8-05-09, 9:10 am

Largest US Peace Coalition Marks Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings Launches Petition Drive Calling on Obama to Initiate Negotiations for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

Original source: United for Peace and Justice

New York, NY -- United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) -- to mark the 64th anniversary of the August 6th and 9th U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- has declared August 2009 'Nuclear-Free Future Month' to challenge the growing global threats posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear power. The call for local actions comes at a time of increased international concern about the nuclear intentions of Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel and Japan. President Obama's call for a nuclear weapons-free world and improved relations between the U.S. and Russia, which together maintain 95% of the world's nuclear weapons, presents a new window of opportunity. 



Nuclear-Free Future Month is being launched with a national petition drive commending President Obama for his courageous and historic statement in Prague on April 5, 2009, that 'as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.' The petition calls on the President to make good on that commitment by initiating 'good faith multilateral negotiations on an international agreement to abolish nuclear weapons, within our lifetimes!'   



'President Obama has repeatedly stated that he will pursue the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. But that statement is invariably followed by a disclaimer that as long as nuclear weapons exist, the U.S. will maintain a strong nuclear deterrent. That disclaimer reflects the extraordinarily powerful military-industrial complex which has maintained nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of U.S. national security policy since 1945 - despite the end of the Cold War two decades ago,' said Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the California-based Western States Legal Foundation and convener of UFPJ's Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security Working Group.  



Cabasso continued, 'If he is serious about getting rid of nuclear weapons, President Obama is going to have to make a major break with the policies of past Administrations and take on the most powerful and entrenched forces on earth. It's up to us to create the political pressure that will make meaningful progress on disarmament possible.' 



Judith Le Blanc, UFPJ National Organizing coordinator added, 'This campaign represents an important step for the antiwar movement which has been focused on ending the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We are aiming to organize the powerful urgency for change that helped elect Barack Obama to become part of the movement calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons and saving the environment.' 



According to Alice Slater, NY Director of the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: 'The welcome launch by Germany of an International Renewable Energy Agency, which now has 136 participating nations, will facilitate a more rapid phase out of nuclear power, thus halting the major source of nuclear proliferation to other nations -- metastasizing nuclear reactors, every one of which is a potential bomb factory and a source of grave danger to human health and the environment.' 



Jim Haber, Nevada Desert Experience Coordinator, added: 'From national governments to local activist groups, the world annually commemorates the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 by U.S. atomic bombs. A month of events is called for as the threat of nuclear weapons and war has grown substantially since those first attacks and civilians are increasingly targeted by war-makers. Attention needs to grow beyond the atrocities of World War II, and Nuclear-Free Future Month is about both the chronic war plans of strategic deterrence and the acute operations already killing people and peace on a daily basis.' 



UFPJ is working internationally with allies including the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, Mayors for Peace, and the International Trade Union Confederation, to put nuclear issues on the political agenda of world leaders as the United Nations prepares for the 2010 NPT Review Conference in May.  Millions of signatures collected on related international petitions will be presented at the Review Conference, to be held at UN headquarters in New York. Planning is underway for a major international rally and march for nuclear abolition on May 2, 2010.