elsewhere in the expanding nuclear “bombplex” all are part of an international effort to wake up the public and our leaders to the immorality, illegality and stupidity of maintaining nuclear capabilities. The U.S. program encourages horizontal proliferation. All nuclear weapons must be eliminated. “Theirs” are bad; ours are at least as horrific. The move to make ICBMs dual use—meaning they carry nuclear or non-nuclear warheads—further increases nuclear danger by potentially confusing adversaries into thinking they're under nuclear attack.

Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. are sadly and prophetically apropos in many situations. In this moment two stand out: “The choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence.” Also, “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

With about a hundred demonstrators braving the damp cold of the designated protest area outside of Vandenberg, other important attendees crossed the line in “anti-test”: David Krieger, founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and his wife Carolee committed their first-ever acts of civil resistance and were exhilarated by the experience. Cindy Sheehan who's son was killed as a soldier in Iraq and who has become an outspoken peace activist also was cited and released. Judy Talaugon, a grandmother and descendant of the local Chumash people blessed and welcomed the protesters. Importantly, Paul O'Toko, an elder from Micronesia and founder of Indigenous Stewards International, brought a sizable group including several of his children although they did not engage in the trespass itself. Fr. Louis Vitale OFM, a frequent presence at VAFB and other demonstration sites said, “I would gladly give my life even to delay a missile launch.”

The last test-launch of a Minuteman III was a rare failure necessitating the destruction of the missile mid-flight. A subsequent test scheduled for September 21, 2011, the U.N.-designated International Day of Peace, was postponed as a growing chorus of international opposition was decrying the contradiction of a peace-loving nation testing such a thing on that special day.

The next test-launch is now scheduled for March 1, extremely soon after last Saturday's test. March 1 is the anniversary of the tragic “Bravo” test of a hydrogen bomb in the Bikini atoll for which the swimwear received its name due to the brightness of the 20 megaton blast. That test dropped radioactive fallout on the people of Rongelap, leading to catastrophic health and genetic problems that continue to this day, necessitating the on-going evacuation of their island. It also sparked the Japanese anti-nuclear movement which had been prevented to exist under the U.S. occupation that followed World War II. The Lucky Dragon fishing vessel, a Japanese ship, was also caught in the fallout of the March 1 test, another day that deserves to be retired from nuclear development plans. (And don't they all?)

Jim Haber is the Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) in Las Vegas, Nevada which organizes interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons and war. He is also on the National Committee of the War Resisters League.

Video of line crossers taken by videographer Ben Johnson with Occupy Santa Barbara:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YiU6waGOU or shorter url: http://is.gd/vafbp

Photos of the Vandenberg demonstration taken by Mary Lou Anderson and Jim Haber:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimhaber/sets/72157629458207405/

Oppose the U.S. Government's Nuclear Missile Test Launch

On February 24th, the first Friday of Lent, there will be global peace protests surrounding the U.S. government's scheduled launch - one of the government's countless test launches - of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). These ICBM's, which are scattered around the U.S. in their underground silos armed with nuclear warheads, are ready to launch on warning by the President's command. These missile test launches serve only to increase tensions and counter any real efforts at disarmament and non-proliferation.

One of the protest sites will be Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, where the launch will occur. Please check out MacGregor Eddy's Blog at http://vandenbergprotest-macgregor.blogspot.com/ to learn more. This is also the place to watch for up-to-date information on the launch, along with information on other protest sites. 

Minuteman III launch from Vandenberg

Fr. Louis Vitale will be at Vandenberg for the evening protest, and on February 23rd Daniel Ellsberg will join David Krieger, of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, in Santa Barbara for a press conference and presentation.

If you can participate and are coming from the San Francisco Bay Area there is a group going down to Vandenberg on the 24th on the Green Tortoise charter bus (leaving from West Oakland BART station). It will also stop at San Jose and Salinas. Catholic Workers can ride free, and anyone who can't afford the charter fare can get a subsidy to ride the bus. Check with MacGregor if you are interested in participating and/or have questions at macgregoreddy@gmail.com, or 831-206-5043.

Related to the Vandenberg test launch - PLEASE sign the petition at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation calling on President Obama to cancel this test launch and fullfill our nation's obligations to move toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.  You can help this petition exceed its goal of 5000 signatures by sharing this email or the link to the petition: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6357/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9008. Share it on Facebook, Google+, or anyplace else you can think of.

The HOUR is getting late!!!

Friends,

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says "It is Now 5 Minutes to Midnight."

It should come as no surprise that this respected organization has moved the clock (on January 10th) an inch closer to the witching hour.  It is black magic, indeed, that causes the clock to inch closer to midnight.  As described on their Website:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

Just two years ago The Bulletin spoke hopefully as it set the clock back one minute (away from Midnight) saying,"We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons." That tempered enthusiasm was rooted in negotiations between Washington and Moscow for a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, along with ongoing negotiations for further reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear nuclear arsenals.  There were also "pockets of progress" addressing climate change.

Yet, in just two years those hopes quickly faded as it has become evident that nations, in particular the United States and Russia, are not only hesitant to disarm, but are re-arming at an alarming rate; not much of an example for the rest of the world. As for climate change, it is clearly evident that Nero fiddles even while Rome burns.  As The Bulletin summarizes the situation:

The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges.

The Bulletin's Doomsday Clock is in a very real sense a prophetic voice, a clarion call to all who will listen.  And listen we must, or turn away at humanity's peril.  The longer we put off facing these issues, the greater the probability that the clock will once again start ticking,moving closer to midnight. 

In 1953 the clock reached 2 minutes to midnight, the closest in its history, after the U.S. tested its first thermonuclear bomb.  In its 1953 statement The Bulletin said:

Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization.

Disarmament is obviously not forthcoming from the halls of The White House, Congress or the Pentagon (or the Kremlin for that matter).  It is up to We The People to rise up and demand good faith efforts toward disarmament, and of course simultaneous efforts to control global proliferation and move all nations toward a nuclear weapons free world.  It is time to re-energize the global movement toward that goal.

Watch from Hiroshima

It is time to shout out in every capital city,

"Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Never Again!!!"

Peace,

Leonard

Read the announcements at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Doomsday Clock Moves 1 minute closer to midnight

Doomsday Clock moves to five minutes to midnight

Read the timeline of the Doomsday Clock: http://thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline

NUKE DEBATE??? Let's have the real one...

Friends,

The front page of today's Seattle Times is embazoned with the headline:

Plan for $715 million Bangor wharf fires up

NUKE DEBATE

Under the headline is a mammoth photo of a Trident nuclear submarine somewhere in Puget Sound near Squim.  Each of these behemoths has 24 launch tubes, and is capable of carrying 24 Trident II (D-5) missiles, each with a capacity of 8 warheads, each warhead being either a W76 (100 kiloton) or W88 (475 kiloton).  In contrast, the Hiroshima bomb yield was somewhere between 12 and 15 kilotons.

Even if a single Trident sub carries only 24 missiles, each with only 4 warheads (as is supposedly the case due to current arms control agreements), that's a mighty big bang.  One Trident sub - and there are a total of 14, with 8 of them at Bangor - can easily wipe any nation off the face of the map in a matter of minutes... POOF!

The Times article stated that “the entire fleet carries enough nuclear warheads on its Trident missiles to obliterate every major city in Russia and China.” Wow!!!  If that seems like overkill, consider that the statement understates Tridents killing capacity.  Each warhead can incinerate hundreds of thousands or millions of civilians in an attack on a "major city."  With over a thousand warheads in the entire fleet, well... You do the math.

Should our government be crazy enough to start launching Tridents with armed nuclear warheads towards any nation all bets are off.  Besides the mass murders of scores of innocent men, women and children, the fallout and residual radiation - much of which would exist for countless generations - would render much of the planet uninhabitable, and would cause major climatic effects resulting in global famine.  Then, of course, there would be multi-generational birth defects, cancers and other radiation-related diseases.

It's safe to say that Trident is a "Cold War relic'" as retired Navy captain Tom Rogers referred to it in the article:

"Why are we doing this [building another Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor]? We're spending a whole lot of taxpayer money on a Cold War relic," Rogers said in an interview. "All we are doing is making defense contractors rich."

Indeed it is making weapons makers extremely rich, and if the Navy goes ahead with its plans to build a next generation ballistic missile submarine to replace the current Trident fleet the amount to be spent on the new wharf will seem like chickenfeed.  Just the construction cost of the news subs will likely be around $100 billion.

Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, has told Congress that the new wharf is "critical to nuclear weapons surety and our national security."  One has to wonder how, in an age when the Cold War is over and the greatest threat related to nuclear weapons or the fissile materials needed to make them likely would come from terrorists, a nuclear weapons system like Trident ensures our national security.  If anything, it's an impressive (and extremely expensive) symbol of military might.

At a time when we need to be shifting from our reliance on nuclear weapons in order to bring stability to (and ensure progress in) global disarmament and nonproliferation efforts we need to reduce our nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems.  If we do the math it is obvious that we have far more nuclear weapons than necessary to "deter" any adversary (that is assuming that the concept of deterrence is even applicable anymore).

Perhaps broader questions than those being debated about a Second Explosives Handling Wharf are in order.  Why does the U.S. assume a continued Cold War posture?  How can we possibly contemplate using weapons that kill indiscriminately and contaminate our environment for generations? 

We need to grasp the dangers that nuclear weapons present, and further accept the fundamental risk that the longer we continue to produce and deploy them, the greater the probability that they will one day be used either accidentally or intentionally.  And when that happens, it will be a dark day indeed.

As Tom Rogers pointed out - even with over a thousand nuclear warheads on all those Trident subs - we’re “not deterring anyone.”  What a waste!  So let's skip the small stuff and have the real debate -

Are nuclear weapons essentially obsolete???  Do we not need to learn to live together without threatening each other with annihilation???

As Martin Luther King Jr. said one year before his death, “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”   These were (and continue to be) prophetic words.  Indeed, we have a choice and we are at the crossroads.  Let us make the right choice, if not for ourselves, at least for future generations.  We must work towards global nuclear disarmament, and the U.S. can (and must) lead the way. 

In Peace,

Leonard  

Note: URL for Seattle Times article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017193326_navywharf09m.html     

Skewing science to justify nuclear power

Friends,

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked in many ways. They both produce ionizing radiation that, when released into the environment, exposes people to a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. Some are extremely short-lived, while others exist for countless lifetimes. One thing they all share? When they enter the body they act at the cellular level, causing damage, potentially to the cell's genetic material, and even at low exposure levels present some risk of a wide variety of effects.

Over a period of more than 66 years - through releases of radioisotopes to the environment from both nuclear power generation (routine operations and accidents) and nuclear weapons production and testing - vast quantities of radioisotopes have accumulated around the globe, creating a captive population of human guinea pigs.

However, "science" has not always been practiced as would be expected (of ethical scientists) throughout the nuclear age.  The U.S. government has pursued a policy of nuclear power and nuclear weapons at all costs, and for many decades has sought to pacify the public, convincing it that there are no measurable risks from the production of nuclear power.  Most recently we have been told (by people who obviously know better) that nuclear power is a "green" form of energy - aah, greenwashing at its best (or should I say worst).

For an excellent uncovering of the thin facade that perpetuates the myths of radiation safey, read  Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima, by Gayle Greene, just published in The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 1 No 3, January 2, 2012.  Just as with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Greene pulls back the curtain to reveal the ugly truth behind the great facade of the nuclear power-weapons complex.

Even as the Fukushima disaster is already being largely forgotten by the mainstream news media, Greene reminds us of decades of deceit and obsfucation regarding the risks of radiation related to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, focusing on a variety of subplots including the Chernobyl disaster, which has been mostly ignored by mainstream media, and has given barely a mention in news reports about Fukushima.  As Greene reminds us:

Chernobyl is a better predictor of the Fukushima consequences than Hiroshima, but we wouldn’t know that from mainstream media. Perhaps we would rather not know that 57% of Chernobyl contamination went outside the former USSR; that people as far away as Oregon were warned not to drink rainwater “for some time”; that thyroid cancer doubled in Connecticut in the six years following the accident; that 369 farms in Great Britain remained contaminated 23 years after the catastrophe; that the German government compensates hunters for wild boar meat too contaminated to be eaten – and it paid four times more in compensation in 2009 than in 2007. Perhaps we’d rather not consider the possibility that “the Chernobyl cancer toll is one of the soundest reasons for the ‘cancer epidemic’ that has been afflicting humankind since the end of the 20^th century.”

Skewed science is not science at all.  Rather, in the case of all things nuclear, it is simply a propaganda tool of a government narrowly focused on policies that, rather than serving humanity, serve the narrow interests of the nuclear industry and the national security state.  It is up to the people to speak out and challenge the lies, and material like Gayle Greene's investigative reporting is extremely valuable in our task.  Future generations deserve a sustainable, nuclear-free world.

Toward a nuclear-free world,

Leonard

Note: source URL for Greene's article: http://japanfocus.org/-Gayle-Greene/3672