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August 15, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

International activists blockade NATO nuclear base in Germany

May be an image of 6 people and text that says 'BAN THE BOMBS CCLIMATE TE COMMUNIT ABOLISH SH NATO ABSCHAFFEN! ABOLI NATO PEACE B61NKES NUKES SARM ARM ILLEGA IMMORAL CK AND THE SAVE THE THENUKES P PLAN OUT THEDO'

L to R: Frits Ter Kuile, Mark Colville, Dennis DuVall, Susan Crane, Brian Terrell. Photo by Theo Kayser

On Monday 14 August, eleven activists (two from the Netherlands, three from Germany, one from Italy, five from the U.S.) blocked an entrance to Büchel Air Force Base in Germany being is used for construction work underway in preparation for the arrival of new U.S. B61-12 hydrogen bombs, and new U.S. F-35 jet fighters which are set to replace the base’s German Tornado fighter jets.

U.S. Air Force veteran Dennis Duvall, 81, wrote in paint on the driveway “Tatort” (crime scene) and “Atombomben” (atom bombs), reminding German speakers that nuclear “deterrence” is a conspiracy to commit war crimes under the Germany’s Basic Law (its constitution) and international treaty law.

The group also pasted Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons to the access road. Articles I and II of the treaty forbid any transfer of nuclear weapons to other countries.

Local police detained the eleven briefly, and recorded their personal identification. After about two hours, the police gave the activists a one-day “ban-&-bar letter” prior to their release.

The five U.S. citizens who were detained are a part of a delegation of ten anti-nuclear activists who earlier protested the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons at Volkel Air Force Base in The Netherlands.

Acknowledging the anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the group conducted similar protests at the NATO base Volkel in the Netherlands which also hosts U.S. nuclear weapons. The abolitionists blocked the base’s main gate August 7, blocked the run way August 9, and attempted to dig a tunnel under the base’s fence August 10. Twenty-six arrests were made during series the actions at Volkel, and four U.S. citizens were ordered not to visit the European Union for one year.

The group is calling on German society to abolish nuclear weapons and reduce the CO2 emissions by the armed forces to zero, saying “We have to learn to solve our conflicts in such a way that other people and fellow creatures, large and small, plant and animal, do not suffer.”

The following blocked the construction gate at Büchel:  Susan Crane, Brian Terrell, Ellen Grady, Dennis Duvall, and Mark Colville, all from the United States; Judith Samson, Christiane Danowski, and Beate Körsgen, from  Germany; Salvatore Vaccaro from Italy; and Sjaak Tensen and Frits ter Kuile from The Netherlands.

— Videotaped statements from some activists here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLetmOQd9kKvCOF5uqkDQxi1z_UrMK148b

— Additional background information at:  https://noelhuis.nl/peace-camp-volkel-2023/

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, US Bombs Out of Germany

August 3, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Wake up Justice! Protest in front of the Federal Constitutional Court

Germany̓s nationwide campaign Büchel is everywhere!Nuclear Weapons-Free Now! — of the parent network Abolish Nuclear Weapons – Start with Us! — invites you to a protest action during the International Week for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.

Protest action on Friday, September 22, 2023, in Karlsruhe.

A “Justitia” performance rally is planned in front of the Constitutional Court and in the city center.

Time: Noon to 2:30 p.m.: rally in front of the Federal Constitutional Court and from there walk at 3 p.m. to Stephansplatz, among other places, for flyer distribution until 4 p.m.

Climate-neutral
: After the rally, a part of the protesters will ride about 100 km in a bicycle delegation over the weekend to Strasbourg, France. On Monday, September 25, the cyclers will join a rally there at the European Court of Human Rights.

Background:
NATO̓s “nuclear sharing” is practiced at the ari base Büchel. German pilots train to fly and drop U.S. nuclear bombs onto target areas in an “emergency”. NATO operational doctrine also includes a possible first use!

 

For 30 years, the peace movement has been organizing diverse protests at the gates of the Büchel base. It demands that the approx. 20 U.S. nuclear bombs be withdrawn and that our government accede to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We demand a Europe without nuclear sharing and the observance of international law!

Because of the catastrophic dangers that any use of nuclear weapons entail, and the criminality of nuclear deterrence, peace activists have repeatedly been compelled to resort to civil resistance. There were blockades and also go-in actions. The latter have been prosecuted and the people charged have been convicted and sentenced. Nineteen people have filed Constitutional Court complaints (appeals) over the last 26 years, directly related to civil resistance to the U.S. nuclear weapons at “Fliegerhorst Büchel” in the Eifel. None of the 19 complaints have been accepted for review by the Constitutional Court, Germany’s highest.

All defendants complain that they were denied their “right to a fair trial” under Article 6 of charter of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because the hearing of exculpatory witnesses was refused by the courts. They were thus denied their “right to a fair hearing” under Article 103 of Germany’s Basic Law. International law stands above national law. Therefore, the designated (international law) experts should have been admitted as witnesses in the court proceedings.

 

Germany’s Constitutional Court has so far shirked its responsibility to deal with the concerns of the peace movement‘s appeals, without presenting any reasons. Lower court written decisions were merely upheld.

(For 1.5 years we have been waiting for a reply to the first application! In addition, on March 15, 2010, a civil lawsuit for the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany by a resident who lives in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear weapons site was rejected.) This is despite the fact that under Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Germany is obliged, among other things, not to accept the transfer opf nuclear weapons either directly or indirectly. The unlawful transfer of U.S. nuclear weapons practiced by our government threatens our right to life and physical integrity (See Art. 2 and 3, ECHR). That is why currently four (soon six) nuclear resisters who were rejected by the Constitutional Court have filed complaints with the ECHR.

 

With our protest we demand a review of the nuclear weapons deployment by the Supreme Courts!

Please register:
for Karlsruhe, also for overnight stays, and separately for the “Peace bike tour nuclear weapons free 2023” and/or the “Protest in Strasbourg”.

Contact:
Do you have questions about the action? Then write an email to our campaign spokesperson Marion Küpker: aktionen@atomwaffenfrei.jetzt.

Do you have questions about the campaign? Then send us an email to: info@atomwaffenfrei.jetzt.

 www.atomwaffenfrei.de
 www.buechel-atombombenfrei.de
 www.facebook.com/atomwaffenfrei.jetzt
 @atomwaffenfrei

We ask you: Support us with a donation!

By direct bank transfer:
Special account at Förderverein Frieden e.V.
DE78 4306 0967 4041 8604 04

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, US Bombs Out of Germany

August 3, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

U.S. Activists to Join Protests Against U.S. Nuclear Weapons Deployed in The Netherlands and Germany

A delegation of U.S. peace activists will travel to The Netherlands and Germany this August to join international nuclear weapons protests focused on removing the U.S. nuclear weapons still stationed at the Netherlands’ Volkel Air Base, 85 miles south of Amsterdam, and at Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base, southeast of Cologne. The group of 11 anti-nuclear activists hail from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New York.

 

Both the Volkel and Büchel Air Bases each maintain approximately 15-to-20 U.S. hydrogen bombs known as B61s* as part of NATO’s so-called “nuclear sharing” program in which foreign fighter jets and their pilots routinely rehearse attacks on Russia using the U.S. H-bombs. Alarmingly, in the midst of the ongoing war in Ukraine, operation “Air Defender 2023,” NATO’s largest-ever nuclear attack exercise, ran from June 14 to 23 in the skies over Germany. War planes involved in the practice included U.S. F-35s, F-15s and F-16s from the U.S., Turkey and Greece; Eurofighters from Spain and the U.K.; German Tornadoes; U.S. and Finnish F/A-18s; Hungarian Gripens; and U.S. A-10 ground-attack jets, according to CNN. The A-10 jets fire the controversially toxic and radioactive shells known as depleted uranium munitions.

 

Coordinated by the Amsterdam Catholic Worker community, Peace Camp Volkel runs from August 4 to 10 and is focused on “climate and a future without nuclear weapons.” Participants from around Europe and the United States will conduct nonviolence trainings, and blockades, “go-in” actions, and other protests. On 10 August, the U.S. activists will travel from Volkel to Kail, Germany for four days of protest actions directed at the Büchel Air Force Base, which like Volkel is now undergoing major construction in preparation for the delivery of replacement weapons, the new B61-12 gravity bomb, now in production in the United States.

 

Most of the U.S. delegates to the two peace camps have worked for years in anti-war and disarmament campaigns, and several have been imprisoned in the United States for nonviolent actions taken against the war system. Ellen Grady, from Ithaca, New York and a member of the delegation said, “We have to take some responsibility for these U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Europe, because they threaten genocidal violence and they destabilize the reckless and expanding war in Ukraine.”

 

The eleven U.S. participants are: JACKIE ALLEN, of Hartford, Conn.; VERA ANDERSON, 35, from New York, NY; MARK COLVILLE from New Haven, Conn.; SUSAN CRANE, 75, from Redwood City, Calif.; DENNIS DuVALL, 81, from Radeberg, Germany (formerly of Prescott, Ariz.); JENN GALLER, 27, of Baltimore, MD; ELLEN GRADY, 60, from Ithaca, New York; THEO KAYSER, 33, of St Louis, Missouri; ERIC MARTIN 38, of Los Angeles, Calif.; SUSAN SCHALLER, 69, of Boston, Mass.; and BRIAN TERRELL, 67, of Maloy, Iowa.

 

Previous international camps involving “go-in” actions at the Büchel base have resulted in trespass charges and series of court trials and appeals in which resisters have attempted to put “nuclear sharing” on trial. The opponents argue that the defense of “crime prevention” excuses their actions in view of the 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty which forbids any transfer of nuclear weapons between treaty signers including the U.S., The Netherlands and Germany. Among this year’s delegates, Ms. Crane will in September be the 5th nuclear resister to appeal from Germany to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasberg regarding alleged errors by German courts which have refused to consider defense arguments offered by the resisters. The European Court has yet to decide on any of the previous appeals.  [Biographies of the U.S. participants are available upon request.]

_________________________

* De Morgen (Antwerp), July 16, 2019, https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/eindelijk-zwart-op-wit-er-liggen-amerikaanse-kernwapens-in-belgie~b051dc18/ (De Morgen obtained and published a leaked official NATO report detailing the locations and numbers of U.S. nuclear weapons currently stationed in five NATO states.)

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, US Bombs Out of Germany

July 31, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Ukraine De-Escalation Can Start with Ending Nuclear Weapons “Sharing”

By John LaForge

Ukraine, the United States, and NATO have condemned what they correctly called Russian President Putin’s “dangerous and irresponsible” transfer of nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus.

On June 9, Putin announced that Moscow would deploy its nuclear weapons in Belarus, reporting that work on new facilities for housing the weapons would be complete by July 7-8.

Putin had said on March 25 that Belarusian “President Alexander Lukashenko’s right: He says we’re your closest allies. Why do the Americans deploy their nuclear weapons to their allies, on their territory, train the crews, and pilots how to use this type of weapon if needed? We agreed that we will do the same.”

U.S. hyprocrisy and double-talk were on parade as Uncle Sam demanded the global community accept, ignore, or applaud destabilizing U.S. nukes stationed in Europe, yet condemns Putin for sending Russian nuclear warheads to Belarus. All nuclear sharing is escalatory, illegal and should end.

Indeed, the United States has transferred more than 100 of its 50- and 170-kiloton nuclear gravity bombs known as B61s to bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey, where allied pilots rehearse nuclear weapons attacks using their allied fighter jets. Case in point, NATO’s “Air Defender 2023,” a nine-day German-led, international war game involving 24 countries live-flying all across Germany, began on Monday June 12, in the midst of the hot war in Ukraine.

Point of information: The Associated Press keeps calling these nuclear weapons “tactical,” and less destructive than “city-busting” “strategic” devices. So it must be recalled that the city-busting Hiroshima bomb was a 15-kiloton weapon far less destructive than today’s B61 “tactical” hydrogen bombs.

Russian Iskander-E missile launcher operates during International Military and Technical Forum 2022 in Alabino outside Moscow, Russia August 17, 2022. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

Now Putin and Lukashenko copy the U.S. practice of violating the terms of the 1970 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the same way that the United States has for decades. All such nuclear “sharing” constitutes not just a violation of the NPT’s Articles I, II and VI, but a hair-raising and unnecessary escalation of the quagmire powder keg in Ukraine.

Last May 15, ICAN, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, confronted the increasingly globalized war in Ukraine by sending a set of four demands to the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., all of which are actively arming Ukraine — noting that every one of the them employ nuclear weapons “either as nuclear-armed states or as host or umbrella states.” ICAN’s four demands included a clear denunciation of nuclear sharing, as practiced by the U.S. and NATO, noting:

“Following Russia announcing plans to place nuclear weapons in Belarus, the G7 leaders must agree to end all nuclear-armed states stationing their weapons in other countries and engage Russia to cancel its plans to do so. Several G7 members are currently involved in nuclear sharing arrangements of their own, and can demonstrate their opposition to Russia’s recent deployment announcement by commencing negotiations of new Standing of Forces Agreements between the U.S. and Germany and the U.S. and Italy, to remove the weapons currently stationed in those countries.”

This important call for an end to the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in other countries, and its direct reference to the U.S. and its allies, helps contextualize Russia’s escalation. The only practically workable way to move Putin to reverse his deployment to Belarus, is to offer to reverse the Pentagon’s deployment.

Call it a Cuban Missile Crisis Redux. That terrible confrontation was resolved when President Kennedy offered to, and then did, withdraw U.S. nuclear-armed missiles from Turkey. De-escalation works, and it can lead to further breakthroughs.

— BBC Mar 26, 2023

— A version of this opinion was syndicated by PeaceVoice.org

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, War

July 31, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Seeking Nuclear Justice: Voices from the Marshallese Diaspora in Arkansas

By Benetick Kabua Maddison, and the
Marshallese Educational Initiative team
“… for the good of mankind,” by Marshallese artist Marino Morris. U.S. military authorities who commandeered the Marshall Islands in 1946 and targeted them with over 60 nuclear bomb blasts, declared to the Indigenous Marshallese inhabitants that the destruction of their islands was being done, “for the good of mankind.”

This year marks the expiration of the Compact of Free Association, an agreement between the United States and Marshall Islands governments originally signed in 1986, in part to mitigate the damages from U.S. nuclear weapons testing. The United States conducted 67 high-yield nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1958, the biological, ecological, and cultural consequences of which are ongoing.

My homelands, which were characterized as tiny and scattered islands with a small, expendable population when lands were needed for nuclear tests for the “good of mankind” and for “world peace,” now looms large in U.S. national security interests in the Pacific, due to the perceived threat of China. Marshallese leaders want the Biden Administration to fairly address the nuclear legacy. It appears the administration is willing to do so. They should.

The Marshall Islands needs well-funded medical facilities with cancer specialists and educational facilities that can accommodate trained teachers until we can produce our own, along with scholarships for our youth seeking higher education, and improvements to infrastructure and communications. Addressing the needs and well-being of the Marshallese people was promised under the Trust Territory of the Pacific framework, an agreement that the U.S. government forged under the United Nations from 1947 to 1986, but never came to fruition. Under a new compact and with a Biden Administration committed to equity and justice, the United States must do better.

And what of Marshallese who have already left the islands seeking access to healthcare, education, and employment? Those of us in diaspora now make up two-thirds of the Marshallese population. How can both sides say they are committed to nuclear justice and yet not address the needs of the Marshallese in the United States?

The nuclear weapons testing legacy — the driving force behind migration and the need for a compact — has taken its toll on all Marshallese people. The ongoing consequences of the nuclear legacy, including its impact on Marshallese bodies and culture, recognizes no geopolitical boundaries.

In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Marshallese living in the United States were among the hardest hit of all ethnic groups. In Northwest Arkansas, where the highest concentration of Marshallese reside in the continental United States, we make up 3% of the population, but accounted for 40% of the deaths due to Covid-19 in the early summer. Part of our vulnerability was due to underlying health conditions — cancer and diabetes —that are a direct result of U.S. post-war occupation and the weapons testing legacy.

Most public benefits that were a part of the original compact have been removed over the years, chipped away by new legislation, sometimes purposeful, sometimes not. However, Medicaid was finally restored in December 2020. Most Marshallese remain without healthcare and are vulnerable.

What Marshallese qualify for under the full Compact of Free Association is unknown not just to most U.S. citizens, but to federal officials whose responsibility it is to make decisions on Marshallese eligibility. There are still issues with Medicaid enrollment, and there is confusion among U.S. officials regarding the correct documentation needed for entering and working in the United States, while interpretations of what federal financial aid Marshallese students qualify for differ from state to state.

Under the current Compact, the United States continues to designate the nuclear-affected as only those from the atolls in which the tests took place, Bikini and Enewetak, and the two atolls that received the heaviest fallout from the 1954 Castle Bravo detonation, Rongelap and Utrōk. However, according to witnesses and the U.S. government’s own documents released in the 1990s, contamination was much more widespread.

Marshallese government officials made this case to the United States in 2000 when it submitted a Changed Circumstances Petition that included evidence from newly released U.S. documents that confirm the contamination. The George W. Bush White House and Congress rejected that petition. Will this administration do better in the cause for nuclear justice?

Many of our families have migrated and continue to migrate in increasing numbers, now more and more due to climate change. For my family and all Marshallese families living in diaspora in Arkansas and across the United States, whose lands, bodies, and culture were sacrificed, we ask to be heard, to be seen, and to be treated fairly.

—Benetick Kabua Maddison, Executive Director of the Marshallese Educational Initiative. Contact: info@mei.ngo. For more on nuclear testing history, visit www.mei.ngo/nuclear.

Filed Under: Environmental Justice, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

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