Target X:50+ installations already
By Alex Rosen, IPPNW Germany
Dear friends all around the world,
During the IPPNW Biking Aganst Nuclear Weapons Tour (BAN) this summer, we organized a number of Target installations all along our tour. You can view photos and descriptions of these events, as well as the more than 50 Target installations to date on our website: ippnw-students.org/Target. Organized by our colleagues in Canada, the US, Ecuador, El Salvador, Brazil, Peru, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Estonia, Russia, Georgia, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Italy, India, Iran and Australia, these Target installations have helped bring the issue of nuclear abolition to the people on the street and stir public debate about the subject.
We are certain that events such as NWIP, Nuclear Weapons – my cup of tea, Target X and bike tours are valuable and effective ways to use our moral authority as doctors and medical students in order to influence discussion on a local and national level. By documenting and showcasing these events, we even attempt to create some international leverage – similar to the Million Pleas Campaign. All of these activities neatly fit under the umbrella of ICAN – our wonderful international campaign, which we try to make more known through our activities.
For the future, we hope for may more successful Target installations – especially in the nuclear weapon states, but also in places that people would not normally associate with nuclear abolition. We’ve had a number of very successful events at universities in Latin America – showing that students there share the rest of the world’s concerns about nuclear proliferation and the immense weapon stockholds of Russia and the US. We should demonstrate IPPNW’s global aspect by trying to organize Target installations in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Mexico, Mongolia, Indonesia, etc., etc. In most of these countries we now have vibrant IPPNW student groups who could take on this subject. Although it may not be their primary concern or the main reason for being active within IPPNW, it would show solidarity and support for our global campaign and be a great project for local groups to organize.
So:
- if you’ve already held a Target installation and it’s not on the website ippnw-students.org/Target, please contact me and I’ll upload the photos and reports.
- if you’re interested in organizing a Target installation in your city and the information on the website is not sufficient for you, please contact me.
- if you have good ideas for future Target installations or the website, please contact me
- if you’re interested to become more involved in the coordination of Target installations around the world, please contact me
I truly look forward to hearing from you…
All the best from Germany,
Alex Rosen
Swiss nuclear bomb
The Swiss nuclear bomb.
Little did we know. Not even Tom Lehrer (“Who’s next? Alabama’s got the bomb!”) dreamt that Switzerland planned to build atomic bombs. At one time an Air Force general proposed that Switzerland might build 400 nuclear weapons, to be carried by 100 Mirage air planes, with a capacity to reach Moscow!
At the recent IPPNW World Congress at Basel we visited the historical museum of the town. The guide told us that only two weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima did a group from the Swiss government decide to begin a study of the possibilities of Switzerland to build nuclear weapons.
The work seems to have proceeded very slowly, but when the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 took place the Swiss planning for nuclear deterrence became more serious (ref 1, 2).
These plans were not only developed in meetings and in offices. Uranium was purchased and stored and reactors ordered. The USA offered reactors to a highly reduced price to avoid that Switzerland bought them from the Soviet Union. However, the Swiss government seems to have been unwilling to go any further if other countries than the original four nuclear weapon states did not get the bomb. It would be of interest to read more about these discussions.
The history of the Swiss nuclear weapons program is long and many pages are still missing from the history (1, 2). It appears that the rapidly increasing costs for the weapon carriers, that means the Mirage airplanes, was a problem for the military. The cost of a uranium enrichment plant was too high for the federal budget. The Air Force did however discuss the possible building of 400 charges and to test nuclear weapons in an uninhabited area of the country (1)!
A serious accident in a research reactor causing a partial meltdown occurred in 1969 (1). The reactor was located underground which contained the radioactivity. This accident strengthened the opinion against the nuclear weapons program. Switzerland signed the Non-proliferation treaty, NPT, in 1969 but it the country did not declare its uranium stores until five years later. That facility had been known by very few people.
The nuclear weapons program had some similarities to that of another neutral and nonaligned country, Sweden. The cost of the program was a major obstacle in both countries. The strategic discussion seems to have been rather superficial in both. That the nuclear weapons would not increase the security during the Cold War was not realized. It was taken as a matter of course that military strength gave security. It was not commonly understood that nuclear weapons require a new way of thinking.
It seems that the public opinion against the nuclear weapons program was less active in Switzerland than in Sweden. One reason could be that the women in Switzerland were much less involved in politics. The anti-nuclear campaign in Sweden was to a large extent a women’s movement.
When the NPT entered into power both countries had to give up the nuclear option. However, it was as late as in 1988 that the commission on nuclear weapons questions was terminated in Switzerland, officially ending the program (3)
It is important to study the reasons why certain countries gave up their nuclear weapons program while other persisted. The Nuclear weapons archive (3) summarizes the decisions but gives little information about the driving forces, especially in the society. Has the public opinion regarding nuclear weapons been important in these countries, in the same way it was in the USA (4), in Kazakhstan or the Ukraine? These questions have been the subject of several studies in recent years. The book by E.C. Hymans ((5) is the best known. The dissertation by Ulrika Möller (6) evaluates the situation of four different countries, making her studies quite valuable. The time has come to review these various studies, trying to understand the importance of reason and sentiment as forces in the nuclear arms race, and nuclear disarmament.
Today Switzerland is one of the countries which take a strong stand for a nuclear weapons free world. The talk given by the Federal Foreign Minister of Switzerland, Micheline Calmy-Rey (7) at the IPPNW Congress was an inspired and serious call for nuclear abolition. Switzerland has together with Norway taken a place in the disarmament policy which Sweden left vacant.
- Stussi-Lauterberg J: Historical outline on the question of Swiss nuclear armament. Swiss government report, April 1966.
- Edwards B: Swiss planned a nuclear bomb. New Scientist 1966.
- Nuclear weapons archive. 7.4 States Formerly Possessing or Pursuing Nuclear Weapons.
- Wittner Lawrence S: The struggle against the bomb. Vol. I-III. Stanford Univ. Press 1997-2003
- Hymans J E C: The psychology of nuclear proliferation. Identity, emotions and foreign policy. Cambridge Univ. Press 2006
- Möller U: The prospects of security cooperation. A matter of relative gains or recognition. Göteborg 2007 Dept. Political Science Göteborg University
- Calmy-Rey M: The future of nuclear disarmament: A Swiss perspective. IPPNW World Congress Basel Schweiz 2010. ippnw.2010.org, then Plenary Documents
Gunnar Westberg
Aliens, Cyberwar and other curiosities
At last I feel mitigated in my avid viewing of „The Next Generation“ and „Doctor Who“, for it seems that I am psychologically equipped for the reports of aliens tampering with the nuclear deterrent. I am not in the least phased by this, in fact I welcome our green friends to join “Global Zero” along with Henry Kissinger and President Obama. If they have found a way of turning the damn things off, then I don’t have to spend any more time on de-alerting, I can concentrate on organising a Nuclear Weapons Convention for Trekkies. And I quite agree with UFO researcher Robert Hastings, that all the secrets on extra-terrestrial activities for peace should be declassified. We have a right to know about this new peace movement from beyond.
But wait, there’s more: someone of unidentifiable origin is trying to turn off all the nuclear installations built by Siemens. Using a virus called “Stuxnet”, installations all over the world (well, okay, not in any of the recognised nuclear weapons’ states) began having problems, including Iran. The cyber war we have all been waiting for has begun and reporters are suspecting state sponsorship rather than terrorism. But what state could possibly want Iran’s nuclear installations to go offline? I wonder. On the other hand, it could be the beginning of a nuclear industry war between Siemens and Westinghouse.
I had only just finished laughing at that excellent film “The Men Who Stare at Goats” with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey, when I discovered that in fact it is all true. A glance at this article by Gary S. Bekkum in the American Chronicle confirmed that the US is still using “psychic spies”, now against Iran. So perhaps the Iranians should lock up their goats.
Bekkum asks the question that I know is on all your lips: is there a connection between cyber invasion and alien nuclear intrusion? Or worse still: will we soon be confronting a 9/11 scale “surprise attack against the human mind”? Apparently Stephen Hawking is convinced there will be an extraterrestrial invasion. I myself don’t mind, so long as they get rid of the nukes and then we can live in peace with each other. Hell, I’m not prejudiced against aliens. I was one myself for long enough.
Anyone remember that Edwin Corley science fiction book back in the 1970s called “The Jesus Factor”? I think I was about 14 when I read that and I have secretly believed that the conspiracy theory is true. Apparently the whole nuclear arms race was a bluff, the darn things just don’t work. Even so, I think we should get rid of them because they cost so much money.
While we’re on the topic of money, I was shocked to hear that just one new “Next Generation” nuclear-armed submarine is going to cost the United States 100 million dollars. Captain Picard would be very cross indeed. This news coincided with reports that people on state benefit (Hartz IV) in Germany are going to get a total of 5 Euros extra a month, so they have a grand total of 364 Euros (489 US dollars) a month to live on. I suppose people in other parts of the world would think they were lucky.
Moral of this story: in the next life, come back as a nuclear submarine. You get more money spent on you, go on world cruises and never actually see any military action. Besides, the missiles on board don’t work anyway. But you might get a visit now and again by an alien, a computer virus or even a psychic spy.
New affiliates-in-formation from the former Yugoslavia
by Prof. Ulrich Gottstein, Co-founder and honorary board members of IPPNW-Germany
Left to right: Prof. Ulrich Gottstein, Germany, Dr. Dragan Veljkovic, Serbia, Dr. Emilija Jovanovska-Trajkovska, Macedonia, Dr. Ilirjana Bajraktari, Kosovo and Prof. Mazlu Belegu, Kosovo.
One of the smaller highlights of the IPPNW World Congress in Basel, Switzerland was the participation of “founders in progress” of new affiliates from former Yugoslavia. They were very impressed and felt enormously stimulated to start and to continue peace work in their countries which had been enemies for such a long time.
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Note from the editor: the affiliates-in-formation from Macedonia and Kosovo are going through the affiliation process which will be voted on at the next Board of Directors meeting and then ratified by the IC at the 2010 Congress. It has been wonderful to witness the warm welcome and ongoing support, guidance and encouragement from the leaders of other established affiliates such as IPPNW Germany.
Public Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free World
[Historian Lawrence Wittner, a professor at the State University of New York in Albany, was a featured speaker at IPPNW’s World Congress in Basel, Switzerland in August. He is the author of Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press) The following article, available in full by following the link below, was published on the website of Foreign Policy in Focus.]
One of the ironies of the current international situation is that, although some government leaders now talk of building a nuclear weapons-free world, there has been limited public mobilization around that goal — at least compared to the action-packed 1980s.
However, global public opinion is strikingly antinuclear. In December 2008, an opinion poll conducted of more than 19,000 respondents in 21 nations found that, in 20 countries, large majorities — ranging from 62 to 93 percent — favored an international agreement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Even in Pakistan, the one holdout nation, 46 percent (a plurality) would support such an agreement. Among respondents in the nuclear powers, there was strong support for nuclear abolition. This included 62 percent of the respondents in India, 67 percent in Israel, 69 percent in Russia, 77 percent in the United States, 81 percent in Britain, 83 percent in China and 87 percent in France.
But public resistance to the bomb is not as strong as these poll figures seem to suggest.
The same old concept from NATO?
by Bjorn Hilt
The tremendous efforts from IPPNW Germany and many others against the so-called nuclear sharing in Europe must be highly appreciated from all of us.
Personally I am very disappointed and frustrated about what we have seen so far in regard to nuclear issues in the drafts of the so called NATO new strategic concept and I have no illusions of the final one apart from perhaps some cosmetic changes in wording. With a few exceptions, the most important being indications of willingness to commit to a negative security assurance, the language remains that of the cold war with deterrence and all of that rubbish. It is unbelievable that the NATO states intend to have that as their nuclear strategic concept for the next ten years or so (the last one was from 1990).
I have also been disappointed and frustrated with the so called broad engagement of civil society in the process to develop the new strategic concept. They might have asked some of their toadies, but as we from IPPNW and many others tried repeatedly to participate on different occasions we were either turned down or silenced completely. So that was barely a play to the gallery from Madam Albright and her company.
Having said that, I am not that displeased with my own Norwegian MFA that I believe play a serious and honest part trying to move nuclear questions in the right direction both within and without NATO. But, we should not expect too much from old NATO. As we don’t ask the smokers if they want bans on smoking, we don’t ask the NWS whether they find it right or wrong to keep nuclear weapons around. Along with our intermediate work to free Europe from all nuclear weapons, we must therefore also work independently to build a broad public front for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which will eventually outlaw all nuclear weapons and states that still believe in the necessity to cling to their own or shared nuclear weapons.
Iran and nuclear weapons. A personal reflection.
In the nineteen sixties there were many who believed that there was a military threat from China against Europe. “Optimists learn Russian, pessimists learn Chinese” was a common joke. “Whatever you say, China is hell on earth” I heard a respected politician say in 1965. So I went there to see for myself, together with about thirty other young persons, travelling the transsiberian railway. When after five weeks of travel in China I left Beijing, I cried. I cried because I thought I would never see this marvelous city again. I would be destroyed by a nuclear attack.
When recently I stood on the great square in Isfahan in Iran, one of the most beautiful places in any city anywhere in the world, I felt a similar sorrow. If USA or Israel attacks the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, not far from Isfahan, also this square, this masterpiece, this wonderful old city, would be destroyed.
What happened to me during these travels was that I saw the world from the perspective of The Other. Man has an ability to feel what another human being feels. Travels can have this outcome. Read more…
In his famous speech in Prague in April 2009, President Barak Obama presented us with his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. He emphasized that the USA would lead the world towards this goal. He foresaw, however, that this goal would maybe not be reached in his lifetime. Considering that the 48 years old President statistically has a 50% chance of living for 30 more year, adding a few years if he does not relapse into smoking, this was not an optimistic prediction. Can the world survive another three decades with nuclear weapons?
Even more ominous was his statement that ”as long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies”. Does that mean that the US will be the last to abolish nuclear weapons?
During the year since this inspiring speech the vision of US leadership to a world without nuclear weapons has faded. This is somewhat surprising as such a world would be clearly in the interest of the USA. In that world, without the great equalizer of atomic weapons, US military superiority would be unchallenged. This was clearly the goal of the proposals from the four elderly statesmen Shultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn in their article in the Wall Street Journal in January 2008.
I will not here try to analyze the reasons why the USA has given up the leadership on this road. Instead I will show in recent documents that the rhetoric remains but the concrete commitments are missing. Read more…
As an NGO participant at the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States (BMS), which was convened to review implementation of the UN’s action plan to combat the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, IPPNW had an opportunity to address the conference on Thursday, June 17, during a special civil society session.
Emperatriz Crespin, a physician from El Salvador working with IPPNW's Aiming for Prevention campaign, addresses the Biennial Meeting of States at the UN on June 17, 2010.
Dr. Emperatriz Crespin, a physician and activist from El Salvador, told the states parties to the meeting about the public health impact of armed violence and about the role physicians play not only in treating the victims and assisting with their rehabilitation, but also in documenting the broader social dimensions of the problem.
Dr. Crespin noted that the Programme of Action, while it addresses the human health consequences of armed violence, contains no specific actions focused on improving public health outcomes. Referring to a policy paper released at the BMS by IPPNW as part of its Aiming for Prevention campaign, she recommended that states incorporate public health strategies into national action plans. The Programme of Action, she said, should reflect the need for a comprehensive supply and demand approach to control small arms and light weapons proliferation, to recognize that health and development are intricately linked, and to implement national collections of data on gun-related deaths and related costs.
Some excerpts from the policy paper:
“Armed violence has been recognized as a humanitarian crisis and a threat to development, but the dimensions of the problem are poorly understood. Despite the comprehensive nature of the UN Programme of Action (UNPoA) on small arms, the implementation of efforts around this document have been rather narrowly focused on arms management issues….
“Sustained high injury and death rates for violent injury require a public health commitment to develop and support action-oriented research, with a goal of collecting data on armed violence injuries and then using it to help formulate prevention policies at all levels, and which can help define successful measures for interventions. It is important to understand the context in which homicides and violent injuries occur in different countries. It has been recognized that several modalities of interpersonal violence occur in a complex interplay of individual, relationship, social, cultural and environmental factors. This approach for understanding the multiple levels of interaction has been defined as the ‘ecological model’.
“A public health approach to small arms injury focuses on the risk factors driving armed violence and the health effects of gun violence, and brings into the arena the public health community’s emphasis on scientific methodologies and prevention. Public health groups work with many sectors of society promoting a variety of measures that can reduce the frequency and severity of shooting injuries…..
“We recommend the following as a basic action agenda to help states incorporate public health strategies into their National Action Plans.
- UN PoA outcome documents should refer explicitly to the need for a comprehensive supply and to the control of small arms & light weapons proliferation. demand approach
- Recognize that health and development are intricately linked as highlighted in the Millennium Development Goals and the Geneva Declaration, and encourage states to invest in prevention programs by integrating public health strategies into National Action Plans, including those related to development, health and poverty reduction.
- Ensure health representation on National Commissions on Small Arms, and that at minimum the Ministry of Health is represented and ideally an NGO member of the health community as well, to help assess the most strategic investments based on highest needs.
- Implement national collection of data on gun-related deaths and related costs, needed to guide prevention planning, identify high-risk groups and areas, and to monitor the effects of interventions. Support hospital- and community-based research projects to provide details on gun-related injuries, which are needed to identify risk and resilience factors, and assure proper prevention and management of victims. The cost of this should be included National Commission budgets.
- Increase support for victim assistance programs that include comprehensive follow-up to ensure productive reintegration of individuals into society.
- Educate the medical community, students, the media, the public, and policy makers about the public health burden of gun-related injuries.
- Encourage more involvement of the injury prevention community in gun-related injury prevention. This group can help to apply decades of experience with public health approaches to the prevention of injuries from small arms and light weapons.
The complete policy paper, Prescriptions for Prevention: A Public Health and Human-Centered Approach to Reducing Armed Violence and Promoting Health, Development, is available here.
An in-depth summary of the NGO statements to the BMS, prepared by the UN Department of Public Information, is on the DPI website.
Joint Statement on Gaza
Joint Statement on the Armed Assault on Ships to Gaza
Palestinian Physicians For the Prevention of Nuclear War (PPPNW) and the
Israeli Physicians For Peace and the Preservation Of The Environment (IPPPE)
Affiliates of International Physicians For the Prevention of Nuclear War,
Agree as follows:
Our two organizations condemn the armed assault in international waters on ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza and deplore the resulting loss of lives.
As physicians on both sides, we agree that the health of the population of Gaza is of deep concern and that medical aid is urgently needed.
We are calling for an international inquiry into this incident, and an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza.
We call upon the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders to enter into serious negotiations in goodwill to find a nonviolent, peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dr. Abdelaziz Alabadi, MD — President, PPPNW, Palestine
Prof. Ernesto Kahan M.D. — President and Councilor, IPPPE, Israel
Dr. Mustafa Ghanim, MD, PhD— External Relations, PPPNW, Palestine
Dr. Ra’anan Friedmann M.D., Ph.D. — Vice President, Vice Councilor and Spokesman, IPPPE, Israel
Bimal Khadka
Bjorn Hilt
Charles K. Johnson
Gunnar Westberg
IPPNW
John Loretz
Lawrence Wittner
Maria Valenti
mollymcgint
Sue Wareham
Tilman Ruff
Tim Wright
Xanthe Hall
IPPNW peace and health blog 