“Planting Seeds of Peace”
News Release from the BBC, August 2, 2019
The US has formally withdrawn from a key nuclear treaty with Russia, raising fears of a new arms race. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.
It banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km (310-3,400 miles).
But earlier this year the US and Nato accused Russia of violating the pact by deploying a new type of cruise missile, which Moscow has denied.
The Americans said they had evidence that Russia had deployed a number of 9M729 missiles – known to Nato as SSC-8. This accusation was then put to Washington’s Nato allies, which all backed the US claim.
“Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Friday.
“With the full support of our Nato allies, the United States has determined Russia to be in material breach of the treaty, and has subsequently suspended our obligations under the treaty,” he added.
Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed the INF treaty was “formally dead” in a statement carried by state-run Ria Novosti news agency.
Back in February, President Donald Trump set the 2 August deadline for the US to withdraw if Russia didn’t come into compliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended his country’s own obligations to the treaty shortly afterwards.
What are the risks?
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the transatlantic alliance would “respond in a measured and responsible way to the significant risks posed by the Russian 9M729 missile to allied security”.
But, he added, Nato “does not want a new arms race” and confirmed there were no plans for the alliance to deploy land-based nuclear missiles of its own in Europe.
Last month, he told the BBC that the Russian missiles were nuclear-capable, mobile, very hard to detect and could reach European cities within minutes.
This morning’s BBC News Release comes four days before the 74th Anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The INF Treaty signed in 1988 by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev is dead. The risks for the world are now greater than they already were.
The recently passed Oregon Senate Joint Memorial 5 in the Oregon Legislature urges congress to lead a global effort to reduce the threat of nuclear war, making it the second state in the nation after California to pass such legislation in both chambers. The bill passed the Oregon Senate on May 20th. The details are enclosed in this email.
The Rogue Valley’s 34th Annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Observance “Planting Seeds of Peace” opens Tuesday, August 6th at 8 AM at the entrance to Lithia Park, with Ceremonies and events continuing through Friday, August 9th.
Ashland’s Peace House started in 1982, directly out of concerns over the on-going production of nuclear weapons, and Peace House was instrumental in inspiring Ashland to become a “Nuclear Free Zone”. There are now 163 countries and regions and 7,785 cities that belong to the Mayors for Peace international organization dedicated to a global ban on nuclear weapons. Ashland Mayor John Stromberg’s proclamation against nuclear war will be read at the Ashland City Council meeting August 6th. See full program information at http://www.peacehouse.net
Over the last year and a half, Peace House has held discussions about nuclear war and the Test Ban Treaty with a grant awarded by Oregon Humanities for this purpose. This included talks in Eugene and Portland with sister activists. Ashland and Medford presentations have been done by Dr. Herbert Rothschild, Dr. Michael Niemann and Estelle Voeller. It has been the hope that having conversations about this concern educates and inspires us all to stand up for a nuclear free world.
Once again we vigil to remember the tragic deaths of those killed in 1945 and continues to call for Nuclear Disarmament with ceremonies of Remembrance and Reflection. Ceremonies on August 6th and 9th will especially remember those who died in the U.S. attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1946.
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
On August 9th, 1945, Three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 – a 21-kiloton plutonium device known as “Fat Man.” On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, and 400 prisoners of war.
Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period following the explosion. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that after five years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while the city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb’s effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer.
See: https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/bombings-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-1945
Oregon Becomes Second State in Nation to Support Nuclear Ban Treaty
Hideko Tamura Honored in the Joint Memorial
The Oregon Legislature has approved a joint memorial (SJ5) calling on the US
government to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which the
UN adopted and opened for signature by the world’s nations on September 20,
2017. The bill also supports federal legislation that would end the President’s sole
unchecked power to launch nuclear weapons, end nuclear first-strike, take nuclear
weapons off hair-trigger alert, stop wasteful spending on a new nuclear arms race,
and lead negotiations with other nuclear armed states to abolish nuclear weapons.
The legislative victory was achieved by a coalition of 31 state groups, including
Peace House. The work was led by Portland-based Kelly Campbell, executive
director of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. Both Sen. Jeff Golden and
Rep. Pam Marsh were sponsors of the bill.
Hideko Tamura, who lives in Medford and has been a highly visible advocate for
nuclear disarmament over the years, entered the following written testimony during
hearings on SJ5: “As a survivor of Hiroshima, with memories of the horrific deaths
and suffering still vivid in my mind even after nearly seventy-four years later, I
don’t want anyone ever to experience what we lived through.” She is recognized in
the bill for her life-long dedication to abolishing nuclear weapons.
Since the UN adopted the treaty in June, 2017, it has garnered little attention in the
mainstream media. That’s because our government has been opposed to it. Support
must be generated at the grassroots, as was the case when the US and USSR were
locked in an arms race that threatened all humankind. So Peace House has
prioritized the work of raising people’s awareness of it. One approach was to
create the Oregon Nuclear Disarmament Communications Network, which has
connected activists throughout Oregon west of the Cascades. The existence of that
network facilitated our legislative victory…(Continue reading article)
Current news coverage on Hideko Tamura Snider from KDRV ON July 25th, 2018
https://www.kdrv.com/content/news/From-War-to-Friendship-513225051.html
Hiroshima bombing survivor Hideko Tamura Snider is currently involved in a worldwide project called Green Legacy Hiroshima, which sends seeds and saplings all over the world from trees that survived the bombing of her hometown, and are given as symbols of peace and hope, valuing planetary life. Hideko Tamura Snider was a child of ten in Hiroshima when the city was destroyed by an atom bomb at the end of WWII. She survived with injuries and was ill for some time. Her mother did not survive.
US Nuclear tests and radiation deaths for US public:
