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  • Mandela and Vanunu – Men of Courage

    Mairead MaguireThis week the World’s political leaders stood united in admiration at the memorial service in South Africa to honor the memory of Nelson Mandela, leader of his country, and a man of courage who gave inspiration to many people around the world.

    Across the world in East Jerusalem in solitude sits another man of courage, Mordechai Vanunu. In l986 Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistle-blower, told the world about Israel’s secret nuclear weapons. For this he served 18 years in an Israeli prison, 12 in solitary confinement, and since his release in 2004 he has been forbidden to leave Israel, speak to foreigners, and is constantly under surveillance.

    On 25th December, 2013, he will be brought again before the Israeli Supreme Court and will, yet again, ask for his right to leave Israel. The Supreme Court can give him his freedom to go get on a plane and leave Israel as he wishes to do. I appeal to President Shimon Perez, to Prime Minister Netanyahu, to let him go. He is a man of peace, desiring freedom, who followed his conscience. He is no threat to Israel. He, like Mandela, has served now 27 years and deserves his freedom.

    To the world’s political leaders who recognized in Mandela, a man of honor and courage and saluted him, I appeal to you to do all in your power to help Vanunu get his freedom now. You have it in your power to do so. Please do not be silent whilst Mordechai Vanunu suffers and is refused his basic rights.

    To the world’s media, I appeal to you to report on Vanunu’s continuing isolation and enforced silence by Israel.

    To civil communities everywhere, I appeal to you to increase your efforts for Vanunu’s freedom and demand that “Israel let our brother Mordechai Go. We cannot be free while he is not free.”

  • Nuclear Zero: The Necessary Number

    This article is the introduction to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Annual Report.

    David KriegerIn 1945 the first nuclear weapon was tested and, within weeks, the next two nuclear weapons were used by the United States on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    By 1986 there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.

    Today there are just over 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world,

    which means that, since the mid-1980s, the world has shed some 50,000 nuclear weapons. That’s progress, but it’s far from sufficient.

    There are still some 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert in the US and Russian arsenals. These weapons are accidents waiting to happen.

    Atmospheric scientists tell us that, in a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which 50 nuclear weapons from each side were exploded on the other side’s cities, enough soot would be put into the stratosphere to block warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons, and cause crop failures leading to a billion deaths by starvation globally. Nuclear famine is only part of the havoc that a “small” nuclear war would cause.

    Zero is the only safe number of nuclear weapons on the planet. It is what the human future requires of us. For the sake of the seven billion inhabitants of our planet, for everyone who matters to each of us, for everything that matters to each of us, we must strive for and achieve Nuclear Zero.

    Another necessary number is One, because each one of us has the power to make a difference with our voice, our actions and our support. When a dedicated portion of the seven billion Ones on the planet are joined together and motivated, they can achieve any great and necessary goal, including Nuclear Zero.

    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are committed to providing Peace Leadership that emphasizes the Power of One in achieving Nuclear Zero.

  • Two Billion at Risk: The Threat of Limited Nuclear War

    This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

    As physicians we spend our professional lives applying scientific facts to the health and well being of our patients. When it comes to public health threats like TB, polio, cholera, AIDS and others where there is no cure, our aim is to prevent what we cannot cure. It is our professional, ethical and moral obligation to educate and speak out on these issues.

    That said, the greatest imminent existential threat to human survival is potential of global nuclear war. We have long known that the consequences of large scale nuclear war could effectively end human existence on the planet. Yet there are more than 17,000 nuclear warheads in the world today with over 95% controlled by the U.S. and Russia. The international community is intent on preventing Iran from developing even a single nuclear weapon. And while appropriate to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, there is precious little effort being spent on the much larger and more critical problem of these arsenals.

    Despite the Cold War mentality of the U.S. and Russia with their combined arsenals and a reliance on shear luck that a nuclear war is not started by accident, intent or cyber attack, we now know that the planet is threatened by a limited regional nuclear war which is a much more real possibility.

    A report released Tuesday by the Nobel Laureate International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and its US counterpart Physicians for Social Responsibility documents in fact the humanitarian consequences of such a limited nuclear war. Positing a conflict in South Asia between India and Pakistan, involving just 100 Hiroshima sized bombs— less than 0.5% of the world’s nuclear arsenal— would put two billion people’s health and well being at risk. The local effects would be devastating. More than 20 million people would be dead in a week from the explosions, firestorms and immediate radiation effects. But the global consequences would be far worse.

    The firestorms caused by this war would loft 5 million tons of soot high into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and dropping temperatures across the planet. This climate disruption would cause a sharp, worldwide decline in food production. There would be a 12% decline in US corn production and a 15% decline in Chinese rice production, both lasting for a full decade. A staggering 31% decline in Chinese winter wheat production would also last for 10 years.

    The resulting global famine would put at risk 870 million people in the developing world who are already malnourished today, and 300 million people living in countries dependent on food imports. In addition, the huge shortfalls in Chinese food production would threaten another 1.3 billion people within China. At the very least there would be a decade of social and economic chaos in the largest country in the world, home to the world’s second largest and most dynamic economy and a large nuclear arsenal of its own.

    A nuclear war of comparable size anywhere in the world would produce the same global impact. By way of comparison, each US Trident submarine commonly carries 96 warheads each of which is ten to thirty times more powerful than the weapons used in the South Asia scenario. That means that a single submarine can cause the devastation of a nuclear famine many times over. The US has 14 of these submarines, plus land based missiles and a fleet of strategic bombers. The Russian arsenal has the same incredible overkill capacity. Two decades after the Cold War, nuclear weapons are ill suited to meet modern threats and cost hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain.

    Fueled in part by a growing understanding of these humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, there is today a growing global movement to prevent such a catastrophe. In 2011, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement called for its national societies to educate the public about these humanitarian consequences and called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Seventeen nations issued a Joint Statement in May 2012 on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons that called for their total elimination. By this fall the number rose to 125 nations.

    The international community should continue to take practical steps to prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. But, this effort to prevent proliferation must be matched by real progress to eliminate the far greater danger posed by the vast arsenals that already exist.

    Simply put, the only way to eliminate the threat of nuclear war or risk of an accidental launch or mishap is to eliminate nuclear weapons. This past year the majority of the world’s nations attended a two-day conference in Oslo on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. The United States and the other major nuclear powers boycotted this meeting. There will be an important follow up meeting in Mexico in February. It is time for us to lead the nuclear weapons states by example in attending this meeting and by embracing the call to eliminate nuclear weapons.

  • The Doublespeak of Nuclear Disarmament

    This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.

    Kate HudsonIt’s easy to say you want a world without nuclear weapons. Nearly everyone does: even David Cameron. It’s like saying there should be no global poverty: the hard part is taking action to do something about it.

    Imagine if David Cameron returned from his recent trade-boosting visit to China and had to concede, shamefaced, that he hadn’t mentioned trade with the UK.

    Worse still: what if he returned and boasted of the fact that he hadn’t mentioned trade with the UK?

    Well this is precisely what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has just done following a UN meeting on nuclear disarmament.

    ‘What discussions,’ FCO Minister Hugh Robertson was asked in Parliament, ‘were held by [the FCO] on the replacement of the Trident submarines at the recent High Level Meeting on nuclear disarmament at the UN?’

    ‘No discussions’, he replied.

    Even more disturbingly, Robertson went on to claim that this was all good and proper.

    ‘Maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the current system is fully consistent with our obligations as a recognised nuclear weapon state under the treaty on the non-proliferation (NPT) of nuclear weapons,’ he stated.

    Disingenuous doublespeak. He may as well have said: “building new nuclear weapons is the same as negotiating to get rid of them.”

    And that is precisely what the UK, and all other nuclear armed states, are bound to do by the NPT. Article VI of the treaty states:

    ‘Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to… nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.’

    The UK government claims to have a long-standing commitment to multilateral initiatives towards a world free of nuclear weapons, but it simply doesn’t practice what it preaches.

    One recent initiative which the UK won’t even engage with is around the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons: supported by 125 states as well as NGOs around the world.

    But the UK, in a joint statement with France and the US, expressed ‘regret’ that states and civil society actors have sought to highlight these dangers.

    After a landmark conference on this issue in Oslo this year – which the British government failed to attend, despite Defence Secretary Philip Hammond being in Norway at the time – the UK still hasn’t RSVP’d to an invitation from the Mexican government to go to the follow-up conference in 2014.

    Here, our friend Hugh Robertson at the FCO can shed a little more light on the government’s position:

    ‘We are concerned that some efforts under the humanitarian initiative appear increasingly aimed at negotiating a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the possession of nuclear weapons’.

    What a concern! States and global civil society want the UK to fulfil its treaty obligations and ‘negotiate’ towards disarmament!?

    The government’s apparent aversion to a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) is all the more disturbing given how instrumental the framework of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has been recently in the historic elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. These treaty apparatuses have been shown to enable and facilitate true progress on disarmament, yet the UK still refuses to join the call for similar initiatives for nuclear weapons.

    When this is the attitude of our politicians, how can we see their professed commitment to disarmament as anything other than shallow and meaningless rhetoric?

  • Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

    David KriegerNelson Mandela is a man I admired greatly and consider to be one of the great peace leaders of our time. He lived with dignity and treated others with respect. I think that is a high tribute for any person. He was a true human being, in the fullest sense of being human. He did his part to leave the world a better place than the world of racism and apartheid into which he was born. When he came out of prison after 27 years and had the chance for vengeance, he chose kindness and nonviolence. When he became president of his country, he was the president of all the people of South Africa.

    To celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela is to recognize that individuals can make a difference in our world, despite hardships and the seeming impossibility of creating change. He lived with courage, compassion and commitment, and he did lead the way to changing the world for the better. He was not perfect, but he brought beauty to the world and showed us a glimpse of what we are all capable of being by living with high ideals and decency. Few will accomplish what he did in his lifetime, but his was a life that should be inspiring and hopeful to us all.

  • The Titanic as an Allegory

    “Oh the ship set out from England, and they were not far from shore.
    When the rich refused to associate with the poor,
    So they put them down below, where they’d be the first to go,
    It was sad when that great ship went down.” (folksong)

    The Titanic

    On April 15, 1912, almost exactly 100 years ago, the RMS Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. She carried 2,223 passengers, among whom were some of the wealthiest people in the world, accommodated in unbelievable luxury in the upper parts of the ship. Available for the pleasure of the first class passengers were a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, luxurious restaurants and opulent cabins. Meanwhile, below, crammed on the lower decks below the water line, were about a thousand emigrants from England, Ireland and Scandinavia, seeking a new life in North America. The Titanic carried only lifeboats enough for 1178 people, but the ship had so many advanced safety features that it was thought to be unsinkable.

    Why does the story of the Titanic fascinate us? Why was an enormously expensive film made about it? Why has a cruse ship recently retraced the Titanic’s route? I think that the reason for our fascination with the story of the Titanic is that it serves as a symbol for the present state of modern society. We are all in the great modern ship together. On top are the enormously rich, enjoying a life of unprecedented luxury, below the poor. But rich and poor alike are in the same boat, headed for disaster – surrounded by the miracles of our technology, but headed for a disastrous collision with environmental forces, the forces of nature that we have neglected in our pride and arrogance.

    The ancient Greeks were very conscious of the sin of pride – “hubris”, and it played a large role in their religion and literature. What the Greeks meant can be seen by looking in Wikipedia where the following words appear:

    “Hubris means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality, and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power…. The word is also used to describe actions of those who challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist’s fall. ”

    “…loss of contact with reality, and overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power…”? Can we recognize this today? I think that we can.

    Suggestions for further reading

    1. Adams, Simon, “Eyewitness, Titanic”, DK Publishing, New York, (2009).

    2. Aldridge, Rebecca, “The Sinking of the Titanic”, Infobase Publishing, New York, (2008).

    3. Cairns, Douglas L., “Hybris, Dishonour and Thinking Big”, Journal of Helenic Studies, 116, 1-32, (1966).

    4. Fisher, Nick, “Hybris: a study in the values in honour and shame in ancient Greece”, Aris & Phillips, UK, (1992).

  • A Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in February 2014

    On February 13 and 14, 2014, the government of Mexico will host a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The global peace movement must think carefully about how best to use the opportunities offered by the Mexico conference and by other recent breakthroughs in the struggle to eliminate the danger of a catastrophic thermonuclear war.

    The urgent need for nuclear disarmament:

    Nuclear disarmament has been one of the core aspirations of the international community since the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945. A nuclear war, even a limited one, would have disastrous humanitarian and environmental consequences.

    The total explosive power of today’s weapons is equivalent to roughly half a million Hiroshima bombs. To multiply the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of half a million changes the danger qualitatively. What is threatened today is the complete breakdown of human society.

    Although the Cold War has ended, the dangers of nuclear weapons have not been appreciably reduced. Indeed, proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism have added new dimensions to the dangers. There is no defense against nuclear terrorism.

    There are 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, several thousand of them on hair-trigger alert. The phrase “hair trigger alert” means that the person in charge has only 15 minutes to decide whether the warning from the radar system was true of false, and to decide whether or not to launch a counterattack. The danger of accidental nuclear war continues to be high. Technical failures and human failures have many times brought the world close to a catastrophic nuclear war. Those who know the system of “deterrence” best describe it as “an accident waiting to happen”.

    A nuclear war would produce radioactive contamination of the kind that we have already experienced in the areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima and in the Marshall Islands, but on an enormously increased scale.

    Also, recent studies by atmospheric scientists have shown that the smoke from burning cities produced by even a limited nuclear war would have a devastating effect on global agriculture. The studies show that the smoke would rise to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally and remain for a decade, blocking sunlight, blocking the hydrological cycle and destroying the ozone layer. Because of the devastating effect on global agriculture, darkness from even a small nuclear war could result in an estimated billion deaths from famine. This number corresponds to the fact that today, a billion people are chronically undernourished. If global agriculture were sufficiently damaged by a nuclear war, these vulnerable people might not survive.

    A large-scale nuclear war would be an even greater global catastrophe, completely destroying all agriculture for a period of ten years. Such a war would mean that most humans would die from hunger, and many animal and plant species would be threatened with extinction.

    Recent breakthroughs:

    On on 4-5 March 2013 the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Espen Barth Eide hosted an international Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. The Conference provided an arena for a fact-based discussion of the humanitarian and developmental consequences of a nuclear weapons detonation. Delegates from 127 countries as well as several UN organisations, the International Red Cross movement, representatives of civil society and other relevant stakeholders participated. Representatives from many nations made strong statements advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. The conference in Mexico in 2014 will be a follow-up to the Oslo Conference.

    Recently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has introduced a 5-point Program for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In this program he mentioned the possibility of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and urged the Security Council to convene a summit devoted to the nuclear abolition. He also urged all countries to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.

    Three-quarters of all nations support UN Secretary-General Ban’s proposal for a treaty to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons. The 146 nations that have declared their willingness to negotiate a new global disarmament pact include four nuclear weapon states: China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

    On April 2, 2013, a historic victory was won at the United Nations, and the world achieved its first treaty limiting international trade in arms. Work towards the ATT was begun in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, which requires a consensus for the adoption of any measure. Over the years, the consensus requirement has meant that no real progress in arms control measures has been made in Geneva, since a consensus among 193 nations is impossible to achieve.

    To get around the blockade, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant sent the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him on behalf of Mexico, Australia and a number of others to put the ATT to a swift vote in the General Assembly, and on Tuesday, April 3, it was adopted by a massive majority.

    The method used for the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty suggests that progress on other seemingly intractable issues could be made by the same method, by putting the relevant legislation to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly, despite the opposition of militarily powerful states.

    According to ICAN, 151 nations support a ban on nuclear weapons, while only 22 nations oppose it. Details can be found on the following link: http://www.icanw.org/why-a-ban/positions/ Similarly a Nuclear Weapons Convention might be put to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly. The following link explores this possibility: http://www.cadmusjournal.org/article/issue-6/arms-trade-treaty-opens-new-possibilities-un.

    The key feature of these proposals is that negotiations must not be allowed to be blocked by the nuclear weapons states. Asking them to participate in negotiations would be like asking tobacco companies to participate in laws to ban cigarettes, or like asking narcotics dealers to participate in the drafting of laws to ban narcotics, or, to take a recent example, it would be like inviting big coal companies to participate in a conference aimed at preventing dangerous climate change.

    In 2013, the United Nations has established an Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, which consisted both of nations and of individuals. The OEWG met in the spring of 2013 and again in August, to draft a set of proposals to be sent to the UN General Assembly.

    On 28 September, 2013, a High Level Meeting of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly took place. It was devoted to nuclear disarmament. Although the nuclear weapon states attempted to label the new negotiations as “counterproductive”, the overwhelming consensus of the meeting was that nuclear abolition must take place within the next few years, and that the humanitarian and environmental impact of nuclear weapons had to be central to all discussions. The detailed proceedings are available on the following link: http://www.un.org/en/ga/68/meetings/nucleardisarmament/ .

    The opportunity presented by the conference in Mexico in February 2014 must not be wasted. We must use it to take concrete steps towards putting legislation for the abolition of nuclear weapons to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly.

  • Avoiding Needless Wars, Part 10: Iran

    Martin HellmanThe interim agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program has been praised by some as a diplomatic breakthrough and condemned by others as a prelude to nuclear disaster. A full appraisal must wait until we see what the follow-on agreements, if any, look like. In the meantime, here’s my take:

    1. The only alternative to negotiations is a military strike powerful and sustained enough to not only destroy Iran’s current nuclear program but also to prevent its resurrection. Such actions are impossible in the current political climate — and probably in any environment.

    Domestically, Americans are tired of wars, and our budget is already highly stressed. Internationally, we’ve developed a reputation as a bull in a china shop, so an American attack would be met with howls of indignation. It also would reinvigorate terrorism against Israel as Iran totally unleashed Hezbollah and Hamas.

    A strike which prevented Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapons would not be surgical or short lived and might be impossible. At a minimum, it would require hundreds of thousands of American “boots on the ground” for years on end, and cost trillions of dollars. It probably would cost tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives.

    Even with that level of effort, an American invasion probably would fail to achieve its objective since Iran would be a more powerful adversary than either Iraq or Afghanistan, both of which have failed to produce anything that might be called an American victory.

    In 2010, TIME magazine explained why then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates advised against attacking Iran: “Military action, Gates warned, would solve nothing; in fact it would be more likely to drive Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”

    Gates’ warning was echoed last year by former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright: “If they [the Iranians] have the intent, all the weapons in the world are not going to change that. … They can slow it down. They can delay it, some estimate two to five years. But that does not take away the intellectual capital.”

    Also last year, Yuval Diskin, a former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, warned that, contrary to its intention, attacking Iran might accelerate its nuclear program.

    While a military strike is the only alternative to negotiations, the above arguments show that it is not a viable option. Diplomacy is our only real option, so the question becomes how to practice it most effectively.

    2. Given that diplomacy is our only viable option, we need to recognize that our past negotiating position – and the one Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is demanding be reinstated – is a non-starter.

    There’s no way Iran will dismantle its centrifuges and the rest of its nuclear program based on American promises of sanctions relief, especially when those promises might be rescinded by a new administration in 2015, over-ridden by Congress, or nullified by an Israeli attack.

    Our broken promises to Gaddafi add to Iran’s mistrust. In 2003, when he gave up his nuclear weapons program, President Bush promised that this good behavior would be rewarded. Yet, in 2011, our airstrikes played a key role in toppling and murdering Gaddafi.

    Iran also mistrusts us because we aided Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, even though we knew he was using chemical weapons – an action we later used as part of our tortured logic for deposing him.

    For diplomacy to work, we will have to prove that we have experienced a fundamental change of heart with respect to Iran and are prepared to follow through on the promises we make.

    3. Iran appears to be only months away from being able to make at least a crude nuclear weapon. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, Israel and the US need to stop putting all of the onus on Iran and recognize that we, too, played a part in creating the current mess.

    Repeatedly threatening to attack Iran, including with nuclear weapons (a possibility threatened in President Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review) would have made even the most rational Iranian leaders seek a deterrent. And their leadership over the last 30 years has often been far from rational. Fortunately, the current leadership appears more reasonable, and that’s an opening we need to test. If, instead, we maintain a bellicose posture, we will pull the rug out from under the moderates and empower the hardliners in Iran. Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar recently warned that American and Israeli hawks who mistrust diplomacy may be intentionally trying to strengthen hard-liners in Iran since they, too, oppose diplomacy.

    While our intention was to halt nuclear proliferation, we have actually encouraged it – particularly in Iran and North Korea – with our militarized approach to foreign affairs.

    I don’t like leaving Iran so close to having a nuclear capability, but the alternatives appear  far worse. It’s time to admit that our Iranian policy thus far has been a disaster and try something new – real diplomacy.

    Suggestions for Further Reading

    Harvard’s Belfer Center has a summary of the best arguments both pro and con on the interim agreement.

    Dr. Abbas Milani, Co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford’s Hoover Institution has an excellent article assessing Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani.

    Handout #5 from my Stanford seminar on “Nuclear Weapons, Risk, and Hope” applies critical thinking to North Korea and Iran. All handouts are accessible from my Courses Page.

    This article was originally published by Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

  • Inner City Youth Activists Attend NAPF Peace Leadership Training

    A recent NAPF Peace Leadership Training held at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst found new advocates among those living in the inner cities. Young activists involved with Arise for Justice in Springfield learned from NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell how to deal with anger and violent situations, and how to bring the principles of nonviolence into their lives.

    UMASS group

    “I will improve my anger and condone nonviolence . . . They need to expand this workshop to places like Springfield because this workshop is perfect.” — Selassei Walker, 15

    “I wanted to attend this workshop because it’s a great way to find peace within yourself and it just adds another tool to my toolbox for life. Now I will utilize everything I learned in everyday life and let other people know what I’ve learned . . .This is a great workshop that manyyoung people should hear about and be a part of.” — Corey King, 17

    “I’ve learned how to react towards certain situations with the understanding of why violence happens and also how to express myself and which actions and expressions to do/not do during a conflict.” — Courtney Watkins, 20

    “I will utilize what I’ve learned at Arise . . . Non-violence is our most powerful tool against corruption . . . Bring Paul to Arise!” — Frank Cincotta, 22

    “I originally wanted to use the training, to use the tactics at work and everyday environment. I live in a very violent city and this training can be used to inform other youth how to deflate violent confrontations . . . This is something that should be held at local schools and areas where peace is a problem . . . I hope you come to Springfield, MA!” — Julia Scott, 27 (founder of one of the Arise youth groups in Springfield)

    Event planner Mary McCarthy, a member of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice and participant in the first NAPF Peace Leadership Training held in Santa Barbara in summer 2012, is now working to bring Paul Chappell and the Peace Leadership Training to downtown Springfield in the spring of 2014. Springfield is known for having one of the highest crime rates in the country.
    McCarthy said, “Paul Chappell explains that Peace Leadership Training is a gateway. It is inspiring to see young people take in the knowledge of nonviolence, then turn around and want to facilitate positive change in their community…This is the essence of peace work.”

    Within the next several months, Paul Chappell will be giving peace leadership trainings in Uganda, Canada and the University of San Diego Graduate School of Leadership and Education Sciences. Email Paul at pchappell@napf.org for more information.

  • Some Thoughts on the 2013 Nagasaki Appeal

    David KriegerThe Fifth Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was held November 2-4, 2013 in Nagasaki.  Citizens of Nagasaki continued their tradition of convening such Global Citizens’ Assemblies, which they have held every few years since the year 2000.  I have been privileged to have been a participant and speaker in all five meetings as an invited guest of the city of Nagasaki, and to have participated in the drafting of all the Nagasaki Appeals.

    The 2013 Nagasaki Appeal is an extraordinary document.  It reflects the spirit of Nagasaki, the second of two atomic bombed cities on the planet, and the desire of its atomic bomb survivors to assure that Nagasaki remains the last city ever to suffer such a tragedy.  I believe the Appeal should be read by every citizen of Earth and studied by young people everywhere.  I’d like to share with you some of its highlights.

    The Appeal begins with good news and bad news.  It points out that over 50,000 nuclear weapons have been eliminated in the past quarter century (good news), but that 17,000 remain, only a small number of which could end civilization and most life on Earth (bad news).  It expresses concerns that repeated delays by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their commitment to nuclear disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “has discredited the nonproliferation regime and may destroy it.”  Such a consequence would indeed be very bad news.

    The Appeal takes note of the nuclear power accident at Fukushima, Japan in March 2011: “The fear and suffering of Fukushima citizens for their health and life renewed our recognition of the danger of radioactivity, whether from nuclear weapons or nuclear energy.  The experiences of Fukushima and the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown us that the effects of nuclear disasters are uncontrollable in time and space.”

    Despite “daunting challenges,” the Appeal finds there are reasons for hope, among which is the renewed international attention to the devastating humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.  It also found that reliance upon nuclear deterrence for national security is “delusional,” in a world in which human security and global security are threatened by nuclear weapons.

    The Appeal calls for a series of concrete actions, including commencing negotiations on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; the US and Russia taking unilateral and bilateral nuclear disarmament measures; phasing out of reliance on nuclear weapons in the security policies of all countries; having greater citizen participation in nuclear abolition campaigns; establishing new nuclear weapon-free zones; aiding the victims of Fukushima; and learning the lesson that humanity cannot continue to rely upon nuclear energy any more than it can rely upon nuclear weapons.

    The Appeal also offers some specific advice to the Japanese government based upon its special responsibilities as the world’s only country to be attacked with nuclear weapons.  These responsibilities include: coming out from under the US nuclear umbrella; providing leadership to achieve a nuclear weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia; demonstrating leadership for nuclear weapons abolition; and seeking and welcoming international assistance in controlling the radiological crisis at Fukushima.

    The participants in the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly pledge to continue “utmost efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.”  It is a necessary goal for humanity and for the future.  It is the great challenge that confronts all of us living on the planet in the Nuclear Age.  Nagasaki is doing its part to lead the way.  They need our voices and our commitment to succeed.