From mosa@netcom.com Sat Aug 5 21:36:05 1995 From: mosa@netcom.com (Michele Lord) To: dave@sgi.sgi.com From: PNEWS Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: Throw France out of the Pacific Followup-To: alt.activism.d Date: 4 Aug 1995 18:46:04 GMT Lines: 187 Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu Resent-From: rich Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu [*********PNEWS CONFERENCES************] From: the guardian To: pnews@world.std.com Subject: Throw France out of the Pacific THROW FRANCE OUT OF THE PACIFIC (The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Socialist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, August 2nd, 1995. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Fax: 612 281 5795. Email: Republication is permitted with acknowledgement. Subscription rates on request) THROW FRANCE OUT OF THE PACIFIC On the 50th anniversary of the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1995, Australians will remember two of the most criminal acts of carnage inflicted on humanity. At the same time, we will be fighting to throw the French out of the Pacific, to end their nuclear blackmail and their colonial injustices. by Dr Hannah Middleton The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki announced the beginning of the nuclear age, a new arms race, the age of nuclear blackmail. Our region, Asia and the Pacific, has suffered the full horrors of the nuclear age. The outrage and suffering extends from the 210,000 victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the people of Bikini, Rongelap, Eniwetok and other Micronesian islands, from the Aboriginal people at Maralinga to the Maohi people of Tahiti-Polynesia. This is an unforgivable story of dead and deformed babies, cancers and other sicknesses, destruction of the environment, poisoning of people's land, sea and air, their forcible removal from their traditional lands, their dispossession. It is a history of physical and cultural destruction and of the struggle of the indigenous peoples against this outrage and for a nuclear free and independent Pacific. Polynesia is not France. It is the ancestral lands of the Maohi people. New Caledonia is the French colonial name for Kanaky. France should not be permitted to poison the people, their food and the land, sea and air -- not in the Pacific and not in their own backyard either. Nuclear guinea pigs We should never forget that former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said of Micronesia: * There are only 90,000 people out there, who gives a damn? This arrogance allowed the United States to conduct experiments injecting its own citizens with plutonium, to expose its own soldiers to radiation during nuclear tests in Nevada and to use the peoples of the Pacific as nuclear guinea pigs. Changes Despite all the changes in the world, there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. The nuclear powers are not planning their elimination. For nearly 50 years, nuclear weapons have been seen as the ultimate purveyor of military and political power. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, France, Britain, the former Soviet Union and China -- are the five major nuclear powers. The Pentagon is planning to spend US$350 billion over the next ten years with the US Department of Energy busy designing new nuclear warheads. Britain and France are increasing the number of their weapons. Clinging to military responses in the face of change and uncertainty is and always has been a self-defeating policy. At this time in history, when the peoples of the world demand new and effective roads to peace and security, the attitude of the nuclear club members is nothing short of criminal. Australia's nuclear chains Successive Australian Governments have allowed our country to become trapped in the nuclear chains. To make an effective contribution to the fight to stop French nuclear tests, we will have to break these chains. We need a new type of government, one that actively supports decolonisation, gives the US bases in our country notice to quit, stops the mining and sale of uranium, bans visits by nuclear- armed and powered ships and planes, and backs the outlawing of the research, testing, production, deployment, threat and use of nuclear weapons. Commitment In a statement to be read at the 50th anniversary rally, the Hiroshima Day Committee in Sydney says: * It is the peoples of the world who must shoulder responsibility for humanity and our planet. * Nuclear weapons will destroy the human race and civilisation. They are illegal, immoral and a crime against humanity. * Humans and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist. * Along with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and on behalf of those who died and cannot now speak for themselves, and on behalf of all victims of nuclear testing we say: * There must never be another Hiroshima. * There must never be another Nagasaki. * We call for the complete prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. Let us work together, urgently, to achieve a total ban on the use, testing, research, development, production, deployment and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. * We in Australia must renew our determination to campaign for a nuclear-free region, independent and with social and economic justice and sustainable development. * We must work for a final end to the nuclear age, with Asia and the Pacific at peace in a peaceful world. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ***** PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS ****** @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ PNEWS CONFERENCES provide "radical" alternative views with an emphasis on justice, humanitarian positions, protests, boycott alerts, activism information, etc. **************** To subscribe, send request to: "SUBSCRIBE PNEWS-L " @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The Guardian | Phone: (02) 212.6855 65 Campbell Street | Fax: (02) 281.5795 Surry Hills. 2010 | Email:guardian@peg.apc.org