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  • Failure of the US Senate to Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    In voting down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the U.S. Senate acted with irresponsible disregard for the security of the American people and the people of the world. It is an act unbecoming of a great nation. The Senate sent a message to the more than 185 countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the United States is not prepared to lead the global effort for non-proliferation nor to keep its promises to the international community. I urge the American people to send a strong message of disapproval to the Senators who voted against this treaty, and demand that the United States resume a leadership role in supporting the CTBT and preventing further nuclear tests by any country at any time and at any place.

    The American people should take heart that the Treaty is not dead, and this setback should be viewed as temporary — until they have made their voices reverberate in the halls of the Senate.

    List of Senators and How They Voted on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty October 13, 1999 (Rollcall Vote No. 325 Ex.)

    YEAS–48 * Akaka (D-HI) * Baucus (D-MT) * Bayh (D-IN) * Biden (D-DE) * Bingaman (D-NM) * Boxer (D-CA) * Breaux (D-LA) * Bryan (D-NV) * Chafee (R-RI) * Cleland (D-GA) * Conrad (D-ND) * Daschle (D-SD) * Dodd (D-CT) * Dorgan (D-ND) * Durbin (D-IL) * Edwards (D-NC) * Feingold (D-WI) * Feinstein (D-CA) * Graham (D-FL) * Harkin (D-IA) * Hollings (D-SC) * Inouye (D-HI) * Jeffords (R-VT) * Johnson (D-SD) * Kennedy (D-MA) * Kerrey (D-NE) * Kerry (D-MA) * Kohl (D-WI) * Landrieu (D-LA) * Lautenberg (D-NJ) * Leahy (D-VT) * Levin (D-MI) * Lieberman (D-CT) * Lincoln (D-AR) * Mikulski (D-MD) * Moynihan (D-NY) * Murray (D-WA) * Reed (D-RI) * Reid (D-NV) * Robb (D-VA) * Rockefeller (D-WV) * Sarbanes (D-MD) * Schumer (D-NY) * Smith (R-OR) * Specter (R-PA) * Torricelli (D-NJ) * Wellstone (D-MN) * Wyden (D-OR)

    NAYS–51 * Abraham (R-MI) * Allard (R-CO) * Ashcroft (R-MO) * Bennett (R-UT) * Bond (R-MO) * Brownback (R-KS) * Bunning (R-KY) * Burns (R-MT) * Campbell (R-CO) * Cochran (R-MS) * Collins (R-ME) * Coverdell (R-GA) * Craig (R-ID) * Crapo (R-ID) * DeWine (R-OH) * Domenici (R-NM) * Enzi (R-WY) * Fitzgerald (R-IL) * Frist (R-TN) * Gorton (R-WA) * Gramm (R-TX) * Grams (R-MN) * Grassley (R-IA) * Gregg (R-NH) * Hagel (R-NE) * Hatch (R-UT) * Helms (R-NC) * Hutchinson (R-TX) * Hutchison (R-AR) * Inhofe (R-OK) * Kyl (R-AZ) * Lott (R-MS) * Lugar (R-IN) * Mack (R-FL) * McCain (R-AZ) * McConnell (R-KY) * Murkowski (R-AK) * Nickles (R-OK) * Roberts (R-KS) * Roth (R-DE) * Santorum (R-PA) * Sessions (R-AL) * Shelby (R-AL) * Smith (D-NH) * Snowe (R-ME) * Stevens (R-AK) * Thomas (R-WY) * Thompson (R-TN) * Thurmond (R-SC) * Voinovich (R-OH) * Warner (R-VA)

    ANSWERED `PRESENT’–1 * Byrd (D-WV)

     

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    PRESS RELEASE – THE WHITE HOUSE

    Office of the Press Secretary

    For Immediate Release October 13, 1999

    STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

    Outside Oval Office

    8:37 P.M. EDT

    THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. I am very disappointed that the United States Senate voted not to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This agreement is critical to protecting the American people from the dangers of nuclear war. It is, therefore, well worth fighting for. And I assure you, the fight is far from over.

    I want to say to our citizens, and to people all around the world, that the United States will stay true to our tradition of global leadership against the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

    The Senate has taken us on a detour. But America eventually always returns to the main road, and we will do so again. When all is said and done, the United States will ratify the test ban treaty.

    Opponents of the treaty have offered no alternative, no other means of keeping countries around the world from developing nuclear arsenals and threatening our security. So we have to press on and do the right thing for our children’s future. We will press on to strengthen the worldwide consensus in favor of the treaty.

    The United States will continue, under my presidency, the policy we have observed since 1992 of not conducting nuclear tests. Russia, China, Britain and France have joined us in this moratorium. Britain and France have done the sensible thing and ratified this treaty. I hope not only they, but also Russia, China, will all, along with other countries, continue to refrain from nuclear testing.

    I also encourage strongly countries that have not yet signed or ratified this treaty to do so. And I will continue to press the case that this treaty is in the interest of the American people.

    The test ban treaty will restrict the development of nuclear weapons worldwide at a time when America has an overwhelming military and technological advantage. It will give us the tools to strengthen our security, including the global network of sensors to detect nuclear tests, the opportunity to demand on-site inspections, and the means to mobilize the world against potential violators. All these things, the Republican majority in the Senate would gladly give away.

    The senators who voted against the treaty did more than disregard these benefits. They turned aside the best advice — let me say this again — they turned aside the best advice of our top military leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and four of his predecessors. They ignored the conclusion of 32 Nobel Prize winners in physics, and many other leading scientists, including the heads of our nuclear laboratories, that we can maintain a strong nuclear force without testing.

    They clearly disregarded the views of the American people who have consistently and strongly supported this treaty ever since it was first pursued by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. The American people do not want to see unnecessary nuclear tests here or anywhere around the world.

    I know that some Senate Republicans favored this treaty. I know others had honest questions, but simply didn’t have enough time for thorough answers. I know that many would have supported this treaty had they been free to vote their conscience, and if they had been able to do what we always do with such treaties, which is to add certain safeguards, certain understandings that protect America’s interest and make clear the meaning of the words.

    Unfortunately, the Senate majority made sure that no such safeguards could be appended. Many who had questions about the treaty worked hard to postpone the vote because they knew a defeat would be damaging to America’s interest and to our role in leading the world away from nonproliferation. But for others, we all know that foreign policy, national security policy has become just like every domestic issue — politics, pure and simple.

    For two years, the opponents of this treaty in the Senate refused to hold a single hearing. Then they offered a take-or-leave-it deal: to decide this crucial security issue in a week, with just three days of hearings and 24 hours of debate. They rejected my request to delay the vote and permit a serious process so that all the questions could be evaluated. Even worse, many Republican senators apparently committed to oppose this treaty before there was an agreement to bring it up, before they ever heard a single witness or understood the issues.

    Never before has a serious treaty involving nuclear weapons been handled in such a reckless and ultimately partisan way.

    The Senate has a solemn responsibility under our Constitution to advise and consent in matters involving treaties. The Senate has simply not fulfilled that responsibility here. This issue should be beyond politics, because the stakes are so high. We have a fundamental responsibility to do everything we can to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and the chance of nuclear war. We must decide whether we’re going to meet it.

    Will we ratify an agreement that can keep Russia and China from testing and developing new, more sophisticated advanced weapons? An agreement that could help constrain nuclear weapons programs in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere, at a time of tremendous volatility, especially on the Indian sub-continent? For now, the Senate has said, no.

    But I am sending a different message. We want to limit the nuclear threat. We want to bring the test ban treaty into force.

    I am profoundly grateful to the Senate proponents of this treaty, including the brave Republicans who stood with us, for their determination and their leadership. I am grateful to all those advocates for arms control and national security, and all the religious leaders who have joined us in this struggle.

    The test ban treaty is strongly in America’s interest. It is still on the Senate calendar. It will not go away. It must not go away. I believe that if we have a fair and thorough hearing process, the overwhelming majority of the American people will still agree with us that this treaty is in our interest. I believe in the wisdom of the American people, and I am confident that in the end, it will prevail.

    Q Mr. President, when you say the fight is far from over, sir, do you mean that you expect this treaty to be brought up again during your term in office?

    THE PRESIDENT: I mean, I think that — we could have had a regular hearing process in which the serious issues that need to be discussed would have been discussed, and in which, as the Senate leaders both agreed yesterday when they thought there was an agreement and they shook hands on an agreement, would have resulted in next year being devoted to considering the treaty, dealing with its merits, and then, barring extraordinary circumstances, would have put off a vote until the following year.

    By their actions today the Republican majority has said they want us to continue to discuss and debate this. They weren’t interested in the safeguards; they weren’t interested in a serious debate; they weren’t interested in a serious process. So they could have put this on a track to be considered in an appropriate way, which I strongly supported. They decided otherwise.

    And we, therefore, have to make it clear — those of us who agree — that it is crazy for America to walk away from Britain and France, 11 of our NATO allies, the heads of our nuclear labs, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 32 Nobel laureates, and the whole world, having depended on us for all these decades, to lead the fight for nonproliferation. Therefore, we have to keep this issue alive and continue to argue it in the strongest and most forceful terms.

    I wish we could have had a responsible alternative. I worked until the 11th hour to achieve it. This was a political deal. And I hope it will get the treatment from the American people it richly deserves.

    Thank you.

    END 8:47 P.M. EDT

    And one last word from a contemporary Peace Hero:

    “Hope is the engine that drives human endeavor. It generates the energy needed to achieve the difficult goals that lie ahead. Never lose faith that the dreams of today for a more lawful world can become the reality of tomorrow. Never stop trying to make this a more humane universe.”- Benjamin Ferencz

  • Senate Vote Leaves the World a More Dangerous Place

    In failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the US Senate played partisan politics with an issue of utmost importance to the security of the US and the world. In observing the debates in the Senate on this issue, I was once again left with the impression that our Senators do not fully understand and do not particularly care that the rest of the world pays attention to what they say and do. Much of the world looks to the United States for leadership, but there is little to be found these days in the highest offices of our government.

    In 1995 I attended the Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It was and remains clearly in the interests of the United States and all other countries in the world to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. At that Treaty Conference the US was fighting for the indefinite extension of the Treaty. Many other countries were questioning, however, whether the Treaty should be extended indefinitely since the US and other nuclear weapons states had not kept their promise for good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament during the first 25 years of the Treaty’s existence.

    In the end, the NPT was extended indefinitely. To achieve this result the US and the other nuclear weapons states agreed to a set of Principles and Objectives that included “a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996.” This Treaty was, in fact, negotiated and opened for signatures in September 1996. The first country to sign was the United States.

    The Comprehensive Test Ban is a treaty that is very much in our interests. After all, we have already conducted some 1,050 atmospheric and underground nuclear test explosions, more than any other nation. The Treaty allows conducting laboratory tests by computer simulation. The US has also been conducting sub-critical nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, although these violate the spirit if not the letter of the treaty. We are currently spending some $4.5 billion annually on our Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program to maintain our nuclear arsenal.

    When the Senate defeated the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty we were saying to the world that we have little interest in providing leadership toward a nuclear weapons free world. Rather, we want to hold open the option of further testing of our nuclear weapons. This means, of course, that other nations may well decide to do the same.

    Prior to the Senate vote, leaders of our key allies in Europe –President Jacques Chirac of France, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany, wrote: “Rejection of the treaty in the Senate would remove the pressure from other states still hesitating about whether to ratify it. Rejection would give great encouragement to proliferators. Rejection would also expose a fundamental divergence within NATO.”

    But the Senate was not to be swayed by either friends or logic. They chose instead to place their bets on continued reliance on nuclear weapons. They have also, along with the Members of the House of Representatives, voted to deploy a National Missile Defense System “as soon as technologically feasible.” This would mean undermining the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an arms control measure that came into force under the Nixon administration. Despite assurances by the Defense Department that the planned missile defense system is aimed at so-called “rogue” nations and not at the Russians, the Russians have indicated that such a system could mean the end of further reductions in nuclear armaments and possibly the beginning of a new offensive nuclear arms race.

    Neither we nor the Russians want to return to the days of the Cold War. We know the price that was extracted in terms of risk to humanity and in terms of resources (more than $5.5 trillion spent by the U.S. alone). We live in a dangerous world. But, as many top US military leaders have pointed out, there is no problem that nuclear weapons would not make worse.

    Lest we forget, here is what nuclear weapons can do. One nuclear weapon could destroy a city. Two small nuclear weapons destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ten nuclear weapons could destroy a country. Imagine the US with New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle destroyed by nuclear blasts.

    One hundred nuclear weapons could destroy civilization. One thousand nuclear weapons could destroy the human species and most life on Earth. And yet, there remain some 35,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Some 5,000 of these are on hair-trigger alert despite the fact that the Cold War ended ten years ago.

    The Congress is displaying an ostrich-like mentality, believing that we can threaten others with our nuclear weapons while putting up a “shield” to protect ourselves. What is most disturbing about this worldview is that while we keep our collective heads in the sand, we are missing the opportunity to show real leadership in moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. This opportunity may not come again.

    In April 1999 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation presented its Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to General Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler was once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons. He was the man responsible for advising the President of the United States on whether or not to use nuclear weapons in a crisis situation. While he held this position, General Butler could never be more than three rings from his telephone. He is now an ardent advocate of abolishing all nuclear weapons.

    While with us in Santa Barbara, General Butler recalled: “When I retired in 1994, I was persuaded that we were on a path that was miraculous, that was irreversible, and that gave us the opportunity to actually pursue a set of initiatives, acquire a new mindset, and re-embrace a set of principles having to do with the sanctity of life and the miracle of existence that would take us on the path to zero. I was dismayed, mortified, and ultimately radicalized by the fact that within a period of a year that momentum again was slowed. A process that I have called the creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons was introduced….”

    The Senate vote on the CTBT is reflective of this “creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons.” It will undoubtedly be a major subject of concern when the Review Conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty is held in the year 2000. Representatives of many countries will note that the US and other nuclear weapons states have not ratified the CTBT, and they will wonder why. They will wonder whether they should not hold open their own options for developing nuclear arsenals. They will ask: “If the world’s most powerful nation chooses to base its security on nuclear weapons and keeps open its options to continue testing these weapons, shouldn’t we consider doing so as well?”

    In the end, the Senate’s vote was arrogant and shortsighted. It leaves the world a more dangerous place, and the future in greater doubt.

    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Statement by Senator Douglas Roche on the New Agenda Coalition Vote Taken Nov. 9, 1999 in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security

    1. On November 9th, the U.N. First Committee adopted the New Agenda Coalition resolution with 90 yes votes, 13 no’s and 37 abstentions. Last year’s First Committee vote was 97-19-32. The heart of the resolution is contained in Operative Paragraph 1: “Calls upon the Nuclear Weapon States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT.”

    2. Four NWS (the U.S., Russia, the U.K., and France) again voted no and China repeated its abstention. In 1998 NATO, which then had 16 states, voted 0-4-12. This year, with 19 members, Turkey and the Czech Republic moved from no to abstention, while Hungary and Poland voted no. Thus the NATO count was 0-5-14. Though some states (e.g. Azerbeijan, Benin) dropped to abstention from last year’s yes, the effect of this was offset by 14 NATO states together sending a message to the NWS that progress must be made.

    3. The Explanations-of-vote contained revealing observations. The U.K. said the NAC resolution was incompatible with the maintenance of a credible minimum deterrence. France accused the NAC of having ulterior motives in challenging the right to self-defence. The U.S. said it had already given a “solemn undertaking” concerning Article VI of the NPT and why should it be asked to give more? Canada, which abstained, praised the resolution but added: “The nuclear-weapon states and their partners and alliances need to be engaged if the goals of the New Agenda resolution are to be achieved.” This was a tacit admission that the Western NWS (the NATO leaders) had tied Canada’s hands. Australia, which also abstained, said it did not want to challenge the sincerity of the NWS commitment to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

    4. It is disappointing that the leaders of the NATO countries could not bring themselves to vote that the Nuclear Weapon States make an “unequivocal undertaking” to engage without delay in negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The present situation is truly alarming: the U.S. Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the U.S. is preparing to deploy a missile defence system over the objections of Russia and China; India is preparing to deploy nuclear weapons in air, land, and sea; Pakistan, which has successfully tested nuclear weapons, is now ruled by the military; meaningful discussions at the Conference on Disarmament are deadlocked; the preparatory conferences for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have failed; the Russian Duma has not ratified START II. The gains made in the past decade on reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are being wiped out. Immense dangers to the world lie ahead if the present negative trends are not reversed.

    5. We have offered logic, law, and morality to government leaders as reasons for them to move forward on nuclear disarmament. We are tempted, at this moment, to despair that we will ever be heard. That is the wrong reaction. We are being heard as never before, and the proponents of the status quo are being forced to invent the most preposterous reasons to justify their slavish adherence to weapons that have justly been called “the ultimate evil.” We do not have the luxury of despair at this moment. We must continue, with all our growing might, to speak truth to power.

    6. It is disturbing to be thwarted by a residual Cold War mentality driven by the military-industrial complex that infects the political decision-making process with fears of an unknown enemy. It is myopic for NATO government leadership to live in fear of U.S. government retribution for voting to advance nuclear disarmament. It is an abrogation of governments’ responsibility to humanity to stare silently into the abyss of more nuclear weapons.

    7. But rage bounces off the shields of denial constructed by the powerful. It does little to berate government leaders. Those in governments and in civil society who have worked hard for the successful passage of the NAC resolution as a way out of looming catastrophe must be humble enough to recognize that there is still not a vibrant public opinion in our society against nuclear weapons. The public generally does not know enough about the present situation even to be in denial.

    8. The time has come to inject renewed energy into the nuclear weapons debate. The sheer force of this energy must penetrate the consciences of decision-makers in the powerful states and thus transfer the nuclear abolition debate into a whole new field of action. We must rise up above the political, economic, social and cultural blockages to abolition and infuse the societal and political processes with a dynamic of action. The approach I am calling for must be based on our overpowering love for God’s planet and all humanity on it. In this call to witness, we will find new confidence in our ability to overcome the temporary denial by politicians and officials who do not understand the power of this transformation moment in history.

    9. By coincidence, the NAC vote, in which the NWS are still showing their defiance, occurred on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall fell because enough people created a force for freedom that became unstoppable. The Wall of resistance to nuclear weapons abolition will also crumble when the non-nuclear allies of the U.S. demonstrate the courage that we must give them. Already there are signs, in the speculation that tactical nuclear weapons will be removed from seven NATO countries in Europe, that the NATO leadership is feeling this pressure.

    10. Our first task now is to give our complete support to the leaders of the New Agenda Coalition, telling them we will not cease our active support of their efforts. Our second is to gather more strength among the public so that even the most skeptical of leaders will feel a new heat on this issue. Our third is to be a witness in our own communities, each in our own way, to our unflagging desire to leave a world for humanity that will indeed be nuclear-weapons-free.

    * Senator Douglas Roche is Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Creating a Center for Humanity’s Future: Celebrating Creativity in the Coming Age

    The idea of a great circle around the world, with people of all ages speaking and listening to one another … presenting an Annual Report on the State of Humanity … a fountain of joy and inspiration, confidence, strength and limitless creativity

    People all over the Earth are gradually awakening to the most astounding aspects of human beings — that we are not only parts of the mysterious universe, we are embodiments of the whole cosmos, each of us absolutely original and unique but limitless in our capacity. We are finite individuals and yet we will affect everything that happens in the future.

    In this century the discoveries of the human mind — the release of nuclear energy and other revelations — have brought us to the brink of annihilation. In the same century, we have demonstrated enormous cruelty and enormous compassion. We have created a global communications system in which human beings reach out to one another across all boundaries of time and space. Ideas flash around the world, reshaping old institutions and bringing new ones into existence and rapid growth.

    To serve the global community now arising through the individual efforts of people all over the planet, I believe there will be a great opportunity for the fostering and celebration of human creativity through a Center for Humanity’s Future. I advocate the formation of such a Center as a statement of confidence in the tremendous productive capacities of human beings — as a place of light and listening, a place of exploration and encouragement, a launching pad for ideas from throughout the world.

    That Center could have the bold spirit that marked the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which blazed across the world’s horizons from 1959 to 1981 with the many projects it launched from its headquarters in Santa Barbara. It helped to prevent a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was a pioneer in the environmental movement. It called attention to the destructive potentialities of television. It published a model for a new American Constitution, designed to protect human liberties and to indicate human responsibilities in the future. It brought together thousands of people in dialogues and conferences in Santa Barbara, Chicago, New York, Washington, Malta, and Geneva. It became an “early warning system” for humanity.

    The preamble for the proposed model for a new Constitution for the United States contained a declaration that it was designed “to welcome the future in good order.” In our time, we have become intensely concerned with “the future.” All organizations have “vision statements” and make plans for the next years, the next decades, the next century, or even longer.

    Welcoming the future in good order should be one of the primary purposes of the new Center. For many people, the future has a menacing aspect — with imagined disasters and catastrophes rushing toward us. The Center could give a continuing emphasis to the positive possibilities, while recognizing the negative ones..

    The Importance of Celebration

    In the coming age, in which human beings will face more complex problems and more challenges than ever before, it will be essential to evoke the positive powers inherent in every person. That is why the proposed Center should be dedicated to celebration — to foster the release of everyone’s highest thoughts and emotional intelligence. Celebration means more than a never-ending party, or fun and games all year round, although it does include all the aspects of joy, because human beings are at their best when they are joyful, when they take delight in everything to which they are related in a mysterious unfolding universe.

    A Center for Humanity’s Future could raise the banner of celebration over the whole Earth — bringing together people of all kinds in meetings and dialogues, honoring the fine work going on in many places by creative and compassionate persons, inviting everyone to open up and communicate in many languages through the Internet and other channels, lauding the value of cooperation, encouraging everyone to “welcome the future in good order.”

    Overcoming the Power of Violence

    In addition to honoring and promoting the positive potentialities of all human beings, the Center could explore and advocate every possible step to overcome the power of violence. With the existence of nuclear weapons and other instruments of mass destruction, the continuation of life on Earth is at stake. The costs of violence in the twentieth century have been colossal. Millions of lives have been destroyed in the countless wars which have occurred. The Holocaust revealed the destructive depths to which human beings could descend. The massacres in Africa, Yugoslavia, Asia, and elsewhere have been horrifying in their ferocity — the extermination of neighbors by neighbors, the tortures and slaughters of women, children and old people, have shown cruelties on a staggering scale.

    One of the primary purposes of the Center could be to examine the strategies used in human efforts to reduce or eliminate violence. The admonitions of religious leaders, the development of severe punishments under strict laws, the therapeutic programs of psychologists, have not been very effective.

    A six-point pledge developed by the United Nations Education and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) would be offered for consideration. The points are:

    • Respect all life.
    • Reject violence in all its forms, particularly violence directed at the most deprived and vulnerable people.
    • Share with others, in a spirit of generosity.
    • Listen to understand.
    • Preserve the planet.
    • Rediscover solidarity.

    This pledge is based on the realization that everyone must take a personal share of responsibility for the future of humanity.

    Widening Roles for Women in Shaping Humanity’s Future

    The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions was almost exclusively a male enterprise, dominated by highly active men with elitist ideas of leadership. Only one woman was ever appointed to the scholarly circle — the Fellows — who ran the Center. The increasing activities of women in all fields certainly has crucial significance for the future of the human species. A Center dedicated to humanity’s future must give the widest scope to women, who now compose 52 percent of the world’s population. From its board of directors to its staff, such a Center must have women fully represented.

    Since that Center will be continuously engaged in initiating, receiving, discussing, and promoting ideas for the benefit of humanity, women around the world will be continuously invited to take part in the life of the Center. There will be a place for everybody at the Center’s table. There will be a physical table, located in the Center’s headquarters in Santa Barbara— but the table will extend around the planet through the Internet and other methods of communication.

    Hearing from People of All Ages: The Lifting of Every Voice

    The idea of a great circle around the world, with people of all ages speaking and listening to one another, has seemed to be a fantasy — until our time, when it has become a reality. Human beings are now crossing all geographic boundaries easily and swiftly. The Center for Humanity’s Future would invite participants in all the dialogues already under way to comment on the principal topics offered by the Center for worldwide discussion. The first topics could be:

    • Overcoming the power of violence, preventing a war and building a culture of peace;
    • Awakening everyone to the primacy of individual persons in shaping the future;
    • Recognizing the spiritual dimensions of every human being and encouraging spiritual growth;
    • Reaffirming the necessity for protecting the environment and maintaining the earth as a flourishing home for all forms of life;
    • Emphasizing the need for cooperation as an instrument for achieving the good of all;
    • Exploring what it means to be human in the 21st Century; and
    • Developing a Code of Human Responsibilities.

    In the Center’s outreach to people of all ages, there could be a continuous reminder of the fact that every human being has an impact on the future and will have an influence felt for many generations.

    Presenting an Annual Report on the State of Humanity — and a Global Celebration of Creativity

    Each year, the Center could present an Annual Report on the State of Humanity, based on the ideas flowing into it and from it throughout the year. People everywhere might be asked to pledge their support for the international movement for the formation of a culture of peace and nonviolence.

    The Center could also sponsor a global Celebration of Creativity, highlighting the marvelous achievements of women, men, children, people from all backgrounds. Artists of all kinds — musicians, dancers, singers, poets, mystics, doctors, healers, prophets, sculptors— could lead community celebrations which would be linked together around the world. It would recognize the creativity of everyone — and the connections of human beings with one another. It could be videotaped and used on television and the Internet to bring delight into the daily lives of people everywhere.

    The Center itself could be a fountain of joy and inspiration — with its mission to foster hope and happiness and sing a great song as Beethoven did — a song of confidence in the strength and wide-ranging abilities of human beings, aware of their tremendous roles in a universe filled with limitless creativity.

    *Frank K. Kelly is the senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Kelly is a former speech writer for President Truman and staff director of the U.S. Senate Majority Policy Committee. He served for 17 years as Vice President of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

    Thoughts On a Center for Humanity’s Future and the State of Humanity

    by David Krieger President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    The Center for Humanity’s Future could be composed of Nobel Laureates and selected other world leaders in various fields, who would issue an Annual Report on the State of Humanity. These leaders would meet at least once a year to finalize the report, which could be released to the people of the world through the media and in the form of a book.

    The purpose of the report would be to offer creative solutions for coping with the dangers humanity faces, and to inspire people to live with full human dignity and to be active participants in shaping a better future.

    The Center for Humanity’s Future would have a full-time secretariat who would work throughout the year in preparing the State of Humanity Report and arranging meetings with leaders in many fields who would provide input to the Nobel Laureate group that would issue the report.

    The Center for Humanity’s Future would operate through two existing non-profit organizations located in Santa Barbara, California: The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria Retreat Center.

  • Vieques: A Lost Paradise or Paradise Lost?

    The ferryboat departs from Fajardo, a tiny seaport at the extreme Northeast of Puerto Rico. During the trip we can see a great number of fish jumping like trying to fly from the blue waters and then defeated by gravity falling again into the water. Our destination is the island of Vieques, 18 miles from Fajardo. Called “La Isla Nena” (Little Girl Island) or “Isabel Segunda” (Isabel II), Vieques was founded in 1843 by Francisco Saínz. It’s about 21 miles long and about 5 miles across at its widest point. Vieques derives its name from the Taino Indian word for small island (bieques). It was annexed to Puerto Rico in 1854.

    The journey is fast and comfortable and in less than an hour the profile of the island is visible on the horizon. Arawak Indians once lived here and it was an infamous haven for pirates during 17th century. We arrived to a modest dock framed by the typical scenario of the Hispanics coastal towns. The place couldn¹t be more picturesque or beautiful, it is really a lost paradise. But in the middle of so much serenity and peace a terrible menace awaits.

    When the US Navy arrived in 1941, there were 10,362 inhabitants in Vieques and 8,000 tons of sugar was produced that year. The Navy expropriated two thirds of the total land, including most of the land used for farming. La Central Playa Grande did the last milling in 1942. During the first couple of years after the Navy arrived, there were plenty of jobs in Vieques in the construction of the bases. People came from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to work in Vieques. It was an historical moment. World War II was being fought and the place was chosen as training grounds for the Navy. When construction was over the workers left. At the end of 1944 3,000 of the 10,000 inhabitants of Vieques were relocated to St. Croix. The rest were settled in the areas of Santa Maria and Monte Santo in Vieques. There was no sugar and no base construction left to do.

    From that moment the Vieques people started enduring hard times. Bombing practices at all hours caused the loss of sleep for the islanders. Even mortal accidents occurred from time to time. With the end of WW II peace did not arrive to Vieques. Now the Cold War demanded more practices and more bombings and later on the members of NATO were allowed to use the island for their own war games. The consequences to the ecology and the health of the population, the destruction of archaeological sites and the restricted access to the beautiful resources on the bases were part of the problems caused by the continued used of the island for the military practices.

    For decades the people of Vieques accepted stoically these sad conditions of life as their contribution to the fight for a free world. But now, even when the Cold War is over the situation is getting worse. We have been told that without the pressure of a nuclear threat it is not necessary to continue the patrolling of nuclear submarines or practices with nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, in May of this year, the Navy admitted the use of Depleted Uranium projectiles during exercises on Vieques in March of 1999. This information came at a time when the Puerto Rican government at the request of the Vieques Municipal Assembly and the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques was preparing an epidemiological study to investigate why Vieques suffers a 27% higher cancer rate than the rest of Puerto Rico. The attested activity of the Trident nuclear submarines on Puerto Rico¹s waters is a flagrant violation of the Tlatelolco Treaty which calls for ” banning tests, use, production or acquisition of any type of nuclear weapons, its storage, installation, delivery or possession in the Latin America and Caribbean zone”. The United States signed the Treaty in 1982 and Puerto Rico was considered in the Latin American zone.

    To add insult to injury, in 1976 the newspaper Newsday from New York reported that Michael Greenwood, a former U.S. military scientist, cited during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the Navy accidentally lost a nuclear bomb in waters off the coast of Vieques in 1966. During the 70¹s the Navy used trained dolphins on failed maneuvers trying to pinpoint the nuclear device. The terrible menace of its plutonium to be released due to the water¹s corrosion is a time bomb for the Caribbean Sea.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is supporting the petitions made by NGO¹s like Pax Christi and the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques. They are united with many other groups in Puerto Rico who call for the closing of the U.S. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads located in the town of Ceiba to cease the menace of nuclear accidents on the only nuclear free zone in the world. To achieve this task, the countries signatories of the Tlatelolco Treaty and OPANAL (Organism for the Proscription of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean) must endorse the explicit inclusion of Puerto Rico at the next OPANAL General Assembly in Lima, Peru this coming December. Due to its particular political relationship with the United States, Puerto Rico does not have self-representation in OPANAL nor in any other regional or international organizations therefore does not enjoy voting rights.

    During our visit to Puerto Rico, representing NAPF for the Abolition 2000 campaign, we witnessed a united country asking for justice. Puerto Rico hopes that the nuclear nations will listen to them and will eliminate without delay the nuclear weapons, that terrible technology capable of wiping out the miracle of life from our beautiful blue planet.

    *Ruben Arvizu is the Coordinator of NAPF for Latin America. He collaborated with the Cousteau Society as Representative to Latin America and Film Producer. As international journalist he has been awarded with the “Silver Pen” the “Golden Palm” and “Isabella of Spain”. Presently he is working in his upcoming book “Chapultepec, The Clash of the Eagles” with the theme of the Mexican-US War of 1846.

  • Our Own Worst Enemy

    The U.S and Russia have so many nuclear weapons that if used, either alone could destroy humanity. The Center for Defense Information said, “It is folly, verging on madness, to perpetuate the Cold War nuclear confrontation at levels that threaten the survival of human kind.” (1)

    How do we explain such a crazy situation? Consider the following. When thinking about nuclear weapons matters, it is much easier and less hideous to think about them in terms of numbers rather than the consequences of their use. As a result, consequence of use is generally ignored. In the arms reduction talks, the talks are in term of having equal numbers even if we can’t use them all.

    One way around the stalled nuclear arms reduction talks is to think about the relationship between the number of nuclear weapons and consequences of use. The following provides a guide for such thinking. The more nuclear weapons the greater the self-destruction.

    One Nuclear Bomb – One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 25,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. One average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 40,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. In order to give an idea of how destructive these warheads can be, compare them with the destruction created by the truck bombs that were exploded by terrorists in the NY World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. Each terrorists truck bomb had about 10 tons of dynamite.(2)

    Twenty Nuclear Bombs – If 20 nuclear bombs, less than one percent of the nuclear weapons that the US and Russia each have set for hair trigger release, were used it would be enough to destroy each other. If one nuclear bomb hit Washington, D.C. it could vaporize Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and the Pentagon. If another nuclear bomb hit New York City it could vaporize the United Nations headquarters, communication centers for NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the New York Stock Exchange. And that is only two of the twenty. Nuclear explosions would also leave the areas highly radioactive and unusable for years. Where the radioactive fallout from the mushroom clouds would land in the world would depend upon the direction of the wind and rain conditions at the time of the explosion.

    General Lee Butler USAF commanded the US Strategic Air Command until it was folded into the U.S. Strategic Command, which he then commanded until he retired. General Butler said, “That twenty nuclear weapons would suffice to destroy the twelve largest Russian cities with a total population of twenty-five million people – one-sixth of the entire Russian population and therefore that arsenals in the hundreds, much less in the thousands, can serve no meaningful strategic objective. From this prospective the START process is completely bankrupt. The START II ceiling of 3000 to 3500 operational warheads to be achieved by the year 2007 is wholly out of touch with reality.” (3)

    General Butler said,”It is imperative to recognize that all numbers of nuclear weapons above zero are completely arbitrary; that against an urban target one weapon represents an unacceptable horror.” (4)

    Four Hundred Nuclear Bombs – If 400 nuclear bombs, less than ten percent of the nuclear weapons the U.S. and Russia have set for hair trigger release, were used they could destroy everyone on earth. The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates, in their extensive studies of nuclear weapons use, found that a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite (100 megatons) could produce enough smoke and fine dust to create a Nuclear Winter over the world leaving few survivors. (5)

    A nuclear bomb blast can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. This could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and surrounding area burning with no one to fight them. The firing of 400 nuclear explosions can lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere – more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst. If there were any survivors they would have to contend with radioactive fallout carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins, furans, and increased ozone burnout. (6)

    Actions That Can Be Taken

    General Butler USAF (Ret. 1994) said the world can immediately and inexpensively improve security by taking nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert. (7) This action should also provide a better atmosphere for reaching agreements in the arms reduction talks.

    There are very important positive forces at work for peace. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for the past five years has been chairing the Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. The Commission has grown into a bilateral government conglomerate, with officials at many levels working on problems of energy, health, agriculture, investment, space and the environment. (8)

    The way the U.S. and Russia are planning on working together during the transition to the year 2000 to guard against any false alerts that might be triggered by Y2K in the warning system, is also very encouraging. (9) Let us hope they can continue to work together after the first of the year until there are no more nuclear weapons.

    “There is no doubt that, if the people of the world were more fully aware of the inherent danger of nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use, they would reject them.” This conclusion appeared in the 1996 report of the Canberra Commisson on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a group of the world’s nuclear weapon experts. (10)

    The creation of a Consequence Study Center within the U.N., in which many countries share in the studies, could help everybody become more fully aware of the consequences of nuclear weapon use and better understand the need to rid the world of them.

    Notes and References

    1. Smith, Daniel; Stobhl, Rachel; and Carroll, Eugene E, “Jump-START: A way Ahead in Nuclear Arms Reduction,” The Defense Monitor, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, 1999. Washiington, D.C.

    2. Babst, Dean V. “Preventing An Accidental Armagedon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Sept. 1999.

    3. Butler, Lee. Talk at the University of Pittsburgh, May 13, 1999, p.12.

    4. Ibid.

    5. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, Boston, MA, 1983.

    6. Ibid.

    7. Schell, Jonathan, “The Gift Of Time,” The Nation, 2/9, 1998, p.56.

    8. Lippman, Thomas W. “Gore Carves Unique Post With U.S.-Russia Collaboration,” Washington Post, Washington, D.C., March 14, 1998.

    9. Burns, Robert. “Russia, U.S. set Y2K missile vigil,” The Contra Costa Times, Sept. 11, 1999.

    10. Green, Robert D. “Zero Nuclear Weapons,” Middle Power Initiative, Cambridge. Mass., 1998, p. 8.

    *Dean Babst is a retired government research scientist and Coordinator of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Accidental Nuclear War Studies Program. In the development of this article, appreciation is extended for the helpful suggestions of David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Bob Aldridge who heads the Pacific Life Research Center, and Andy Baltzo, the Founder of the Mt. Diablo (California) Peace Center.

  • The US-Russian Relationship: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

    Russia proposed, in August meetings with US arms control negotiators, that each country agree to cut its supply of missile-ready nuclear bombs from 5,000 down to 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons. The Russian offer would allow for a full accounting of all warheads and provide for early de-alerting of bombs poised at hair-trigger readiness, which would considerably ratchet down the nuclear danger to our planet.

    Were the US to follow through on this generous Russian proposal, we would have an extraordinary opportunity to bring all the nuclear weapons states to the negotiating table for a treaty to ban the bomb, just as the world has banned biological and chemical weapons. France, UK, China, Israel, India and Pakistan all have less than 500 warheads in their respective arsenals and are not prepared to come to the table so long as the US and Russia have stockpiles of bombs which number in the tens of thousands.

    The US response has been appalling. Seeking to squeeze the final bitter cup of humiliation from Russia, which is still smarting from the expansion of NATO up to the Russian border, the continued unilateral bombing of Iraq without UN approval, and the unauthorized NATO bombing of Yugoslavia without Security Council sanction, the Clinton administration persists in demanding that Russia yield to our scheme to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and move full speed ahead with “Son of Star Wars”.

    It is little reported that the Bush administration promised Gorbachev that if Russia did not oppose the admission of a reunified Germany into NATO when the Berlin wall crumbled ten years ago, we would not expand NATO. Nor is it widely known that the US Committee to Expand NATO, which lobbied furiously on the Hill to disregard our pledge to Russia, was chaired by the Vice-President of Lockheed-Martin, working demonically to expand its lethal market to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. NATO’s 50th Anniversary Summit last April was hosted by corporate sponsors, including Boeing, Raytheon, and the like, who paid up to $250,000 to mingle and peddle their deadly wares to the 19 Foreign Ministers in attendance.

    These merchants of death are driving the Star Wars revival as well. In an illustration of a laser beam from space zapping a target, the US Space Command’s report, Vision for 2020, unashamedly trumpets, “US Space Command dominating the space dimensions of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict”. There is no way that Russia will cooperate with us to eliminate nuclear weapons while it is unable to match the billions of US dollars being poured into the militarization of space. Ironically, the greatest threat to our national security today is the Russian nuclear arsenal. How long will Americans continue to allow the ignorant boys with the dangerous toys to play Russian roulette with the fate of the earth? Who’s minding the store?

    Write to President Clinton, your Senators, your Member of Congress, the new Presidential candidates. Urge them to take up, in good faith, the Russian offer to go to 1500 warheads and to give up the warped and imperial dream of dominating space with a new arms race to the heavens. This may be our last chance to reap the benefits of the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union.

    * Alice Slater is President of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) and a founder of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to ban the bomb.

  • Interview with Olara A. Otunnu, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict

    Mr. Otunnu, I started to study the issue of child soldiers almost two months ago and since then I discovered the tough reality that these children have to face every day. Today there are almost 300,000 child soldiers around the world and that number is constantly growing. Do you think there is a chance to reduce that number and how would it be possible?

    Yes, we can reduce that number assuming a three-pronged approach.

    One: It is very important for the international community to raise the age limit for recruitment and participation of young persons in conflict. The present age limit is 15 and I am campaigning with others to raise this to 18. Clearly, the higher the age limit the more children we can protect. 18 is important because in the Convention on the Rights of the Child anybody below 18 is defined as a child. Also in many countries the age of majority is 18 and in many countries as well the age of voting is 18. So it is very important to raise the age for recruitment and participation. That is why I have been putting a lot of stress calling on states to cooperate on the present project on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. That project is meant to raise the age limit for participation and for recruitment and the next meeting of the Working Group on the Optional Protocol is scheduled for January in Geneva and I hope everybody will work actively to cooperate to bring this matter to a successful conclusion.

    The second measure is mobilizing an international, political, social movement of pressure that can lean on governments and insurgencies who abuse children in this way and they can feel the pressure of the international public opinion. It is very important to do this.

    Thirdly, even though a significant number of children are abducted and forced to become child soldiers, we also know that there are many who volunteer to become child soldiers or are enticed to become child soldiers because of economic, social collapse in their societies, which make the alternative of being with armed groups more attractive than staying at home when there is no schooling, no economic production, the family is braking apart and the option of getting a gun and acquiring false power , or being fed, or being in the uniform looks more attractive to them. Children who are attracted by ideology, nationalist ideology come to fight for an ethnic group; or by religion come and fight for a religion; or by political ideology come and fight for a new society to re-establish democracy to overthrow a dictatorship.

    In other words we need to address the economic, social, political factors that facilitate the abuse of children in this way. These are three measures we need to take in order to reverse this trend of abomination.

    Q: I am sure you saw many child soldiers when you traveled around the world. What did you see in their eyes?

    Often is partly despair, is partly resignation and it is partly indifference and a sense of alienation, feeling out of it. This especially becomes acute when a child is becoming an adult and begins to realize more fully what they have been doing and how terrible what they have been doing. As well as also realizing the extent to which they have been exposed. So you have got a child victim in a way at both ends of a gun: the child who is firing the gun and the child who is being fired at.

    Q: I know you were born in Northern Uganda and that you spent your childhood in that area. Uganda is currently recruiting children as volunteers at the age of 13. Since you grew up in Uganda have you ever been forced to join the army or have you ever seen one of your friends joining the army at that age?

    No, when I was growing up in Uganda children were not been recruited into the army. This is a new phenomenon in Uganda. It is something that began in the 1980s when the NRA, the National Resistance Army, which is now the government in Uganda, pioneered the recruitment of children into its guerrilla movements and that is where the term KADOGÓS comes from. Kadogós means “little ones.” That is a term by which now child soldiers are known in Eastern Africa from Burundi to Uganda, from Rwanda to Sudan, and that term originated in a practice of the NRA in Uganda in the 1980s. And then the second wave of the recruitment of children is what we are seeing today in Northern Uganda by the LRA, the Lord’s Resistence Army, an insurgency group which is in opposition to the present government. So it is a relatively new phenomenon in Uganda and it did not exist when I grew up.

    Q: What do you think about the 17 and 16 year olds who can volunteer respectively in the US marines and the UK armed forces?

    We are having a dialogue with the UK government and the US government about the issue of raising the age limit for recruitment and for participation. As you know, my own position is that the age limit should be raised to 18 and both countries up until now have difficulties with that issue. We have an ongoing dialogue going on with the US and the UK on this issue and I hope that it would be possible to have these two countries joining in a consensus in January in Geneva when we discuss the finalization of the Optional Protocol.

    Most of the children in armies come from conditions of poverty. Do you believe that if their families can live in better conditions they won’t join the army or the rebels anymore?

    As I said earlier there are children who are abducted or kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers. That obviously is something that needs to be stopped by leaning on those who are doing this.

    Yes, there are children who because of conditions of poverty, economic-social breakdown will tend to gravitate towards the armed groups who may appear to them to offer better alternatives than the poverty, the despair, the misery in which they live. And it is not by accident that most Child Soldiers tend to be children from very poor, depressed and marginalized communities.

    Yes, by tackling those conditions we would be tackling this issue.

    Q: Children respond to the stress of armed conflicts with physical and psychological trauma. What can be done for them and what do you think would be better for them after they leave the army?

    Definitely is very important to address their trauma because when children go and join up armed groups they are exposed to be killed and they kill. They see violence and atrocities. Children have committed some of the worst atrocities in situations of conflict precisely because they are not fully conscious of what they are doing. They are indoctrinated; they are molded into a particularly efficient, ruthless and unquestioning tool of warfare. In many cases they are even drugged.

    So we must address their trauma, we must somehow address how to win them off violence. Violence becomes a normal way of life for them.

    How do you wean them off this? Of course we must address how to re-insert them back in the society, how to make their families accept them back, how to make the local community accept them back, because in many cases they feel this is no longer their child who left home, it’s a new person who is used to violence and who has committed atrocities. And then of course in terms of loss of childhood and schooling to find ways to give productive work to these children in order to become adults either vocational training or some kind of training for those who are young enough to try to re-introduce them to schooling.

    The four Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration on Human Rights, but above all the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child are the primary agreements in international law for the protection of children worldwide. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is generally applicable to every human being below the age of 18 years. But Art. 38 makes a point of allowing children under 18 to take direct part in hostilities. Do you think the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child will prevent the recruitment of children under the age of 18?

    As I said earlier, that is why the present effort to bring to a close of the project of the Optional Protocol is so important. Because an important aspect of that is raising the age limit for recruitment and participation and I personally advocate that we should adopt the age limit of 18. The present age limit is 15, which is much too low and I hope that in the upcoming month of January 2000 in the meeting in Geneva we agree on raising the age limit for recruitment and participation.

    Q: What do you think about the rehabilitation centers for ex-child soldiers in Mozambique, in Sierra Leone and in Colombia?

    They tend to be inadequate in relation to the magnitude of the problem because in all these three countries children have been massively used as child soldiers and quite often there is not enough capacity in these rehabilitation centers. There are not enough resources to put in faith that capacity. Also we need to develop more expertise and learn from other experiences.

    That is why the experience of Mozambique is very important for us to learn from what works and from what does not work, so that this can be applied in Sierra Leone, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Afghanistan, in Sri Lanka and so on. We learn from previous experiences of doing this and then of course we also need to put into place whenever there is any program for this arming, demobilization and rehabilitation. We are not only addressing the older people, the adults, but as a dimension, a framework, which addresses the situation of children who have been serving as combatants or have served in other ways within the armed groups. Because serving as combatants only is one way of recruitment. Children are used also as porters, cooks and spies.

    Q: What would you like to tell to the young people around the world about the child soldiers issue?

    I would like to tell them that is one of the most cynical features of today’s warfare the way with which adults are using children to be the channel for their own hate and passion. And in this way children are not only victims, they are not only victimized by the conflict, but children have also been victimizers of other children and other civilians. This is one of the worst crimes one could commit: depriving children of their innocence, of their childhood and then turning them into war machines. We must move to reverse this trend. Children have no place in warfare at all, their place is at school, in the family, in the playground and we must deprive them of that.

    Q: Is there anything concrete that ordinary people, like you and me, can do for these child soldiers?

    You can join in adopting the three-pronged strategy. You can join in the campaign through your Congressperson, through your Senator, through your government, through your school, through your city, the campaign to raise the age limit for recruitment and participation.

    You can secondly join in a national and eventually international campaign of political pressure that can lean on the organizations that are abusing children in this way.

    You can thirdly join by urging your own government and other institutions to which you are linked to contribute through their policies, through their resources to addressing the economic, political, social factas that facilitate the use of children in this way.

    At your level, in your school, in your community, you can begin that movement.

    Finally I think one can also build children to children linkages. Children of any community in this country can link up with children who have been exposed to wars in Sri Lanka, in Sierra Leone or in Kosovo with a school, with the hospital, with a village and learn about their experiences. So I hope children who are in the US blessed with a country that has peace, a country that is prosperous and democratic, would become advocate of children who are not so fortunate caught up in situations of conflict.

    * The UN has appointed Olara A. Otunnu as the UN Secretary-General Special’s Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. Otunnu presently serves as advocate for children in armed conflicts and is recognized widely for his catalytic work with the United Nations and NGOs concerned about the child soldiers issue.

    Stefania Capodaglio was the first Ruth Floyd Intern for Human Rights at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Santa Barbara headquarters. She is a student at the Catholic University of Milan in Italy.

  • Interview with Hiro Takeda

    “… as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb.” (Hiro Takeda)

    Mr. Takeda was born in 1919. He was living with his mother and brother on the outskirts of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped there on August 6, 1945. He is a hibakusha, a Hiroshima survivor. Stefania Capodaglio is the 1999 Ruth Floyd Human Rights intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation office in Santa Barbara. She spoke with Mr. Takeda during August 1999 about his experiences during and after the bombing of Hiroshima. Mr. Takeda is a US citizen and lives now in Southern California.

    Stefania Capodaglio: One thing that struck me about your description of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing at the Sadako Peace Day event in Santa Barbara this year is the vivid memory that you have of those days. I imagine it is a difficult process for you to awake to those memories. Please tell me a bit about what you remember of those days and what did you and your family do immediately after the dropping of the bomb.

    Hiro Takeda: In my memory it was one of my most frightful and horrendous experience I ever had in my life. Because when they bomb fell there was a big BOOM and then a flash in the BOOM. That is what they call PIKADUN (PIKA means flash). We did not know what kind of bomb was dropped and it was very, very powerful. Fortunately injured because I was sleeping and it pushed the ceiling up, it pushed the walls up. Fortunately we did not loose any windows because my mother had all the windows open because it was a very hot day. But the neighbors who had all the windows closed, the windows shattered and it blew the glass across the room. There were sliding doors and a lot of people got hurt on their head. We were lucky . We thought maybe the when the bomb fell we thought: What happened? Then towards afternoon, towards evening the whole city was in flame so I said: My God what is that! Then there was this awesome sight I ever seen : the whole city was all in flame and we just couldn’t comprehend , what was going on. And that evening my brother and I, we turned on the radio, the “Philco Radio” that we took with us from here (US) and it was a small radio with a short wave on that, but we never used that until we have used that radio because we were afraid , because if we were caught with the short wave being American who knew what would have happened.

    That night, on August 6th, my brother and I, were very very anxious of what was going on, so we turned on the radio and then we caught one of the stations in Australia, we caught the news and then they announced it was an A-bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima and we never heard about A-bomb and radiation. And then I understand ……will grow in the city… we were kind of shocked and just speechless. So what we did the following day, we saw a lot of people coming in a way from (away from) Hiroshima city. They were men all worried about their relatives, friends, and neighbors. So I got my mother on the back of my bicycle and we went out to the city. The first place we went to was the temple because they told us that all the victims were in the temples, shrines and schools. So this was the first place where we went to was the temple, and when we saw all these people they were languishing and disfigured, well my mother and I, we couldn’t even stand, we couldn’t even go forward, we were just frozen dead and we couldn’t believe what we saw and I don’t know, it was one of the most frightful sight I ever seen in a They were all just burned and I saw many many We went to the next place. It was the shrine and it was the same thing and then the school ground. There were 100 and 1000 of people all in classrooms all way along that of course almost all the buildings were quiet damaged because of the blast, but then there were in this room we went to, this room was full of dead people, and then in the other room there were people who were dying, we saw many of them dying in front of our eyes. Some of these things is something that hit me really hard, and still we couldn’t believe….I do not know how to say that!! Have we known that the radiation effect was dangerous we would have maybe been afraid to go even to the city, but we didn’t know anything about that. A-bomb, radiation, nothing! We never heard about that thing, so we were desperate trying to look for relatives, friends, and neighbors. And one of the next sight I saw and I think I have already mentioned that on August 6 Peace Day : a young lady standing, she was just standing with her burned skin that was peeling and she was…. I do not know how to describe her. The next thing that really hurt me, even now when I think about it and I cry is this young boy. I do not know how old he was but I couldn’t recognize him because his face was blown and it was just like a balloon. He was just crying “Mammy, Mammy” and then “water, water”, and then that pitiful and painful voice and I can’t still…..I’ll never forget that little boy!! And we didn’t know what to do, we wanted to do something but we just didn’t know what to do! And this was one of the most frightful experience I ever had: seeing a 100 a 1000 people all around the school ground. Some of the people were disfigured and when I saw them I thought they were in great pain. The people who died without having been identified by their relatives were cremated in the school ground. And these are sights that I think I’ll never forget as long as I live. I saw many movies about Hiroshima and the dropping of the A-bomb, but they were nothing compared to what I actually witnessed. A lot of people aren’t quite aware yet of how dangerous and harmful the story behind is.

    SC: The United States dropped the A-bomb on your country on August 6th, 1945. Do you hate the US for what it did to your country?

    HT: I don’t hate countries for doing that, but I have a grudge against President Truman for ordering that. But then an other thing is why did they have to drop the bomb knowing that 100 of thousands of innocent people would have died? Why couldn’t they drop the bomb in some place in a remote area to show them what powerful weapon they had instead of killing 140,000 innocent people? I know of a friend of mine, his sun whose name was Kasu (Kaso), they could never find him! And we lost quite a few of our neighbors. Five or six days later my brother and I went to look for our teacher who was like a second father. We were so concerned about him! To go to our teacher we had to cross the whole city and we had to go through the epicenter. We spent the whole day to go through the epicenter and the stench of death was all over the place, and finally, I don’t know how we ever managed to cross some of the bridges that were all destroyed, but somehow we managed to find the house. Of course it was completely destroyed, and the daughter was there at the house by herself and she said that her father died three days ago and he was cremated.

    SC: Do you believe that your personal witness could influence people and make them reflect more seriously about the atrocities committed with the dropping of the bomb?

    HT: I would think so! When I talked to the people about what I went through and all that, they were quiet astonished. Well when I talk to the people they try to understand or realize , and of course it is hard for them to even visualize or imagine what effect it had on the human being. They can say it was awful, horrible, but this doesn’t describe anything because there is no words in a dictionary to describe what I saw. They cannot imagine what happened, there are no words to describe what happened. When I tell people about that thing they say: Oh, this is awful!! This is something that we should be aware of and then try to prevent a nuclear war. And this is the only thing they can really do or say. So I have these wishes: at least try get along to each other and prevent war as much as we can. But this is something really difficult. Even right now there are some countries making nuclear warheads and I think about my grandson who have to through all that.

    SC: How do you think your memories and stories can best be shared with students and young people in order to increase their understanding of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons?

    HT: I made speeches at school, even in Japan, at the University in Tokushima and then at the Grammar School in Koku Kopu) and here in SB and I even made a speech in LA. I made these speeches at least to make them aware of how awful an A-bomb is, and of course a lot of students were shocked. But the students at the University in Tokushima they didn’t even know about the A-bomb and this was something surprising to me. I’m sure they heard about it but they didn’t know how much destructive it was or how much effect it had on human beings. So I believe that educating people in extent is a good I idea.

    SC: What do you think about Japanese and American military expenditures for conventional weapons and other sophisticated weapon’ technologies? Do you believe they are still useful after what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    HT: If they could avoid using them it would be the best thing, but to prevent that is an other question. Because there is Pakistan, India, China and Korea that are still building them. To prevent an other country to launch a missile in a certain way is necessary, but to spend all that money on nuclear weapons is ridiculous because there are so many people who need to be helped, a lot of people who suffer for hunger. Why cannot they use the money towards helping the people instead of building arms? So sometimes I wonder if this is the right way to go!! But then when you see other countries building something like that because they are trying to attack or something like that, well it is a necessity, but then I hope they have at least something to prevent that thing to happen.

    SC: How do you see your role as an “hibakusha”?

    HT: Well I tried not to spread that I’m an hibakusha, but as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb. But I was lucky to be able to still survive and be able to tell people of my experience and I think this is one of my responsibilities.

    SC: If there is one lesson you could share with the next generation, what would it be?

    HT: Well I will simply tell them the truth and tell them how terrible the A-bomb is! I would like to tell them to have good relations with other countries, starting with their neighbors. And build friendship and understanding and prevent all these arguments. That’s all I have to say about this! I have been telling my children about the A-bomb and I’m sure they heard something else from their friends, so in this way you can make people aware of the danger of the A-bomb and then I’m sure they will do everything possible to work towards peace instead of trying to create more walls between countries.

    SC: What effect the bomb had on your family: your mother, your brother ..?

    HT: As far as the health my brother and my sister did pretty well, of course my sister she had some problems but then she is O.K.! It hurt my mother more than anything and I think my mother died because of the radiation. Because right after the A-bomb all the people were in the school and my mother used to go and help to cook and nurse these people not knowing the danger of the radiation and she was there every day. So it may affect her health in this way and of course she was very sad that she lost a very good friend in the A-bomb.

  • Facing Nuclear Dangers and Flinching – Comments on the Final Report of the Tokyo Forum

    The Final Report of the Tokyo Forum is entitled, “Facing Nuclear Dangers: An Action Plan for the 21st Century.” The Report, however, is not nearly as bold as its title would suggest. A clue as to why this may be so is found in paragraph 12 of the opening section of the Report where it states, “Terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons has been possible for some time, but serious policymakers have traditionally seen other threats as more pressing.” The members of the Tokyo Forum have aimed their recommendations at influencing such “serious policymakers,” particularly those in the nuclear weapons states. The Final Report ends up being short on vision, and proposes only incremental changes, the kind that might be acceptable to those who have no real desire to change the status quo.

    The Report recognizes, “the fabric of international security is unraveling and nuclear dangers are growing at a disturbing rate.” This is a diagnosis that calls for strong medicine. The Tokyo Forum, however, offers only weak tea and toast, proposals unlikely to offend the “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states. In doing so, the Report falls painfully short of the mark as to what is needed as we approach the beginning of a new century and millennium. Like Nero, the “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states have been fiddling while the nuclear fuse continues to burn.

    When it comes to the issue of nuclear proliferation, the Report finds that the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “must be reaffirmed and revitalized.” With breathtaking logic, the Report reaches the conclusion that “The discriminatory basis of the NPT regime need not constitute a moral and practical flaw in the treaty provided that the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states keep their parts of the bargain.” The problem here is that the nuclear weapons states have never kept their part of the bargain, and seem far more intent on maintaining a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” than in doing so.

    One bright point in the Report is its denunciation of the use of nuclear weapons to deter a chemical, biological or large-scale conventional attack. The Report states, “Until they are abolished, the Tokyo Forum believes that the only function of nuclear weapons is to deter the use of other nuclear weapons.” This is a position with which many so-called “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states apparently do not agree. U.S. Presidential Decision Directive 60, a secret document, is purported to expand the use of nuclear weapons to counter chemical or biological attacks.

    In the end, the Report fails to ask enough of the nuclear weapons states. It calls on the U.S. and Russia “to further extend reductions to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.” This is a step in the right direction, but far from sufficient. The Report asks for a “goal of zero nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.” Recognizing millennial computer risks, the Report calls for removing nuclear weapons from alert status “for the period of concern.” Good idea, but why not use this as a starting point for keeping all nuclear weapons separated from delivery vehicles to prevent any possibility of accidental launch. Perhaps in the minds of the members of the Tokyo Forum, this would go too far for “serious policymakers.”

    Rather than opposing Ballistic Missile Defenses, which seem to offer only the false promise of security and to have the potential to reignite the development of offensive nuclear capabilities, the Report asks only that “all states contemplating the deployment of advanced missile defences to proceed with caution….”

    The Tokyo Forum offers too little, too late to meet the dangers of our nuclear-armed world. While the Report is not a complete disgrace, it does little if anything to build upon and advance the Report of the Canberra Commission to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons issued three years earlier. I find the Report a serious disappointment when measured against the calls of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a world free of nuclear weapons.

    The people of Japan, even more than the people of most countries of the world, strongly support rapid action to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. The government of Japan, on the other hand, has been content to crawl under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The Tokyo Forum has aligned itself much more closely with the policies of the U.S. and Japanese governments than with the people of Japan, and particularly those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is often what happens when aspiring “serious policymakers” speak to those in power.

    The people of Japan are far ahead of their government and far ahead of the experts in the Tokyo Forum. They should demand a far stronger and more active leadership role for their government in reducing nuclear dangers, beginning with a demand for the de-alerting of all nuclear weapons and the separation of nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles. This would be a valuable first step on the part of the nuclear weapons states toward fulfilling their obligations in Article VI of the NPT to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    The way to proceed is with good faith negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased elimination of nuclear arsenals under strict and effective international control. There is no reason not to commence these negotiations immediately and to conclude them with a treaty by the end of next year. In this way, we could enter the 21st century with an agreed upon plan in place to abolish nuclear arms. The Tokyo Forum was timid about asking for action within a timeframe, but their timidity should not inhibit people everywhere from asking for what is right and in the best interests of humanity, now and in the future.

    * David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is the editor of Waging Peace Worldwide. He is a member of the international coordinating committee of Abolition 2000 and a member of the executive committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.