On The Bright Side

November 2, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Could Become Law Next Year

Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, spoke at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Sept. 15. Photo by John LaForge

“GENEVA (Reuters) — A treaty banning nuclear weapons could come into force by the end of 2019, backers of a campaign that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize said in an annual progress report on Monday.”

This October 29 report also announced a newly established watchdog for the 2017 nuclear weapons ban known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The new “Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor” published by Norwegian People’s Aid will measure progress related to signature, ratification, and entry into force of the TPNW.

So far, 19 governments have ratified the TPNW and it will come into force after 50 states ratify. Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told Reuters, “We have about 25 or 30 countries that say they will be ready [to ratify] by the end of 2019, so it’s definitely possible” to pass the 50 country mark next year.

The TPNW places nuclear weapons in the same outlaw category as biological weapons, poison gas, land minds and cluster munitions, all of which are banned by treaties. The Monitor says the TPNW will further stigmatize both nuclear weapons and the countries that ignore the treaty. The Monitor can be downloaded on <www.banmonitor.org>

The Monitor’s lead article says about the new ban treaty: “Adopted by 122 states on 7 July 2017 at a United Nations diplomatic conference, the TPNW provides a reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.” Once it takes effect, the TPNW will forbid the development, testing, possessing, hosting, using of, and threatening to use nuclear weapons. The treaty also outlaws assisting, encouraging, or inducing these prohibited acts. The treaty “codifies norms and actions that are needed to create and maintain a world without nuclear weapons,” the Monitor notes.

The United States under president Obama led the nuclear-armed states’ opposition to the treaty, and when final negotiations were launched March 27, 2017, Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley explained the US-led boycott this way: “[W]e have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?”

Realists for Unilateral Nuclear Abolition

But being realistic means at least listening to realists, and no one can be considered more so than the late Paul Nitze, the Cold War military strategist and Reagan presidential adviser. As Secretary of the Navy and later Deputy Secretary of Defense, Nitze drafted and implemented US nuclear war plans himself. His advocacy produced of the world’s first hydrogen bombs and the vast increase of the arsenal’s size.

Yet five years before his death, this hard-nosed realist wrote, “I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security.”

Sec. Nitze’s public and absolute renunciation of the Bomb, “A Threat Mostly to Ourselves,” New York Times, Oct. 29, 1999, read, “I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us.”

This total rejection of “nuclear deterrence” had become the view of a life-long defender of pro-nuclear orthodoxy. Sec. Nitze’s argument demolishes Ambassador Haley’s ahistorical March 27, 2017 UN speech, in which she said, “[W]e can’t honestly say that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have [nuclear weapons], and those of us that are good, trying to keep peace and safety not to have them.”

Putting aside the United States’ “trying to keep peace and safety” by simultaneously bombing seven different countries, Amb. Haley’s excuses for the Bomb are archaic and laughable in view of the devastating non-nuclear weapons in the Pentagon’s hands. Sec. Nitze made this point crisply: “In view of the fact that we can achieve our objectives with conventional weapons, there is no purpose to be gained through the use of our nuclear arsenal.”

Haley and the nuclear-armed states could embrace the new ban treaty using Sec. Nitze’s words: “Destruction of the arms did not prove feasible then [in 1982], but there is no good reason why it should not be carried out now.” — John LaForge

October 15, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nukewatch Delegation Joins Resistance to US H-bombs in Germany

Fall Quarterly 2018

Sixteen of 18 nuclear abolitionists who conducted a mass “go-in” protest at the Büchel Air Force Base in Germany July 15 pose at the base’s south entrance upon being released by the military. The 18, including activists from the US, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK—one in a wheel chair and another on crutches—gained entry by clipping through perimeter fences and razor wire in five separate places, in broad daylight, on a Sunday morning to bring attention to US hydrogen bombs deployed there, and to highlight the lax security surrounding nuclear weapons systems. One regional daily paper asked: “How could this happen?” Photo: Rolf Schlesener.

By Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

The demand of many Germans to rid their country of US nuclear weapons was again manifest by a 20-week-long series of protests at the Büchel Air Force Base in the Moselle River valley. The sponsoring group, Büchel is Everywhere: Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!, is a nation-wide coalition of 50 peace and justice groups dedicated to nonviolent civil resistance for nuclear abolition. Groups are invited to take responsibility for blockades and other creative protests during particular weeks, while camping on a plot of land next to the base, purchased five years ago by the coalition.

“Civil disobedience is forced on us because the government pays no attention to polite requests for dialogue or to petitions for a nuclear-free Germany. Major social changes, like the ousting of U.S. nuclear missiles from Europe in the 1980s, all require civil resistance to finally be accomplished,” said Marion Küpker, international coordinator for Büchel Is Everywhere!

After cutting through chain link and NATO wire fencing with 15 others on July 15, Marion, John and Ann unfurled a banner from DVG-VK (German Peace Society of War Resisters), the country’s oldest and largest peace organization.

As they did last year, Wisconsin-based Nukewatch brought a delegation of American nuclear abolitionists to join International Week at the camp, to demand that the small arsenal of US nuclear weapons stockpiled for NATO use at Büchel be sent back home.

After extensive planning in public meetings, and in broad daylight on Sunday, July 15, eighteen people—seven from the US, six from Germany, four from the Netherlands and one from England—cut through the perimeter fence in five places. They entered without interruption and walked around carrying banners, some for over an hour. One group got as far as the base runway before being apprehended. Three people, including Susan Crane, a Catholic Worker from California, walked through two unlocked interior gates and into a high security zone containing four suspected nuclear bunkers. The three climbed atop one bunker where they remained unnoticed for an hour. Guards finally took notice when they unfurled a banner: “Disarm B-61 Nukes”—a reference to the model number of the 20 nuclear weapons estimated to be there.

All 18 activists were eventually discovered, arrested, searched, ID’d and then released over four hours later with no charges, just an order to stay 100 meters away from the base for 24 hours. Their blockade of the gate 12 hours later brought no repercussions.

At the air base’s main gate, CeeCee Anderson from Atlanta, far left, joined members of the Youth Work Camp in displaying the 3-D illustration of a missile prevented from blasting off by chains of resistance.

A Quakers’ group action on July 23 involved timing and coordination. While some blocked the main gate in a routine way, others were poised for entry. On cue, a third group of three fence cutters went to work severing the wires, allowing a group of seven to walk through and get on the runway just as the Tornado jets that would carry the B-61s were to be taking off for practice. Once they’d cut the fence, that group slipped away to alert the base that protesters “are on your runway” and to stop the war games.

Those on the runway were detained, had their IDs checked and were released but were told they may face charges.

Later, a high-ranking air force pilot escorted by a local police officer came to the camp to complain. It was the first time in 20 years of the campaign that a pilot had ever approached the protest camp. With no sense of the irony, the officer scolded organizers, warning that the runway occupation action had endangered protesters and pilots.

“The base’s 20 thermonuclear bombs that pilots are training to use are a threat to the entire biosphere,” replied the campers, “so get your priorities in order.”

Nukewatch coordinator John LaForge remarked, “Yes, it’s hard to break into jail here in Germany. The civil police are so sophisticated that they go to extreme levels to pretend that nothing happened and that nuclear weapons bases are secure. Even German citizens who get prosecuted for ‘trespass’ and ‘damage to property’ (fences) have to refuse to pay fines at several levels to get a couple of days in the jug.”

During an action August 6, “Weapons Inspectors” reached this weapons bunker that was surrounded by an additional level of security razor wire causing suspicion that the nuclear weapons were being stored there.

Two days later, Crane, LaForge, German organizers Marion Küpker and Gerd Büntzly went to the chief prosecutor’s office in Koblenz, asking that the charge of trespass against Büntzly be dropped, unless the same charges are brought against the four Americans, including Crane and LaForge, who joined Büntzly for a go-in action to the nuclear bunkers in July, 2017. Last January, Büntzly was fined for the offense.

Crane and LaForge, equipped with a radiation monitor, made one last inspection for nuclear weapons on Hiroshima Day, August 6. They clipped through the perimeter chain-link fence and through a more secure razor wire fence inside to reach a set of previously uninspected airplane shelters. They spent an hour atop one of the shelters, recording measurements. After climbing down to inspect a second bunker, they were observed and detained by a large number of soldiers who forced them to lie face-down at gunpoint for about an hour until civilian police arrived.

“We hoped to confirm that the US has removed its nuclear bombs in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but our investigation was halted by the military,” Crane said. “The extra razor wire around the bunker, the near access to the jet runway, and the massive heavily armed military reaction to us indicates the U.S. nuclear weapons are here,” she concluded.

“Weapons Inspectors” Susan Crane and John LaForge first cut through chain link fence before entering German Air Force Base housing US nuclear weapons.

Then the “Weapons Inspectors” cut through and step over thick razor wire using a rug.

After having their identities confirmed by both military and civilian police, they were driven separately to the main gate. They waited in custody until their passports were returned, and then civilian police released Crane and LaForge at the gate.

For more information, visit nukewatchinfo.org and buechel-atombombenfrei.jimdo.com (German language).

—Reprinted with permission from the Nuclear Resister #189, Sept. 1, 2018, p.5. John LaForge contributed some reporting.

October 15, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Peace Camp Participants Share Some Recollections

Fall Quarterly 2018

The US delegation to Büchel:

CeeCee Anderson, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), Atlanta, Georgia
Susan Crane, Redwood City California Catholic Worker
Anthony Donovan, New York, NY
Dennis DuVall, Rosstal, Germany (formerly of Prescott, Arizona)
John LaForge, Nukewatch, Luck, Wisconsin
Max Smay, Snake River Alliance, Boise, Idaho
Ann Suellentrop, Physicians for Social Responsibility & ANA, Kansas City, Missouri
Bonnie Urfer, Nukewatch, Luck, Wisconsin
Victor White, Veterans for Peace, Oceanside, California

For the second year in a row, Nukewatch organized a US delegation to the German peace camp outside the Büchel Air Base, in conjunction with Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen (Nonviolent Action to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and Marion Küpker, coordinator of the group’s five-month-long series of actions. International Week, July 10-18, was an exciting and rebellious time of discussion, planning, training, blockades, “go-in” actions, and anti-nuclear solidarity. Other internationals came from Italy, Spain, England, The Netherlands, Austria, and even New Zealand. For our part US delegates arrived in camp from New York, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Georgia, and Missouri. Susan Crane from the Redwood City, CA Catholic Worker came for a month to be part of the camp staff and I did the same for six weeks. Ann Suellentrop of Kansas City got to Germany early and did a speaking tour of seven cities on the subject of resistance to the Kansas City Plant and its production of non-nuclear parts for US nuclear weapons.

A few of the US delegates replied to Nukewatch’s invitation to share a short recollection of their experience of International Week. —JL

In the center of camp, internationals from Germany, the US, the UK and The Netherlands discussed preparations for the large “go-in” action that took place July 15.

Bonnie Urfer

Variety describes my Büchel experience. The camp had color. It had the persistent flapping of bright banners in the wind and I walked through flat jungles of chalk drawings, tents and tie-dyes under blue skies. Women in Black, Men and Women, children and old folks, people as varied as the nations, states, ideologies, habits, enthusiasm, creativity, interests, talents, projects, emotions and experiences showed up at Büchel. Büchel is Everywhere.

Peace Camp outside of Büchel Air Force Base, Germany.

Friends, comfort, food, chores, chats, and resistance to nuclear weapons embody my reflection of this year’s “Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!” peace camp in Germany. This camp turned out to be as invigorating as last year, and was made even better by the introduction of a camp shower which made bonding with dozens of others in hot summer days even more pleasant.

I made new friends. Petra, I love you and thank you for all of the delightful kitchen time and the variety in meals. Max, you are not forgotten. Hubert, thanks for bringing Kami.

The gathering turned into a reunion of many precious friends made last year and of those I knew from the US—brought together for the single purpose of getting H-bombs removed from Germany. Since the vast majority of Germans want those weapons removed, I felt constantly in good company.

The hubbub of camp repeatedly included action planning, banner painting, blockades of the base gates, fence transgressions, rallies, and then doing it all again. I helped cut through the fence and occupied the base school yard, an action that would result in months if not years in prison if done in the US. In Germany, police served tea and escorted us off the property. It’s a pleasure to be arrested in that country and everyone, including you dear reader, has a chance to join-in next summer. The bombs are still there in spite of our colossal efforts.

Even the sounds offered a wide-range of reflection. Every day except weekends, the massive jets take off from the base saturating the airspace with thick thunder. Once the pilots finished for the day, sweet guitar, harmonica, drums, flutes and voices filled the air. Between war plane takeoffs, presenters presented, travelers shared stories, and conversations in a circle around the campfire constant. We ate together, sang, painted, chatted, and laughed.

Camp art supplies- umbrella base and yarn

The hard work of Marion Küpker and John LaForge, Wolfgamg, Beate, Thomas, our wonderful camp cooks Petra and Stephanie, the talented camp tenders, Rainer, Martin, Hubert, Heiko, and so many others, made this event, filled with a variety of events, worth attending. Special thanks to Sharon Cody for making possible this journey filled with the colors of the rainbow and peace.

From left: CeeCee Anderson, Max Smay and Ann Suellentrop spoke at a press conference in the large meeting tent about resistance to nuclear weapons in their communities of Atlanta, Boise and Kansas City, respectively.

Susan Crane:

Peter Kropotkin is often remembered for his ideas about mutual aid: about the power and energy that is released when people work together. Instead of Darwin’s ideas of competition and survival of the fittest, Kropotkin liked to study nature to witness how life thrives where there is cooperation. He studied bees and ants, observed flocks of birds and studied human history. He found that in the struggle to cooperate, in mutual aid, we build a hive, a colony, a future.

And that is what I saw at the Peace Camp. People able to make their own decisions while working together sparked bursts of energy. Respect for each individual’s contribution, and the love of direct action with others created a safe place to imagine actions. Mutual aid was practiced by internationals and 50 peace groups coming together, across languages and borders, with nonviolence and fierce determination to make this planet home for our 7th generation of grandkids.

I didn’t get to meet people from each of these 50 groups, but I was astounded with the diversity of people who came at different times to focus on the abolition of nuclear weapons and getting the US nuclear warheads out of the Büchel air force base. It was heartening to work with the DKP, the “no money for war” tax resisters, the artists, the Quakers, the work camp youth from Mutlangen, the Lutherans, the Dusseldorf Peace Group, and the individual people who came to contribute so much to the camp who could build and fix anything. Kropotkin was right: “Mutual Aid” is the answer.

Anthony Donovan:

The Peace Camp’s July 15th action was a great honor to take part in—to bring attention to the unspeakable horror and the sheer illegality of this hidden industry, and to our colleagues the Kings Bay Plowshares now challenging US courts for similar actions. I arrived in Büchel without doubt in my heart for good reasons. I was inspired in this work by Sisters Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert, with whom I shared a month-and-a-half of daily meetings at the UN during the negotiations for the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ardeth and Carol left the day after the treaty’s breathtaking adoption (July 7, 2017), to hand the treaty directly to Büchel Air Base’s commanding officer. It was their enthused recommendation along with a call for support, recognizing some 93% of German citizens who want our bombs out. My early morning routine each day at Büchel’s gate would be putting up Nukewatch’s banner U.S. H-Bombs Out of Germany. For years I’ve been waiting for one ally in NATO to say, “US we appreciate you, but not these most dangerous lies.” The intimate bonds of newly formed wider community remain with the deepest gratitude.

Dennis DuVall:

The “go-in” direct action was the high point and most fun of International Week at Büchel. I was inspired by the solidarity in planning and doing the action. I look forward to future actions to remove the B61 H-bombs from Germany, and to disrupt and prevent the US and NATO from replacing existing H-bombs in Europe with 250 smaller, low-yield H-bombs, the B61-12. The “modernized” B61-12 is said to be more “usable,” meaning it’s more likely to be used, making global resistance to nuclear weapons more urgent than ever, in Büchel and everywhere.

October 11, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

So Long to Japan’s “Breeder” of Radioactive Waste

Opponents of nuclear power rally outside Monju fast breeder reactor. Getty Images

Fall Quarterly 2018

By Kelly Lundeen & John LaForge

The Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor in central Japan is the latest to join the long line of failed attempts to prove breeder technology. Even though Monju has been largely shutdown since a bad accident in 1995, proponents of the “sodium cooled” technology still promised miracles like perpetual power generated by producing more reactor fuel than was used. Monju limped along in cold shutdown after the accident, until 2018 when Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority put the final nail in its coffin and approved a plan for decommissioning—just like similar dead-end projects in the US, UK, Germany and France. One headline in Nikkei Asian Review read, “Japan to shut troubled ‘dream’ nuclear reactor: The decades-old plant cost almost $10 billion and hardly ever operated.” It operated only 250 days in the 14 years since its 1994 start up.

Japan expects to spend over $3.5 billion to decommission the giant machines which it estimates will take 30 years, (four years just to remove its 530 fuel rods) and engineers estimate the process will create 26,700 tons of radioactive waste. There is no process yet designated for removal of the 760 tons of radioactive liquid sodium coolant. The operators still have no licensed and approved destination for the high-level waste fuel rods, beyond placing them in an onsite cooling pool.

The theory behind breeder reactors was to produce more fuel than they use. Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors like Monju were to use plutonium fuel rods to produce more plutonium. Most breeder experiments, such as Monju, are cooled by liquid sodium, the “liquid metal,” an extremely dangerous chemical that ignites on contact with air and explodes on contact with water. The designers aspired to create a “plutonium economy” to make nuclear power viable long after the supply of uranium was depleted. Another breeder pipe dream was that the reactors would reduce the volume of solid radioactive waste by extracting plutonium from waste uranium fuel rods and turning it into fuel. The Achilles heel in this plan is its generation of huge volumes of liquid high-level waste.

Even after 60 years and tens of billions of dollars invested, not a single breeder reactor experiment has succeeded. “Despite its theoretical attractiveness in converting non-fissile into fissile material, the breeder reactor has turned out to be a far tougher technology than thermal reactors. Unfortunately the dream of breeder reactors has remained a theory. The magic of fuel multiplication has not yet been realized on any meaningful scale.” This assessment, written nearly 20 years ago by Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska in The Nuclear Power Deception, has been confirmed over and over again. Nevertheless, Russia, India and China continue to invest in the concept.

—The Mainichi, Aug. 30, 2018; Nikkei Asian Review, Apr. 6, 2018; Japan Times, Dec. 6, 2017

Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Could Become Law Next Year

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By Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

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Bonnie Urfer

Susan Crane:

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On the Bright Side

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