DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY .

An article from Pressenza New York (reprinted according to Creative Commons Attribution)

Many witnessed a rare historical event last weekend in Japan. Hundreds and thousands of the same posters were ubiquitous nationwide. The posters read, “We say NO to Abe,” a strong disapproval directed towards the prime minister Abe and his government after the lower house of parliament passed the controversial security bills earlier in the week, without securing the public support, and potentially changing the Japan’s ability to go in wars in the future.

(Image by Tokyo Bureau of Pressenza)

It was a nationwide protest orchestrated by a non-fiction writer, Ms. Hisae Sawachi. The striking calligraphy on the poster was done by a haiku poet, Mr. Tota Kaneko who is 95 years old and a former Imperial Japanese Navy officer. It went viral when Ms. Sawachi made an announcement on her website asking the public to display the poster simultaneously and ambiguously on Saturday, July 18 at 1PM, calling for the nationwide public demonstration. Her statement read, “If you are not sure about being in a public rally, then you can display the poster in front of your house and on windows.” She asked for demonstrations in train stations, schools, and any public places in Tokyo and elsewhere. Her statement ended with, “Expressing one’s opinion may require a courage to do so, and our courage to “say NO (to the Abe government) ” is being challenged right now. It is our duty and our right to stop this political violence.”

Known for its virtue of not expressing one’s opinions or not becoming a nail that sticks out, the Japanese tend to shy away from public demonstrations. But this campaign brought uniquely remarkable outcomes because it allowed anyone, regardless of one’s location or viewpoint towards organized rallies, to participate. Anyone could print the poster and display it wherever they wished, and it allowed people to express their grave feelings towards the government while providing the safe environment where people could experience the solidarity. It was reported 29 prefectures and over 110 cities and towns responded to this campaign, and the poster went up over in 1000 sites nationwide. A plethora of responses with pictures of people holding the poster at home, in their cars, in stores, in public and in private places were sent to Ms. Sawachi’s site. In Tokyo, over 5000 demonstrators gathered and stood alongside Ms. Sawachi, with other public figures such as Mr. Shuntaro Kawagoe, a famous journalist, and Ms. Keiko Ochiai, an acclaimed political writer, and other critics of Abe administration in front of the parliament house. At 1PM, the crowd raised the posters towards the direction of the parliament house in sync, making their opinion clear, “We say NO to Abe.”

Ms. Sawachi spoke to the crowd, “The poster represents all our thoughts and feelings that we are outraged, and we will not tolerate what is happening. I’m sure there are current members of parliament who share the same sentiment. Let us all continue in this endeavor, each of us making wise decisions and choosing our own path.”

Question related to this article:

How do we motivate citizens to stand against the culture of war?”

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

an article by Cluster Munition Coalition

Japan announced this week having destroyed its entire stockpile of cluster munitions. As a State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Japan had until 1 August 2018 to finish destroying its stocks. The task was completed way ahead of the obligatory deadline. Congratulations, omedetou gozaimasu!

click on photo to enlarge

Japan signed the Convention in December 2008 in Oslo (Norway) along with nearly 100 other states

With this important accomplishment, Japan joins the United Kingdom, Denmark, Chile, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ecuador and many other countries that have destroyed their entire stockpiles of cluster munitions, ensuring these unacceptable weapons can never be used again.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the destruction was completed on 9 February 2015. The President-Designate of the First Review Conference of the Convention, Croatia, welcomed the good news from Japan and encouraged other States Parties to follow the example.

All States Parties to the Convention that are currently in the process of destroying their stockpiles have indicated that they will meet their obligatory deadlines. Over 80% of these states’ cluster munitions have been destroyed already.

According to Albania and France, who coordinate a working group on the issue: “States’ achievements to date … highlight stockpile destruction as a success story of this Convention, directly contributing to its aims of preventing the proliferation and use of cluster munitions.”

Japan is an important donor for the clearance of cluster munition remnants in affected countries, and for assistance to survivors. “But at least three major financial institutions in Japan still invest in producers of cluster munitions abroad,” said Suzanne Oosterwijk from PAX (The Netherlands) who coordinates the Stop Explosive Investments initiative together with the CMC. “It is high time for Japan to adopt strong legal measures prohibiting investments in companies that produce these weapons.”

Japan participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention and its position evolved significantly over time to allow it to join in the consensus adoption in 2008. It has continued to actively engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since then.

The Cluster Munition Monitor provides more information on Japan. More information in Japanese is available through the Japan Campaign to Ban Landmines, a member of the Cluster Munition Coalition.

[Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.]

Can cluster bombs be abolished?

The cluster bombs treaty was reported as follows by Agence France Presse while there was very little coverage in the US media, as usual for peace matters.

……………………..

Observers laud landmark cluster bomb ban

May 28, 2008

DUBLIN (AFP). — Observers on Thursday lauded a landmark treaty agreed by delegates from 111 countries in Dublin to ban cluster bombs, though the deal lacks the backing of major producers and stockpilers.

After 10 days of painstaking negotiations at Croke Park stadium in Dublin, diplomats agreed the wording of a wide-ranging pact to outlaw the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions by its signatories.

It also provides for the welfare of victims and the clearing of areas contaminated by unexploded cluster bombs.

The agreement will be formally adopted on Friday, and signed in Oslo on December 2-3. Signatories would then need to ratify it.

It was hailed in The Independent newspaper in London as a “significant step forward”, describing cluster bombs as “little more than air-delivered landmines” and declaring that “there can be no compromise when it comes to cluster bombs.”

The newspaper acknowledged in its editorial, however, that the document was weakened by the absence of the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel and Pakistan from the Dublin talks, and thus the agreement.

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said the treaty was a “very strong and ambitious text which nevertheless was able to win consensus among all delegations.”

“It is a real contribution to international humanitarian law,” he added.

The Irish Department for Foreign Affairs said 111 participating states and 18 observer countries attended.

The treaty requires the destruction of stockpiled munitions within eight years — though it leaves the door open for future, more precise generations of cluster munitions that pose less harm to civilians.

Britain was widely cited by campaigners as being at the forefront of a group of states seeking to water down the treaty.

But in a dramatic move Wednesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in London that Britain would withdraw all its cluster bombs from service in a bid to “break the log jam” in the Dublin talks.

The draft treaty agreed in Dublin read:

“Each state party undertakes never under any circumstances to:

“(a) Use cluster munitions;

“(b) Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions;

“© Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this convention.”

Much of the wrangling focused on what signatories could and could not do in joint operations with states still using cluster bombs.

The draft text said signatories “may engage in military cooperation and operations”.

But the Cluster Munition Coalition, an umbrella group of non-governmental organisations, hopes that the treaty will stigmatise the use of cluster munitions — as the similar Ottawa Treaty did for landmines — and stop countries from helping others to use them.

CMC co-chair Simon Conway told AFP the treaty was a compromise but nonetheless “incredibly strong”.

“We’re going to end up with a strong treaty that prohibits every cluster bomb that’s ever been used, with no transition periods, with strong obligations on clearance and particularly strong obligations on victim assistance,” he said.

Hildegarde Vansintjan, advocacy officer for disability campaigners Handicap International, said the convention made states responsible for providing assistance to cluster bomb victims.

The treaty “would be a real step forward for the people suffering from cluster munitions all over the world,” she told AFP.

The cluster munitions ban process, started by Norway in February 2007, took the same path as the 1997 Ottawa Treaty by going outside the United Nations to avoid vetoes and seal a swift pact.

Cluster munitions are among the weapons that pose the gravest dangers to civilians, especially in heavily bombed countries such as Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Dropped from planes or fired from artillery, they explode in mid-air, randomly scattering bomblets. Countries are seeking a ban due to the risk of civilians being killed or maimed by their indiscriminate, wide area effect.

They also pose a lasting threat to civilians as many bomblets fail to explode on impact.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

an article by Colin Archer Secretary‐General, International Peace Bureau (IPB)

To the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

I am pleased to convey to you the IPB’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2015. A total ban and the elimination of nuclear weapons was the task set out by the very first resolution of the first General Assembly of the United Nations (January 1946), a task that remains unfulfilled. Yet, as seen in the success of the international conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, held in Oslo in 2013 and in Nayarit and Vienna in 2014, momentum is building up once more, and promises to turn this 70th anniversary of the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into a milestone on the path to a world free of nuclear weapons.

click on the photo to enlarge

A hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, tells young people about his experience and shows pictures. United Nations building in Vienna, during the NPT PrepCom 2007. Photo from Wikimedia Commons

For this reason IPB once again nominates for the Nobel Peace Prize the Hibakusha, those who personally suffered from the atomic bombings of the two cities. They are quite simply extraordinary human beings; not giving in to despair, they became convinced, through their struggle to survive the attacks and the subsequent long years of suffering, that their agonies must never be repeated anywhere. Over these 70 years they have made the choice of activism, unceasingly recounting their experiences and struggles, and working constantly for a total ban and the elimination of nuclear weapons, appealing to governments and peoples all over the world.

We nominate :

1) the Japan Confederation of A­- and H-­Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), a nationwide independent organization of the Hibakusha. Since its founding in August 1956, it has been working in unity, beyond the difference of beliefs and opinions, encouraging its members to help each other to promote the cause of a ban on atomic and hydrogen bombs, by making known their sufferings and struggles. Their activities are fully worthy of the name, “champion of peace”, in the light of the ideal of disarmament, for which Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Peace Prize.

2) (2) Mr. Sumiteru TANIGUCHI and (3) Ms. Setsuko THURLOW, outstanding representatives of the Hibakusha movement, who have been at the forefront of the efforts of the Hibakusha throughout their lives, calling for a ban and for the abolition of nuclear weapons, based on their own painful experiences.

Background details on all 3 nominees can be found at Annexes 1‐3, below.

IPB believes that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to these courageous persons, and indeed to a courageous movement, would be a contribution of unique value and extraordinary importance to the worldwide community of nuclear disarmament advocates, itself 70 years old this year.

The continued existence of nuclear weapons threatens the very survival of life on earth. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has recognised this supreme threat in several of its previous awards. We urge the Committee, at this historic moment, to return to this theme and to itself make a courageous choice: to recognise and reward the Hibakusha.

(This article is continued in the discussion board on the upper right of this page)

ANNEX 1: The Japan Confederation of A­ and H­Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) Address

Gable Bldg. #902 1‐3‐5 Shiba‐Daimon Minato‐ku Tokyo 105‐0012 Japan Phone: +81‐3‐3438‐1897
Fax: +81‐3‐3431‐2113
Email: kj3t‐tnk@asahi‐net.or.jp http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hidankyo/nihon/
Co­chairpersons
Sunao TSUBOI (Mr.) Sumiteru TANIGUCHI (Mr.) Prof. Mikiso IWASA (Mr.)
Secretary General:
Prof. Terumi TANAKA (Mr.)
Founding
August 10, 1956
Organization and Membership
NIHON HIDANKYO is the only nationwide organization of A‐bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Hibakusha). It has member organizations in all 47 Japanese prefectures, thus representing almost all organized Hibakusha. Its officials and members are all Hibakusha. The total number of the surviving Hibakusha living in Japan is about 190,000, as of the end of 2014. Also there are Hibakusha living in Korea and other parts of the world outside Japan. HIDANKYO is cooperating with them in their effort to defend their living conditions and human rights.
Main Objectives
1) Prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons, by way of an international agreement for a total ban and the elimination of nuclear weapons.
2) State compensation for the A‐bomb damages. The state responsibility of having launched the war, which led to the damage by the atomic bombing, should be acknowledged, and the state compensation provided.
3) Improvement of the policies and measures on the protection and assistance for the Hibakusha.
Major Activities
1) Telling stories of the Hibakusha to make known their experiences, actual damage and after‐effects of the A‐bombings both within and outside Japan; Sending A‐bomb sufferers to the U.N. and other international fora, nuclear‐weapon states and other countries;
2) Actions for the enactment of a Hibakusha‐aid law providing state compensation for the Hibakusha themselves and bereaved families; Running signature drives, marches, sit‐ins and other forms of action.
3) Providing counseling and other assistance to the Hibakusha in their difficulties on health and living.

Major Actions since the Founding
HIDANKYO has held dozens of petition actions every year to urge both the Japanese government and the Diet to take steps to make known to the world community the full dimension of the damage caused by the A‐bombings and take the lead in promoting public opinion for the prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons. HIDANKYO also urges the Japanese government to admit Japan’s responsibility for having launched the war, which eventually led to the atomic bombing, and that it should provide state compensation for the bereaved families, as well as the sufferers on whom health damage was inflicted.
The “Hibakusha Aid Law” demanded by HIDANKYO, therefore, is to include a pledge that Japan would make every effort so that there would never be another Hibakusha anywhere.
HIDANKYO is playing a major role in the movement against A and H bombs. Not only taking part in a number of peace events during summer, HIDANKYO sends its representatives all over Japan, who bear witness to their A‐bomb experiences, helping to promote the public awareness on the need for a ban and the elimination of nuclear weapons. Internationally, HIDANKYO sends many Hibakusha overseas, to make heard their appeals for the prevention of nuclear war and the abolition of nuclear arms.
Hibakusha, sent by HIDANKYO, have made contributions to many important international forums, including two UN Special Sessions on Disarmament in 1982 and 1988, the NPT Review Conferences in 2005 and 2010 and its Preparatory Committee sessions, and the three International Conferences on Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in March 2013 in Oslo, February 2014 in Nayarit, and December 2014 in Vienna.