Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Japan

  • Hiroshima Day Peace Declaration

    Radiation, heat, blast and their synergetic effects created a hell on Earth. Sixty-one years later, the number of nations enamored of evil and enslaved by nuclear weapons is increasing. The human family stands at a crossroads. Will all nations be enslaved? Or will all nations be liberated? This choice poses another question. Is it acceptable for cities, and especially the innocent children who live in them, to be targeted by nuclear weapons?

    The answer is crystal clear, and the past sixty-one years have shown us the path to liberation.

    From a hell in which no one could have blamed them for choosing death, the hibakusha set forth toward life and the future. Living with injuries and illnesses eating away at body and mind, they have spoken persistently about their experiences. Refusing to bow before discrimination, slander, and scorn, they have warned continuously that “no one else should ever suffer as we did.” Their voices, picked up by people of conscience the world over, are becoming a powerful mass chorus.

    The keynote is, “The only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished.” And yet, the world’s political leaders continue to ignore these voices. The International Court of Justice advisory opinion handed down ten years ago, born of the creative action of global civil society, should have been a highly effective tool for enlightening and guiding them toward the truth.

    The Court found that “Sthe threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law,” and went on to declare, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    If the nuclear-weapon states had taken the lead and sought in good faith to fulfill this obligation, nuclear weapons would have been abolished already. Unfortunately, during the past ten years, most nations and most people have failed to confront this obligation head-on. Regretting that we have not done more, the City of Hiroshima, along with Mayors for Peace, whose member cities have increased to 1,403, is launching Phase II of our 2020 Vision Campaign. This phase includes the Good Faith Challenge, a campaign to promote the good-faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament called for in the ICJ advisory opinion, and a Cities Are Not Targets project demanding that nuclear-weapon states stop targeting cities for nuclear attack.

    Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral weapons designed to obliterate cities. Our goals are to reveal the delusions behind “nuclear deterrence theory” and the “nuclear umbrella,” which hold cities hostage, and to protect, from a legal and moral standpoint, our citizens’ right to life.

    Taking the lead in this effort is the US Conference of Mayors, representing 1,139 American cities. At its national meeting this past June, the USCM adopted a resolution demanding that all nuclear-weapon states, including the United States, immediately cease all targeting of cities with nuclear weapons.

    Cities and citizens of the world have a duty to release the lost sheep from the spell and liberate the world from nuclear weapons. The time has come for all of us to awaken and arise with a will that can penetrate rock and a passion that burns like fire.

    I call on the Japanese government to advocate for the hibakusha and all citizens by conducting a global campaign that will forcefully insist that the nuclear-weapon states “negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament.” To that end, I demand that the government respect the Peace Constitution of which we should be proud. I further request more generous, people-oriented assistance appropriate to the actual situations of the aging hibakusha, including those living overseas and those exposed in “black rain areas.”

    To console the many victims whose names remain unknown, this year for the first time we added the words, “Many Unknown” to the ledger of victims’ names placed in the cenotaph. We humbly pray for the peaceful repose of the souls of all atomic bomb victims and a future of peace and harmony for the human family.

    Tadatoshi Akiba is the mayor of Hiroshima.

  • The Hibakusha Voice and the Future of the Anti-Nuclear Movement

    Mr. Tsuboi Sunao would appear to be an ordinary healthy elderly Japanese man except for the large patch of white skin that medical specialists call leucoderma on his forehead. He is a cheerful 79 year old, but over the past 60 years he has been critically ill four times, each time being told that he would not survive. He first fell ill immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima when he was unconscious for 40 days. He is presently suffering from prostate cancer. Despite his illness he has been and still is an active campaigner against nuclear arms and one of the best known hibakusha, or victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In December 2003 he went to Washington D.C., to protest against the permanent display of the “Enola Gay” in the new wing of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. He was not against the actual display of the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people by the end of 1945. Rather he was against the exhibition of this plane without any explanation of the consequences caused as a result of the attack that took so many civilian lives and left tens of thousands of others to suffer throughout their lives.

    Mr. Tsuboi does not expect to be alive when Hiroshima City commemorates the 70th anniversary of the atomic attack in 2015. Indeed, it is almost certain that not only Mr. Tsuboi, but also most hibakusha will have passed away by then, as approximately 5000 hibakusha have died every year over the past ten years. Due to the rapidly diminishing number of hibakusha the “weathering of the Hiroshima experience” as it is called in Japan has become a serious concern for many citizens of this city in recent years. The number of children from various parts of Japan who visit the Atomic Bomb Museum in Peace Park on school excursions has also decreased sharply in recent years so that “oblivion to the Hiroshima memory” is becoming a nation wide phenomenon.

    In one corner of the Hiroshima Peace Park stands the statue of a young girl, Sadako, stretching her arms towards the sky. Sadako’s story is well known throughout the world, as books in many languages have been published about this girl who died of leukemia at the age of 12 in 1955, ten years after the bombing of Hiroshima. While ill in hospital Sadako attempted to make one thousand folded paper cranes, working on these until shortly before her death, in the belief that she would survive if she could achieve her goal. As a result of her efforts, the paper crane became a symbol of peace in Japan. Since her death visiting school groups from all over Japan have placed thousands of strings of paper cranes around her statute in memory of her lost youth and the Hiroshima tragedy. Sadly, over the past few years, these paper cranes have been set on fire a number of times, probably by young people, “just for fun.” To prevent such juvenile crime the city council built a small glass enclosure behind the statue in which to protect the paper cranes. Security cameras were also installed. Yet again, a few days before August 6, Hiroshima Day, in 2003, a university student from Kobe broke the glass and set fire to the cranes. When arrested he confessed that he did it out of frustration over the grim employment situation facing new university graduates. The incidents suggest that Sadako’s sorrowful tale, and the plight of the living as well as dead atomic victims, has become irrelevant to many young people in Japan.

    Today, Japan’s experience as the only nation to encounter a nuclear holocaust also appears irrelevant to Japan’s leading politicians including Prime Minister Koizumi. Until Mr. Koizumi became prime minister five years ago, it was an annual tradition for the prime minister to meet representatives of the hibakusha for about half an hour immediately after attending the commemoration ceremony in Peace Park on August 6. It was, of course, merely a token gesture for previous successive prime ministers to make a show of government concern for the health of hibakusha. Yet even this publicity gesture was cancelled, although Mr. Koizumi still reluctantly attends the ceremony. Some of his colleagues in the Liberal Democratic Party, including former Party Secretary General Abe Shinzo, think that Japan should develop nuclear arms for defense purposes against so-called “rogue nations” such as North Korea. Until a decade or so ago, there were still a few prominent conservative politicians who tenaciously objected to the nuclearization of Japan and to the dispatch of Japan’s Self Defense Forces to overseas war zones. Today, such statesmen no longer exist within the LDP. Article 9 of Japan’s post-war Constitution forbidding engagement in any form of armed conflict has so far been widely supported by the Japanese people, partly because of a strong desire not to repeat the nuclear holocaust. Recently, however, powerful voices both within the LDP as well as opposition parties have called for elimination of the pacifist clauses of the Constitution.

    For many months now major Japanese anti-nuclear organizations and other grass-roots peace movement groups have been planning their own events scheduled for August 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet these planned events seem to offer few new ideas of how to tackle the problem of “oblivion to the Hiroshima memory” that pervades both the younger generation as well as the politicians. It is almost certain that events to commemorate the 60th anniversary will be the last chance for surviving hibakusha to appeal to the world to oppose the idea of genocide by weapons of mass destruction. I am sure that, in August 2005, they will receive much media attention from all over the world. However, the real question that the Japanese people should ask themselves is what they will do after the 60th anniversary in order to keep alive the Hiroshima memory and to utilize it to construct a peaceful world without the living voices of the hibakusha.

    A Hiroshima A-Bomb victim, Ms. Kurihara Sadako, once wrote the following passage in one of her poems:

    It was night in the basement of a broken building Victims of the atomic bomb Crowded into the candleless darkness

    Filling the room to overflowing The smell of fresh blood, the stench of death The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice “Oh! The baby’s coming!” it said ………. And so, a new life was born In the darkness of that living hell ………. We shall give forth new life! We shall bring forth new life! Even to our death

    What is urgently required for Japan’s peace movement now is a powerful cry for new life to its own ideas of peace with new perspectives in order to confront the present world of military violence and terrorism.

    Yuki Tanaka is a Research Professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and a coordinator of Japan Focus. He is the author of Japan’s Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II.

    This article originally appeared on ZNet

  • Turning the Tide: The need for a Pacific Solution to Aid Conditionality

    Greenpeace Pacific, Suva, June 2002

    Excerpted from Teresia K. Teaiwa, Sandra Tarte, Nic Maclellan and Maureen Penjueli

    Chapter Two: THE NUCLEAR SUPERHIGHWAY
    Japanese aid and the transhipment of radioactive materials through the Pacific
    By Nic Maclellan

    Japan is a major donor of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to Pacific island nations, doubling its aid to the region between 1987 and 1995. By 1999, Japan was the largest bilateral aid donor to Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and the second largest donor to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru and Tuvalu (1). Since 1991, Japan has participated in OECD donor coordination meetings with Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union, the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, as OECD countries contributed over US$7.7 billion in aid to the region in 1995-9. In spite of this, only about two per cent of overall Japanese ODA – about $138 million a year – goes to the South Pacific, and there have been reports that aid to island countries will be reduced if current plans to slash the ODA budget are implemented (2).

    Since 1989, Japan has been a post-Forum dialogue partner with the Pacific Islands Forum (formerly the South Pacific Forum) – the sixteen-member body that links Australia, New Zealand and the independent island nations. For some years, Japan has been the third largest contributor to Forum Secretariat activities, after Australia and New Zealand. Between 1988 and 2000, Japan contributed US$6.7 million to the Secretariat, with the latest grant in 2001 amounting to US$401,000. Forum Secretary General Mr. Noel Levi CBE notes: “Japan’s financial support, through extra-budgetary funding, has been fundamental to the implementation of our key programs.”(3)

    Japan also contributes funds to other regional inter-governmental organisations, such as the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

    Japan’s aid program and diplomatic efforts support broader national interests, as noted by Japan’s Fisheries Minister in July 2001: “Japan does not have a military power, unlike US and Australia … Japanese means is simply diplomatic communication and ODA. So, in order to get appreciation of Japan’s position, of course that is natural that we must do, result on those two major truths (sic) (4).” As mentioned in Chapter One, Japan is seeking the support of the growing islands’ bloc at the United Nations, in its efforts to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Japan also seeks ongoing access to Pacific fisheries and forest resources. Japanese corporations are interested in rights to the island nations’ undersea mineral wealth in the 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – signing an agreement in February, 2000 for deep ocean mineral exploration in EEZs around the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Marshall Islands.

    Close diplomatic and development ties throughout the 1990s have not ended island concern over environmental and resource issues involving Japanese corporations, including whaling, tuna and the transhipment of plutonium, MOX fuel and high-level radioactive wastes through the Pacific. In 2000, Japan offered to establish a US$10 million “goodwill” trust fund for Forum Island countries to address concerns over a possible fire, sinking, collision or accident involving nuclear materials. The issue is subject to ongoing negotiations between the Pacific Islands Forum and the nuclear nations involved in reprocessing Japanese spent nuclear wastes.

    Japan and nuclear energy

    Japan has a large nuclear power industry, and arranges for its spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed at the British reprocessing plant at Sellafield and the French reprocessing plant at La Hague. (Reprocessing involves chemically separating uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel, in order to reuse the plutonium). The reprocessing companies – COGEMA in France and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in Britain – are government owned and controlled, while ten Japanese energy corporations make up the Overseas Reprocessing Committee (ORC). These three companies own the British-based shipping firm, Pacific Nuclear Transport LTD (PNTL), which carries nuclear wastes by sea on vessels such as Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal.

    Japan started transhipment of nuclear wastes to Europe back in 1969, but the program escalated in the 1990s as it attempted to develop a plutonium-fuelled fast breeder reactor. In coming years, Japanese nuclear corporations plan to ship 600 tonnes of spent fuel to France. After reprocessing, the separated plutonium and high level radioactive wastes are scheduled to be shipped back to Japan, because supply nations vetoed the use of aircraft for safety reasons. Depending on the route, the ships pass through the EEZs of Pacific or Caribbean island nations.

    Japan maintains massive stockpiles of separated plutonium in Europe (20.6 tonnes in France and 6.9 tonnes in Britain, as of late 2000). Japanese corporations Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) hope to bring these stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium from Europe to Japan by the year 2010. Shipping radioactive wastes back and forth across the oceans allows Japan’s nuclear industry to avoid responsibility for the build-up of nuclear pollution in Japan, as there is no viable method for the long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes.

    A shipment of plutonium from Europe to Japan in 1992 aboard the Akatsuki Maru brought international condemnation, culminating when the United States government ordered Japan to send an armed escort vessel with the plutonium transport ship (5). The Akatsuki Maru, carrying a tonne of plutonium, passed between Australia and New Zealand, and then through the waters of Pacific island nations, including the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

    Because of concerns after the Akatsuki Maru shipment and public opposition to the use of plutonium in Japan, reprocessed materials are now transported as mixed plutonium/uranium oxide (MOX) fuel, to be burnt in light water nuclear reactors. Many Japanese citizens are opposed to Japan’s plutonium economy, because of concerns over nuclear proliferation, cost and pollution. There are many safety problems with Japan’s reprocessing and nuclear industry, exemplified by the December 1995 fire and accident at the Monju prototype fast breeder reactor, the March 1997 fire and explosion at Tokaimura reactor, or the April 1997 leak of heavy water coolant at the Fugen plutonium-fuelled reactor. Confidence was also shaken by the corporate and government failure to respond quickly to the September 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident (Tokaimura hosts four nuclear power plants and was the site of Japan’s worst nuclear accident, which killed two people and exposed at least 439 others to radiation) (7).

    The demand for MOX shipments has faltered, in the face of Japanese citizen opposition. In February 2001, the Governor of Fukushima Province, Eisaku Sato, acknowledged the “impossibility of MOX use at present.” Governor Sato stated: “The JCO criticality accident [at Tokaimura in 1999] and the MOX fuel data falsification problem heightened prefectural citizens anxiety and distrust over government nuclear policy, and the acceptance of the MOX use program in the prefecture has yet to recover (8).” The same month, TEPCO announced that it had suspended construction of all new nuclear power plants.

    The data falsification Governor Sato referred to seriously undermined Japan’s MOX program. The first 1999 shipment from the UK’s British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) facility at Sellafield erupted in scandal when, while en-route, it was revealed that BNFL had deliberately falsified vital quality control data. For the next three months BNFL and Japanese authorities denied that quality control data for the MOX fuel had been falsified. However, after a legal challenge was mounted by Japanese NGO’s (supported by Greenpeace), BNFL finally admitted that falsification had taken place during the manufacture of the MOX fuel. The Japanese government and owners of the MOX fuel, Kansai Electric, rejected BNFL’s view that it remained safe to load the fuel into nuclear reactors and in early 2000 demanded it be returned to the UK. After negotiating for over six months, it was announced in July 2000 that the UK government had agreed to the return of the MOX fuel. BNFL agreed to a compensation package with Kansai Electric, whereby a total of 110 million UK sterling would be written off to fund direct compensation, new fuel, and the cost of a return transport. It was announced that the transport would take place within 2-3 years. This return shipment departed from Britain on April 26, 2002 – the sixteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

    The Japanese and British Governments recognise the sensitivity of this return shipment, conducted three years after the fact. The Agreement for the return, signed by both parties on July 11, 2000, stated that: “maximum consideration will be given to the relationship with coastal states.” However, as recently as January 30, 2002 the Japanese Foreign Ministry stated to a member of the Japanese Parliament that all three routes between Japan and the UK remained an option for this shipment and they will be used in a balanced way.

    At the time of writing, the Pacific Pintail and a second armed nuclear transport ship, the Pacific Teal, are loading the plutonium MOX in Japan. The ships’ route was still unknown, and countries along the three possible routes were on alert for incursions into their territorial waters and EEZs.

    Evidence that the consistent opposition of en-route states is having an impact on Japan’s plans for future shipments has emerged over recent years. In early 2001, it was revealed that the Japanese Government was considering the option of moving plutonium and vitrified high level waste from Europe via the Northern Sea Route, north of Russia. While Greenpeace is opposed to such plans, it is noteworthy that one of the motives for this is the view of the Japanese Foreign Ministry that opposition in the South Pacific, Caribbean and Latin America is growing. The Northern Sea Route would avoid these regions. Further evidence that opposition from coastal states is impacting the Japanese nuclear program also comes via the Japanese Foreign Ministry. It intervened directly during 2000 and 2001 to prevent the signing of new reprocessing contracts between utilities and the French company Cogema, citing growing opposition from en-route nations. If signed, such contracts would lead to tens of shipments of spent nuclear waste fuel from Japan to Europe.

    In spite of the vulnerable financial situation of Japan’s plutonium economy, island nations have not yet been able to halt the transhipment of nuclear wastes. At the 1992 South Pacific Forum, leaders expressed their concern over the shipment of plutonium through Pacific waters, an expression of concern that has been repeated in every Forum Communiqué over the last decade.

    There is widespread concern that an accident could threaten Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries, especially as the nuclear industry in Japan and Britain has recently been rocked by a series of scandals over safety. In the Japanese Diet (Parliament) on July 2,1999, questions were raised about whether Japan, Britain and France made any arrangements before the shipments, as required under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted: “No arrangements exist. This has never been discussed between the three countries.” Some larger countries, like New Zealand, have sought and received assurances that the shipments will not pass through their EEZs, but these guarantees have not been given to small island Pacific states, which straddle the route to Japan through the Tasman Sea and central Pacific (9).

    Under international law, ships have the (debatable) right of “innocent passage” through EEZs. Negotiations to revise the existing international liability regime, known as the Paris Convention, are underway, however there are a number of constraints:

    • Unlike France and Britain, Japan is not a party to the 1960 Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy or the 1963 Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
    • Non-OECD members such as Forum members states can only accede to the Paris Convention with the unanimous consent of all state parties
    • The Paris Convention does not cover economic loss arising from the perception of risk after an incident or accident. This is a key concern for island nations, as discussed below.

    In the mid-1990s, some Pacific island governments considered unilateral initiatives to restrict nuclear transport ships from passing through their EEZs (10). For example, in September 1997 Solomon Islands Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulafa’alu stated that his government was considering legislation to charge fees for nuclear waste shipments passing through his country’s waters. Media reports quoting diplomatic sources stated that in retaliation, Japan was considering suspending a $14 million ODA grant to build a new terminal at Honiara’s

    Henderson International Airport. Although the Japanese embassy then officially denied the claim, Ulafa’alu’s legislation never got off the ground (11).

    Diplomatic pressure from the nuclear states on individual Pacific governments has led to a co-ordinated Forum initiative. Instead of trying to ban outright the nuclear shipments through the region, the Forum has asked for negotiations on prior notification, compensation and liability schemes in cases of accident.

    Australia – Fuelling the Controversy

    Throughout all of the diplomatic efforts in relation to the shipments, the concerns of the en route nations have been undermined by the very unhelpful role played by Australia. Indeed, successive Australian governments have condoned the passage of the nuclear transports. Australia sells uranium, the basic fuel for nuclear reactors, to electricity utilities in Japan. Official reports show that thousands of tonnes of Australian uranium and its by-products are held by Japan – in the form of natural uranium, enriched uranium, and depleted uranium, as well as irradiated and separated plutonium. Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) is traded under bilateral and international agreements which means that Japan needs permission from Australia before it can take part in nuclear material transfers. However, permission has been granted for both the transfer of the materials, and the shipments themselves, via a “generic consent” which covers this and every other plutonium shipment, without subjecting that particular shipment, or the Japanese plutonium program, to any scrutiny whatsoever.

    Forum Negotiations with Shipping States

    Even though concerns were raised formally after the Akatsuki Maru’s plutonium shipment in 1992, Japan, France and Britain dragged their feet over addressing Forum concerns. Formal consultations on the issue only commenced in 1999, involving Forum Secretariat officials and ambassadors, plus government officials of the three shipping nations (Britain, France and Japan), and nuclear industry representatives (12).

    After a mandate given by the 1998 Forum meeting, the first round of discussions on nuclear shipments was held in Suva, Fiji in August, 1999. Ironically, at the time, two shiploads of MOX fuel were passing through the region (13). In spite of agreement to continue dialogue, the second round of discussions in Auckland, New Zealand, was not held until September, 2000 – one year after the first meeting. At this consultation, in Auckland, New Zealand in September 2000, the three nuclear powers claimed that existing international maritime law on “innocent passage” allows nuclear transhipment through islands EEZs. They refused to acknowledge any liability for potential accidents beyond the existing international regime.

    In February 2001, at the time of another MOX shipment, the Forum publicly expressed its concern over the slow pace of negotiations:

    “At the Forum meetings in Kiribati and Palau, island leaders noted the continuation of discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom on the current liability regime for compensating the region for economic losses caused to tourism, fisheries and other affected industries as a result of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials, even if there is no actual environmental damage caused. The Forum has noted that amendments to existing international liability regimes were currently under negotiation and that, once concluded, would take some time to enter into force. It is therefore necessary that discussions focus on intermediate innovative arrangements or assurances to address the Forum’s concerns. The Forum has reaffirmed its desire to continue these discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have also called for a high-level commitment from the three shipping states to carry the process forward.(14)”

    A third meeting with the shipping states and nuclear industry representatives was held on 3-5 July 2001 in Nadi, Fiji. It was the first time that substantial discussion and negotiations occurred, and Forum concerns were addressed.

    A central issue from Forum member countries is not only the potential catastrophic environmental consequences of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel, but also economic impacts arising from any incident where there is no release of radioactivity (“…even if there is no actual environmental damage caused.” ) (15). Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate has noted that for his and similar countries, a nuclear waste shipment accident would “create immediate and widespread perception of danger and ruin a booming tourism industry” (16).

    There are precedents for such economic losses, as shown with the resumption of French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in 1995-6. International hostility to the testing and public perceptions of nuclear hazards caused a significant drop in tourism to many Pacific countries, even though they are some distance from the nuclear test sites. Tourism to French Polynesia dropped 20 per cent in the last quarter of 1995 in comparison to the previous year, but other Pacific countries were also affected: tourism for the period to the Cook Islands dropped 14.7 per cent, New Caledonia 6.9 per cent and Fiji 3.4 per cent. Japanese honeymooners and tour groups are an important source of tourism revenue, but Japanese tourism to the South Pacific dropped 36.9 per cent in the last quarter of 1995, in large part because of concern over nuclear hazards (17).

    While giving assurances on the prevention of incidents and response to an accident, the three shipping nations refuse to give commitments on compensation and liability, especially for economic losses caused by perceived dangers from a nuclear accident. Japan has maintained a rigid position that it will not provide compensation for economic loss; concerned that so-called “misreporting” of a nuclear accident may increase the economic losses. Such commitments from the shipping states will only come after sustained political pressure.

    Japan’s Trust Fund

    Japan has responded to ongoing pressure over the issue by offering to pay an initial grant of US$10 million into a “good will” trust (funded by Japanese nuclear corporations). The trust fund was announced publicly at the October 2000 Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Kiribati. Annual interest of some US$500,000 from this Pacific Islands Development Cooperation Fund could be used to finance projects for Forum Island Countries in the fields of environment, energy and tourism.

    A more controversial element of the fund was the announcement that “the principal of the trust fund would be available to cover the costs of the initial response to incidents during shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel through the region (18).” However, the UK and France are worried that the trust fund has been linked to the nuclear shipments, and Japan is seeking to revise its original advice that the fund has any connection to nuclear transport accidents, in order to avoid liability. The Japanese Government has not publicly clarified details of the Trust Fund and is still negotiating the details of the MOU and a Management Council to govern its operations.

    Even this gesture has not mollified critics of the nuclear shipments, who call for a complete cession of all transport of nuclear materials through Pacific waters. Motarilavoa Hilda Lini of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) has noted: “We are concerned that our governments’ position could be compromised by accepting Japan’s offer to establish a US$10 million ‘goodwill’ trust fund to placate concerns about the plutonium shipments threat to Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries. US$10 million is peanuts. It will not cover a fraction of the costs incurred by a nuclear accident at sea. (19) ”

    It is worth noting that the domestic liability agreements in Japan in relation to nuclear accidents are far more generous than what has been offered to en route states.

    Japanese Lobbying

    In an effort to prop up their troubled nuclear industry, Japanese government and industry lobbyists now argue that nuclear power is a solution to global warming and subsequent sea-level rise – key issues of concern for small atoll states in the Pacific. Nuclear corporations have hired public relations companies like Burson-Marsteller to soften public opinion, saying there are no hazards from the shipments. Delegations from COGEMA and BNFL have toured the South Pacific, and company officials have lobbied at Pacific Island Forum meetings. Australia and Britain also included nuclear experts in their delegations to the 1999 South Pacific Forum in Palau, to lobby against any restrictions on the transport of plutonium and nuclear wastes.

    A delegation of nuclear officials from Japan, France and Britain toured the Pacific between 7-19 August 1999, to lobby on the issue. The delegation, which travelled to the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, included representatives from BNFL, the French nuclear company Transnucleaire, the British Embassy in Tokyo, the Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Industry, and the Overseas Reprocessing Committee, which links Japanese energy corporations. The “atomic energy counsellor” from the UK Embassy in Japan was part of this delegation, assuring Pacific officials of the safety of nuclear shipments – BNFL pays 500,000 pounds a year to the British government so that one of their former employees can work as a diplomat in the British Embassy in Tokyo, to promote the British nuclear industry.

    Public opposition to the shipments was apparent when community and environmental groups joined students from the University of the South Pacific (USP) in a rally at the Embassy of Japan in Suva on August 11. The USP students from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu were gathered outside the meeting between Pacific island ambassadors and the French, British and Japanese nuclear officials. Churches and NGOs in Fiji also placed newspaper advertisements calling for an end to all shipments of plutonium and high level wastes through the region (20).

    Summit Diplomacy

    Japan has long had close historic and cultural ties with Micronesian countries such as Palau (21). But there have been increased diplomatic efforts with all Forum leaders since th- 1988 Japan-Pacific summit hosted by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa (who was jailed as a Class A war criminal between 1945-48) (22). Official Japan-South Pacific summits have been described as “an apparent fuseki attempt to obtain support from Forum members in a bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council” (23). (A fuseki move, in the Japanese game of go, involves placing stones in an area as wide as possible at the start of the game).

    On October 13-14, 1997 leaders from the member nations of the South Pacific Forum met in Tokyo with the Japanese government, at the inaugural Japan-South Pacific Forum Summit (24). Addressing the summit, then Chair of the South Pacific Forum Sir Geoffrey Henry, spoke of the islands “enduring concern” over both “adverse climate change and sea level rise”, and “the shipment of plutonium and radioactive wastes through the region.” The final Summit Communiqué “noted continuing concerns over shipment of plutonium and high level wastes” but diplomatically acknowledged “Japan’s sincere efforts in dealing with the Forum island countries concerns”! The Summit Communiqué listed a range of issues of concern and co-operation – economic and private sector development, public sector reform, fishing, climate change, youth exchanges and more – but contained no action agenda or plans for implementation.

    The next Japan-South Pacific Summit was held as the Pacific Area Leaders Meeting (PALM) in April 2000, in Miyazaki, Japan (25). Before travelling to Miyazaki, Pacific leaders attended a lunch in Tokyo hosted by Japanese corporations, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan Employers Federation Association, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives and the Japan Foreign Trade Council.

    The official summit issued the “Miyazaki PALM Declaration: Our Common Vision For The Future”, outlining joint co-operation in economic, trade and aid issues. Japan announced it would continue support for the Tokyo office of the Pacific Islands Centre, created in 1996 to encourage Japanese business investment and tourism in the Pacific. The Japanese government would send more than 3000 JOCV volunteers to the Pacific islands over the next five years. Japan also pledged a funding package worth US$4 million, including about $1 million for information technology training and support, $2 million for “human security” projects (AIDS, malaria and eradication of infectious diseases), and $1 million in support of a Partnership Program to fund student exchanges and training through the Forum Secretariat (Japan has since offered to pay for a staff position at the Secretariat to administer this program) (26).

    The summit issued a special statement on environmental co-operation, pledging Japan-Pacific co-operation on climate change, biodiversity and environmental education. However, a notable silence in the summit communiqué was nuclear issues (unlike the 1997 summit communiqué, which officially detailed South Pacific concerns over the transhipment of plutonium and high level wastes through the South Pacific and Japan’s commitment to act on these concerns).

    At PALM 2000, Japanese officials lobbied hard on nuclear issues, arguing that nuclear energy is a valuable tool in reducing the use of fossil fuels and the generation of greenhouse gases that cause warming of the earth and sea level rise. On April 24, 2000 Pacific leaders and officials met in Tokyo with Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies to discuss energy and environment issues. Challenged about Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions, Japanese officials advanced spurious arguments that nuclear power was cheaper than solar and wind power, that the MOX fuel system contributed to nuclear disarmament and that nuclear power provided a key solution to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels! (27)

    The next day, Pacific journalists, Forum officials and two Pacific Island leaders (Cook Islands’ Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate and Niue Premier Sani Lakatani) travelled by bullet train to the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station, about 140 miles west of Tokyo. After a tour of the nuclear power plant, Maoate stated: “I have learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about nuclear power stations. I am convinced of the safety measures that have been shown to us, of the plant itself. (28)” Opposition politicians in the Cook Islands questioned Dr Maoate’s request that the Japanese nuclear industry looks into whether small and safe nuclear power plants might be used in the Pacific (29).

    Following the PALM 2000 Summit, Japan sent three missions to the region to investigate potential economic, political and cultural exchanges. The missions visited Palau and the Marshall Islands (November 2000), Fiji, Tonga and Samoa (March 2001) and Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu (May 2001). Diplomatic exchanges are being extended – each year, the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum is invited to Japan by the Japanese government, for high-level discussions with Japanese leaders.

    In February 2001, the President of Kiribati, Teburoro Tito, visited Japan over six days in his capacity as Forum Chair. In meetings with then Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, President Tito agreed on the “need to bridge their differences over Tokyo’s whaling and nuclear fuel shipments” (30). Tito also expressed support for Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. During the visit, Japan’s Foreign Minister told Tito that Japan would send a mission to Kiribati to survey whether Japanese ODA could be used to improve the country’s electricity supply. Japan and Kiribati have close ties, with Kiritimati (Christmas) island hosting a Japanese tracking station to monitor rockets launched from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture. The two countries are extending their co-operation over Japan’s space program, with the planned construction of a rocket landing area in Kiribati.

    The visit erupted in controversy on Tito’s return to Fiji, after a newspaper quoted him as saying that the Forum should “revise” its policy towards nuclear energy, that nuclear power helps reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and that nuclear power generation “is a matter of survival” for Japan (31). The Forum and the Kiribati government quickly issued statements that the President had been misquoted and reaffirmed the Forum and Kiribati’s opposition to nuclear power (32). However, the incident highlights public concern that Japanese ODA is being used to woo Pacific leaders to soften their opposition to the plutonium economy.

    With the issues of global warming and sea-level rise high on the agenda for Forum island countries, the island nations have resisted the integration of nuclear power into the climate change negotiating process. The official intergovernmental Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session in 2000 stressed: “Nuclear energy sources are neither appropriate nor acceptable for use in the region, or for designation as a Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.(33)”

    Concluding Remarks

    Of the four cargoes of plutonium, either in the plutonium dioxide or MOX form, transported to Japan during the last ten years, not one gram of plutonium has yet been used. In total the British-flagged transport vessels have travelled a total of over 120,000 kilometers to deliver their cargoes of weapons usable plutonium to Japan. Although each of these transports have been justified by Japan, as well as the British transporters, as essential for Japan’s energy program, not one gram of plutonium fuel has been loaded into in a nuclear reactor. Not one kilowatt of electricity has been generated. Increasingly in Japan, the nuclear electrical utilities are signaling that this program makes no economic sense. So, as with the deliberate deception by BNFL of their Japanese clients, the Japanese government and utilities are deceiving en-route governments and their citizens by continually claiming these shipments are required for energy purposes.

    The international nuclear industry is in trouble. The number of nuclear power plants under construction is dropping and nuclear power generation is being phased out in many industrialised countries, such as Germany. The nuclear industry has not found a solution for the long-term storage of plutonium and high level radioactive waste, which lasts for thousands of years (though many nuclear corporations are still pushing to use the vast “empty” spaces of the Pacific as a dumping ground for nuclear wastes). Few people today believe the myth that nuclear power is a cheap, safe energy source. Pacific islands are already living with the radioactive legacies of fifty years of nuclear testing by France, Britain and the United States, and are calling for compensation and clean-up. Meanwhile the nuclear industry is desperately trying to avoid any liability for the hazardous business of shipping nuclear wastes back and forward across Pacific fishing grounds.
    (1) Sandra Tarte: Japan’s aid diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (NCDS, Canberra, 1998).
    (2) In November 2000, a senior LDP policy maker, Shizuka Kamei, called for a 30 per cent reduction in ODA, and in December a study group of LDP, New Komeito and New Conservative party politicians has recommended “a qualitative cut in the overall size of the ODA budget” in the 2001 fiscal year; and “Study group considers reduction in Japanese development assistance”, Japan Times, December 9, 2000; “Japanese government opts for selective aid policy” IPS/PINA Nius, December 16, 2000.
    (3) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (4) Japanese Fisheries Minister Masayuki Komatsu, head of Japan’s whaling delegation at the International Whaling Commission, explaining Japan’s use of ODA as leverage in negotiations over the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary, quoted on ABC radio, July 18, 2001.
    (5) “Japan’s plan to ship plutonium has big and little lands roaring”, New York Times, October 5, 1992.
    (6) Frank von Hippel and Suzanne Jones: “The slow death of the breeder reactor”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.53, No.5, September/October 1997.
    (7) Dr. Jinzaburo Takagi: Criticality Accident at Tokaimura (CNIC, Tokyo, 2000). See also: “Tokaimura accident, Japan – third party liability and compensation aspects”, Nuclear Law Bulletin No.66, December 2000 (OECD Nuclear Energy Agency).
    (8) “Outlook for MOX use now completely unclear”, Asahi Shimbun February 26, 2001; “MOX use this year now hopeless for Kashiwazaki Kariwa”, Denki website (electricity utility daily newspaper), February 26, 2001.
    (9) In a statement by Foreign Minister Phil Goff opposing a shipment of MOX fuel to Japan, it was noted that ‘the shipment is unlikely to go through New Zealand’s EEZ as assurances that this would not occur have been sought and given in the past’. See “New Zealand condemns nuclear shipment to leave France”, Pacnews, Thursday, January 18, 2001.
    (10) Jon Van Dyke: “The legitimacy of unilateral actions to protest the ocean shipment of ultrahazardous radioactive materials”, mimeo, December 1996.
    (11) “Solomon Islands may charge for Pacific nuclear waste shipments”, Radio Australia, September 19, 1997;
    “Japan may suspend support for Honiara airport terminal”, SIBC and Radio Australia, November 10, 1997;
    “Japan denies reports its is reconsidering grant to Solomon Islands”, Pacnews, November 11, 1997.
    (12) The Forum has established a “Forum Working Group on Liability and Compensation for the Shipment of Radioactive Materials through the Region”, to represent Forum member countries at negotiations.
    (13) “Pacific protests plutonium MOX shipments”, Pacific News Bulletin, August 1999, p 1.
    (14) Forum Secretariat Press release, February 23, 2001.
    (15) Forum Communiqué, 30th Pacific Islands Forum, Koror, Palau, 1999 (emphasis added).
    (16) “PM insists Japan’s US$10 million trust fund separate from liability regime”, Pacnews, December 1, 2000.
    (17) Robert Keith Reid: “After the Bomb” in “Selling the Islands – What’s Hot for Tourism?”, Islands Business, June 1996, p29.
    (18) “Trust Fund for the purposes of cooperation between Japan and Pacific Island Countries”, Section 32-33, Forum Communiqué, 31st Pacific Islands Forum, Tarawa, Kiribati, October 2000.
    (19) “Stop plutonium shipments – strengthen the conventions” PCRC Media release, January 20, 2001.
    (20) Fiji Times, August 11, 1999.
    (21) For an overview, see His Excellency Kuniwo Nakamura (former President of Palau), “How best to cultivate solidarity between Japan and Pacific Island countries”, speech to Pacific Islands seminar, Tokyo, February 9, 2001. See also “Japan, Palau ties praised in Tokyo meeting”, PINA Nius Online, August 9, 2001.
    (22) “Sasakawa’s interest adds up to dollars”, Islands Business, February 1990. Today, the Sasakawa Pacific Islands Nations Fund (SPINF) contributes to development programs, especially in Hawai’i and Micronesia.
    (23) Yomiuri Shimbun, March 3, 1997.
    (24) Nic Maclellan: “Japan’s aid diplomacy” Pacific News Bulletin, November 1997.
    (25) Nic Maclellan “PALM 2000: Japan-South Pacific summit” Pacific News Bulletin, May 2000.
    (26) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (27) “Island leaders impressed with nuclear power”, Islands Business, June 2000, p43.
    (28) Ibid.
    (29) “Cook Islands investigates nuclear power as energy source”, Radio Australia, June 22, 2000. By January 2001, Dr Maoate was calling for more action to establish a liability and compensation regime in case of accident in Pacific waters: “PM calls for a nuclear spillage compensation regime”, Pacnews, January 24, 2001.
    (30) BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific, February 20, 2001.
    (31) “Tito calls on Pacific to revise nuclear stand”, Fiji Daily Post, February 26, 2001.
    (32) A Forum Secretariat letter to the media and environmental NGOs on February 28, 2001 states: “President Tito did note that the Forum had taken no stand on the question of nuclear energy, apart from the Forum’s continuing concern with the shipment of nuclear materials through the region. He also made it clear that the region opposed nuclear materials that would be harmful to our people”. See also “Kiribati position on nuclear energy”, Pacific News Bulletin, May 2001, p12.
    (33) CROP: Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), 2000.

  • Let Us Choose Life; Let Us End The Nuclear Weapons Threat Now

    As a member of the human family, as a person who feels a deep kinship with all life, as a war veteran who supported President Truman’s decision to use atom bombs to end the war in the Pacific in 1945, I call upon the leaders of my country to act now to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s future.

    Mr. Truman told me that he made his horrifying decision when our nation and other nations were in hell. “War is hell,” he said. “We were burning up thousands of Japanese men, women, and children with fire bombs, night after night. I wanted to end that slaughter.” In a speech he made in 1948, he said: ” I decided that the bomb should be used in order to end the war quickly and save countless lives – Japanese as well as American.”

    I was a soldier in Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis when he took that action. With thousands of other soldiers there and elsewhere, I knew that I might be sent to Japan, to take part in an invasion that might cost my life and the lives of many thousands of people. When the bombs were dropped and the Japanese Emperor surrendered quickly, I took part in a celebration. The hellish time of torment was ended. The joy of release from war uplifted us all.

    As a science fiction writer in the 1930’s, I assumed that the release of nuclear energy would occur. I knew it would cause great dangers, but I thought it could be harnessed for peaceful purposes. I thought that the unlocking of nuclear knowledge might be part of the Creator’s plan for the high development of civilization. With unlimited power available, prosperity might be available for everyone. Poverty would be abolished. Humanity would enter a new age of fulfillment.

    But now I know that nuclear weapons are monstrous instruments that threaten to obliterate life on our beautiful planet. My country, as the nation that used these weapons in a war, has a special obligation to take the lead in getting rid of them.

    As a taxpayer, I helped to finance the construction and proliferation of these terrible weapons. When I worked as a speechwriter for President Truman and for members of the U.S. Senate, I supported the idea of “deterrence” – the belief that such weapons would keep heavily armed nations from going to war. I realized that President Ronald Reagan was right when he said: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” But I did not fully understand that the very existence of such weapons constituted an unbearable peril. Now I do.

    Now I completely endorse the statements in the recent appeal issued by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The signers of the appeal declared:

    “We call upon the leaders of the nations of the world and, in particular, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to act now for the benefit of all humanity and all life by taking the following steps:

    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education, and welfare throughout the world.”

    That appeal has been signed by former President Jimmy Carter; Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Elie Wiesel, and many other Nobel prize winners.

    I believe it is an appeal that could be signed by millions of human beings like myself, who have become aware that nuclear weapons endanger all of us and may destroy the whole earth.

    I ask for the forgiveness of my fellow citizens and people everywhere for the part I had in supporting the nuclear arms race when I worked in Washington as a special assistant to the Senate Majority Leader from 1949 to 1952; for the belligerent speeches I wrote for Senators, and the statements I made to friends.

    I still believe that Harry Truman was principally motivated by a desire to save lives when he authorized the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The destruction of those two cities, depicted on film and viewed later by millions of people, had profound effects on the leaders of nations in the subsequent years. It is possible that those bombings prevented a third world war.

    But now it is folly to risk the survival of life on earth by permitting nuclear weapons to exist. Let us choose life; let us get rid of them as fast as we can. I can no longer support their existence. I urge everyone to call for their abolition, as I do now.
    *Frank K. Kelly is senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The History of My Peace Activities with an A-bomb Survivor and Student Peace Fellows

    I have dreamed of participating in Sadako Peace Day ever since I learned that the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation commemorates August 6th every year. The reason why I have not been able to attend this ceremony is that I have always been in Hiroshima on the same day. After my first meeting with an atomic bomb survivor of Hiroshima, Miyoko Matsubara, I organized a college student volunteer group and visited Hiroshima for three days including on August 6th to study peace. This encounter with one Hibakusha, or an A-bomb survivor, changed my life dramatically. I would like to share with you a brief history of my peace activities with a Hibakusha and Japanese students, my fellow peace companions.

    It was the winter of 1996 that Miyoko came to my university, Soka University in Tokyo, Japan, to share her life story. I was a senior at that time. Even though I had learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki in school, I had little knowledge about the issue; I knew that thousands of innocent people were killed instantly and that still many survivors suffer from radiation exposure. But I didn’t know why it really happed and how survivors have struggled to live. So, it was the first time for me to hear a first hand experience from a Hibakusha. I was so furious about the brutality of nuclear weapons and felt the urgent need to do something so that the same mistake will not be repeated. Then, I decided to take action by supporting her peace activities. I decided to go to Hiroshima, believing that I should visit the very place where the atomic bomb was dropped to know what really happened.

    The next year, in spring of 1997, 9 students, including myself, and one American professor went to Hiroshima. We called this trip “Peace Trip to Hiroshima.” We visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Peace Memorial Park and Okuno Island, where the Japanese army developed poison gas during World War II. We thought that visiting Okuno Island was important in order to know that Japan was an aggressor, not only a victim in terms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also met several Hibakushas and heard their testimonies. Through this trip, we deepened our conviction that nuclear weapons are totally against humanity, and we have to abolish them before all living beings will be exterminated.

    Soon after coming back from Hiroshima, I graduated from university and remained in contact with Miyoko to help her peace activities, including translating Miyoko’s letters both into English and Japanese, helping write drafts of Miyoko’s letters and speeches, traveling overseas with her as an assistant/ translator several times, and so forth. What has amazed me most is Miyoko’s power of spirit. Physically, she is very sick; she had breast cancer caused by radiation. Now there are two polyps in her stomach that might turn into another cancer someday. So, she has “bombs” inside her body. However, since she has a strong sense of mission that telling her experience will help abolish nuclear weapons, she continuously talks to people both in Japanese and English, and in Japan and overseas.

    In fall of 1997, the same year that I went to Hiroshima for the first time, Miyoko offered me a chance to travel to the US with her. One of the destinations of our trip was the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Greatly impressed by Dr. David Krieger, president of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s personality, his passion for peace, and the Foundation’s dedication for peace activities, I decided to establish a student peace advocate group, which would support the Foundation’s activities, at Soka University from which I graduated. Then, in the following year, in 1998, I established the Friends of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation with students. Since the establishment, as an advisor, I have coordinated several activities with students: conducting “Peace Trip to Hiroshima” in every August, translating the Foundation’s information into Japanese and putting it on our web site, and holding study groups. One of the biggest accomplishments was when our student government passed “The Abolition 2000 Soka University Campus Resolution” last year. This is our pledge that we oppose nuclear weapons, the evil weapons of mass destruction. In order to pass the resolution, we organized several seminars, aiming for students’ conscious rising, invited Miyoko to share her experience, and collected signatures to support passing the resolution.

    Through these activities, I have learned that students possess a profound potential to become a strong source for social change. My mentor, Daisaku Ikeda, the founder of Soka University and the recipient of the World Citizenship Award in 1999 by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, says that “[Mahatma] Gandhi proclaimed that the ‘power of the spirit’ is stronger than any atomic bomb. To transform this century of war into a century of peace, we must cultivate the limitless inherent power of human life. This is the ‘human revolution’.” I found that this “human revolution”, namely the inner transformation or strengthening life condition, which never succumbs to injustice, in the level of each individual is the assured way that will lead to create a world without nuclear weapons. In order to cultivate our strong self, we need to carry on hope, a hope that we can change the world. This is what Sadako had done until the very moment of her death. With hope that folding 1000 cranes would bring her longer life, Sadako continued folding cranes on her sickbed. Even though she died young, her hope and her “power of spirit” have been passed on from generation to generation.

    Finally, I would like to end my speech with one of my favorite poems written by Dr. Krieger. This is a poem dedicated to young people worldwide.

    You are a miracle, entirely unique. There has never been another With your combination of talents, dreams, and hopes. You can create. You are capable of love and compassion. You are a miracle. You are a gift of creation to itself. You are here for a purpose which you must find. Your presence here is sacred-and you will Change the world.

    Thank you very much!

  • Hiroshima’s Message: Wage Peace

    On August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima was bombed with an atomic weapon, humanity walked through a door into an era in which our own annihilation as a species became possible.

    The bombing was a triumph of destructive technology. It sent a message that all cities would become vulnerable to instant devastation. And indeed, over the decades that followed Hiroshima, all cities did become vulnerable to annihilation.

    Nuclear “weapons” are not weapons in the traditional sense of being used to injure or kill enemy forces. Rather, they are devices capable of inflicting massive destruction on population centers, and taking countless innocent lives. In this sense, they are weapons of terrorists.

    The countries that possess nuclear weapons and base their security on the threat of their use do not ordinarily think of themselves as terrorist states, but by any reasonable definition of terrorism they are. They are states that threaten massive retaliation against civilian populations, in violation of the rules and norms of international law.

    There is only one way to assure a human future in which cities are not held hostage to the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that is by developing new methods of cooperation among nations and peoples. The logical place for this cooperation to take place is in the United Nations, the organization of the world’s nations created with the strong support and leadership of the United States.

    Franklin Roosevelt viewed the United Nations as essential if mankind were to avoid the “scourge of war” which twice in the first half of the 20th century had caused “untold sorrow.” After Roosevelt’s death in April1945, Harry Truman assured that his predecessor’s dream became a reality.

    In the 21st century, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction can cause even worse consequences than “untold sorrow.” These weapons can cause unimaginable and unalterable silence; they are capable of bringing history to an end by bringing humankind and most other forms of life to an end. We should never lose sight of this. We should never become too comfortable or complacent with these destructive devices holding the potential for our shared demise.

    Missile defenses will not protect us. Such plans offer only comforting illusions. Nor will the threat of retaliation protect us. There will always be some who are too crazed or unreasonable to be deterred by threat of retaliation. There will always be the possibility of human error that leads us stumbling into a disastrous war.

    The only way out is to end the nuclear era by agreeing to the phased elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Such agreements must be solidly built with inspections and other means of verification. Such agreements among nations are possible, but they require leadership and particularly leadership from the United States, the world’s most powerful nation.

    We live in a nation in which government is “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Therefore, we, the people, can prevail if we make our voices heard. If the people of this country speak out with a strong voice, the United States could reassume leadership in the United Nations. We could help to build a world free of the threat of all weapons of mass destruction.

    This is a future worth believing in and fighting for. And the effort must begin with each of us. As Albert Camus, the great French writer and philosopher, said in reaction to learning of the bombing of Hiroshima, “Peace is the only battle worth waging. It is no longer a prayer, but an order which must rise up from peoples to their governments – the order to choose finally between hell and reason.”

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

  • The Power of an Early Visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

    I first visited Hiroshima and its Peace Memorial Museum when I was 21 years old. The visit changed the course of my life.

     

    I was in Japan on an exchange program, and the program included a trip to Hiroshima around Hiroshima Day in 1963. I was apprehensive about going to Hiroshima. I thought the people of Hiroshima would be angry with Americans, probably hostile and perhaps even violent. After all, we Americans had dropped an atomic bomb on the city just 18 years before, killing well over 100,000 people.

     

    My fears proved to be unfounded. If the people of Hiroshima were hostile to Americans, they didn’t show it. They were kind and welcoming to young Americans, as were people throughout Japan.

     

    Here is what I had learned in high school and college about Hiroshima: The American military dropped an atomic bomb on the city, followed by the dropping of another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and these bombings brought World War II to an end.

     

    Here is what I learned at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum when I was 21 years old: There were people under that bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. Most were civilians. The bomb slaughtered its victims, killing men, women and children indiscriminately. I also learned that many of the people killed by the bomb were burned alive, some were incinerated. These were powerful details – details that were certainly not emphasized in the story we learned in school in the United States.

     

    One of the strongest impressions on me was the shadow on the wall that was left behind where someone had been sitting at the time the bomb was dropped. The person was incinerated and only his shadow remained.

     

    Visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum had a strong influence on my views on war, and particularly nuclear war. The museum, which was filled with artifacts and photographs, powerfully demonstrated the futility of nuclear warfare. Hiroshima’s past was eloquent testimony to an intolerable future.

     

    The course of my life made a subtle shift. I was set on a course of wanting to do something to end the tragedy of war. Later, when I returned to the United States, other events would solidify the shift in my life, particularly my experience in the army and my fight in court against orders to go to Vietnam.

     

    Some 20 years later I was a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, where I have served as president for almost 20 years. Hiroshima has never left my mind. I have written many poems and articles about the tragedy that occurred there and its meaning for our lives. I have worked for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I have done all that I can to further this goal. I was a founder of Abolition 2000, now a global network of over 2000 organizations working to abolish nuclear weapons. I have traveled around the world speaking out for realizing the dream of Hiroshima and the survivors of the bombing — the abolition of nuclear weapons.

     

    I believe that museums matter. They capture moments in time and freeze them for the future to examine. Of course, it is important for museums to be honest. It is possible for museums to be deceptive by overt acts or by omission. There is a museum about the first atomic bombs that I visited at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That museum celebrates only the technology. There are no photographs or displays of the people who were killed and injured in the bombings. The museum is steely and antiseptic. In visiting this museum, one would have no emotional connection with or even knowledge of the suffering and death caused by the bombings.

     

    It would be more than 35 years before I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum again. When I did return in 1998, it was to give a speech at the museum. I began my speech with these words: “It is with profound appreciation and gratitude that I return to this city of peace, this sacred city of Hiroshima. This city was made sacred not by the tragedy which befell it, but by the rebirth of hope which emerged from that tragedy. From the ashes of Hiroshima, flowers of hope have blossomed, bringing forth a renewed spirit of possibility, of peace, to a world in which hope has been too often crushed for too many.”

     

    In another visit to the museum early in the year 2000, the museum director, Minoru Hataguchi, showed my wife and me through the museum. He was carrying with him a small box. At one point, he stopped and opened the box. He told us that this was the first time he had shared the contents of the box with visitors to the museum. The box contained the pocket watch and belt buckle of his father. Mr. Hataguchi had been in utero when the bomb fell. His father had been a train conductor, and had been near ground zero. The pocket watch and belt buckle were all that his mother recovered. We were very moved that he shared his father’s story and the artifacts with us.

     

    In Fall 2000, our Foundation sponsored an exhibit in Santa Barbara, California from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Memorial Museums. Mr. Hataguchi was one of the representatives of the two cities that came to Santa Barbara to open the exhibit. By bringing the exhibit to our city, we were able to share with members of our community an important perspective on Hiroshima with which many were unacquainted.

     

    In 1995, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by creating a peace garden in our community. We called it Sadako Peace Garden after Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who had been exposed to the bombing of Hiroshima at age 2 and had died at age 12 of leukemia. Sadako had been inspired by the Japanese legend that one’s wish will come true if one folds 1,000 paper cranes, and she had attempted to fold paper cranes to regain her health and to further world peace. She wrote: “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.” Each year on August 6th, the Foundation holds a public event at Sadako Peace Garden to commemorate the anniversary of Hiroshima with music, poetry and reflection.

     

    I am quite certain that my first visit to Hiroshima at the age of 21 left a strong enough impression on me to guide the course of my life. I am dedicated to ending the nuclear weapons era, and bringing the spirit of Hiroshima and its survivors, the hibakusha, to people everywhere.

     

    If a visit to the Peace Memorial Museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a requirement of office for all leaders of nuclear weapons states, it just might change the world.

     

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

  • 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.

  • Thirteen Million Voices for Abolishing Nuclear Arms

    More than thirteen million Japanese citizens have signed a petition calling for the abolition of the world’s nuclear arsenals in what may be the greatest outpouring of support ever for creating a nuclear weapons free world. The petition is part of a global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons called Abolition 2000, an international network of over 900 citizen action groups in 74 countries.

    The signatures in Japan were collected in just three months, from November 1997 to January 1998, by members of the Soka Gakkai, a Japanese Buddhist organization long active on disarmament issues. On February 21, 1998, at a ceremony at the Memorial Hall of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the signatures will be presented to David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a leader in the Abolition 2000 campaign. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is the International Contact for the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.

    “These signatures represent voices of the common people, people in Japan who know the devastation caused by nuclear weapons,” said Krieger. “The people are tired of waiting, they are tired of excuses. The Cold War is long over, and they want an end to the nuclear threat. They understand that the only way to do this is to eliminate nuclear weapons. They are sending a message to the rest of the world, and particularly to the leaders of the nuclear weapons states.”

    According to Krieger, notice of the petition campaign will be provided to the leaders of all nuclear weapons states, and to delegates to the Preparatory Committee meeting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which will take place in Geneva from April 27 through May 8, 1998. Krieger also said that plans are being made to pass the 13 million signatures supporting Abolition 2000 to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and to Jayantha Dhanapala, the newly appointed UN Under-Secretary General for Disarmament.

    “The nuclear weapons states are currently stalled in efforts to fulfill their promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to eliminate their nuclear arsenals,” said Krieger. “We are hopeful that these 13 million plus voices for nuclear weapons abolition will get them moving. There are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the only number that makes sense for humanity is zero.”

    The Abolition 2000 International Petition calls for ending the nuclear weapons threat, signing an international treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons within a fixed time period, and reallocating resources from military purposes to meeting human needs and assuring a sustainable future.

    Petition drives are continuing in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Netherlands, United Kingdom, the United States and other countries. The petition can be signed on the Worldwide Web at www.wagingpeace.org.