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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| April 19, 2004 |
Anti-Nuclear Activist - Can we abolish nuclear weapons? – Alyn Ware |
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| Alyn Ware, onboard from Singapore to India, introducing nuclear issues on the Indian sub-continent and the world which still pose a very real threat to humanity |
Although the Cold War between Russia and the US is over, and both countries have signed treaties declaring to reduce their nuclear arsenals, anti-nuclear activist Alyn Ware, reminds us that there are still 30, 000 nuclear weapons left in the world today - enough to destroy the planet 600 times over.
Five thousand of these nuclear weapons are on "hair trigger" launch systems, and can be fired within minutes. China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, Russia, Great Britain, the United States and possibly North Korea, are maintaining, and in some cases developing, nuclear weapons programmes, including more "usable" nuclear bombs that can be deployed in conventional conflicts. The US National Security Strategy mentions the possible resumption of testing, pre-emptive strikes, and lists "target countries" nuclear weapons may be used upon. The threat of terrorists acquiring and detonating nuclear weapons, or radiological "dirty" bombs, has also greatly increased in recent years. |
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At 35 billion dollars a year, the US nuclear weapons budget alone could provide shelter and clean water for the entire population of the planet. Even India, with the majority of its people living in abject poverty, spends nearly 2 billion dollars a year on its arms race with Pakistan. These astronomical figures do not include the rest of the nuclear-armed world, nor the cost of health care for the 13 million people estimated to have been affected by the radiation blown into the air, sea and earth by nuclear testing.
The "positive news," says Alyn, is that the majority of world governments oppose nuclear weapons, and that although nearly every country signed the non-proliferation treaty in 1970, only to see it reneged upon by the nuclear weapon states not disarming, a 1996 ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the threat of nuclear weapons illegal under humanitarian law. The only problem with this ruling is that the enforcement agency of the United Nations is the Security Council - dominated by the nuclear powered nations.
"But individuals can act to enforce the ICJ decision through Citizen's Weapons Inspections," says Alyn. Activists have already forced US weapons from Europe, and when divers from Greenpeace were arrested in Scotland for banging on the side of a British Trident submarine with hammers, they claimed that by breaking domestic law they were acting in the interests of international law. In a landmark case, the judge confirmed the protestors had a "right to act," and that citizens have an "obligation to stop the deployment of nuclear weapons.
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"Despite the iron grip of the Security Council on the United Nations, the General Assembly has reflected the strong global support for the abolition of nuclear weapons, drafting a "Model Treaty" to show how the necessary legal, technical and political arrangements could be employed for effective disarmament. Even in states that do have nuclear weapons, public opinion is often against government policy. The Japanese government does not support conventions to abolish nuclear weapons, yet the majority of its people do, with many citizen's groups, including the influential Mayors for Peace, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the forefront of the disarmament campaign. These examples of civil action, along with the five nuclear weapon free zones in Africa, Antarctica, Latin America, South East Asia and the South Pacific, are encouraging movements towards abolition.
The number of conflicts across the globe since World War II is evidence that nuclear weapons are not an effective deterrent against war. Quoting Ghandi, "An eye for an eye and the whole world will go blind," Alyn argues that the world must learn to "respond to threats of violence without force," and that there are "no more excuses for war." The successes of alternative mechanisms for non-violent solutions to conflicts demonstrate there are other ways. Adjunction, conciliation, diplomacy, mediation, negotiation and the signing of treaties are just some examples of effective, non-violent answers to conflicts from personal to international levels. "Earth is a spaceship," says Alyn, "and we must all work together as planetary citizens for peace, not war." |
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