Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Kwajalein

  • 2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award Acceptance Speech

    Tony de BrumIt is with profound gratitude and humility that I receive this coveted Distinguished Peace Leadership Award 2012. I wish to thank Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for the great honor.

    I am aware that in receiving this award, I am following in the footsteps of some of the most gallant and respected notables of our century – among them, His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, Jacques Cousteau, Walter Cronkite and many other distinguished champions of peace.

    I am truly humbled to be following the lead of such exceptional human beings. With their contributions to world peace and harmony they have touched and influenced many of us gathered this evening and impacted the lives of many more around the world.

    My life was deeply traumatized by the nuclear legacy of the United States in the Marshall Islands.  My public career has been shaped by the nuclear insult to my country and the Marshallese people. I have endeavored to make my modest contribution to peace by bringing their story to the world through all opportunities available to me.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    I have been a student of the horrific impacts of the nuclear weapons testing program for most of my life. I served as interpreter for American officials who proclaimed Bikini safe for resettlement and commenced a program to repatriate the Bikini people who for decades barely survived on the secluded island of Kili. I accompanied the American High Commissioner of the Trust Territory just two years later to once again remove the repatriated residents from Bikini because concentrations of strontium and cesium had exceeded safe limits and their exposure had become too high for the established US government’s health standards.

    I was also personally involved in the translation of the Enewetak Environmental Impact Statement that declared Enewetak in the western Marshall Islands safe for resettlement.  In a television interview on CBS Sixty Minutes I expressed my concern to Morley Safer at the time by describing the military public relations efforts associated with the Enewetak clean-up as a dog-and-pony show.  Today, for the most part the atoll remains unsafe for human habitation.

    Later, during negotiations to terminate the trust territory arrangement mandated by the United Nations and assigned to the United States, we discovered that certain scientific information regarding Enewetak was being withheld from us because, as the official US government memorandum stated, “the Marshallese negotiators might make overreaching demands” on the United States if the facts about the extent of damage in the islands were known to us.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    The Marshall Islands’ close encounter with the bomb did not end with the detonations themselves. In recent years, documents released by the United States government have uncovered even more horrific aspects of this burden borne by the Marshallese people in the name of international peace and security. US government documents prove in no uncertain terms that its scientists conducted human radiation experiments on Marshallese citizens and American servicemen assigned to our part of the world. Some of our people were injected with or coerced to imbibe fluids laced with radioactive substances. Other experimentation involved the purposeful and premature resettlement of people on islands highly contaminated by the weapons tests to study how human beings absorb radionuclides either from their foods or from their poisonous environment.

    Much of this human experimentation occurred in populations either exposed to near lethal amounts of radiation, or to “control” populations who were told they would receive medical “ care” for participating in these studies to help their fellow citizens. At the conclusion of all these studies, the United States still maintained that no positive linkage could be established between the tests and the health status of the Marshallese. Just in the past few years, a National Cancers Institute study has predicted a substantively higher than expected incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands resulting from the atomic tests.

    Throughout the years, America’s nuclear history in the Marshall Islands has been colored with official denial, self-serving control of information, and abrogation of commitment to redress the shameful wrongs done to the Marshallese people. The scientists and military officials involved in the testing program picked and chose their study subjects, recognized certain communities as exposed when it served their interests, and denied monitoring and medicinal attention to subgroups within the Marshall Islands.

    I remember well their visits to my village in Likiep where they subjected every one of us to tests and invasive physical examinations the United States government denied ever carrying out. In 1978 as a representative on the negotiations with the United States, we raised the issue requesting that raw data gathered during these visits be made available to us. United States representatives responded by saying that our recollections were juvenile and could not possibly reflect the realities of the time.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    While a resolution of the status question was eventually reached, the issue of damages and personal injury from the testing remain a matter of contention between our two countries to this day.  The unresolved aspect of the agreement remains the question of damages and personal injury claims yet to be addressed.  Attempts to resolve these outstanding issues through the Compact of Free Association between our two countries as well as through the United States court system have been unsuccessful.

    The courts have invoked the statutes of limitation while the administration contends that the circumstances of the claims do not constitute provable differences from knowledge based on which the agreements in 1986 were reached.  We do not deny signing an agreement. We do admit though that this was based on information provided us by the United States contending that the damages were as they described in various studies presented to us to justify the adequacy of nuclear compensation and purported to describe in full the true damages caused by the tests.

    In order to break this impasse we would require evidence which has been declared top secret by the United States to which the public has no access.  It is interesting to note that the United States has expressed strong interest to bring the nuclear issues with the Marshall Islands to closure.  We have responded that there can be no closure without full disclosure.

    Further the United States Government tells us, our government is now responsible for nuclear claims, stemming from what is called the espousal provision of the Compact of Free Association. That basically says, we have settled all claims and should any new ones arise, the Government of the Marshall Islands will be responsible and liable. Ironically, the only other time in the history of the United States where ‘espousal’ was used to squelch claims was in the settlement to release the hostages in Iran.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    Last month in Geneva, the 21st Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the Independent Special Rapporteur’s report, which in short, found that the US nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands resulted in both immediate and continuing effects on the human rights of the Marshallese.  The adopted report also sets forth a set of far reaching recommendations, among them, under subparagraph (f); “Guarantee the right to effective remedy for the Marshallese people, including by providing full funding for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal to award adequate compensation for past and future claims, and exploring other forms of reparation, where appropriate, such as restitution, rehabilitation and measures of satisfaction; including, public apologies, public memorials and guarantees of non- repetition; and consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation mechanism or similar alternative justice mechanisms.”

    How far the United States government will act on these recommendations remains uncertain.  In spite of all that has occurred in this relationship, the American people will not find a better friend than the people of the Marshall Islands.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    I accept this high honor you bestow upon me this evening in the name of my country, my fellow citizens, and all who have in one way or another contributed to the understanding of the Marshallese nuclear plight.

    I accept it on behalf of Lijon Aknelang and the Almira Matayoshi of Rongelap Atoll, who passed away recently but were never discouraged in their fight to find peace and justice. I dedicate it to the mothers of Rongelap whose shameful treatment by American scientists violated all acceptable norms of human decency and respect.  I accept it on behalf of Senator Jeton Anjain and his brother Mayor John Anjain, who exposed the dark secrets of the experimentation on the Rongelap people.  This honor I share with Mayor Anjain’s son, Lekoj Anjain who became the first recognized leukemia victim of nuclear tests. I accept this honor on behalf of the Marshallese Traditional Leaders, especially Iroijlaplap Jebro Kabua and Anjua Loeak, who made lands under their stewardship available for the humane resettlement of displace nuclear nomads.  I accept it on behalf of Marshallese community leaders who petitioned in vain to stop the tests through avenues known to them, both directly to the United States and to the United Nations. I accept on behalf of Senator Ishmael John of Enewetak who fought to his death to bring justice to the people of his home who to this day remain unable to resettle their ancestral lands and whose atoll continues to store nuclear wastes including plutonium.

    I would be remiss if I did not include the many friends throughout the world who have contributed to our knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the clear and present danger they are to the universe as we know it. I accept it on behalf of all Marshallese whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by the horrific effects of the nuclear test.  But most of all, dear friends, I accept on behalf of my granddaughter Zoe, who, as a brave young four year old, battled with leukemia for two very difficult years, and is now declared healthy enough to return to school and live a normal life.  For this I will always be thankful to God and His Mercy.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    For the use of our country in the maintenance of what is called an unquestionable military supremacy over the world, Kwajalein Atoll, which is my parliamentary constituency, has been tasked to bear the burden.  I therefore dedicate this honor to the people of Kwajalein whose continuing sacrifice of providing the home of their forefathers for the “preservation of international peace and security” continues to this day and for the next seventy-four years.

    The Marshall Islands are by no means the only ones who have experienced a taste of nuclear horror.  The people of Hiroshima and Nakasaki, Kazakhstan, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and French Polynesia have had first-hand experience.  The 67 nuclear events in the Marshalls, equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima shots every day for 12 years came complete with physical displacement, nuclear illness, birth anomalies, alienation of land, massive destruction of property, injury and death.  But perhaps the most hurtful of all was official denial and secretive cover up and refusal to accept responsibility on the part of the perpetrators.

    The Marshall Islands were also subject to years of expensive clean up and rehabilitation of land and habitat which fell far short of restoring the lands and sites to any productive use.  In certain parts, repatriation will not be possible for at least 12,000 years. And that’s only from testing.

    Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned is that any way you look at it, nuclear weapons and the horrific destruction they bring, whether in war or in experimentation, leave permanent and irreversible damage to man and nature. All things surrounding nuclear weaponry threaten life on our planet and perhaps even our universe. It is not good for men and women, boys and girls, and dogs and cats.  It is harmful to trees and to plants we eat.  It poisons fish and wildlife.  It makes our world less, not more, secure.

    If the lessons of the end of World War II, and the lessons of all the tests conducted since then have not been learned then we must learn them.  If the experiences of laboratory exposure, also denied, are not part of our learning pathway, then they must be added.  If we do not take the message of nuclear survivors to heart, then we will have to soften our hearts.  Nuclear weapons threaten us, they do not protect us.  No matter where they are located or deployed, one push of a red button could be the end of life as we know it.  That is not a chance worth taking.

    If we continue to imagine any kind of a benefit being derived from the fact that the atomic powers are now armed to the teeth, then the sacrifice of all we have cited in this brief message tonight will have been in vain.  Enlightened modern leaders of the world have not been blind to this fact of life.  It is just that they have yet to put the matter of the nuclear race to rest.

    Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

    Barely forty-eight hours ago we were in India at the 11th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity where 193 countries, both governments and non-government organizations, met to discuss the accelerated decline in the integrity of the environment and its genetic resources. Also debated were programs and efforts to address the unsustainable global development direction and the dangers that it poses to the world.

    As in nuclear disarmament efforts, we have a situation where world leaders fully understand the problem, are aware of the solutions, but cannot decide who should go first.  There is no question that if civilization does not keep global warming under 2 degrees C by 2050, this effort to protect mother earth will be in vain.  I am confident that the entire membership of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is familiar with the issue and knows what must be done to avoid climate chaos.  But like nuclear disarmament, the world know the problem, it knows the solutions, but lacks the collective political will to execute.

    As a small islands developing state, the Marshall Islands, and its neighbors are among the most ecologically vulnerable areas on the planet. We are actively working with other Pacific Islands to ensure that ocean resources in the region are governed and protected from exploitation. As a nation whose single most important productive sector and key export is in fisheries, the state of the world’s oceans and fish stocks and how these vital resources are being exploited remains on the list of our immediate priorities.

    Recently, the Marshall Islands, in partnership with Palau and Micronesia, has undertaken a feasibility study for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion or OTEC technology, which uses the deep ocean temperature differential to generate electricity, water and other marketable by-products.  If successful, OTEC will turn the Marshall Islands and its neighbors from oil-dependent basket case economies into net exporters of renewable energy.  On this score we salute the enlightened efforts on sustainable energy in which our friends in California have been admirably proactive.

    The Marshall Islands cannot afford to wait for global movement on climate change. Barely two meters above sea level, the stakes are a bit high here.  And having had our share of displaced populations, we do not see moving elsewhere as a viable option.  We are partnering with our neighbors in Micronesia in examining alternative financial mechanisms for economic security and earlier this month held a workshop in the islands on the subject of Debt for Adaptation Swap on Climate Change.  This promises to be an innovative means of dealing with nonperforming governmental development loans of the recent past.

    The Micronesia Challenge is a partnership of island states of the North Pacific to jointly set aside for protection and conservation substantial areas of their individual and collective territories.   In addition, Palau, the state of Kosrae in Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands have declared a total ban on fishing and finning of Sharks in their economic zones, effectively creating the world’s largest shark sanctuary.  We are taking these extraordinary steps as proud stewards and protectors of some of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems.  We want to leave our planet intact for the benefit of our children, and their children’s children.

    Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been stalwart in its mission of nuclear disarmament and the elimination of the nuclear threat to man.  For the nearly two decades I have been associated with its efforts, I can attest to its diligence and dedication to marshal its resources to promoting peace and harmony in a nuclear free world.  That goal is pure in its intent, necessary in pursuit, and is the only option through which we can leave a world where healthy children and a healthy environment can live in harmony, now and forever.

    For whatever is remaining of my life, I pledge to follow this dream that one day we can rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons and that peace can be achieved not by what harm we can do to each other, but by what good we can do together.

    I share in this award, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, and recognize with gratitude those who have walked with me in this journey of life. I want to thank most especially my wife and my best friend, Rosalie, and our three daughters – Doreen, Dolores and Sally Ann for always standing by my side and supporting me, even when the odds were overwhelming.  My dad, my brothers and sisters and the numerous people who have made it possible for me to be recognized and honored, I wish to express to you my deepest gratitude and kamolol (mahalos).

    For me, the work to address the plight of all affected peoples continues with renewed determination. We owe it to the nuclear victims and the nuclear survivors, but most importantly we owe it to the future generations of our planet.

    Yokwe and God Bless you all.

  • Standing Together for Our Common Future

    David Krieger delivered these remarks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 29th Annual Evening for Peace on October 21, 2012.


    David KriegerI want to begin with a poem.  I wrote this poem for the International Day of Peace, but I think it works well for our Evening for Peace.



    On this day, like any other,
    soldiers are killing and dying,
    arms merchants are selling their wares,
    missiles are aimed at your heart,
    and peace is a distant dream.


    Not just for today, but for each day,
    let’s sheathe our swords, save the sky
    for clouds, the oceans for mystery
    and the earth for joy. 


    Let’s stop honoring the war makers
    and start giving medals for peace.


    On this day, like any other,
    there are infinite possibilities to change
    our ways. 


    Peace is an apple tree heavy with fruit,
    a new way of loving the world.


    Our theme tonight is “Standing Together for Our Common Future.”  We all share in the responsibility for our common future.  Our challenge is to stand together to assure the best possible future for our children and grandchildren.  This is a global challenge; and it should be a universal desire.


    The Nuclear Age is just 67 years old.  During this short time, we humans have created, by our technological prowess, some serious obstacles to assuring our common future.  Climate change, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, modern warfare and its preparations, and nuclear dangers are at the top of any list of critical global problems.  None of these dangers can be solved by any one country alone.  It no longer takes just a village.  It takes a world.  And within that world it takes, if not each of us, certainly far more of us.


    Let me share with you how Archbishop Tutu, a Foundation Advisor and one of the great moral leaders of our time, describes nuclear weapons.  He says, “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity.  They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world.  What security do they help establish?  What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”


    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we work to abolish nuclear weapons –  insanely destructive weapons that cannot be used, or even possessed, without violating the most basic legal and moral precepts.  Nuclear weapons threaten civilization and our very survival as a species.  And yet, 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia still keep some 2,000 of these weapons on high-alert, ready to be fired in moments of an order to do so. 


    The weapons have not gone away, nor have the dangers they pose to humanity.  There are still 19,000 of them in the world.  Ninety-five percent of these weapons are in the arsenals of the US and Russia.  The remaining five percent are in the arsenals of seven more nuclear weapon states.


    Nuclear weapons do not protect us. Nuclear weapons are not a defense; they are only good for threatening retaliation or committing senseless acts of vengeance.


    The use of nuclear weapons is beyond the control of any country.  Let me illustrate this by telling you about Nuclear Famine.  Scientists modeled a relatively small nuclear war in which India and Pakistan were to use 50 nuclear weapons each on the other side’s cities.  The result of this war would be to put enough soot from burning cities into the upper stratosphere to reduce warming sunlight to the point that we would experience the lowest temperatures on Earth in 1,000 years. This would result in shortened growing seasons and crop failures, leading to starvation and Nuclear Famine killing hundreds of millions of people, perhaps a billion, throughout the world. 


    Let me emphasize that this would be the consequence of a small nuclear war using less than half of one percent of the world’s nuclear explosive power.  And, it would be a regional nuclear war, over which the US could not exert any control.  It would nonetheless be a war with global consequences for all of us.
     
    All of this is serious and sobering.  But, you may ask, what can we do about it?


    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are focusing on collective action and collective impact, in which the whole – each of us standing together – is greater than the sum of its parts. 


    We are also pursuing legal action related to breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the US and other nuclear weapon states parties to the treaty. The treaty calls for the pursuit of negotiations in good faith for effective measures related to a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, to nuclear disarmament and for a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. 


    Since the Treaty entered into force in 1970, it would be hard to argue 42 years later that there has been a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.  Nor has there been serious nuclear disarmament or a treaty on general and complete disarmament. 


    Our current education and advocacy work reaches and mobilizes our 57,000 members who join in taking action for our common future.  We plan to expand this number exponentially across the world.  We hope that you will all join us in this mission to assure the human future.


    Tonight we stand together with the people of the Marshall Islands, a country that was part of the Trust Territory of the United States after World War II.  The Marshall Islanders are easygoing and friendly people. They put their trust in the United States, but we abused that trust by testing nuclear weapons on their territory.  We began that atmospheric nuclear testing in 1946, when we were the only country in the world with nuclear weapons, and we continued testing there for 12 years until 1958. 


    We tested 67 times in the Marshall Islands, using powerful nuclear and thermonuclear weapons – the equivalent explosive power of having tested 1.7 Hiroshima bombs each day for 12 years.  On March 1, 1954, we tested our largest nuclear bomb ever, code-named Bravo, which had the power of 15 million tons of TNT. 


    We irradiated many of the people of the Marshall Islands, causing them death, injury and untold sorrow.  Many had to leave their home islands and live elsewhere.  Many have suffered cancers and leukemia, and the illness and death has carried over into the children of new generations of Marshall Islanders.


    These are the tragic effects of a world that maintains, tests and relies upon nuclear weapons.  In this world, our human rights are threatened and abused by nuclear weapons, as the Marshallese have experienced first-hand.


    As a traditional island nation, the Marshallese enjoyed a self-sufficient sustainable way of life before nuclear weapons testing.  Now, they struggle to uphold basic human rights:



    • to adequate health and life.
    • to adequate food and nutrition.
    • to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
    • to enjoyment of a safe, clean and healthy sustainable environment.

    In September of this year, the Foundation’s representative in Geneva spoke to the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of the Marshall Islanders.  He stated: “NAPF aligns itself with the UN Special Rapporteur’s suggestion that the international community, the United States, and the Government of the Marshall Islands must develop long-term strategic measures to address the effects of the nuclear testing program and specific challenges in each atoll.  As such, it is imperative that the U.S. government and the international community implement human rights measures to provide adequate redress to the citizens of the Marshall Islands.” 


    In other words, it is the responsibility of the United States and other nuclear weapon states to clean up the radioactive trail of dangerous debris and redress the suffering and human rights abuses they have left behind in their pursuit of ever more powerful and efficient nuclear arms.


    The man we honor tonight, Senator Tony de Brum, was a child when the US nuclear testing was taking place in his islands.  Born in 1945, he personally witnessed most of the detonations that took place, and was nine years old when the most powerful of those explosions, the Bravo test, took place. 


    He went on to become one of the first Marshall Islanders to graduate from college and focused on helping his people to extricate themselves from the legacy of US nuclear testing in his island country.  He has dedicated his life to helping his people and to working to assure they are fairly compensated for the wrongs done to them by nuclear testing.  He has served his people in many ways – as a parliamentarian and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Health and the Environment.  He currently represents Kwajalein in the Parliament and is the Minister in Assistance to the President.


    Like others who have suffered and witnessed the suffering caused by nuclear weapons, he has a larger vision: that what happened to his people should not happen again to any other people or country.  I’ve known Tony de Brum for many years.  He is an untiring leader of his people, deeply engaged in seeking justice.  He is a man with a vision of creating a more decent and peaceful future for all humanity. 


    Senator Tony de Brum is a dedicated Peace Leader, and tonight we are pleased to stand with him and the people of the Marshall Islands as we honor him with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

  • Movement Challenging U.S. Missile Testing Grows

    Early in the morning on February 25, the United States Air Force test-launched a first-strike, nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) despite the largest anti-test demonstrations in almost 30 years. The launch took place in the dark fog of night at 2:46 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) on the central California coast, firing the missile to the other end of the Ronald Reagan Missile Range in the Marshall Islands over 4,000 miles away. Despite the military’s ability to follow through with the test, the offensive nature of delivery systems and the threatening message of their test flights is growing in significance in anti-nuclear circles around the globe.
     
    The next test-launch was scheduled for March 1, extremely soon after last Saturday’s test, but was canceled abruptly on Tuesday, just as a media campaign began to cancel the test. March 1 is the anniversary of the tragic “Castle Bravo” test of a hydrogen bomb in the Bikini atoll for which the swimwear received its name. That test dropped radioactive fallout on the people of Rongelap, leading to catastrophic health and genetic problems that continue to this day, necessitating the on-going evacuation of their island. It also sparked the Japanese anti-nuclear movement which had been prevented to exist under the U.S. occupation that followed World War II. The Lucky Dragon #5 fishing vessel, a Japanese ship, was also caught in the fallout of the March 1 test.
     
    The test-launch of a Minuteman III on July 28, 2011, was a rare failure necessitating the destruction of the missile mid-flight. A subsequent test scheduled for September 21, 2011, the U.N.-designated International Day of Peace, was postponed as a growing chorus of international opposition was decrying the contradiction of a peace-loving nation testing such a thing on that special day.
     
    Following on the energy of the demonstration last Saturday, a group of activists spoke on the phone on Monday to develop a quick, proactive plan for the next 48 hours to try to stop this week’s second test. The group decided to address people’s comments to both President Obama and also U.N. Secretary General Moon. The groundwork for the outreach had been well laid already, and key communities to reach were identified: Japanese activists, people from Micronesia, downwinder groups, Native land rights organizers, faith-based networks, etc.
     
    Testing warhead, bomb and delivery systems all violate the spirit of working towards nuclear disarmament to which the United States has obligated itself. The February 24 protest began at 5 minutes to midnight—the current setting of the Federation of American Scientist’s “Doomsday Clock”—in the hopes that public pressure would force President Obama to turn away from his pro-nuclear budget (with increases for both nuclear weapons and power). The test-launch of ICBMs makes hypocrites of U.S. foreign policy planners who demand a stand down of nuclear ambitions from countries they’re hostile to, while further upgrading our own weapons of mass destruction. The quantity and quality of U.S. nuclear weapons dwarf all others; we must not wait for other nations to pull back, but must increase the rate of dismantlement of our own nuclear weapons.
     
    Daniel Ellsberg, who as a military analyst for the RAND Corporation in the 1960s developed strategic plans for the Secretary of Defense MacNamara and later leaked the lies of Vietnam war planners in what became known as the Pentagon Papers, crossed the line at the base and was taken into custody along with 14 other men and women in an act of civil resistance. “They cannot be allowed to test these lightning rods of doomsday without arresting American citizens. We need to push this. It takes public pressure through education and public protest,” Ellsberg said at the rally before entering the base. Twenty-nine years ago, Ellsberg was also arrested at VAFB with hundreds of others who went into the back-country of the huge base to disrupt launch plans for another ICBM, the MX missile, which ultimately was not deployed, largely due to public pressure. Ellsberg continued by stating, “No one in this country should have their hands on the destruction of the world. We can’t trust these folks with the future of humanity.”
     
    Ellsberg also pointed out that Cold War deterrence was based on various lies and mistakes, like when U.S. plans were based on the thought that the U.S.S.R. had 1,000 missiles but actually only had 4 at that time. Current war plans continue to be based on misrepresentations, including those regarding Iraq, Iran, North Korea and the ongoing nuclear programs of Israel, Pakistan and India.
     
    Our peace actions and civil resistance at VAFB, and at the Nevada Test Site, Y-12 Plant in Tennessee and elsewhere in the expanding nuclear “bombplex” all are part of an international effort to wake up the public and our leaders to the immorality, illegality and stupidity of maintaining nuclear capabilities. The U.S. program encourages horizontal proliferation. All nuclear weapons must be eliminated. “Theirs” are bad; ours are at least as horrific. The move to make ICBMs dual use—meaning they carry nuclear or non-nuclear warheads—further increases nuclear danger by potentially confusing adversaries into thinking they’re under nuclear attack.
     
    With about a hundred demonstrators braving the damp cold of the designated protest area outside of Vandenberg, other important attendees crossed the line in an “anti-test”: David Krieger, founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and his wife Carolee committed their first-ever acts of civil resistance and were exhilarated by the experience. Cindy Sheehan, who’s son was killed as a soldier in Iraq and who has become an outspoken peace activist, also was cited and released. Judy Talaugon, a grandmother and descendant of the local Chumash people blessed and welcomed the protesters. Importantly, Paul O’Toko, an elder from Micronesia and founder of Indigenous Stewards International, brought a sizable group including several of his children—although they did not engage in the trespass itself. Fr. Louis Vitale, a frequent presence at VAFB and other demonstration sites said, “I would gladly give my life even to delay a missile launch.”

  • US Plans Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test on International Day of Peace

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.


    David KriegerIn 1981, the United Nations General Assembly created an annual International Day of Peace to take place on the opening day of the regular sessions of the General Assembly.  The purpose of the day is for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.”


    Twenty years later, in 2001, the General Assembly, desiring to draw attention to the objectives of the International Day of Peace, gave the day a fixed date on which it would be held each year: September 21st.  The General Assembly declared in its Resolution 55/282 that “the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honor a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day.”


    The Resolution continued by inviting “all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system, regional and non-governmental organizations and individuals to commemorate, in an appropriate manner, the International Day of Peace, including through education and public awareness, and to cooperate with the United Nations in the establishment of the global ceasefire.”


    The United States has announced that its next test of a Minuteman III will occur on September 21, 2011.  Rather than considering how it might participate and bring awareness to the International Day of Peace, the United States will be testing one of its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles that, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, continue to be kept on high-alert in readiness to be fired on a few moments notice. 


    Of course, the missile test will have a dummy warhead rather than a live one, but its purpose will be to assure that the delivery system for the Minuteman III nuclear warheads has no hitches.  As Air Force Colonel David Bliesner has pointed out, “Minuteman III test launches demonstrate our nation’s ICBM capability in a very visible way, deterring potential adversaries while reassuring allies.”


    So, on the 2011 International Day of Peace, the United States has chosen not “to honor a cessation of hostilities,” but rather to implement a very visible, $20 million test of a nuclear-capable missile.


    Perhaps US officials believe that US missile tests help keep the peace.  If so, they have a very different idea about other countries testing missiles.  National Security Spokesman Mike Hammer had this to say about Iranian missile tests in 2009: “At a time when the international community has offered Iran opportunities to begin to build trust and confidence, Iran’s missile tests only undermine Iran’s claims of peaceful intentions.” 


    In 2008, Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of State, said, “We face with the Iranians, and so do our allies and friends, a growing missile threat that is getting ever longer and ever deeper – and where the Iranian appetite for nuclear technology is, to this point, still unchecked.  And it is hard for me to believe that an American president is not going to want to have the capability to defend our territory and the territory of our allies, whether they are in Europe or whether they are in the Middle East against that kind of missile threat.”


    The US approach to nuclear-capable missile testing seems to be “do as I say, not as I do.”  This is unlikely to hold up in the long run.  Rather than testing its nuclear-capable delivery systems, the US should be leading the way, as President Obama pledged, toward a world free of nuclear weapons.  To do so, we suggest that he take three actions for the 2011 International Day of Peace.  First, announce the cancellation of the scheduled Minuteman III missile test, and use the $20 million saved as a small down payment on alleviating poverty in the US and abroad.  Second, announce that the US will take its nuclear weapons off high-alert status and keep them on low alert, as China has done, in order to lower the possibilities of accidental or unauthorized missile launches.  Third, declare a ceasefire for the day in each of the wars in which the US is currently engaged.  These three actions on the International Day of Peace would not change the world in a day, but they would be steps in the right direction that could be built upon during the other 364 days of the year.


     To send a letter to President Obama opposing this test launch, click here.

  • The Legacy of Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

    This article was originally published on Common Dreams.

    The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on their homeland. They received more than three times the estimated external dose than to the most heavily exposed people living near the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It took more than two days before the Rongelap people were evacuated after the explosion. Many suffered from tissue destructive effects, such as burns, and subsequently from latent radiation-induced diseases.

    In 1957, they were returned to their homeland even though officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that radiation doses would significantly exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision. A scientist in a previously secret transcript of a meeting where they decided to return the Rongelap people to their atoll stated an island contaminated by the 1954 H-Bomb tests was “by far the most contaminated place in the world.” He further concluded that,

        “It would be very interesting to go back and get good environmental data… so as to get a measure of the human uptake, when people live in a contaminated environment…Now, data of this type has never been available. …While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”

    By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll, after determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to the Bikini atoll where numerous nuclear devices were detonated. The Bikini people were re-settled in 1969 but had to evacuate their homes in1978 after radiation exposures were found to be excessive. The Rongelap people fled for good reason. In 1982, a policy was secretly established by the energy department during the closing phase of negotiations between the United States and the nascent Republic of the Marshall Islands over the Compact of Free Association to eliminate radiation protection standards, so as to not interfere with the potential resumption of weapons testing. This resulted in a sudden and alarming increase in radiation doses to the Rongelap people eating local food.

    These circumstances were subsequently uncovered in 1991 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. As a result, the U.S. Congress terminated DOE’s nuclear test readiness program in the Pacific and in 1992 the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior entered into an agreement with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Local Rongelap Government that re-established radiation protection standards as a major element for the re-settlement of Rongelap.

    Apparently, this was not done for the southern islands of the atoll where local food is obtained. Despite the long and unfortunate aftermath of nuclear testing in the Marshalls, it appears that this critical element of safety was lost in the shuffle.

    As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States.

    Until the U. S. Government can assure that steps to mitigate doses to the same levels that are protective of American people are demonstrated, efforts to force the Rongelap people back to the home by Members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration is unjustified and unfairly places the burden of protection on the Rongelap people. It appears that DOE and Interior have quietly crept away from the 1992 agreement, without verifying that its terms and conditions to allow for safe habitability will be met.

    Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to compensate to residents living near DOE’s Nevada Test Site uranium miners, nuclear weapons workers, and military personnel for radiation-related illnesses. These laws provide for a greater benefit of the doubt than for the people of the Marshall Islands where 66 nuclear weapons were exploded in the open air. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout was greater than one in three.

    The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for the national security interests of the United States. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress should promptly correct this injustice.