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  • Dragon’s Teeth

    A headless man is running down the street

    He is carrying his head in his hands

    A woman runs after him

    She has his heart in her hands

    The bombs keep falling sowing hate

    And they keep running down the streets

    Not the same two people but thousands of others & brothers

    All running from the bombs that keep falling sowing pure hate

    And for every bomb that’s dropped up spring a thousand Bin Ladens a thousand new terrorists

    Like dragon’s teeth sown

    From which armed warriors sprang up

    Crying for blood

    As the smart bombs sowing hate

    Keep falling and falling and falling

  • Renewal at Los Alamos Weapons Lab Resurrects Deeper Debate

    While a bidding war for control of the US’s top nuke facility pairs two state universities with two corporations, critics are asking questions that won’t appear in either team’s proposal.

    As the 60th anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, one of the nation’s top nuclear weapons laboratories is seeking new management. Or more accurately, the Department of Energy is sponsoring a competitive bidding war for control of the Los Alamos National Laboratory – the first since the lab’s secretive genesis during World War II as the Manhattan Project, the birthplace of the bombs that devastated out those Japanese cities.

    But the contest over who will run the nation’s premier nuclear arms facility has prompted activists to ask harder questions than just those concerning who will operate the facility safer and more efficiently. Some critics challenge the very wisdom of what they see as an administration trudging headlong into another nuclear arms race.

    On one side of the contract face-off is the University of California, which has run Los Alamos for over 60 years. UC is paired up with Bechtel, the global engineering firm best known for its enormous, largely unfulfilled contracts to help rebuild Iraq’s war-torn public infrastructure.

    On the other side of the bidding war is the University of Texas, which has aggressively sought management of a national lab since 1996. UT is joined by Lockheed-Martin, the world’s top defense contractor and manager of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

    Both groups have also added smaller contractors with experience managing components of the nuclear weapons complex as junior partners. Meanwhile, the UT-Lockheed team has involved thirty universities listed as an “Alliance Academic Network” in its portfolio. Proposals from the two consortiums were due July 19, and the Department of Energy will pick a new management team by December 1.

    The bidding war for Los Alamos has shaken the lab community and inspired a debate over who can best run the $2.2 billion a year operation. Most Los Alamos employees are not concerned with questions about the country’s weapons policy, according to Greg Mello with the Los Alamos Study Group, a research organization that promotes disarmament. Instead, said Mello, they “are mostly concerned about pensions, working conditions, and their identities as scientists.”

    There are misgivings among some employees at the lab about working for a corporation, said Mellow, who claimed most people there prefer to consider their workplace an academic institution. “People say, ‘If I wanted to work for a corporation, I would have done so earlier in my career,’” relayed Mello.

    But many anti-nuclear activists and lab watchers see the debate over who should manage Los Alamos as obscuring a critical discussion of the role nuclear weapons play in the world today.

    Hugh Gusterson, an MIT anthropologist who has written two books based on his experience living and studying the culture of nuclear weapons labs, sees both bids as “conservative” in that they are headed by people entrenched in the weapons bureaucracy. “The real question is, ‘Do you need two nuclear weapons labs?’” Gusterson added, referring to Los Alamos and its “sister” lab in California, Lawrence-Livermore.

    Arjun Makhijani, an engineer and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nonprofit organization that strives to make science accessible to laypersons, is even more blunt. “I have a date when I think the [ University of California] should have gotten out of the nuclear weapons business,” Makhijani said. “December, 1944 – when it was discovered that Germany did not have the Bomb.”

    Los Alamos is a flashpoint for arms control advocates because the facility is responsible for an estimated 80 percent of the nuclear weapons ever designed in the United States. In addition, lab administrators have historically had a hand in championing nuclear weapons and pooh-poohing arms control agreements and bans on testing, said Jackie Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation, an advocacy organization that specializes in supporting anti-nuclear activism.

    Paul Robinson, who stepped down as the CEO of the Sandia operation to run the UT-Lockheed bid and will be director of Los Alamos if his team wins, has been a proponent of new, low-yield nuclear weapons such as so-called “mini-nukes” and “bunker-buster” warheads designed to take out deeply entrenched targets. In a 2001 “white paper” Robinson argued for a transformation of the nuclear stockpile, including the re-design of existing warheads and the development of low-yield nukes, to deal with “To Whom It May Concern” enemies, a term applied to any non-Russian states or terrorist groups

    Naturally, Robinson also backed President Bush’s push – and Congress’s 2003 decision – to repeal the 1994 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons. Because the national labs rely almost entirely on federal funding, officials such as Robinson often find themselves promoting nuclear weapons to lawmakers.

    Los Alamos National Laboratory and the companies associated with whichever team wins the bidding war are positioned to benefit from the largesse of a nuclear arms revival. President Bush has consistently asked Congress to fund new nuclear weapons; increased production of plutonium pits, the part of the bomb that renders it atomic; and a facelift to the Nevada Test Site in order to reduce the amount of time it would take to resume underground nuclear testing.

    But Congress has trimmed most of the Bush administration’s requests for the past four years.

    Still, many arms control advocates fear that the Los Alamos competition is designed, in part, to make way for a resumption of warhead production. Several Los Alamos critics have fingered plutonium pit production as a key to Los Alamos’s future. As part of the competition, bidders will be rewarded for demonstrating how they will meet the perceived need for more plutonium pits – ones that could go to refresh older warheads or be installed in new ones.

    Currently, the lab is the only site in the US that can produce a pit certified for installation in a functional nuclear weapon. But a “Modern Pit Facility,” capable of producing up to 450 pits per year, could find a home at Los Alamos. “The sense in Congress is that Los Alamos is really troubled,” said Carah Ong, director of the Washington DC office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a lobbyist for that organization. Congress thinks Los Alamos “needs some results-oriented focus,” she told The NewStandard.. “That’s where pit production comes in because it gives Los Alamos the unique value that Congress is looking for.”

    Some Los Alamos critics are not sitting on the sidelines for the lab war games. Nuclear Watch in New Mexico and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) in California have joined forces and sent the Department of Energy their alternative plan for the lab. Unlike UT-Lockheed and UC-Bechtel, the two watchdog groups are making their proposal public.

    “Our emphasis is a pretty radical mission change by truly discouraging the proliferation of nuclear weapons through concrete example,” Jay Coghlan of the activist group Nuclear Watch New Mexico told TNS. “We are proposing a fundamental realignment of the nuclear weapons program,” he explained, by creating an Associate Directorship of Nuclear Nonproliferation. That position would be “responsible for encouraging and verifying compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” Nuclear weapons-related projects would have to answer to the nonproliferation director.

    This restructuring aligns with Nuclear Watch and Tri-Valley CAREs’ “proposed program of maintaining [but not advancing] nuclear weapons while they await dismantlement,” according to the organizations’ press release.

  • EU3-Iranian Negotiations: A New Approach

    Unless a new approach is pursued, chances that current negotiations between France, Germany, Great Britain (EU3) and Iran will soon see a breakthrough are slim. In May, after Iran again threatened to resume enrichment activities, the EU3 pledged to present Iran a detailed offer by the end of July or early August 2005. While recent developments of the past month are likely to complicate the bilateral negotiations, the seemingly entrenched positions of both parties are the main factor obstructing a successful resolution regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

    The EU3 have engaged Iran in talks since December 2004, after Iran broke its earlier agreement of October 2003 to suspend enrichment activities. Negotiations have since proceeded at a slow pace, nonetheless withstanding pressure from the United States who has urged for Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Iran claims its program serves peaceful purposes only. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not found Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, neither has it verified the country’s compliance. The EU3 strategy to offer Iran economic incentives in turn for “objective assurances” of the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program has thus far remained unfruitful, even after the United States agreed to support Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization in March 2005.

    Iran has a history of deceiving the international community about its nuclear activities, which greatly undermines the confidence building process of the ongoing negotiations. Most recently, on June 16, 2005, the IAEA announced Iran’s failure to disclose comprehensive information regarding its plutonium activities. Iran had earlier stated that its plutonium experiments ended in 1993. But the IAEA verified that reprocessing experiments took place in 1995 and 1998. Reprocessing separates plutonium which can be used to make nuclear weapons. The IAEA started its investigations into the Iranian nuclear program in 2002 and has since revealed a number of breaches that make Iranian nuclear intentions questionable.

    The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new President will most likely complicate the EU3-Iranian negotiations. At his first press conference after the elections, Ahmadinejad stated that “We will continue negotiations with the Europeans with the aim of safeguarding our national interests and emphasizing the right of the Iranian nation to use peaceful nuclear energy.” While this seems to indicate a continuation of Iran’s current policy, Ahmadinejad also said he will take on a tougher negotiation position. A top Irani nuclear official recently asserted: “Taking into account the personality of the new president, I think the negotiations will be more difficult.” On July 13, 2005, Ahmadinejad, who will take office in early August, announced a new direction for Iranian foreign policy. Reorganizing the current nuclear negotiation team might be part of this new policy measure. The instant resumption of enrichment activities would certainly lead to an impasse with the EU3.

    Conflicting information about the resignation of the Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Hassan Rowhani, might be connected to Iran’s change in government. Currently, Rowhani, a moderate supporting President Mohammad Khatami’s policy of reform, is the chief negotiator in the talks with the EU3. The Iranian news agency Irna announced on July 6, 2005 that Rowhani sent his letter of resignation to Khatami, but AP reported he denied this move. Rowhani’s resignation would trigger a change in leadership in the Iranian negotiation team that could adversely affect the outcome of the talks. Named as a possible successor to Rowhani, Ali Larijani, the representative of the Supreme Leader on the Supreme National Security Council, stated in March 2005: “ The continuation of talks up until now was meant for confidence building. However, I believe that the issue of confidence building in Iran’s nuclear dossier is a two-edged sword. If the Europeans consider it to be one-sided and as Iran’s debt to the West, then the negotiations will not be negotiations at all but a dictated text meant to humiliate the nation, and naturally the Iranians would be obliged to show that their national pride is not less than Europe’s or the United States.”

    First and foremost, Iran wants to maintain its capability to enrich uranium and separate plutonium for peaceful purposes, a right it claims according to Article IV of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). An Iranian proposal in April 2005 – which the EU3 rejected – stated the government’s intention to test 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz. In addition to pursuing its inalienable right under the NPT, Iran recognizes the national prestige that comes with mastering the fuel cycle and proclaims its desire to belong to the “exclusive club of technologically advanced states.” The Iranian government has also repeatedly made the link between the nuclear fuel cycle and national sovereignty to independently meet its energy needs in the long-term.

    The current position-based nature of the talks will continue to impede negotiations between the two parties. Iran’s current position is that it will not give up its capabilities to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, reiterated as recently as July 12, 2005. The EU3 on the other hand have repeatedly stated that this position is an unacceptable one in the long-run. On July 5, 2005, the French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy stated: “Our ultimate objective is to ensure that there is a suspension of the enrichment and reprocessing of hazardous nuclear material. I think it’s absolutely necessary to state that the Europeans will never accept the resumption of the Iranian military nuclear activities.” Iran has demonstrated some flexibility towards limiting its enrichment capabilities, but the EU3 is unlikely to amend its position, given the lack of transparency of Iranian nuclear activities and ongoing IAEA efforts to verify Iran’s status of safeguards compliance.

    To create favorable conditions for a successful outcome both parties must move beyond their entrenched positions, which are in complete opposition to each other. To solve the crisis in the long-term, the EU3 must open up the negotiations forum to discussions about both parties’ long-term interests. Talks about broader security issues, including Iran’s national security concerns, will help both parties move away from their current fixed positions and bring more options for a solution to the table. The Unites States should also become involved in the negotiation process in order to grant significant recognition to the regional security debate, especially given the US role in Iraq and the need for greater regional stability supported actively by the US through negative security assurances. At a security conference in February 2005, Gholami Khoshroo, the Deputy Minister for International and legal Affairs, stated: “We believe that it is imperative to use the opportunity created by the removal of a great menace to our region’s security to replace mistrust and arms race with confidence building and transparency, and to establish an indigenously-based and internationally guaranteed regional security arrangement under the UN auspices to spare our region from further bloodshed.”

    An explicit EU3 and US recognition of legitimate demands for regional stability and security would serve the long term interests of both the EU and the United States. Even if the negotiations cannot satisfy all interests brought to the table, the likelihood of progress with an interest-based approach is higher than if the parties continue to confront each other with fixed positions.

    *Anna Langenbach is the 2005 Wally T. Drew Intern in the Washington DC office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Langenbach is a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies where she specializes in nonproliferation studies.

  • The Way Ahead for a Safer World

    Towards the end of July 1945, Japan was on the verge of surrendering to the Allies. Despite military advice to the contrary, United States President Harry. S. Truman authorised the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki on August 9. The President was fully aware of the deadly consequences of deploying this weapon, from the results of the Nevada test conducted just a month earlier. Analysts believe this decision was primarily taken to convey a message to the rest of the world community and especially to the Soviet Union: the emergence of the US as the sole leader of the post-war world. Predictably, other nations followed suit to produce the atomic bomb: the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and lastly, China in 1964. Ten years later, India demonstrated its technical capability and conducted its first “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion” in 1974. Twenty-four years later, in May 1998, India and Pakistan conducted further tests and declared themselves nuclear weapon capable states.

    It was in protest against nuclear testing by France that the valiant ship “Rainbow Warrior” belonging to Greenpeace was lost. She was sunk by French agents on July 10, 1985, whilst moored at Auckland harbour, in New Zealand. She was due to sail the next day for Mururoa Atoll, the venue of the French tests. Needless to say, this triggered a worldwide outcry and David Lange, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, described it as “a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism.” Not only have Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear activists in civil society protested against nuclear testing, but India too has been at the forefront, calling for global nuclear disarmament. Despite almost 35 years of the Non Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) existence, the Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs) have failed to carry out nuclear disarmament as per Article VI. All that the world community has been able to achieve during this period is to give the NPT a fresh lease of life into perpetuity. Meanwhile, efforts to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force have also failed. The US rejected the CTBT in the Senate, and that virtually sealed its fate. The two five yearly NPT review meetings held at the United Nations in 2000 and recently in May this year, have both resulted in virtual disaster. Nothing tangible has been possible in persuading the NWSs to move towards nuclear disarmament.

    In a few weeks from now, we shall be remembering the hundreds of thousands lost in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If anything, the world is becoming more and more of a dangerous place to live in. Despite the end of the Cold War, both Russia and the US have nearly 3,000 nukes under hair trigger alert. We have enough nuclear warheads to destroy this beautiful planet many times over. Not content with this, every NWS has been engaged in upgrading its nuclear inventories with the latest technologies. Whilst all this may sound exciting, the problem of managing nukes with safety is yet to be attained. Many questions still remain unanswered. How are we to ensure correct interpretation of intent, especially if deception is in the mind of the adversary? If things are going very badly in the conventional warfare scene, can we be sure that the losing party will still not raise the level to a nuclear exchange? Can these weapons not be deployed either by accident or due to a misinterpretation of detection on any one of the many sensors? What then is the way ahead?

    India needs to take the initiative to address nuclear disarmament very seriously. Perhaps the best time is now. Let India build on the Rajiv Gandhi plan for total nuclear disarmament as presented by him to the U.N. in 1988. India should convene an International Conference by inviting all the Nuclear Weapons States and also those 43 states listed for bringing the CTBT into force. This would provide a great opportunity to all the countries to put on the table their concerns and contributions for making this world a safer place to live in. Now that India is a nuclear weapons capable nation, an initiative of this nature at this stage would be widely welcomed by the world community.

    Whilst the ultimate goal must remain to run down nuclear weapons to zero, even partial success like achieving a consensus on `de-alerting’ will be a great step forward. For as long as these horrible weapons exist, there is always the danger that they could be used either by accident or design. Let the loss of so many innocents and that of the “Rainbow Warrior” not go in vain. The struggle must continue to make this planet a safe place for all of us and successive generations to come.

    Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas is a former Chief of India’s Naval Staff.

    Originally published in the Hindu.

  • To the Inheritors of the Manhattan Project

    In national research laboratories, such as Los Alamos or Livermore in the USA, Chelyabinsk or Arzamas in Russia, and Aldermaston in the UK, many thousands of scientists are employed doing pure and applied research for specific purposes, cloaked in secrecy, purposes that I see as the negation of scientific pursuit: the development of new, or the improvement of old weapons of mass destruction. Among these thousands there may be some scientists who are motivated by considerations of national security. The vast majority, however, have no such motivation; in the past they were lured into this work by the siren call of rapid advancement and unlimited opportunity. What is going on in these laboratories is not only a terrible waste of scientific endeavour but a perversion of the noble calling of science.

    The Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, who was a most distinguished physicist, and one-time leader of the Manhattan Project, said:

    “Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.

    Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons – and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.”

    I would like to see an endorsement of this call by the scientific community. I will go further and suggest that the scientific community should demand the elimination of nuclear weapons and, in the first instance, request that the nuclear powers honour their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Let me, in conclusion, remind you that the basic human value is life itself; the most important of human rights is the right to live. It is the duty of scientists to see to it that, through their work, life will not be put into peril, but will be made safe and its quality enhanced.

    Joseph Rotblat

    About Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat KCMG, CBE, D.Sc., FRS, Nobel Peace Laureate, 1995: Professor Rotblat, now 97 years old, was born in Warsaw in 1908, and has been a British citizen since 1946. He is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of London, and Emeritus President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. During World War II, Professor Rotblat initiated work on the atom bomb at LiverpoolUniversity, and later joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. When it became clear that Germany was not working on the bomb, he resigned from the project, the only scientist to do so before the bomb was tested. He then changed his line of research to medicine and was Chief Physicist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He is the only living signer of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955. He has devoted his life to averting the danger posed by nuclear weapons, working with the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, the organization he helped to found, and with which he shares the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author of some 400 publications. Professor Rotblat can be reached at Pugwash Conferences On Science And World Affairs, London Office, Ground Floor Flat, 63A Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BJ, tel 020-7405, fax 020-7831 5651, e-mail: pugwash@mac.com website: www.pugwash.org

    Background to the letter: In Geneva in April 2003, Pamela Meidell mentioned to Professor Rotblat that she once told the story of his walking away from the Manhattan Project in an interview with New Mexico Public Radio. She asked any nuclear scientist who was listening to the show to listen to his/her conscience and follow in Professor Rotblat’s footsteps. He was very eager to know if anyone had responded. Sadly, she didn’t know. Perhaps this message directly from him will bring forth a response.

    On 6 July 2005, the Atomic Mirror wrote a letter to Professor Joseph Rotblat, the only nuclear scientist to walk away from the Manhattan Project, asking if he would like to send a message back to Los Alamos for the 16 July remembrance of the birth of the nuclear age. He graciously responded with the message above.

  • The World Speaks on Iraq

    The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) held its culminating session in Istanbul June 24-27, the last and most elaborate of sixteen condemnations of the Iraq War held worldwide in the past two years, in Barcelona, Tokyo, Brussels, Seoul, New York, London, Mumbai and other cities. The Istanbul session used the verdicts and some of the testimony from the earlier sessions; the cumulative nature of the sessions built interest among peace activists, resulting in this final session having by far the strongest international flavor. The cumulative process, described by organizers as “the tribunal movement,” is unique in history: Never before has a war aroused this level of protest on a global scale–first to prevent it (the huge February 15, 2003, demonstrations in eighty countries) and then to condemn its inception and conduct. The WTI expresses the opposition of global civil society to the Iraq War, a project perhaps best described as a form of “moral globalization.”

    The WTI generated intense interest in Turkey, Europe, the Arab world and on the Internet but was ignored by the American mainstream media. Here in Istanbul, the WTI was treated for days as the number-one news story. There are several explanations for this, starting with near-unanimous opposition to the Iraq War in Turkey. More relevant were the vivid connections between Turkey and the war: physical proximity, an array of adverse effects and, more dramatic, a contradictory government posture–the refusal of the Turkish parliament in 2003 to give in to US pressure to authorize an invasion of Iraq from Turkish territory, while the Prime Minister allowed the continuing use of the huge US air base at Incirlik for strategic operations during and after the war.

    The WTI was loosely inspired by the Bertrand Russell tribunal held in Copenhagen and Stockholm in 1967 to protest the Vietnam War, which documented with extensive testimony the allegations of criminality associated with the American role in Vietnam. The Russell tribunal featured the participation of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other notable European left intellectuals. It relied on international law and morality to condemn the war but made no pretension of being a legal body, and its jury contained no international law experts.

    Of course, a tribunal of this sort is immediately criticized on one hand as a kangaroo court that ignores the other sides of the legal and political argument and, on the other, is treated as a meaningless use of a courtroom format since there is neither an adversary process nor enforcement powers. In my view, these criticisms reveal a misunderstanding of the undertaking. To be sure, the WTI is not an organ of the state and cannot count on its judgments being implemented by such state institutions as police or prisons. Rather, the WTI is self-consciously an organ of civil society, with its own potential enforcement by way of economic boycotts, civil disobedience and political campaigns. And on the substantive issues of legality, it is designed to confirm the truth of the widely held allegations about the Iraq War, not to discover the truth by way of political, legal and moral inquiry and debate. It proceeds from a presumption that the allegations of illegality and criminality are valid and that its job is to reinforce that conclusion as persuasively and vividly as possible.

    The motivations of citizens to organize such a tribunal do not arise from uncertainty about issues of legality and morality but from a conviction that the institutions of the state, including the UN, have failed to act to protect a vulnerable people against such Nuremberg crimes as aggression, violations of the laws of war and crimes against humanity. It is only because of such institutional failures in the face of ongoing suffering and abuse in Iraq that individuals and institutions made the immense organizational effort to put together this kind of transnational civic tribunal. We should also recall that the Nuremberg Tribunal’s enduring contribution was not finding out whether the Nazi regime had committed the crimes alleged but documenting its criminality.

    The decision of the WTI was rendered by a fifteen-member Jury of Conscience, chaired by Indian novelist Arundhati Roy and including two Americans, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologues fame. A Panel of Advocates–coordinated by Turgut Tarhanli, dean of the Bilgi Law School in Istanbul, and myself–organized the fifty-four presentations. The advocates came from diverse backgrounds, and the presentations included some incisive analyses of international-law issues by such respected world experts as Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics; two former UN assistant secretaries general, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponek, both of whom had resigned in the 1990s to protest the UN’s role in Iraq; several seemingly credible eyewitnesses who had held important nongovernment jobs in pre-invasion Iraq, who gave accounts of the devastation and cruelty of the occupation; Tim Goodrich, a former American soldier and co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who gave a moving presentation of why he turned against the war; and overall assessments of how the war fits into American ambitions for global empire, by such renowned intellectuals as Samir Amin, Johan Galtung and Walden Bello. Their presentations combined an acute explanation of the strains on world order arising from predatory forms of economic globalization with the view that the US response to 9/11 was mainly motivated by regional and global strategic aims and only incidentally, if at all, by antiterrorism.

    After compromise and debate, the jury reached a unanimous verdict that combined findings with recommendations for action. Its core conclusion condemned the Iraq War as a war of aggression in violation of the UN Charter and international law, and determined that those responsible for planning and waging it should be held criminally responsible. George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz were listed in the verdict by name. Less predictable was that the UN was faulted for failing to fulfill its responsibilities to protect member states against aggression. One recommendation supported the rights of the Iraqi people to resist an illegal occupation, as authorized by international law. Further recommendations specified that US media be held responsible for contributing to the war of aggression, that American products associated with corporations doing business in Iraq–like Halliburton, Coca-Cola, Bechtel and Boeing–be boycotted and that peace movement activists around the world urge the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq. The verdict was framed as a moral and political assessment of the Iraq War, and relied on the guidelines of international law to lend weight to its conclusions. The jury’s view of international law accords with a virtually unanimous consensus of international-law experts outside the United States and Britain.

    Arundhati Roy imparted the prevailing spirit of civic dedication and moral leadership in a public statement at the culminating session. Her words summarize the experience for many of us: “The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated and humiliated.”

    Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the author of Religion and Humane Global Governance (Palgrave) and, most recently, The Great Terror War (Olive Branch). He is currently visiting professor of global studies at UC Santa Barbara.

    Originally published in the August 1, 2005 edition of The Nation.

  • Memories of Hiroshima

    In late July 2004, as I opened the window curtains of my posh room in the Rihga Royal Hotel and looked out at the city of Hiroshima, I was struck by how marvelously it had been restored. Fifty-nine years ago, Hiroshima had been nearly obliterated by the fire and blast of the U.S. atomic bombing, which killed 140,000 people by the end of 1945 and left tens of thousands of others dying slowly and painfully from radiation poisoning. Now the city had been thoroughly rebuilt, with its sea of modern buildings, surrounded by green mountains, glittering in the sunshine. More than a million people lived there.

    Decades ago, Danilo Dolci, the Italian pacifist, had criticized the rebuilding of Hiroshima, claiming that its ruins should be left as a symbol of the horrors of nuclear war. It was a harsh judgment, but I could understand his point. If the human race could tidy up from its murderous nuclear follies this well, what would prevent it from repeating them? In a variety of forms, this question pressed heavily upon me throughout my stay in Japan.

    I was visiting the country for ten days to lecture on nuclear disarmament-related issues. As the author of a recently-completed trilogy, The Struggle Against the Bomb, I had been asked to speak at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, at the Peace Research Institute of Meiji Gakuin University (in Tokyo), at assorted venues in Tokyo and Hiroshima as an overseas guest of Gensuikin (the Japan Congress Against Atomic & Hydrogen Bombs), and by the Hiroshima Association for Nuclear Weapons Abolition. Through these talks and conversations with activists, I probably learned more from the Japanese than they learned from me.

    In a number of ways, the Japanese peace and disarmament movement was experiencing a difficult time. Although it continued to constitute a powerful presence in the nation’s life, its membership was declining and young people, particularly, did not seem to be drawn to it. Symptomatically, the number of visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was dwindling. To many Japanese, the antinuclear campaign seemed frozen in time, irrelevant to contemporary events. In addition, Gensuikin, one of the two major nuclear disarmament groups in Japan, had been undermined by the collapse of the staunchly antimilitarist Socialist Party and by the ebbing strength of the labor movement–for decades its two key pillars of support. Meanwhile, the leaders of the ruling conservative party (Japan’s misnamed Liberal Democratic Party) were planning to “revise” Article 9, the antiwar clause of Japan’s constitution. They had even begun to talk about developing nuclear weapons for Japan. Also, there was great frustration at the militarism of the Bush administration–particularly its war upon Iraq, its abandonment of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and its plan to build new nuclear weapons.

    Overall, then, there was a sense of frustration and, at times, pessimism, among peace-minded Japanese people. Again and again, I heard the question raised: With the hibakusha (the survivors of the atomic bombing) now elderly and dying, who will take up their key role in the nuclear disarmament campaign? When, during a Gensuikin-organized press conference, I was asked that question by a Japanese newspaper reporter, I did my best to answer it. But I am not sure I did a very good job.

    On the other hand, Japan’s nuclear disarmament campaign had a level of strength and integration in the broader society that North American peace groups might well envy. Gensuikin’s annual conference, which opened in Hiroshima on August 4, drew 3,500 registered participants. Its opening session, with thousands of activists in attendance, featured powerful antinuclear speeches not only by Shigetoshi Iwamatsu and Shingo Fukuyama (the chair and secretary general of Gensuikin), but by Tadatoshi Akiba (Mayor of Hiroshima and Chair of Mayors for Peace, a worldwide organization) and the president of Rengo (Japan’s labor federation). Its press conference was covered sympathetically by Japan’s major newspapers. Its local groups, usually headed by labor union activists, worked throughout Japan on issues ranging from opposing nuclear weapons, to defending Article 9, to agitating against the expansion of U.S. military bases.

    Furthermore, Japan’s nuclear disarmament movement found a powerful supporter in Hiroshima’s Mayor Akiba. A mathematician who was educated at MIT and, despite his progressive views, elected to the highest office in this rather conservative city, Akiba was a dynamic proponent of the movement. His administration had given very substantial funding to the Hiroshima Peace Institute and, in 2004, its staff members and the speakers at its annual symposium (including this writer) were wined and dined by the mayor at his official residence.

    Addressing Hiroshima’s annual atomic bombing commemoration ceremony on August 6, Akiba delivered an eloquent plea for the abolition of nuclear weapons. “The city of Hiroshima,” he stated, “along with the Mayors for Peace and our 611 member cities in 109 countries and regions,” had declared the period through the following August a “Year of Remembrance and Action for a Nuclear-Free World.” The goal would be the signing of a Nuclear Weapons Convention in 2010 and the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020. He also denounced “the egocentric view of the U.S. government” (which had been “ignoring the United Nations and its foundation of international law”), criticized terrorists for their “reliance on violence-amplifying” strategies, and condemned North Korea and other nations for “buying into the worthless policy of `nuclear insurance.’”

    The August 6 commemoration ceremony at which Akiba spoke was quite impressive. Boy scouts and girl scouts distributed bouquets of flowers to participants, school children attended in large numbers, and perhaps 20,000 people turned out for the event, conducted in the Peace Park under a broiling sun. A representative of the United Nations delivered a speech by Secretary-General Kofi Annan that warned of “the shadow of nuclear war hanging over our world.” Two local sixth graders spoke of children’s stake in world peace. Even conservative Japanese Prime Minister Junichero Koizumi addressed the assemblage, professing his concern for peace and nuclear disarmament–although members of the audience later criticized his mumbled statement, which, given his dispatch of Japanese troops to Iraq and disdain for Article 9, they considered quite hypocritical.

    The most moving events occurred that evening, when thousands of people gathered to float colored lanterns down Hiroshima’s rivers, in honor of the lives lost in the atomic bombing. Unlike the commemoration ceremony, this was an informal venture, and the milling crowds, diverse music, and disparate activities in the adjoining Peace Park gave it a more spontaneous flavor.

    As our small group of Gensuikin activists and their overseas guests wended its way through the crowd, we came upon the Children’s Peace Monument, a statue of young Sadako Sasaki. At age two, Sadako had survived the atomic attack on Hiroshima; but, at age twelve, she was stricken by radiation-induced leukemia. Despite the pain, she began folding paper (origami) cranes in the hope of a cure, for there is a Japanese legend that if one folds a thousand cranes, one will be granted a wish. Sadako, however, died before reaching that number. Thereafter, her grief-stricken friends completed the process, and ever since then millions of Japanese schoolchildren–and people around the world–have folded cranes in her memory.

    As we approached Sadako’s statue, I noticed the vast number of tiny cranes that had been so carefully folded and strung together. And there was a group of young Japanese schoolchildren on the site, singing songs of peace. The children, I thought, were absolutely beautiful, and as I listened to their high-pitched voices raised in song, I had to make an effort not to burst into tears. How could the rulers of nations have approved the atomic bombing of such children in the past? How could they still be making plans to slaughter them in the future?

    Mulling over my experiences in Japan, I think that people should worry less about Hiroshima’s reconstruction and the aging of the hibakusha. We do not require the ruins of cities or even the testimony of survivors to remind us of the need to reject nuclear weapons. We have only to look at the beauty of the world–and especially its children–to understand that nuclear war is a monstrous crime.

    Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press).

  • The Three Lessons of Srebrenica

    Today, 50,000 people are expected to crowd into the Bosnian village of Srebrenica, for a 10th anniversary that’s no celebration. July 11 is a day of mourning for Bosnians as they commemorate the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust. On that day, the Serb militia separated more than 7,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys from their families, brutally murdered them, and threw their bodies into mass graves. ”Never again,” we had said. We were wrong. And we’ll be wrong again unless we learn three key lessons.

    First, the Srebrenica massacre demonstrates that genocidal aggression requires well-reasoned military intervention. Americans assured the Dutch that, if they would commit peacekeepers as a tripwire around the UN-designated ”safe haven,” the United States would lead forces to come in with air support to stop a Serb onslaught. Instead, we let ourselves be held back by a ”dual key” arrangement, whereby NATO would not take action without the UN’s affirmation.

    Secretary General Kofi Annan has since called the UN refusal to accept military intervention an appalling failure. We stood by, wringing our hands, as thousands were brutally executed in a massacre that might have been prevented by decisive action. Instead, we now have gruesome testimony for war crimes trials — a dishonorable substitute.

    After Srebrenica, when the United States finally led NATO going in with air power followed by troops, we did it mostly right. Local and international observers agree that demobilization and reintegration of Bosnian combatants has been a success, and no American soldiers were lost to hostile action. The tragedy is that we waited so long to call the Serbs’ bluff and that our force commanders initially refused to pursue the war criminals. Meanwhile, half of all Bosnians had lost their homes. In a country the size of Maryland, more than 150,000 were killed — that’s 50 World Trade Centers in three years.

    Even with security guaranteed by foreign troops, it has taken years for the international community to help survivors return to the hardest-hit areas, given a destroyed economy and all-too-strong presence of indicted war criminals still on the loose. In short, we should have intervened sooner.

    Second, many outsiders believe wrongly that ethnic hatred made the war inevitable. It’s easy for the international community to use the notion of centuries-old ethnic or religious divisions as an excuse for inaction. But it was President Slobodan Milosevic’s political power grab that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. While there were enclaves of one group or another, in Bosnian cities up to 40 percent of marriages crossed ethnic lines.

    Before the war, holy days were often celebrated with friends of other faiths, although without differences of language or skin tone, many long-time neighbors and friends didn’t even know each other’s heritage. This was not a religious war. Instead, greedy politicians whipped up the animosity and fear that fueled the war through a barrage of propaganda invoking 14th century grievances. But in the minds of most Bosnians, lasting peace was, and is, possible.

    Third, we must expand our restricted approach to peace-building to include a broader range of stakeholders, including women. As US ambassador in Austria during the war, I hosted negotiations and organized conferences, trying to promote peace in Bosnia. Almost every Balkan or international policy-maker was a man, even though Yugoslavia had the highest proportion of women PhDs in Europe. Would women have made a difference, if they’d had a place at the table? Over the years I’ve met with women on all sides of the conflict. One, an engineer named Alenka Savic, represented hundreds of others I interviewed when she said: ”This was not our war.”

    During the conflict, most US military officials and diplomats were unaware that some 40 women’s organizations were operating under the radar. Unsupported by outsiders, they were unable to prevent or stop the war, but they’ve been an invaluable resource during reconstruction.

    I’ve worked with women from 40 conflict areas and found that they’re consistently underutilized. Which is to say that their untapped potential is vast. For sustainable peace, military leaders and other policy-makers must integrate them into reconnaissance, negotiations, disarmament, and governance. Today, as we remember the men and boys who died in Srebrenica, let’s also remember women who could be strategic partners to our efforts in Colombia, Afghanistan, or Liberia.

    Srebrenica reminds us that understanding when and how to intervene in a conflict requires challenging stereotypes and assumptions. We must gather as much information from the field as we can muster, making use of all the resources available to us, including the women who could be valuable strategic partners.

    With a new model of inclusive security, we honor the dead and show that we really mean it when we say ”Never again.”

    Swanee Hunt is director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and author of ”This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace,” winner of the 2005 PEN/New England Award for nonfiction.

  • Why I Don’t Trust Them or Sleeping With the Enemy

    When G8 finance ministers announced last month a £40bn debt relief package for some of the world’s poorest countries, Bob Geldof praised it as “a victory for the millions of people in the campaign around the world”. Bono called it “a little piece of history”. Forget the immoral condition of enforced liberalisation and privatisation that it contained. That was not all. Bono went on to hail George W Bush as the saviour of Africa. “I think he has done an incredible job”, he pronounced, adding: “Bush deserves a place in history for turning the fate of the continent around.” He came across as serious. Does Bono know that the US is the lowest aid donor in the industrialised world, giving only 0.16 per cent of GNP? Does he not care about climate change and about Bush’s role as serial environmental abuser? Maybe he has forgotten.

    The mutual admiration club between Bono, Geldof, Blair and Bush – rock stars and men who would love to be them – has been the abiding symbol of the G8. It is deeply disturbing. It has nothing to do with the commitment and the passionate argument of the 225,000 people who took to the streets of Edinburgh on 2 July encircling the centre of Scotland’s capital to protest against global injustice. This demonstration – at which I was a speaker – provided the real backdrop, the real pressure for change. Not that many people, particularly those south of the border, would have known. Saturation television that day from Live8 in Hyde Park beamed pictures from as far away as Philadelphia, Berlin and Tokyo – cities united in superficial soundbites about desperately serious issues. The newspapers fared little better.

    Edinburgh was nowhere to be seen. Was it inadvertent, or did our celebrity musicians conspire to allow the biggest demonstration of people power in Scotland’s history and the biggest march against poverty the UK has seen to be erased from the public’s consciousness? When Gordon Brown announced his intention to take part in the Edinburgh March I was appalled. I finally understood the Machiavellian plan by prime minister and chancellor to neutralise and co-opt the efforts of hundreds of NGOs, grassroots organisations and people throughout the world united in their desire to see poverty eradicated. They achieved their aims with the help of Geldof and Bono. I know that we need to persuade politicians, but do we really need to sleep with the enemy?

    For years thousands of people have campaigned to draw the public’s attention to the harm globalisation has done to the developing world and to expose the unjust policies of the unholy Trinity – the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organisation. All of a sudden Brown wanted to march hand in hand with us. Was he going to protest against the policies the UK government was imposing on the poorest countries in the developing world? Was he aware the UK government has been instrumental in pushing an aggressive “free trade” agenda at the WTO, disregarding developing countries’ pleas that they should be allowed to defend their infant industries from predatory EU and US multinationals?

    Was he not aware that the UK also stands behind the damaging Economic Partnership Agreements designed to open markets, in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, exposing small scale producers to overwhelming competition from powerful multinationals? Is he aware that the UK has taken the lead in promoting privatisation of public services in developing countries, despite the increase in poverty this has brought to million of peoples in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere? Does he not know that the department for International Development has channelled millions from the aid budget to privatisation consultants such as KPMG, Price WaterhouseCoopers and the Adam Smith Institute, engaged to “advise” developing country governments on the privatisation of their public services? What about the UK government’s efforts to undermine international calls to hold multinational corporations to account for their activities overseas, championing the voluntary alternative of “corporate social responsibility” rather than corporate regulation? Then come the arms industry, and Britain’s seemingly unquenchable thirst to sell to the poorest and most volatile of dictatorships.

    After all the excitement of the Live8 crowd, and the self-congratulation of the organisers for what we should acknowledge was perhaps the greatest rock music spectacle the world has seen, what will have been achieved? Beside the thrill of seeing some of the greatest artist alive perform, has Blair, the same politician who misled the world over WMD in Iraq, managed to reinvent his legacy as the prophet of the social justice movement? Has the consciousness of the world really been raised, or have the consciences of the political leaders simply been soothed?

    In Scotland, we were making concrete demands from the G8 leaders, to stop imposing the neoliberal policies that have contributed to exacerbating poverty in the developing world; perhaps our aims were a little too unsettling, and a little too unpalatable, for Bono and Bob. By ignoring the real issues in the Make Poverty History Campaign and by embracing politicians with uncritical enthusiasm, they have undermined the real movement for change, helping to preserve the cycle that keeps the developing world subjugated to the financial institutions that are making poverty inevitable.

    You may wonder why I feel so deeply about these issues, I was born in one of the 18 countries in the debt relief package; Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the southern Hemisphere. Throughout my life I have seen first hand the devastating effect that poverty has on children’s lives. For me, witnessing the death of a child is not just a dramatic click of a finger, it is a terrible tragedy. Bono and Bob Geldof’s blind ambition has led them to legitimise and praise George W. Bush and Tony Blair, perpetrators of the objectionable policies that are causing the demise of millions of innocent people throughout the developing world. Although, one cannot deny they have succeeded in bringing attention to Africa, one feels betrayed by their moral ambiguity and sound bite propaganda which have obscured and watered down the real issues that are at stake in the debate.

    Originally published in the New Statesman

  • Conference to Address Nuclear, Security Issues

    Students and young activists intend to teach one another about national security issues and nuclear nonproliferation through a national conference at UCSB in August.

    “The reason why I’m attending this conference is mainly to educate myself and others about the issue,” said Edwin Figueroa, 18, student of international affairs at NortheasternUniversity in Boston. “I think it’s important for the public to know how our tax dollars are spent . . . from the war in Iraq to education.”

    Slated to kick off on Aug. 15, “Think Outside the Bomb” will bring together up to 60 students from around the country in a weeklong conference on nuclear issues.

    “We basically want to help young people who are interested in peace and security issues become better leaders,” said Michael Coffey, director of youth programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the primary sponsor of the conference.

    “If you talk with people under 30 these days, particularly in this country, not a lot of us know what’s going on with Aug. 6 and 9, and the 60th anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Mr. Coffey said. “We are not really following what’s going on with Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea and our own program here in the United States.”

    The conference is likely to take up the matter of a new nuclear weapon that the Bush administration is considering, as the United States demands that other nations disarm. The Senate last week approved an energy bill that included $4 million to study the feasibility of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a nuclear bomb that could destroy deeply buried targets.

    Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said, “I have argued before on the Senate floor that such actions — combined with the policy of unilateralism and preemption — run counter to our values and nonproliferation efforts and put U.S. national security interests and American lives at risk.”

    The House version of the energy bill does not contain funds to study the “bunker buster.”

    “I have to tell you I am not familiar with all of the specifics of the Senate bill, in the fact that it has not come through our committee,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-SimiValley. But he said the government should be “exploring every potential resource from the standpoint of feasibility and everything that we can in order to effectively get to these individuals that are threats to the United States.”

    “One of the things that we do know is there are countries that are doing nuclear testing as we speak,” Mr. Gallegly said. “Or at least we have a reason to believe things are happening in North Korea. . . . I think that we need to keep all of our options open.”

    Mr. Gallegly compared the criticism of the bunker buster bomb with that of the Strategic Defense Initiative — the Reagan-era “Star Wars” program, which would have positioned weapons in space.

    “What better type of military device can you have than one that you’ll never have to use but the mere threat of having it creates world peace?” Mr. Gallegly said.

    Darwin BondGraham, 24, a graduate student of sociology at UCSB and an organizer of the national conference, voiced concern about the way the government attempts to counter terrorism.

    “Terrorism and these kinds of atrocious crimes, these are political and social problems at their root,” Mr. BondGraham said. “They can only be solved and properly addressed through political and social means.”

    Mr. BondGraham also said the Bush administration wants “a weapon that they can use to threaten North Korea and Iran.”

    “But an easier way to solve this is for the United States to stop proliferating nuclear weapons,” he said. “Then, we no longer appear hypocrites on the world stage.”

    Referring to the fact that the University of California provides management and oversight to the nation’s two principal nuclear weapons laboratories — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory — Mr. BondGraham said it is his responsibility to respond to the issue as a UC student.

    “I feel that all UC students and faculties, to the extent that the UC is a public institution of California — Californians, even — have special responsibilities because it’s our university that manages these laboratories,” Mr. BondGraham said.

    He said there needs to be debate among students, faculty members and citizens about the proper role of the university in society.

    “Should universities manage nuclear weapons?” he asked. “Should universities manage weapons of mass destruction laboratories? Or should they not? It’s always been my position that they should not.”

    Ayai Tomisawa writes from Washington, D.C., for Medill News Service.

    Originally published by the Santa Barbara News Press.