Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Marshall Islands

  • Nuclear Zero Profiles: Rokko Langinbelik

    Rokko Langinbelik

    March 1, 1954 should have been just another ordinary day for Rokko Langinbelik. Instead, it was a day that changed her life. Rokko was 12 years old, living on Rongalap Atoll. Life was simple. But on that morning in March, the U.S. detonated the nuclear test known as Bravo on the Bikini Atoll. It was an explosion that would turn out to be 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

    “It was like the sun was all around us.  And we heard the big thunder. I was very scared. My parents didn’t understand what was happening,” said Rokko.

    The explosion sent a radioactive cloud some 20 miles into the atmosphere and created a nuclear hurricane that engulfed Rongelap. The Bravo test had been carried out despite a change in the wind’s direction, and the local residents were not warned ahead of time. Fallout rained down on the unsuspecting islanders – men in their fishing boats, others tending or gathering crops, children at play.

    Rokko remembers that after the Bravo explosion, every man, woman and child on Rongelap Atoll was sickened by the yellowish “snow” that fell from the sky and blanketed her island. Both of her parents later died of cancer, as did many other villagers. Rokko herself suffered from thyroid cancer. Two of her children died of complications she believes were associated with the lingering effects of the fallout. The Bravo test was only one of 67 nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. in and around the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.

    Rokko traveled to Washington in 2002 with five other Pacific Islanders to tell Congress about how her people have suffered and to seek aid from the United States, stating that to this day, the fallout effects of those tests have never been fully reported. And the emotional and physical toll on the Marshall Islanders may never be completely known or understood.

    Rokko Langinbelik, now a soft-spoken grandmother, vows to continue to raise her voice in support of nuclear abolition so that no one else in the world will have to suffer as the people of her country have.

    Sources:
    wfn.org
    yokwe.net
    bwcumc.org/survivors
    honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/mar/02/in/in05a.html

  • U.S. Judge Dismisses Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuit

    February 6, 2015 – On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, U.S. Federal Court Judge Jeffrey White dismissed the U.S. Nuclear Zero Lawsuit.

    The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits against all nine nuclear-armed nations in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and separately against the United States in U.S. Federal District Court. The lawsuits call upon these nations to fulfill their legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and for total nuclear disarmament.

    Judge White granted the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the RMI, although a party to the NPT, lacked standing to bring the case. White also ruled that the lawsuit is barred by the political question doctrine.

    The Marshall Islands, a former U.S. territory in the northern Pacific, was the ground zero for 67 U.S. nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958 and suffered the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. The lawsuit, which the RMI plans to appeal, does not seek compensation, but rather, a court order requiring the U.S. to enter negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

    Laurie Ashton, counsel for the RMI, respectfully expressed disappointment with the Court’s ruling, saying, “The next step is an appeal of the Court’s Order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As the RMI continues to pursue legal remedies to enforce the most important clause of the NPT, we implore the U.S. to honor its binding Article VI obligations, and call for and pursue the negotiations that have never begun—namely negotiations in good faith relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.”

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and consultant to the RMI noted, “The Court’s decision on this is akin to turning the matter over to the foxes to guard the nuclear henhouse. This will cause many national leaders to reconsider the value of entering into treaties with the U.S.”

    The RMI remains engaged in the three lawsuits for which there is compulsory jurisdiction at the ICJ – those against India, Pakistan and the UK. To learn more about the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, go to nuclearzero.org.

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    Note to editor: to arrange interviews with David Krieger or Laurie Ashton, please call Sandy Jones or Carol Warner at (805) 965-3443. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations and is comprised of individuals and groups worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

     

     

     

  • Nuclear Zero Profiles: Jeban Riklon

    Jeban Riklon

    Jeban Riklon was two years old, living life on an island paradise when the Bravo nuclear test was detonated. It was an explosion that would turn out to be 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

    His family and the entire community on Rongelap were relocated for three years before being allowed back to their home island. Jeban and his family were not informed, however, of the extremely contaminated state of their home upon return.

    From a U.S. official report: “Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habitation of these people on the island affords most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.”

    Riklon did not read that report until much later in his life, but while at the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Mexico, February 2014, Riklon alluded to it when he said,“I grew up to witness and experience the unforgettable human consequences from the fallout. When you spend your whole life seeing that much physical and emotional pain, your tears dry up and you force yourself to question intentions, justice and human value. Many of our survivors became human subjects in laboratories and almost 60 years on, we are still suffering.”

    Jeban Riklon counts himself lucky to be alive today, though he suffers from permanent headaches, nausea, and muscle pain. He pays the price of the Bravo test each day of his life, while also fighting for the rights of his fellow Marshall Islanders. He demands justice for the human rights violations his people experienced and for the promise that has gone unanswered. “People, especially the younger generation, don’t understand the consequences of contamination. We who were under the fallout, we know. We experience it mentally and physically every day of our lives.”

    Sources:
    reddirtreport.com/around-world/marshall-islanders
    counterpunch.org/2012/09/17/nuclear-betrayal-in-the-marshall-islands/
    ipsnews.net/2014/02/nuclear-weapons-leave-unspeakable-legacy

  • Nuclear Zero Profiles: Lijon Eknilang

    Lijon Eknilang

    Lijon Eknilang was just a little girl at the time of the Bravo nuclear test on March 1, 1954. She remembered the snowstorm-like covering of radioactive fallout that plagued Rongelap following the blast. Like so many of her neighbors, Lijon faced long-term health problems following the blast. For Lijon, those terrible health problems came in the form of seven miscarriages, and the inability to have children.

    Lijon’s suffering motivated her to pursue anti-nuclear activism, which brought her to the United States and Europe to draw attention to the health problems experienced by the people of Rongelap. Often referred to as the ‘icon of the Marshall Islands,’ Lijon’s international advocacy for the nuclear test victims at Rongelap has been instrumental in exposing the tragedies that occurred there. Lijon spoke on behalf of the Rongelapese nuclear test victims before the United States Congress and the Advisory Proceedings on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons at the International Court of Justice. She exposed the health problems and gruesome birth defects faced by the Rongelapese women, and in doing so become known for her accounts of ‘jellyfish babies’, which she described as children born with no muscles or bones.

    Lijon Eknilang continued her advocacy throughout her life, participating in many discussions and panels, and submitting her personal accounts to publications such as the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. In August, 2012, Lijon passed away on the island of Majuro. She was 82.

    Sources:
    mstories.org/nuclear-eknilang.php
    youtube.com/watch?v=pN31P8bi_JRI

  • Nuclear Zero Profiles: Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

    Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

    In her own words:

    From 1946 to 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in my home, the Marshall Islands. The most powerful of those tests was the “Bravo” shot, a 15 megaton device detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini atoll – which was 1,000 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Since then, the US has continued to deny responsibility while many Marshallese continue to die due to cancer and other radiation related illnesses. In my own family, both my grandparents passed away before I was born due to cancer and just two years ago I lost my ten year old niece Bianca to leukemia. Radiation related illnesses endure into today, and many more of our family members continue to battle with the effects of those tests which took place over 50 years ago.

    We Marshallese grow up with this history and these stories. We know them all too well. Not just stories of cancer, but also stories of babies born with no limbs, of stillbirths and thyroid problems, of families starving on outer atolls after being displaced from their own homes, stories of ash that fell from the sky that looked like snow. And then there are the stories of the land we lost – the beautiful bountiful Bikini atoll, how the elders cried as they were ripped from the shores of their ancestors.

    The hardships which the “nuclear nomads” of the four atolls – Bikini, Rongelap, Enewetak and Utrik – have had to face is all the more horrific when you take into account how strongly our culture is tied to our islands, how peaceful we have been as a people, and how vulnerable we were to the US. As our land and our food became contaminated, we were forced into an increased dependence on imported, canned foods, a major change in our diet and lifestyle – which has contributed to a modern day epidemic of diabetes. It also meant that our people were no longer able to maintain certain cultural traditions, skills and knowledge that depended on close ties to our land. Despite all of these trials, however, our people have survived. And we continue to resist.

    I am proud to say I come from a line of activists who have for many years fought against these atrocities. It is this history which gives us the strength that is needed to continue to remember, recommit, and resist, as we continue the struggle to bring about change for our people.

    Source:
    Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s blog piece, Reflections on Nuclear Survivors Day
    huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/kathy-jetnil-kijiner_n_5870194.html

  • Nuclear Zero Profiles: John Anjain

    John Anjain

    John Anjain was awake and drinking coffee on the morning of the Bravo nuclear test. What he first perceived to be a brilliant sunrise turned out to be something much more perilous. Following the initial brilliant light came smoke, scorching winds, and a lifetime of pain.

    In his role as magistrate of Rongelap, John recalls warning people not to drink from water catchments as the water had a noticeable yellow tinge. He remembers trying to comfort those whose skin had blistered, whose vomiting wouldn’t stop and whose hair began to fall out in big clumps. Along with witnessing the suffering of his people, John faced tragedies in his own family.

    Four of John’s children developed cancer attributed to radiation. John’s son, Lekoj, was one year old when the Bravo test occurred. He died 18 years later from myelogenous leukemia. Lekoj is officially recognized as the sole casualty of the nuclear tests, although John’s memory of countless miscarriages, cancer developments, and health complications contest this narrative.

    John Anjain’s experience with nuclear testing led him to become a strong anti-nuclear advocate, both for the Marshall Islands and for the entire international community. For years, he appealed to the U.S. to provide aid for the radiation victims. He visited Japan many times to attend rallies and give lectures on nuclear disarmament. And he kept the only medical records of the Bikini Atoll nuclear test victims. At the time of the blast, John recorded the names of 86 victims. By 1997, 38 people on his list had died.

    John Anjain passed away at age 81 in 2004. To this day, his memory survives in his endless work for the people of Rongelap and his impact on the anti-nuclear movement.

    Sources:
    health.phys.iit.edu/extended archive/0407/msg00215.html
    Morizumi-pj.com/bikini/English/en-bikini.html
    yokwe.net

  • Tony de Brum at the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits Forum

    Tony de BrumFor video of this event, click here.

    I’m proud to be here. I thank everyone in this room and their organizations who have made this possible for my country to be here. And I represent my country while I’m here. But I wanted to also share with you my personal experience so that those of you who have been involved in the law books and in the scientific journals and all the different sources of information that you have amassed to bring us to where we are today, will have a feeling, a direct touch, I hope, with what the Marshall Islands has gone through all these years and what brought us to where we are now.

    The evacuation of the people of Bikini, you know the two – made room for the “peaceful use of the atom” – was in 1946. And even at that meeting when the United States representative told the Bikini people that they were going to be moved for just a while, a short while and that they would be repatriated as soon as possible, because this experiment was for the good of mankind, and it was the will of God – from that day on they started lying and giving us double talk and duplicity in all that they did in the testing period. Beyond and after to this day we are still being denied the information we seek to be educated, to be able to understand what happened to our country.

    When the Enewetak people were forcibly removed in ’47 to make room for further testing on Enewetak, it was the same story. We will take you off on this ship to (this island) and we will bring you right back when we are through. To this day, neither Bikini nor Enewetak can be safely, totally safely resettled.

    My experience with the bomb did not start in ’54. I actually remember as early as when I was four years old listening to the rumbles and the flashes from the west from the island where I lived with my grandfather called Likiep. But the experience of the morning of 1954, March 1st was, I think, the jolt on my soul that never quite left me. Seeing Bravo as a nine year old was an experience I would not recommend to anyone because it still gives us nightmares – the people of my age and younger and around maybe some older from that time.

    So when we had the opportunity to go to school, four years later, 1958 I left home to go to school and did not return until 1968. When we had the opportunity to go to school, we were overwhelmed with having to catch up with civilization, with mathematics, with science, with whatever it took to graduate. And we were not able to access information that would give us more understanding of what we had experienced as children.

    But when we returned we had that opportunity. We had that new license to speak – the fact that we were educated in American colleges was the license that we sought and that the people that we worked for recognized as the ability to speak up on their behalf. Even when I returned from school, the program of so-called “testing’ exposed people was in full swing. Each year, scientists – I call them scientists – though they liked to refer to themselves as doctors – would come in and study our people, take blood samples and other samples and do all kinds of things to keep up, to keep track of the radiation outside and within their bodies. It was not a pleasant experience for our communities, but it was a continuation of what had happened from Bravo and the subsequent years after.

    From the time the testing started in ’47 until Bravo, about half of the 67 “events” were conducted by the United States. And then between ’57 and ’58, 33 or 34 more shots were done in that short period of time, of 2 years. After, the people were removed and were put back on Rongelap to continue the experiments.

    Part of what John was referring to earlier in that interview in the movie, the video, Nuclear Savage, was our attempt to understand documents that had been released by the Clinton administration, pursuant to our requests, for years, for information which demonstrated and proved to us that these doctors that I spoke about were actually conducting human experiments on the people of Rongelap and Utirik. They we not treating them for the anomalies that were coming up, but they were actually studying the affects of radiation on human beings.

    It is unfortunate that between 1954 and 1994 we were not able to access that information. But even after we’ve understood that, there is still denial that Project 4.1, the project I referred to is a project to study the affects of radiation on human beings. It’s still being denied by officials of the United States.

    Our attempts to bring justice to the people of the Marshalls for all that happened to them during this time have been hampered primarily by the withholding of information by the United States on the excuse, and it’s simply an excuse, that it is in the security interest of the United States to do so. How information such as the yield of a particular weapon or the “event” or the “detonation” can be classified on that basis is a mystery to us. But nevertheless, it’s still being used to this day to deny us the information we seek.

    The direct effects of some of the testing, especially Bravo, resulted in various anomalies, birth anomalies and sicknesses that the communities of the Marshalls had never experienced before.
    But because the islands were closed to any interference from outside between 1946 and 1968, there was very little information that flowed out from the Marshalls until then.

    Before 1968 in order, even for some of us to try to leave the Marshalls to go away to school, in order for us to leave our country we needed the permission of the Navy Admiral in Guam to allow us to catch military airplanes out of the Marshalls to Honolulu and on to the US mainland for schooling. So there was already at that time an attempt to decide who amongst us would be allowed to go away to school and who would be denied passage simply because of your family or because of whom you associated with in high school.

    When the opportunity arose for us to seek compensation and seek the truth for the damages we suffered from the nuclear testing it was under the auspices of the negotiations leading to independence. We were concerned that the United States was cutting and running – walking away from a responsibility that it had created for itself and was denying in terms of making sure that we had the right information based upon which we could make the right decisions on how this relationship would proceed.

    Secondly, we were being presented with information that was claimed to be the infinite, total, complete information that the United States was able to provide in a 1978 survey.

    And number three, we were told that if we did not accept the nuclear deal, the 150 million compensation in a trust fund and the establishment of a nuclear claims tribunal, that we would not be allowed independence.

    So regardless of what is said about that deal, it was tied to freedom. And the final decision that was placed on us was  – are you willing to settle for this agreement, this nuclear claims agreement – in return for your freedom? Or, we will keep you as a trust territory for as long as we want because we have that authority under the United Nations.

    The decision was made to be free.

    But to continue to seek information that would give us a final answer to all our concerns about the testing period and what it did to us. We have since found out of course that the information provided to us was also very much, ah, “edited” “abridged” “painted” in a way that we would accept it and with the assurances that the amounts that the United States estimated to be adequate for health care and for compensation for physical injury would suffice. As it turned out, none of these things were true.

    The people of the Marshalls have filed before in times past. Both the people of Bikini and the people of Enewetak have filed cases in US courts for compensation based on information that they were able to garner through the nuclear claims tribunal and experts hired by that tribunal to provide technical information that (assists) to them. These cases have been dismissed, not on any good grounds accept that the time had run out. We were violating, what is the word I’m looking for – we were violating statues of limitations issues and not on the merit of the cases themselves – procedural rather than substantial reasons.

    Today, we have completely run out of funds to address the individual physical injury cases adjudicated by the tribunal and we have not even touched damages to home and property because there are no funds left to address those.

    Under the Compact of Free Association there was an agreement that should the terms of the settlement be proven inadequate that there would be a window of opportunity to revisit the issue between the United States government and the Marshall Islands. This request has gone in, in several forms, over the past twenty years only to be rejected again on the grounds that time has run out and the political settlement had been reached in 1986.

    So, while we still bear the scars and in fact in some cases, still the open wounds of physical harm from the testing period, there is no physical avenue of settlement at the present time. And just within the last five years, the US Supreme Court has rejected the last two attempts by the people of Enewetak and Bikini to seek justice.

    Now, I should say from the beginning here that the lawsuits that I discussed before are different from what we have done now. What we seek now is for the United States and the nuclear powers to abide by the treaty to which they acceded before and for those that did not, by customary law, should also follow. It is an important part of our history because without it, it will remain open-ended – and incomplete. It will not be acceptable for us to leave that open (vacuum?) for our future generations.

    It is also right for us to do that because we have seen first-hand the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings. The scourge of displaced communities within their own homeland – the scourge that the people of Enewetak must now live in an atoll that is half contaminated, half acceptable for habitation, at least by US standards, is not a very comfortable end of a very long hard journey.

    Just recently a professor from Columbia University has written a piece about the Runit Dome, the only nuclear storage area in Micronesia located in Enewetak where the United States pushed and shoved plutonium contaminated material into a bomb crater, then steeled the top with a concrete cap, and said we will keep it away from human beings for 24,000 years. Now, we have seen because of normal wear and tear, and because of higher seas, cracks in the dome and the possibility now appears that some of this contaminated material may permeate into the lagoon and surrounding communities.

    The most recent response from the United States to this concern is as follows: Even if the crater were to be blasted completely open and everything in it were to flow out to the community and the lagoon – what’s in the crater is not as dangerous as what’s outside the crater.

    So much for the clean-up of Enewetak.

    So, in spite of assurances that it is in fact safe for some of our people to live in, say, Rongelap, or Bikini, or Enewetak, it has always been a stressful issue. And neither Rongelap nor Bikini are inhabited and the half of Enewetak that is, in fact, occupied by some people of Enewetak, is very sparsely populated because most of them have left to the other atolls or to the big island of Hawaii where a sizable, meaning a few hundred, Enewetak people now live.

    There is nothing more final in the life of an island person than to be separated from your homeland. It is living hell. It is death while alive. It is impossible to hold your head up as a human being when you cannot ask for your land, ask your land to provide for yourself and must depend on somebody else for that privilege.

    So unless and until some form of settlement is again reached and people are repatriated to their own lands, this nuclear legacy of the Marshalls will continue. And we do not wish this upon anyone else, anyone else in the world.

    I may not look that old but I do have nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren of which I’m very, very proud. And until today, until the very day I left to come on this trip they look up to you and they ask, “What’s going to happen? What are you going to come back with? What are the answers you seek? You’re away too much.” And you must always go back from these ones saying “Very soon, very soon.”

    But we will never give up. And it is the support and the council of the people we have in this room today that gives us that courage and that determination – that through our efforts, as meager as they may be, and as small as we are in the world – we have one vote in the UN – and we have a voice that will not be silenced until the world is rid of all nuclear weapons. Because that’s the cause of this all. Thank you.

  • Acceptance Speech for the Sean MacBride Peace Prize

    On December 5, 2014, the International Peace Bureau awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize the people and government of the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum accepted the award. His speech is below. Video of the award ceremony is available here.

    tony_debrumI am deeply honored to receive this, to accept this award, on behalf of the people and the government of the Marshall Islands. I accept it on behalf of President Christopher Loeak and his government, who have been very supportive of all our efforts in every faction on the floor of Parliament, in the cabinet, throughout the ministries and the public service, through the education system, through the public live broadcast system and in all of our encounters with the young people of the country – educational meetings, graduation speeches, and the like.

    I accept it with humility on behalf of all the people of the Marshall Islands, for all the fathers of the many families, both those that remain in their homelands, and those that are so sadly separated from the land which nurtured their parents and their grandparents and which gives them the soul to be Marshallese persons.

    I accept it on behalf of the women of the Marshall Islands who have had to quietly suffer through the years the indignation, the shame, the hardship of being cast aside as different or as deserving of their fate because they happened to not know what it was that affected them. I accept it on behalf of those women, especially of the community of Rongelap, who on the morning of Bravo – two days after Bravo actually was still the morning of Bravo in Rongelap – had to withstand the shame of being stripped naked in front of their village, in the village square, to be hosed down to get rid of the radioactive powder on their bodies, in front of their children, their sons, and their male relatives.

    I accept it on behalf of all the children who were born partly human: jellyfish babies, children who were born without arms, or without heads, brains, but with a heart that beat nevertheless for some reason.

    I accept it on behalf of children who have died because they had no access to medical care, proper medical care, whose diseases and sicknesses and anomalies could not be properly diagnosed because we were told that we could not hire doctors for the dead when we were struggling to employ doctors for the living.

    I accept it on behalf of those women who were accused of having illicit relationships which caused their children to become jelly babies, being accused of incestuous relationships and therefore not being capable of having proper babies.

    I accept it on behalf of the children who have survived, like my granddaughter whose two year battle with leukemia has resulted in a healthy nine-year-old in the fourth grade who is doing well, thank you, for now.

    I accept it on behalf of all the people of Bikini who cannot return home, but must stay in two split societies, one in Kili, one in Ejit, while they still call themselves Bikinians, and are proud to say “I come from KBE,” – Kili, Bikini, Ejit – because Kili is where one half of them stay, Ejit is where the other half, and Bikini is the place where they long to stay.

    My colleague, Obet Kilon, is from Bikini. He’s a young, up-and-coming Foreign Service officer in our government, and he will carry this banner long after I am dead and gone, I am sure. I accept it on behalf of Kilon and his family, and all the other people of Bikini.

    The people of Enewetak, who must now live as one society, when in truth, they are really two societies in one atoll, who always refer to themselves as the people of Engebi and of Enewetak living in Enewetak Atoll, unfortunately must live on one island in that atoll because it is contaminated, and the people of Engebi cannot return to Engebi. I accept it on behalf of the people of Enewetak who must witness the breakup of the dome at Runit with tons and tons and tons of plutonium-contaminated material.

    I accept it on behalf of the children of the Marshalls who will be born next year, and the year after, and the decade after who, for God’s sakes, must have a better life than their parents did.

    I accept it on behalf of all of those who have contributed to make it happen that we are recognized for filing the cases against the nuclear states in the ICJ. Without your support, without your counsel, without your confirmation that what we wanted to do was the right thing to do, it would have been difficult for us to step forward and carry out this very, very important step in bringing peace to the world in getting rid of nuclear weapons once and for all.

    I accept it on behalf of all those who have sent support for our efforts. I accept it on behalf of our friends from Japan, some of whom are here tonight, who have suffered more directly than we have.
    If there was one thing that we could point to and accept as perhaps a wish that no one could possibly deny exists in the heart of every Marshallese, it is that this madness be nipped at the bud, that it not be allowed to happen again, that war with nuclear weapons must be recognized for what it is: an evil end to civilization. It is no longer bombs being tested, it is no longer select cities where bombs will be dropped, and then things will be over. It is a final, a very final, act of insanity.

    And as someone earlier said, “How can we be sure that nuclear weapons will not be used again?” The only way to be sure that nuclear weapons are not used again is to make sure we don’t have any nuclear weapons to use. And the small islands of the Marshall Islands, barely 70,000 people, are maybe small islands but a big ocean country: we believe that firmly, and we want to share that belief with the world.

    I will take this medal back with me to the President and his cabinet, to Parliament in the January session, which begins the first Monday of January, and then we will pass it around to all the islands of the Marshalls for them to see, for the children to feel it, for the children to see that, yes, there are smart and concerned people in the world that believe like we do.

    The most rewarding part of doing what we do in spreading the word of nuclear peace is to see the eyes of children light up when they understand what is being done. Because the bad side of the story has been told to them, what we are trying to do is to tell them the good side of the story, and this will be a milestone in the telling of that story.

    Thank you very much.

  • The Mouse that Roared: Stand With the Marshall Islands

    The Marshall Islands is “the mouse that roared.”  It is a small island country standing up to the nuclear-armed bullies of the world saying, “enough is enough.”  It is in effect saying to the nuclear-armed countries, “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk (on the false power and prestige of nuclear weapons).”  The Marshall Islands is acting with courage, compassion and commitment, taking risks for all humanity.  It is seeking to restore global sanity and end the overarching threat of nuclear omnicide.

    marshall_islands_flagThe Nuclear Zero Lawsuits filed by the Marshall Islands against the nine nuclear-armed “Goliaths” have the potential to awaken the public to the current status of nuclear weapons dangers.  For the most part, the public appears ignorant of or apathetic to these dangers.  Awakening the public may be an even more important function of the lawsuits than the legal rulings of the courts.

    The lawsuits raise the following issues:

    First, the nuclear-armed countries party to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the US, Russia, UK, France and China) are obligated “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament . . . ”  The four nuclear-armed countries that are not parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) have the same obligations under customary international law.

    Second, all nine nuclear-armed countries are in breach of their obligations to negotiate a cessation of the nuclear arms race.

    Third, all nine nuclear-armed countries are in breach of their obligations to negotiate for nuclear disarmament.

    Fourth, all nine nuclear-armed countries are in breach of their obligations to act in good faith.  They are not engaged in negotiations.  Rather, they are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  The United States alone has plans to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades modernizing its nuclear arsenal.

    Fifth, these breaches undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and international law itself.

    Sixth, continued reliance on nuclear weapons keeps the door open to nuclear proliferation by other countries and by terrorist organizations, and to nuclear weapons use, by accident or design.

    According to atmospheric scientists, even a small regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities, would result in putting enough soot into the upper stratosphere to block warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons and cause crop failures that could lead to a global nuclear famine resulting in the death by starvation of some two billion people.  It would be a heavy price to pay for the broken promises and breached obligations of the nine nuclear-armed countries.

    There are still over 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with some 94 percent of these in the arsenals of the United States and Russia.  A war between these two countries could trigger an ice age that would end civilization and potentially all complex life on Earth.

    In sum, the nuclear-armed countries have obligations under international law that they are breaching, and these breaches raise serious threats to the people of the world, now and in the future.  The Marshall Islands has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries in an attempt to compel them to do what the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty promised to do long ago, and what all nine nuclear-armed countries are required to do under international law.

    The people of the world should follow the lead of the Marshall Islands, one of the smallest but most courageous countries in the world.  We should stand with the Marshall Islands and support them in their legal action.  The dream of ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity should be not only the dream of the Marshall Islands, but our dream as well.  You can find out more about the Nuclear Zero lawsuits and sign a petition supporting the Marshall Islands at www.nuclearzero.org.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • U.S. Schedules Minuteman III Missile Test: Timing is Everything

    For Immediate Release

    Contact:     
    Rick Wayman
    (805) 965-3443 or (805) 696-5159
    rwayman@napf.org

    Santa Barbara – The U.S. is set to launch a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The launch is scheduled to take place in the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 23.

    The launch comes at a time of heightened tension between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine and NATO expansion. It also comes two days after the International Day of Peace (Sept. 21) and three days before the official UN Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Sept. 26). Clearly this timing is meant to send a message and it is not a message of peace.

    Though the Air Force Global Strike Command contends that the ICBM test launch program is to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system, this test is yet another example of the continuation of decades of psychological and physical terror the U.S. has imposed upon the people of the Marshall Islands.

    Between the years of 1946 and 1958, the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands resulting in immeasurable suffering and emotional physical trauma to the islanders. In April of this year, the Marshall Islands filed the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits against the U.S. and the eight other nuclear-armed nations, challenging them to fulfill their moral and legal obligations to begin negotiations to reach nuclear zero. For more information on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits visit nuclearzero.org.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and a consultant to the Marshall Islands on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, commented, “The officials at Vandenberg say the purpose of the test is to ‘validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapons system.’ This means the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of a weapons system capable of destroying civilization. The Air Force is only doing its job: practicing for the destruction of the human species. Instead of launching missiles we should be leading negotiations to rid the world of weapons of mass annihilation.”

    Further, Rick Wayman, Director of Peace Operations at NAPF stated, “That the U.S. has chosen this week to test – at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and the one day of the year dedicated to the total abolition of nuclear weapons – says it all. Instead of taking seriously its international legal obligations to negotiate for nuclear disarmament, the U.S. seems content to engage in a tit-for-tat nuclear arms race with Russia. This Minuteman III test is nothing more than the flexing of a horribly dangerous, unusable and totally unnecessary muscle.”

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    For further information, or if you would like to interview David Krieger, contact Rick Wayman at rwayman@napf.org or call (805) 696-5159.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – NAPF’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.  Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations.  For more information, visit www.wagingpeace.org.