An
Anniversary Appeal for Nuclear Abolition
Posted
August 6, 2007
By Dr. Gunnar Westberg and John Loretz
More than
60 years ago, the world was put on notice by the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki that we were living on borrowed time. More than 40 years ago, physicians
and scientists described in frightening and comprehensive terms how a nuclear
war would kill tens of millions of people indiscriminately, destroy entire societies
and ecosystems, and cause cancers and genetic damage in unborn generations. In
time we learned that, at its worst extreme, a nuclear exchange involving thousands
of warheads could cause a nuclear winter that would lead to the extinction of
humankind.
Almost from the moment the first photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were published, the people of the world began to organize to demand nuclear disarmament.
Those demands led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the Non-Proliferation
Treaty in 1968, and a steady stream of other agreements meant to rein in the nuclear
threat. The NPT, in particular, contained the promise of a nuclear-weapons-free
world-a promise that the United States and the former Soviet Union ignored throughout
the Cold War, and that tragically remains unfulfilled more than a decade since
that conflict came to an end.
Today, we see no signs that the nuclear weapon
states who signed the NPT have any intention to eliminate their nuclear weapons,
as they have committed themselves to do under Article VI. To the contrary, we
see new warheads, new nuclear missions, and new nuclear capabilities in the plans
of all the nuclear weapon states for decades to come. Some of those states have
declared that nuclear weapons are no longer only a deterrent against the use of
nuclear weapons by others, but could have war fighting roles in conflicts with
either nuclear or non-nuclear weapon states. These dangerous new doctrines are
provoking non-nuclear states to reconsider their promise not to acquire nuclear
weapons, if the alternative is to live with a permanent double standard.
In
fact, three nuclear weapon states have emerged outside the NPT regime, a fourth
has violated its NPT obligations in order to become a nuclear weapon state, a
fifth is under suspicion of doing the same, and others are talking nervously about
acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. The knowledge, the technology, and even
the fissile materials required to build nuclear weapons are spreading to the most
dangerous corners of the world, so that nuclear terrorism is now an unavoidable
threat.
The world is shirking its responsibility to take these threats
seriously in the only way they can be taken seriously if we are to prevent any
future Hiroshimas or Nagasakis: by condemning nuclear weapons as medical, social,
and moral atrocities once and for all; by forbidding anyone to possess them for
any reason; and by establishing a set of international norms and institutions
to enforce that prohibition.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, has said
"Our ultimate goal is the elimination of all nuclear weapons from the face
of the Earth by the year 2020, the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings. Only
then will we have truly recovered hope for life and a future on this planet."
For
this reason, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)
has launched ICAN - the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (www.icanw.org).
Not just North Korea's nuclear weapons (though certainly those); not just India
and Pakistan's nuclear weapons (though certainly those); but all nuclear weapons
in those countries and in the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Israel. Only
the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from the world's arsenals under a
binding international treaty - the Nuclear Weapons Convention proposed by IPPNW
and other NGOs committed to abolition - will fulfill the world's humanitarian
and moral obligation not only to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but to
all future generations on Earth.
The world had a lucky escape from nuclear
catastrophe during the Cold War. We may not be so lucky in the 21st century if
we do not face up to the task we have been putting off since August 9, 1945.
Gunnar
Westberg is Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War (IPPNW); John Loretz is IPPNW Program Director.