The Global Council of the Abolition 2000 Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons condemns the United States Nuclear Posture Review and US plans to develop new nuclear weapons that are more useable, and thus more likely to be used. The Bush Administration has directed the US military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in warfare. We condemn this policy as insane, immoral and illegal.
These plans break promises that the US made thirty-two years ago in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) when it agreed to negotiate in good faith to eliminate its nuclear weapons. Along with other nuclear-armed countries, the US renewed that promise in 2000, when it agreed to an “unequivocal undertaking” to accomplish the “total elimination” of its nuclear arsenal, plus twelve other practical steps leading to nuclear disarmament.
Instead of implementing these 13 practical steps, the US has reawakened the specter of nuclear horror with its plans for developing new nuclear weapons, and giving three unthinkable scenarios for using them: “against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or in the event of surprising military developments.” With these steps, the US shows it will use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them, a complete reversal of previous agreements. This policy increases nuclear danger in a world already rife with conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries (India and Pakistan in South Asia, and Israel in the Middle East), and fearful of terrorists acquiring nuclear materials.
We, the members of the Abolition 2000 Global Council, call on all citizens of the Earth to wake up and act! At a time when the people of our planet desperately seek ways to create a safer, more secure world, the US strikes nuclear terror into all of our hearts. Stark gaps between the world’s “haves and the have-nots,” and glaring social injustice, contribute to a rising tide of violence everywhere. Yet the world’s richest and most powerful nation can only offer the threat of the ultimate violence: the use of nuclear weapons.
The world is in grave danger. Everything and everyone we love is at risk. Now is the moment to get deadly serious about nuclear abolition, while we still have time. We urge all citizens: Make your voices heard – in the halls of government, in the media, to your friends, family and neighbors. We must act now!
Our strength as a Global Council comes from the over 2000 citizen groups in 90+ countries who form the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons <www.abolition2000.org/>. Since our founding in 1995 at the NPT Review and Extension Conference, our network’s many groups have demonstrated their commitment to a more sustainable world by creating ways to bring about nuclear abolition. One of our most valuable tools has been the law: the treaties our nations have signed and ratified, the International Court of Justice 1996 Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the model Nuclear Weapons Convention.
Now is the time to speak together in one voice! Join us in our call for a legal end to the nuclear madness that never went away. Let us focus our efforts, exercise our citizenship muscles, and use every nonviolent means to get rid of the nuclear threat once and for all. Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never happen again! Speak Out! Take action! We cannot do it alone, but together we will succeed!!
Yours for a sustainable and nuclear-free world,
The Abolition 2000 Global Council