The Washington Post reported on Friday May 22 that US officials are discussing the possibility of resuming explosive nuclear testing for the first time in 28 years.
The following day (May 23), nuclear abolition campaigners from around the world met online for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons and unanimously adopted a statement condemning the consideration of such a provocative and regressive move by the United States, and opposing any nuclear tests worldwide.
“Testing of nuclear weapons evokes nuclear apocalypse, as in the days of US-Soviet brinksmanship. It must not be resumed," said John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and one of the statement’s drafters. "At the same time, we must recognize that the capabilities for apocalypse remain in place, and are being maintained and improved in the absence of nuclear explosive testing. This too must be brought to an end.”
“Renewed nuclear testing initiated by the US would enable India, Pakistan and North Korea to test and develop ‘H-bomb’ thermonuclear warheads, which the existing moratorium on testing has prevented them from deploying," said Daniel Ellsberg, former US nuclear war planner, famed whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers and co-drafter of the Abolition 2000 statement on nuclear testing.
"They could then join the US and Russia in threatening the world with the capability to cause nuclear winter, global famine, and near-extinction of humanity. Obviously, no nation on earth should possess this power. Rather than inviting its spread, the US and Russia should neither maintain nor ‘modernize’ but dismantle their own Doomsday Machines," said Mr Ellsberg.
“25 years ago, we launched the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons with an 11-point statement which includes a call to abolish all forms of nuclear testing," said Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation, and a founding mother of Abolition 2000.
"For more than a quarter of a century the moratorium on full-scale explosive nuclear testing has been largely adhered to. US resumption of such tests at this time would rock the foundations of an increasingly fragile world order and would set back efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons by decades. It must not be allowed," said Ms Cabasso.
Nuclear abolition in a Post COVID-19 World
Participants at the Abolition 2000 AGM also discussed nuclear weapons policies and disarmament strategies in the new COVID-19 environment and a post COVID-19 world. This was stimulated by insightful video presentations from leading thinkers and campaigners in the field, including:
- Oleg Bodrov (Russian Federation), Public Council of the South Coast of the Gulf of Finland
- Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), World Future Council and former President of the UN General Assembly
- Tarja Cronberg (Finland), SIPRI European Security Programme
- Kate Hudson (United Kingdom), Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- Andrew Lichterman (United States), Western States Legal Foundation
- Vanda Proskova (Czech Republic), Abolition 2000 Youth Network and Move the Nuclear Weapons Money
- Suvrat Raju (India), Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.
- Elder Kathy Sanchez (United States), Environmental Health & Justice and Sayain Circle of Grandmothers Coordinator.