Now HERE'S an "Asia Pivot" I Can Believe In! (Marshall Islands Sues Nuclear "Haves")

Smack dab in the middle of a Barack Obama's suavely jingoistic Asia tour, and on the eve of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Conference in New York, there has been in new development:

Breaking News: Nuclear Zero Lawsuits Filed

Today, a small country filed a historic lawsuit against the 9 nuclear weapon states. Join them to demand #NuclearZero.

Big news today out of The Hague and San Francisco. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) has filed unprecedented lawsuits against all nine nuclear-armed nations for their failure to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament, as required under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The suits were filed against all nine nations at the International Court of Justice, with an additional complaint against the United States filed in U.S. Federal District Court.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation applauds the courage of the RMI’s leaders in bringing lawsuits against the nuclear-armed nations. The people of the RMI continue to suffer today from U.S. nuclear weapon tests that took place on their territory in the 1940s and 1950s, and they want to ensure that such devastation – or worse – is never brought on anyone ever again.

NAPF is playing a key role in the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits campaign, which just launched this morning. Please go to www.nuclearzero.org, where you can learn more about the specifics of the lawsuits and show your support by signing a petition supporting the RMI’s bold, non-violent action.

We’ll be bringing you much more news about these lawsuits in the coming days and weeks. But right now, there are two things I’d like for you to do:

1. Go to nuclearzero.org and sign the petition, and then share it with your friends.

2. Share / re-tweet announcements about the lawsuits from our Facebook and Twitter pages.

These lawsuits could be the thing that finally breaks the nuclear weapon states’ shameful decades of inaction on nuclear disarmament. Please take a moment to add your voice to the campaign today.

Sincerely,

Rick Wayman
NAPF Peace Ops Director

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One way in which the patterns of the past are being turned on their head is through social media. Even if you are "just a 'dot' in the middle of the ocean," you can still have a global voice.

(See MARSHALL ISLANDS HIBAKUSHA: Can social media trump empire and entertainment?)











I don't think Alanna and I ever talked about what it must be like to be trying to escape a shower of sparks and hot ash. But she seemed to know that the sparks and hot ash are too important a part of the picture to be left out.

(See The Children Are Waiting )

The problem: the U.S. "pivot to Asia."

The opportunity: asking ourselves, "What would we do differently if we revised our myths of Asia?"

(See U.S. Militarism in Asia: THINK DIFFERENT!)

Sixty-seven years ago tonight, morning in Japan, a single B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. This incredible blast destroyed most of the city and killed over 60,000 people almost immediately. Another 80,000 more died in subsequent months and years from the deadly radiation.

(See Our Dark Beacon: Prayer Vigil for Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 5, 2012)





More related links

You are strongly encouraged to spend 6 minutes to watch the trailer of NUCLEAR SAVAGE: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1, produced, written and directed by Adam Jonas Horowitz. "A shocking political exposé and heartbreaking, intimate ethnographic portrait of Pacific Islanders struggling for dignity and survival after decades of intentional radiation poisoning at the hands of the American government. This untold and true detective story unfolds in the remote Marshall Islands, where during the cold war the United States exploded 67 nuclear bombs, vaporizing islands and contaminating entire populations. Most incredible is the central story of the film, which reveals how U.S. scientists used the local islanders as human guinea pigs for decades to study the effects of nuclear fallout on human beings."

March 15, 2014 - "Times of Change in the Marshall Islands" (posted by B.F. Johnson) on the blog Cold War Warrior: A Legacy of Technology, Economics, and Strategy provides one personal account of the kind of cavalier treatment that the U.S. atomic weapons complex has dished out to the Marshall Islands.