The Legacy of Hiroshima.

Presented at llth Nobel Peace Summit, in Hiroshima, Japan.

‘CRIMALITY AND DELEGITIMAZATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS’.

Mina Sama,

We remember  that 65 years ago, Japan surrendered to the United States after 250,000 people were incinerated by U. S. Nuclear Weapons.  These   bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the carpet bombing of Tokyo, constituted war crimes and crimes against Humanity.  These bombs were not dropped to bring an end to the Second World War, as American propaganda would have us believe. We remember they were developed as the Americans believed the Nazis might get Nuclear weapons first.  These atomic bombs were used on the Japanese people to terrorize the rest of the world, and show the United States would indeed use them.

No American Government, has ever apologized to the Japanese people for these

War crimes. It is said if people do not admit to the wrong they have done, and say ‘sorry’ they are in danger of doing it again.

Tragically, I believe, the World is in danger of using Nuclear weapons again, if we  do not take seriously the message of the survivors  of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,  and move to abolish Nuclear Weapons, War, militarism, and force, as ways of solving our problems in International relations.   We can, and must, move from the threat and use of violence, from the  myth of military security, to human and environmental security, based on Nonkilling, Nonviolence,  Human Rights and International Laws.

No Government has dropped Nuclear weapons after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,but

the threat to use them has been used often.  Many Goverments have built their

National Security  Policies on threats of violence and militarism, and  since 1945 millions of people have been slaughtered in many countries, by both  State and Nonstate actors, in the name of progress and democracy.  Increasingly Governments  are using force against unarmed civilians.   We think of Russia in Chechnya, China in Tibet, Burma, etc.  The list is endless.  Also too in their alleged fight against Terrorism, the United States and their  Nato Allies,  have produced real terror, often disregarding  International Law, using torture, and the most advanced  weapons such as Predator drones, and air bombardments,  against unknown targets, including civilians.   The United States and their Nato allies,  have committed  acts of aggression in Pakistan, invaded and occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.,The US have authorized, armed, equipped and supplied Israel to continue its military occupation of Palestine, its collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and military bombardment of Lebanon.  They have refused to insist Israel, now third largest nuclear power in the world,  sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and begin nuclear disarmament.

At the same time, the United States Government is threatening to attack Iran (or allowing Israel to do so) on the pretext that they have a nuclear weapons programme  and if indeed they do attack Iran, this would  set the whole region on fire.   When President Obama says he wants to see a World without nuclear weapons and then says, in respect of Iran, and their alleged nuclear Weapon ambitions, that ‘all options are on the table’this is clearly a threat to use nuclear weapons,clearly a criminal threat under the World Court Advisory Opinion, against Iran.

The Nuremberg Charter of August 8^th, l945 says the threat or use of nuclear weapons is criminal, so officials  in all nine nuclear weapons states who maintain and use Nuclear Deterrence as a threat, are breaking the Law.

In his book ‘The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence – Could the U.S.

War on terrorism go Nuclear?’ (l)  International Lawyer,  Prof. Boyle,

says  ‘In the Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice on nuclear weapons, the World Court ruled that the threat stands or falls on the same legal grounds as the actual use.  If mass extermination of human beings is a crime, the threat to commit mass extermination is also a crime.’

If any of us threatened to kill another person we would be prosecuted and yet the leaders of nuclear weapons States are holding the threat of nuclear extermination over us all.  Some Governments feel it is prestigious being in  the Nuclear Weapons Club as if it were a badge of ‘honour’, when in reality it should be a badge of ‘shame’ and ‘dishonour’ for any country to have such weapons, breaking not only the Nuremburg principals, but wasting their peoples precious resources so necessary  for their basic needs of food, education, health care.

We must delegitimize nuclear weapons, change our militarized mindsets of fear and violence, abolish force in International relations, replacing this with the  alternative of human and environmental security based on peace, sustainable development, Human Rights and International Laws.  Making arms and the use of force illegal, and criminal, dismantling not only nuclear weapons but the entire war machine will give hope to the Human Family.

Soyoonara,

Mairead Maguire   (Nobel Peace Laureate)

Hiroshima, Japan.   November, 2010  (www.peacepeople.com)

(l) ‘The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence.  Could the US War on Terrorism go Nuclear?’ published by Clarity Press, Inc.  Prof. Francis Boyle.