Editor’s note: The year 2020 was anticipated to be a rousing year for anti-nuclear activism. The Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review conference was to be held in New York with massive events planned. This year marks both the 75th anniversary of the Trinity, Hiroshi­ma and Nagasaki bombings, as well as the 40th anniversary of the Churchrock radioactive tailings spill, with many associated events worldwide. Most of the events planned have been postponed or gone on-line due to the coronavirus. Yet, our work continues.

The NPT Review Conference was held virtually with over 600 participants worldwide including many who would not have been able to travel to attend the conference and with interpretation into other languages (unlike the actual conference which is only held in English). Now organizers have one more year to pressure their governments to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons before the rescheduled NPT Review Conference.

The Campaign Nonviolence National Conference scheduled for August 6-9, 2020 has also gone vir­tual. See paceebene.org/cnvconference2020.

By Steve McKeown

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

This coming August the National Veterans for Peace (VFP) Convention was to be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Trinity bomb test in New Mexi­co. The theme of the convention was to be “Human Rights over Nuclear Might.” A demonstration was planned for the nuclear weapons lab in nearby Los Alamos.

Veterans for Peace set sail for Japan last year in their sailboat, the Golden Rule, to be present for the 75th anniversary. The Golden Rule is the same boat that a group of Quakers tried to sail to the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean to protest US nuclear testing in 1958. However, the Coast Guard inter­vened, and the crew spent 60 days in jail. Several years ago VFP obtained the boat, restored it, and began sailing up and down the West Coast to draw support and educate for nuclear abolition.

This May, Nukewatch, Nuclear Resister, and the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance were planning on hosting a large conference in Maryville, Tennessee to strategize for nuclear abolition and to promote the United Nations (UN) Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

By March, the End War Committee consisting of our local chapter of VFP and Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) had collected 23,000 signatures on paper petitions calling on Minnesota’s congressional delegation to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) from all of the 851 incorporated towns and cities in Minnesota. The End War Committee was beginning to make appointments with elected officials to deliv­er the petitions and ask for their commitment.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic, and despite President Trump’s claims—cases would “go back to zero by April,” it was “under control,” and would “go away like a miracle”— the virus continued its devastating march across the country. It has affected all aspects of life, including plans that many peace people had for nuclear disarmament education, and garnering support for the UN Treaty.

The VFP National Convention was changed and will be conducted on-line with no demonstration at Los Alamos. The Golden Rule made it to Hawaii, but is not going on to Japan this year. The nuclear disarma­ment conference in Tennessee was canceled. Our End War Committee had to halt its signature collecting and postpone making appointments with legislators.

However, the VFP Convention has been scheduled to take place in Albuquerque in 2021. The Golden Rule did sail around the Hawaiian Islands making many stops before the pandemic, taking 9th graders on a ride, and being welcomed by the Honolulu city council, which adopted a resolution in support of the UN Treaty Ban. No doubt the Golden Rule will sail again. Our End War Committee will make ap­pointments soon, and we are promoting phone calls to lawmakers, the media, and our community. As Nukewatch has said, “Our work goes on unabated.”

These are examples of only a few of the hundreds of organizations that are working to support the UN Treaty Ban. On May 19, Belize ratified the Treaty. This means 37 nations have now ratified, and it only needs 13 more to reach the 50 necessary to enter into force and become international law, thus stigmatizing the nine nuclear-armed nations: the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.

In this time of Covid-19, demonstrations for nuclear abolition are hard to pull off. Nukewatch’s regular readers don’t need to be reminded of the Doomsday Clock being set at 90 seconds to midnight to contin­ue working for nuclear disarmament. The political aspect should not be ignored, even though the will is certainly not there on the part of “the powers that be”—which is all the more compelling a reason to be engaged with any and all of our public officials. One step to take would be to call your US Senators to support the UN Treaty. This is a simple yet necessary step as they are the ones who would ratify the Treaty. I was collecting signatures at a talk given by a UN of­ficial in St. Paul, and one of Minnesota Senator Tina Smith’s aides signed the petition and gave me her card without my soliciting it to set up a meeting. We have since met with her, and we were well received.

Lastly, when we went around the whole state of Minnesota to county fairs, American Legions, VFWs, church suppers, schools, trailer courts, and most every imaginable business, and even taking our VFP Peace Bus on the road, you can be sure the conversa­tion didn’t stop there. It is not an exaggeration to say that over 100,000 people discussed the issue of nu­clear disarmament one way or another. Most people like the idea of a treaty for all countries, and each one of us needs to continue the multiplier effect of shin­ing the light on this critical issue so our politicians won’t have to stay in the dark any longer.

— Steve McKeown is co-founder of the Minneap­olis/St. Paul Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27. He traveled the entire state of Minnesota for two years obtaining signatures on the petition urging the US to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Trident nuclear disarmament activist Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest, begins his third year imprisoned in a county jail as he and his companions await sentencing.

By Kathy Kelly

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

On April 4, 2020, my friend Steve Kelly will begin a third year of imprisonment in Georgia’s Glynn County jail. He turned 70 in prison, and while he has served multiple prison sentences for protesting nuclear weapons, spending two years in a county jail is unusual even for him. Yet he adamantly urges supporters to focus attention on the nuclear weapons arsenals which he and his companions aim to disarm. “The nukes are not going to go away by themselves,” says Steve.

The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 now await sentencing for their action, performed two years ago inside the Kings Bay base in southern Georgia. They acted in concert with many others who take literally the Scriptural call to “beat swords into plowshares.” Commenting on their case, Bill Quigley, a member of their legal team, told me “their actions speak louder than their words and their words are very powerful.” Bill encourages us to remember each of them in our thoughts, prayers, and, hopefully, through our actions. “The legal system is not big enough for the hearts, minds and spirits of these folks,” he adds. “The legal system tries to concentrate all of this down to whether you cut a fence or sprayed some blood.” Bill believes we should instead look at the impending disaster nuclear weapons could cause, and the continuing disaster they do cause by wasting crucially needed resources to potentially destroy the planet.

“You’ve got eight numbers just like everybody else.” Jailers sometimes use this line to subdue or humiliate a prisoner who complains or seems to ask for special treatment. I learned this during a two-month stint in a Missouri county jail, (for planting corn on top of nuclear missile silo sites).

Once inside the prison system, your number is more useful to the Bureau of Prisons than your name, and you grow accustomed to responding when your number is called. The eight numbers help blur personalities and histories.

I think jailers have a hard time finding any instances when Steve Kelly tries to pull rank or claim extra privileges. He’s a well-educated Jesuit priest who has traveled the world. Outside the prison, he’d often be found walking alongside people who migrate from one difficult situation to the next, blending in, trying to help. Inside a jail or prison, he has often preferred solitary confinement to “general population” which requires obedience to all rules. The cramped confines of the Glynn County Jail don’t have a more punitive space in which to put him. Amid the jail’s crowded, noisy, unhealthy conditions, he uses his time remarkably well. I surmise this from reading his weekly postcards which are always humorous, thoughtful, and encouraging.

From his vantage point, amid people immiserated by poverty and mass incarceration systems, he yet sees the nuclear threat as the one that most endangers people. When “nuclear states” insist on superiority because they can menace non-nuclear states, a dangerous nationalism arises. Using arsenals to back up a fortress mentality undermines our capacity for international cooperation now massively needed to tackle the major problems we face. “You’ve got eight numbers just like everybody else” could point to a humbling yet helpful reminder that we are confined together on this planet and constrained by the prospect of real crises like the pandemic we’re now weathering.

I can recall walking through wet markets in far-away places and shuddering at the sight of slaughtered, bloody carcasses hanging from hooks in the open air. I imagine Steve would catch me, with a certain glance and nod, and ask what could be more savage and destructive than a lab creating nuclear weapons to incinerate people.

At the end of World War I, soldiers emerged from trenches in the front lines and felt puzzled by the silence. Realizing the terrifying, horrific explosions had ended, that the war was over, they didn’t clap or cheer. Exhausted, they slumped over their packs, awaiting migration back to their homes.

When the Covid-19 pandemic ends, global silence may be appropriate. A new biological threat will still be conceivable, one that could equal climate change and a nuclear meltdown or nuclear winter. Climate catastrophes could exacerbate our human immunological vulnerability. It’s grim to reckon with the potential for a new, mutated wave of coronavirus or another virus altogether to cause further sorrow and death.

We’ll all need to pick up our packs and go back to work, determined to be far better prepared for life-saving actions as we move into an uncertain future. Ideally, nuclear weapon arsenals will be recognized as a crazed burden we must finally shed if we’ve any hope of surviving our past recklessness.

At some point, hopefully, my friend Steve Kelly will hear a voice over a loudspeaker telling him to pack his belongings. He’ll have survived this chapter of punishment. He won’t very likely be released, as there is a warrant for his arrest for a previous protest action, but he’ll carry a small pack beyond the confines of the Glynn County Jail. More importantly, he’ll carry the challenge to continue dedicating his life to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In these challenging times, those eight numbers distinguish him as a fine and invaluable leader to follow.

— Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence in Chicago, Illinois.