The
name on the card read "Yoko Nishimura from
the Tokyo Prefecture Umeda Han Adachi branch of
Shinfujin."
The New Japan Women's Association (NJWA or Shinfujin)
was founded in 1962 as part of the larger women's
movement in Japan. Since the sixties, their core
objectives have been to extend the rights of women
and children's well being, including protecting
the lives of women and children from the dangers
of nuclear war by opposing the resurgence of militarism
and nuclear weapons. NJWA reaches out and works
very hard in seeking to join hands in lasting peace
with other women from all around the world with
similar motivations.
Shinfujin women and hundreds of Japanese people:
women's groups, political organizations, medical
alliances, and individual citizens, including survivors
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki filled the street all
around me while assembling for the march past the
United Nations. Everyone who came and gathered in
the streets of New York City did so in order to
bring crucial focus on the immediacy and importance
of non proliferation of nuclear weapons.
While I stood waiting for other drummers and Code
Pink Women for Peace, I was showered with other
creative and sincere gestures of peace and friendship.
Origami doves seemed to be the theme of the day,
large and small and looped into headbands, streamers,
pictures, postcards. There were also colorful wind
sockets, books and drawings and even a pair of chopsticks
wrapped with messages of peace and the theme of
a better world for all our children. I was sorry
I could not carry all these gifts and drum at the
same time. And I worry that even one person felt
rejected in their heartfelt generosity to strangers.
I was made so hopeful and happy by these gifts from
people coming all this way to stand in solidarity
with me against nuclear weapons. And since we drummers
always bring an extra bucket or two and drumsticks,
we gave out buckets and instruction in our simple
beat to anyone who wanted to join with us and drum.
And the Code Pink women wore pink and brought pink
shakers and because of this, those who did not wish
to carry a plastic bucket and drum could shake to
the beat of our drumming and marching. Imagine the
sight of this young man from Tokyo with spiked hair
and electric blue kimono marching next to some middle
aged Japanese women with pink shakers and more women
clad all in pink, along with men all marching and
drumming for peace together. We surged into the
streets up past the United Nations and into Central
Park where we rallied and formed a human peace sign.
All different people from all different cultures
were represented.
This sight, this vision of common folk surging
into the streets of New York City in non violent
solidarity against nuclear proliferation was mostly
lost in the vagueness of its reportage. Even the
news media in the metropolitan area(s) gave very
little air time to the thousands who marched, although
we marked the day before the beginning of United
Nations Non Proliferation Treaty Review and Conference.
The mainstream news media in general makes emphasis
and gives continuous ongoing perspective towards
violence and war agenda and makes only vague attempts
to portray the growing number of people who do NOT
support war agendas and who do NOT support nuclear
weapons and who faithfully work and demonstrate
for peace. If dissenters are portrayed at all,
it is usually only as violent radicals acting out
against uniformed authority figures .
This particular Peace March had large representation
from Veterans for Peace and had the media chosen
to show you, there were men and women who made dignified
appearance in their old uniforms from previous wars,
especially and including Viet Nam. There were grandmothers
and grandfathers and children and of course the
Shinfujin and Code Pink women. It was the most amazing
vision to see us all marching up to the park in
this unity for peace.
Mayors from all around the world came to join with
American Mayors For Peace. New York City's mayor,
David Bloomberg, a Republican was sent numerous
petitions asking for his support and participation.
But peace remains a partisan issue when it needs
to be priority issue. The list of participants Mayors
for Peace did not include his name . Instead, one
must take hope in the heartland and with the people
of Madison Wisconsin who were represented by their
mayor, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and who, as a community
make great effort towards peace and understanding.
Even though America traditionally remembers and
honors those who have served and still serve in
the military on Memorial Day, President Bush on
May 1 2002, came up with an idea to rename and change
the dynamic of May 1st, by calling it "Loyalty
Day" . This was a significant reminder of McCarthyism
and the perspective of a President in how threatened
he feels about the first of May as a ways and means
in which to celebrate expression of free and democratic
rights. I consider it one more attempt by the President
to suppress and repress American freedoms and the
right to express these freedoms.
May Day or Beltane has its earliest traditions in
pre Christian roots celebrating earth, rebirth,
hope and renewal. Later, it became the political
holiday of dissenters and national labor parties
with common cause for the common man. It is no wonder
a Christian fundamentalist like our President would
feel so threatened by its celebration and the expression
of dissidence that he felt compelled to attempt
to change the dynamic of the holiday to suit his
agenda.
One month later and the Conference has collapsed
into the "ambiguities" that serve the
greater cause of bellicose governments set in leadership
with agendas of war and not peace. The debates about
North Korea brought no agreement about escalation
and underground testing. Iran's ambition to become
a nuclear power brought no agreement as well. And
The United States, objected to clauses in the agreement
text concerning "weapons states' disarmament
obligations".
This was small wonder since William Arkin of the
Washington Post first wrote about the "global
strike plan with nuclear options" that was
set in place by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
last summer and which authorizes a plan to strike
out against any hostile nations developing weapons
of mass destruction. Creating options to strike
out at the rest of the world, perhaps while under
the influence of false intelligence about weapons
of mass destruction seems to be a dangerous priority
for the Bush administration.
Technology and ambiguous "nuclearized"
weapons of mass destruction seem to slide under
Rumsfeld's pre emptive strike plan and characterizes
an administration that did nothing but suppress
any counter intelligence that could have kept us
from rushing into the war with Iraq and its ongoing
occupation that daily takes its toll on Iraqi civilians
and American forces. Tom Engelhardt of the Nation
Institute writes about such a "space"
weapon not quite nuclearized called, Hypervelocity
Rod Bundles ("Rods from God") that aims
"to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or
uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets
on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200
miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear
weapon."
This makes rather vague any credibility about United
States stance on searching for peaceful solutions
in conflict, anti proliferation and arms control.
However, in spite of the failure of the Conference,
on May 25 the foreign ministers of Britain, France
and Germany did what United States diplomacy could
not do and persuaded Iran to continue its temporary
freeze on its nuclear ambitions.
Meanwhile, as North Korea's ambiguous capacity for
nuclear holocaust and Iran's desires to quickly
reach such a goal, remain in the spotlight as villainous
rogue nations who would press the world into flames
.....another country and our greatest ally in the
Middle East, Israel remains covertly and ambiguously
in possession of many nuclear weapons. Much of the
news media does not focus on either Israel's nuclear
ambiguity or any of the ongoing reports of spying
and false information received and passed back and
forth, between the United States government and
the "special interest" group, AIPAC which
led to the firing of two senior AIPAC members and
the arrest of former defense intelligence agency
officer Larry Franklin. with emphasis and detail
pertaining to Iran. It is still ambiguous how much
vital information was passed back and forth between
the Pentagon and this supposedly non governmental
Israeli Lobby group. One can only speculate about
the difference in a scenario of a Pentagon analyst
meeting and passing secrets to a Muslim special
interest group.
Israel's policy of ambiguity about its nuclear weapons,
without doubt, gives greatest pause and halts any
forward moves towards peace in the Middle East.
As long as Israel does not feel the moral obligation
to come forward and join in at least in discussion
of the concept of non proliferation with its neighbors
and the rest of the world, there is little to motivate
other neighboring countries who feel so threatened
by nuclear weapons that they wish to possess their
own.
After years of denial, Israeli citizens are finally
considering the dangers involved in such dubious
old reactors as Dimona and the pressing necessity
to shut it down before it melts down. However,
there is still no such clear and outstanding leadership
capable of accepting the challenge to bring Israel
this one step forward as a democratic nation making
example of its desire to seriously talk about non
proliferation and peace in the Middle East.
Not only the environmental and health concerns of
Israelis are at stake but it appears that Israel
has offensively and without conscience been making
use of the land it occupies in order to dump tons
of nuclear waste. The World Health Organization
(WHO) recently condemned Israel for its ongoing
dumping of nuclear waste in the Occupied Territories.
Israel was defined as an occupying power and the
Palestinian Minister of Health, Dr. Thohni Al Wuheidi
accused Israeli authorities of recently burying
nuclear waste and polluting valuable water resources
in Nablus, Hebron and Gaza . Electronic Intifada
did an in depth report by Issa Samandar in which
he sites specific levels of harmful and lethal levels
of radioactivity. He also cites the devastating
effects of such lethal dumping, dumping that continues
to go on at risk to present and future generations
but also as one more further outrage for the Palestinian
people to endure
The uranium level in El-Khalil valley reaches 237
becquerel (bcq) per kilogram3, which equals about
10 times the permitted concentration, which is 25
bcq. The Thorium 232 (Th) level reaches 152 bcq
where the permitted concentration level is also
25 bcq. The readings on Cesium 137 (Cs), another
radio-active isotope that only emerges from nuclear
explosions or nuclear activities is equivalently
high.
The
permitted concentration is zero, but in 5 villages
South of El-Khalil, its concentration ranges from
12.4 bcq up to 30.2 bcq. The list of radio-active
isotope readings is from the same range causing
serious damages to the health of the villagers in
the area.
From
El Dahriyè village, already 452 cases have
been reported having contagious and lethal bacteria.
Seventy from these 452 cases have cancer.4 Regarding
the cancer cases alone, in the same time frame,
there has been an increase of 10% in cancer cases.
Additionally,
for the past four months there has been a 300% increase
of birth defects. Infertility rates, spontaneous
abortions, hair loss without indication are becoming
commonly prevalent. The list of reported illnesses
continues, but up till now have not been reported
as it should be.
Michael
Shappira5, an Israeli physician confirmed that the
information concerning the alarming and abnormal
increase in the prevalence of leukaemia in Yatta,
a village in the area is correct. The physician
did not exclude that this phenomenon is related
to the Israeli nuclear hazardous chemical waste
that is being dumped in that area.
The
same physician said that the prevalence of leukaemia
in the area means probably that there is dangerous
pollution in the water resources. The State of Israel
is putting a lot of pressure on its resources to
keep these issues secret. for the sake of the security
of the state of Israel. This is however not a state
issue, but clearly a global issue.
While Israel hesitates in its obligation towards
its own citizens re: nuclear weapons and reactors
it is enacting a further violence, even war crime
against the present and future generations of Palestinians
who live in the areas where "ambiguous"
nuclear waste has been continually dumped and/or
buried. And although Israeli newspapers carried
this story it was not seen on the pages of United
States mainstream news media or given emphasis on
the television networks. Once again the American
public must look outside its "free" press
for accurate reportage.
Still more odd though ambiguous, the United States
and Israel both have had available solutions to
nuclear waste problems for the last couple of years.
A fairly new (2002) Israeli Company called Environmental
Energy Resources has developed a method by which
to change nuclear waste into a variety of useful
by products such as electricity. While there is
a contract to clean up Chernobyl, there is no hurry
to take responsibility for conditions in Hebron
or Nablus. Since I last wrote about this company
in Nuclear Solutions Lost In Ambiguity in 2004,
it is interesting to note that although many of
the original investors were South Korean and Japanese,
ambiguous foreign investors from Russia are reportedly
interested in a $100 million dollar deal to buy
out this company.
And on the home front, in the United States, the
late Dr Paul Brown's company, Nuclear Solutions
not only had an edge on a remediation process but
also before the war in Iraq had portable means by
which to detect nuclear weapons. Unfortunately,
the company, while still owned by the late Dr. Brown,
was targeted by more than one ambiguous scandal
including Los Alamos Labs and the use of FBI computers
in order to blackmail and discredit Dr Brown and
down sell his company's stock. Before his untimely
demise, Dr Brown lent all of his scientific genius
towards positive solutions for nuclear waste material.
Since Dr Brown's death via car accident, the company
has rallied under the tutelege of a former naval
commander with a 21 year old career with Bechtel
and expertise in nuclear engineering. There will
be alot of money to be made in nuclear weapons detection.
Unfortunately, there is little time left for ambiguities
about peaceful political and environmental solutions
.
On May 1 2003 President Bush made his historic speech
aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
O it reads well enough for some history books, probably
in the same kind of volume that still perpetuates
the glory of Custer's Last Stand or denies evolution
theories. However there is still this daunting rising
statistic of American lives and Iraqi civilian lives
that continue to be lost in one of the most ambiguous
of liberations for which "democratic principles"
can make no further excuse except by ineptitude
of this country's ambiguous leadership priorities
that hurl us closer and closer towards nuclear doom
and disaster.
Mary La Rosa is an artist and librarian who beats
a drum for peace and who, like the Shinfujin women,
wishes to "leave our children a better world".
With
sincere appreciation and thanks to Fred
Askew, for allowing to use his superb
slide show of the May Day March
