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From: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com (abolition-usa-digest) To: abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: abolition-usa-digest V1 #7 Reply-To: abolition-usa-digest Sender: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk abolition-usa-digest Monday, August 3 1998 Volume 01 : Number 007 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:41:10 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) Political Websites <paraindent><param>left</param>This may be of interest. Washington Times is a conservative newspaper. Do you know of any other political websites to add to this list? et in dc <<prop1@prop1.org> </paraindent>------------------------------------------------- Links to Political Web Sites | Political Parties July 31, 1998, Washington Times Democratic National Committee (http://www.democrats.org) Republican National Committee (http://www.rnc.org) Reform Party News (http://www.reformparty.org) Libertarian Party (http://www.lp.org) U.S. Taxpayers Party (http://www.ustaxpayers.org) Political Resources: FEC Records (http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/) TechnoPolitics (http://www.technopolitics.com) Conservative Caucus (http://www.conservativeusa.org) _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 09:06:39 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 7/31/98: Classified Documents on Nukes (Washington Times) http://www.washtimes.com/investiga/investiga2.html CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS ON NUKES SEEN AT RISK By Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 31, 1998 Government officials scrambling to meet the Clinton administration's deadline for the bulk release of classified documents have inadvertently disclosed nuclear weapons data that could help terrorists or foreign states, according to papers obtained by The Washington Times. Energy Department surveys, conducted earlier this year of defense documents scheduled for automatic public release in 2000 without individual review, found at least 11 instances in which highly sensitive nuclear weapons information was misfiled or declassified improperly. The compromised data included a State Department document identifying the locations of overseas nuclear weapons storage facilities -- information that was mistakenly declassified and posted on the Internet before being withdrawn. Also revealed were improperly declassified Marine Corps documents that contained secret information about nuclear weapons yields. A U.S. official said Japanese authorities were able to copy the documents, which were stored improperly in an open area. The Energy Department determined that in both cases, the risk to U.S. national security was "serious," according to one department document. Other instances of improperly filed or stored nuclear weapons data include: Navy blueprints showing the exact firing sequence of a nuclear weapon. A Navy document showing nuclear weapons fuel capsules. An Army paper detailing a gun-assembled nuclear weapon. An improperly declassified presidential library document showing British yield-to-weight ratios for nuclear weapons. An Air Force document containing nuclear weapon design information and another one on Soviet nuclear weapons information. The Energy surveys of samples of classified material in 1995 and this year prompted the Pentagon to send a memorandum last month warning its officials about the problem of nuclear weapons data being mixed with documents set for bulk declassification. President Clinton signed an executive order in 1995 calling for the automatic declassification of all records 25 years or older. Over a billion secret documents from all U.S. government agencies are being sent to the National Archives and Research Administration, which will then release the material en masse before the order's deadline of April 2000. But some of the information has been released before the deadline. The presidential order does not authorize the release of "restricted data" or "formerly restricted data" (RD/FRD), the terms used for information related to the most sensitive nuclear weapons information, which is kept secret under the Atomic Energy Act. The problem for many agencies, however, is that nuclear weapons data is mixed with other 25-year-old national security documents set for release without individual review. A July 24 letter from the Department of Energy to the White House budget office states that "highly sensitive RD/FRD has been found embedded in documents in file series subject to declassification and released to the public under Executive Order 12958" -- the 1995 presidential order. "Obviously, the intent of the executive order was not to compromise our most sensitive nuclear secrets," Kenneth E. Baker, the Energy Department's director of nonproliferation, stated in the letter. "It is equally clear that this problem poses a great national security risk." Mr. Baker said the nuclear weapons data is of great interest to foreign governments, including "the intelligence agencies of proliferant countries." "Some of the compromised information found in these file series involved design information of special value to proliferants seeking to weaponize their nuclear devices, including India and Pakistan," Mr. Baker said. "The last thing the U.S. government should do is make it easier for nuclear weapons protagonists to have access to information to design their delivery systems and nuclear weapons in order to attack each other." Efforts by Energy Department security officials to deal with the problem have been ignored by senior administration officials, including former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and former White House National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, according to DOE documents. Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, added an amendment to the fiscal 1999 defense authorization bill, now in conference, that would require all 25-year-old documents set for release to be reviewed first visually to determine whether they contain nuclear weapons data. The White House is opposing the amendment because it will cost more to review the data. Mr. Kyl wrote to White House National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger on Tuesday warning about the improper release of the nuclear weapons data. The letter was co-signed by Republican Sens. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama and Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire. "We are quite concerned to learn that these sensitive documents may have been released to the public or are in danger of such release," the two said. The senators said that "in a frenzied attempt" to meet the 2000 deadline "officials are not taking proper care" to prevent the release of nuclear weapons data. Linton Wells, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, wrote June 16 that the problem "could cause serious damage to national security." "Detailed classified nuclear weapons information was found to be contained in documents which are mixed in with national security information documents," he said. Bryan Seibert, head of the Energy Department declassification office, declined to comment on the specific cases of compromised data. But he said that the department is aware of the problem is working on ways to solve it. _ Foundation. _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 09:44:14 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) News: US helped South Africa with chem-bio weapons 07/31/98- Updated 08:22 AM ET USA Today S. Africa bio-war chief says U.S. helped CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The mastermind behind a secret chemical and biological warfare program said Friday that Western countries, including the United States, swapped sensitive military information with apartheid South Africa. Dr. Wouter Basson, whose scientists made poisons for government assassins and researched a bacteria to kill only black people, told a commission investigating apartheid-era abuses that Western governments gave him helpful information as he sought to set up the program in the early 1980s. Basson gave no details of what secrets were passed, but he described attending a 1981 conference in San Antonio, Texas, with army officers from the United States, West Germany, Japan, Britain and Canada. Hanif Vally, a lawyer for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, asked Basson if during the conference U.S. officials had told him about their own chemical and biological warfare programs in an "incredible amount of detail." "That is correct," replied Basson. During the Cold War, Western government officials and army officers were especially open because they wanted details on the chemical warfare capability of Soviet-backed countries neighboring South Africa, Basson said. "That was why I had good access to senior government officials and people at that time," he said. With the Truth Commission's mandate expiring Friday, Basson's testimony came at the last possible moment and follows two days of legal wrangling as his lawyers aimed to delay proceedings beyond the deadline. Earlier today, Basson's lawyer asked that the hearings be held behind closed doors, citing fears Basson's testimony could prejudice his upcoming trial on charges ranging from drug possession to conspiracy to murder. However, Dumisa Ntsebeza, head of the commission's investigative unit, refused the request, saying questioning would continue in public until specific incidents of prejudice arose. At the original hearings in June, scientists working for Basson described plotting to poison President Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner of the white-run state, and hoarding enough supplies of deadly anthrax and cholera to cause epidemics. The news shocked a nation accustomed to the Truth Commission's findings and created headlines around the world. However, until today, Basson had avoided answering specific questions about his role as head of the program Set up a year after 1994 all-race elections ended apartheid, the Truth Commission is charged with uncovering the facts about atrocities committed by all sides in the fight against white rule. By The Associated Press _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 12:09:49 -0500 From: "Tom Clements" <Tom.Clements@wdc.greenpeace.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) US chemical weapons & Panama FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION Chemical Weapons Working Group * Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund * Greenpeace International * Panamanian Center for Research and Social Action * Center for Latin American Studies CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION VIOLATION BY UNITED STATES IN PANAMA REVEALED IN NEW REPORT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 31, 1998 Washington/San Francisco -- A new report, Test Tube Republic: Chemical Weapons Tests in Panama and U.S. Responsibility, contains startling revelations about the long history of U.S. chemical weapons testing in Panama, including tests with human subjects. The report reveals that the United States is violating the Chemical Weapons Convention, an agreement it ratified in April 1997. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, and the Chemical Weapons Working Group are holding a press conference in San Francisco today to release the report. Copies of the full report are also available in Washington, DC, from Greenpeace International, a participant in the report's preparation. Based on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and the National Archives, and interviews with military officers and chemical weapons experts, the report describes the U.S. military's storage, testing and disposal of chemical and biological weapons in Panama, as well as current U.S. obligations to cooperate on reporting and clean-up. The United States maintained an active chemical weapons program in Panama for over 40 years, focusing on canal defense from the 1920s to 1946, and on munitions testing under tropical condions from 1943 to 1968. Some 130 tests were conducted on San Jose Island in Panama from 1944 to 1947 with chemical agents including mustard gas and phosgene. One of the tests sought "to determine if any differenc existed in the sensitivity of Puerto Rican and Continental U.S. troops to H [mustard] gas." On San Jose Island, hazards from unexploded chemical rounds still remained thirty years after being left there. In 1974, a workman for the island's owner was burned and requested help from the U.S. military. From 1953 to 1957, the United States conducted tests of mustard gas in Panama which included the detonation of chemical mines. The U.S. Army Tropic Test Center from 1964 to 1968 also conducted at least four "surveillance" tests in Panama with live nerve agent-filled warheads (VX gas mines, rockets, and projectiles, and sarin rockets), which included the detonation of live VX mines, th report found. "Since ten milligrams of VX agent constitutes a lethal dose, each VX mine theoretically had enough nerve agent for nearly half a million lethal doses," it added. Despite bilateral and international obligations, the United States has so far largely failed to report to Panama on its use of chemical weapons on land which will soon return to Panamanian ntrol, hindering the land's development and endangering the health of future inhabitants. The CWC requires member states that have abandoned chemical weapons on other nation states' territories to eclare those weapons within thirty days of their ratification of the Convention. "At contaminated chemical weapons sites in the Unites States, the U.S. government has been prepared to clean up those sites," said John Lindsay-Poland, author of the FOR report. "Clean up is not techically impossible and the U.S. should make sure that chemical weapon test sites in Panama are cleaned up." The United States' declaration to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, established by the CWC, in May 1997 asserted it had not abandoned chemical weapons in other countries. "In light of the apparent abandonment of chemical weapons in Panama, this is a clear violation of the Convention," according to the report. The Panamanian legislature's ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention on July 7 will invoke new obligations for the United States. "Test Tube Republic" was released Monday night, July 20, in Panama by the Center for Latin American Studies, the Panamanian Center for Research and Social Action, and the FOR. A representative of the FOR, John Lindsay-Poland, met with Panama's Foreign Minister on Tuesday to discuss the report's contents and implication ## CONTACT: John Lindsay-Poland, Fellowship of Reconciliation, San Francisco, 415-495-6334 For copies of the report in Washington, contact Tom Clements, Greenpeace International, 202-319-2426 Copies of the full report can be found on the web at: http://www.nonviolence.org/for/panama Tom Clements Nuclear Campaign Greenpeace International 1436 U Street, NW Washington, DC 20009 tel 1-202-319-2426 fax 1-202-462-4507 e-mail: tom.clements@wdc.greenpeace.org - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 07:26:48 -0500 (CDT) From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com (Robert Smirnow) Subject: (abolition-usa) Fwd: [DOEWatch] Insights into the RF Lowry Landfill leaking - ---- From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> To: nukenet@envirolink.org Subject: [DOEWatch] Insights into the RF Lowry Landfill leaking I usually don't send anything other than Ward Valley info to this list but this information really needs to get out there!! From: swv1@ctaz.com (Save Ward Valley) Subj: ROCKY FLATS PLUTONIUM IN YOUR FOOD? Think I'm kidding? The EPA and major corporate and government polluters at a huge Colorado Superfund site, the Lowry Landfill, have cooked up a scheme to pipe Superfund waste into the public sewer lines, whereupon it would be mixed with the Denver metro area's municipal and industrial sludge and other Superfund site wastes, and called "biosolids". From there, it will be hauled by truck east on Interstate 70 to the tiny rural farming community of Deer Trail, where it will be spread as "fertilizer" on agricultural land owned by the sewage district. Wheat and other crops for human consumption are grown here, sold to Cargill food conglomerate and ground into flour to make "specialty baked goods" and other products for sale throughout the US and presumedly abroad. What have we learned, digging through state and federal files? The Lowry Landfill is saturated with PLUTONIUM, AMERICIUM, CESIUM, CERIUM and other radionuclides, in solution with liquid hazardous wastes including scores of solvents, pesticides, dioxin, etc. ROCKY FLATS USED THE LAND NOW KNOWN AS THE LOWRY LANDFILL TO DUMP ITS WASTE IN THE 60's and 70's ECORDS>SHOW, BUT THE EPA HAS TRIED TO DENY THIS AND COVER IT UP. The plutonium has contaminated groundwater down to 200 feet below the landfill and has been consistently found in the surface water, sediment, and soil throughout and around the site. EPA says it's "cosmic dust" from "outer space". if you'd like to read about our campaign to stop this madness, search the BOULDER WEEKLY for a series of articles (keywords "plutonium" or "sludge", and a recent Special Report by the Christian Science Monitor in their June 10th issue, online at: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/06/10/p1s5.htm As a member of the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District board of directors ("Metro"), I filed a whistleblower case under 4 major environmental laws on behalf of the sewage plant workers I had been appointed to represent (Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union), which is pending before the Department of Labor's Administrative Review Board. We need your support! Please e-mail us with any ideas, resources, notes of support, etc. Sincerely, Adrienne Anderson Save Ward Valley 107 F St. Needles, CA 92363 ph. 760/326-6267 fax 760/326-6268 http://www.shundahai.org/SWVAction.html http://earthrunner.com/savewardvalley http://www.ctaz.com/~swv1 http://banwaste.envirolink.org http://www.alphacdc.com/ien/wardvly4.html http://www.wildrockies.org/cmcr http://www.greenaction.org Mailing-List: list doewatch@onelist.com; contact http://www.onelist.com Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 00:10:35 EDT From: <Magnu96196@aol.com> From: andersa@spot.Colorado.EDU (Adrienne Anderson) _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 09:28:50 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 7/31/98: Classified Documents on Nukes (Washington Times) You are invited to respond to this story by Spokane Net: http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=073098&ID=s428170 Cold War finally ends for Hanford reactors Final production complex deactivated in 4-year project Associated Press - Spokane Net - July 30, 1998 RICHLAND, Wash. _ The last Cold War plutonium production reactor on the Hanford nuclear reservation has been deactivated, ending a four-year, $116 million project. Pieces of nuclear fuel, contaminated water and most of the equipment were removed from the N Reactor complex, and entrances to the contaminated areas and buildings were sealed. ``I'm glad to get it done,'' said Heather Trumble, the Department of Energy's N Basin project manager. The reactor, which operated from 1963 to 1987, is to eventually be ``cocooned'' -- where several dozen outlying buildings would be torn down and the reactor chamber sealed. Deactivation of the reactor's spent-fuel cooling basin was formally completed last week, but final work was finished Tuesday. The N Reactor area contains slightly more than 100 buildings. About nine have been demolished, and 83 have been cleaned out and closed, said Paul Pak, DOE senior project manager for the N Reactor area project. The few remaining buildings will hold tools and equipment for other river area projects. The biggest headache was the N Basin, which is a few hundred yards from the Columbia River and is similar to Hanford's infamous K Basins. The N Basin's two connected pools are 24 feet deep and held 1 million gallons of contaminated water. The pools held about 350 pounds of chips and pieces of spent nuclear fuel. The work was complicated because of the basin's bottom design and murky water that made it difficult to see what was under water, said Phil Staats, the state Department of Ecology project manager. The problem was fixed in May 1997 when the proper filters were installed. The N Reactor is last in line among Hanford's reactors to be cocooned, although no schedule has been set, said Tom Logan, N Area project manager for Bechtel Hanford Inc., the project contractor. What are your thoughts on Cold War finally ends for Hanford reactors? If you have a comment or reply to this story that you'd like to share, fill in the form and click submit. Note: Replies are limited to 250 words and must be signed with a valid email address. No profanity or libelous statements will be printed. http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=073098&ID=s428170 _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 09:31:09 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 7/30/98: Cold War finally ends for Hanford reactors You are invited to respond to this story by Spokane Net at the website below: http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=073098&ID=s428170 Cold War finally ends for Hanford reactors Final production complex deactivated in 4-year project Associated Press - Spokane Net - July 30, 1998 RICHLAND, Wash. _ The last Cold War plutonium production reactor on the Hanford nuclear reservation has been deactivated, ending a four-year, $116 million project. Pieces of nuclear fuel, contaminated water and most of the equipment were removed from the N Reactor complex, and entrances to the contaminated areas and buildings were sealed. ``I'm glad to get it done,'' said Heather Trumble, the Department of Energy's N Basin project manager. The reactor, which operated from 1963 to 1987, is to eventually be ``cocooned'' -- where several dozen outlying buildings would be torn down and the reactor chamber sealed. Deactivation of the reactor's spent-fuel cooling basin was formally completed last week, but final work was finished Tuesday. The N Reactor area contains slightly more than 100 buildings. About nine have been demolished, and 83 have been cleaned out and closed, said Paul Pak, DOE senior project manager for the N Reactor area project. The few remaining buildings will hold tools and equipment for other river area projects. The biggest headache was the N Basin, which is a few hundred yards from the Columbia River and is similar to Hanford's infamous K Basins. The N Basin's two connected pools are 24 feet deep and held 1 million gallons of contaminated water. The pools held about 350 pounds of chips and pieces of spent nuclear fuel. The work was complicated because of the basin's bottom design and murky water that made it difficult to see what was under water, said Phil Staats, the state Department of Ecology project manager. The problem was fixed in May 1997 when the proper filters were installed. The N Reactor is last in line among Hanford's reactors to be cocooned, although no schedule has been set, said Tom Logan, N Area project manager for Bechtel Hanford Inc., the project contractor. What are your thoughts on Cold War finally ends for Hanford reactors? If you have a comment or reply to this story that you'd like to share, fill in the form and click submit. Note: Replies are limited to 250 words and must be signed with a valid email address. No profanity or libelous statements will be printed. http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=073098&ID=s428170 _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 09:37:30 -0400 From: Peace through Reason <prop1@prop1.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 7/30/98: Savannah River plutonium plant: opinions invited The following was published in the Savannah Morning News, applauding the plutonium plant at the Savannah River site. They invite you to respond (see end of the article). http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/smn/stories/073198/OPEDone.html Nuclear plowshares THE ENERGY Department's decision to build a $500-million plutonium conversion plant at the Savannah River Site about 100 miles upriver from Savannah is a major boost to the surrounding economy and to the future of the former nuclear weapons plant. It means that the sprawling 300-square-mile facility will carry on peacetime nuclear work, including cleanup and storage of radioactive debris, for at least another 30 years. The latest activity to be located at SRS will convert weapons-grade plutonium taken from nuclear warheads into a powdery, mixed-oxide fuel usable in commercial nuclear reactors. SRS won out over federal nuclear plants in Texas, Idaho and Washington state. The project, which will create 500 new jobs, will cost between $1.8 billion and $2.3 billion over 25 years, much of it for building and operating the conversion plant. The plant is expected to produce its first MOX fuel sometime in 2007. It has not yet been decided where the plutonium will be separated from warheads, but it will either be at SRS or at the Pantex complex near Amarillo, Texas. So far, the odds seem to favor SRS. Energy Department estimates show that building the separation plant at SRS would cost $920 million compared with $980 million to build it at Pantex. The Pantex plant has been dismantling nuclear warheads for several years at the rate of some 2,000 per year. The Energy Department announced last year it would pursue a "dual strategy" for disposal of about 50 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium left over from years of warhead production and stockpiling during the Cold War. About 8 tons of the highly radioactive plutonium will be encased in glass -- so-called vitrification. That work has been going on in a new plant at SRS for more than a year. The glass cylinders will eventually be stored in a permanent underground facility, probably inside Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. But the rest of the weapons plutonium will be converted to MOX and used as fuel in commercial reactors. Low-level nuclear waste is slated for permanent storage inside a subterranean salt dome in New Mexico. When it opens, it will spell the end for storage at Barnwell, S.C., and other "temporary" sites across the nation. Georgians and South Carolinians have lived with nuclear weapons production at the Savannah River Site for more than 50 years. All the early safety rules were experimental, posing both real and theoretical dangers to the general public. Yet there were no tragedies. As the conversion of nuclear weapons to peaceful purposes and the permanent storage of nuclear waste begins, Georgians and South Carolinians should be proud of their role in enduring diminished safety during the Cold War for the greater good of free world security. And now that the Cold War is over, the Energy Department must respect today's concerns related to SRS, particularly in regard to the quality of the water in the Savannah River. In the future, that river may be increasingly used to supply drinking water near the coast. While beating nukes into plowshares represents progress, it must not compromise safety. Web posted Friday, July 31, 1998 Do you have a story idea or would you like to comment on a story? Opinions/Editorials: Tom Barton, Editorial Page Editor <tbarton@premierweb.net> http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/special/staff/savannahstaff.html _______________________________________________________________________ * Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! * _______________________________________________________________________ - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 22:34:08 -0400 From: Peter Weiss <petweiss@igc.org> Subject: (abolition-usa) [Fwd: A wonderful, moving essay by Arundhati Roy] This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------8ABA921E28FC31099200ED46 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Definitely worth reading. Peter - --------------8ABA921E28FC31099200ED46 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: <fdove@worldcom.nl> Received: from worldcom.nl (worldcom.nl [194.109.12.147]) by igcb.igc.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA12775; Mon, 3 Aug 1998 00:43:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from director (Director [172.16.1.16]) by worldcom.nl (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id JAA18536; Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:47:41 +0200 Resent-Message-Id: <199808030747.JAA18536@worldcom.nl> Comments: Authenticated sender is <fdove@worldcom.nl> Resent-from: "Fiona Dove" <fdove@worldcom.nl> Resent-to: achin@unv.ernet.in, pbidwai@unv.ernet.in, petweiss@igc.apc.org, srfnyusa@igc.apc.org, ialana@antenna.nl Resent-date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:46:39 +0000 Received: from igcb.igc.org (igcb.igc.apc.org [192.82.108.46]) by worldcom.nl (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA07618 for <fdove@worldcom.nl>; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 23:58:11 +0200 Received: from igce.igc.org (igce.igc.org [192.82.108.49]) by igcb.igc.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA19141; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 14:09:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pppe-37.igc.org (stree@pppe-37.igc.org) by igce.igc.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA28347; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 14:02:49 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 14:02:49 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980801170337.58e75faa@pop.igc.org> X-Sender: stree@pop.igc.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (16) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" To: fdove@worldcom.nl, ipsps@igc.org, PBENNIS@compuserve.com, tallen@igc.org From: Sanho Tree <stree@igc.apc.org> Subject: A wonderful, moving essay by Arundhati Roy X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by worldcom.nl id XAA07618 Old-Status: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by igcb.igc.org id AAA12775 Saturday August 1, 1998 The Guardian (UK)=20 The end of imagination=20 Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm last year with her first novel, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize. In her first piece of writing since then, she expresses her horror at the nuclear arms race in her native India=20 "The desert shook," the Government of India informed us (its people). "The whole mountain turned white," the Government of Pakistan replied. By afternoon the wind had fallen silent over Pokhran. At 3.45pm, the time= r detonated the three devices. Around 200 to 300m deep in the earth, the he= at generated was equivalent to a million degrees centigrade - as hot as temperatures on the sun. Instantly, rocks weighing around a thousand tons= , a mini mountain underground, vapourised=85 shockwaves from the blast began = to lift a mound of earth the size of a football field by several metres. One scientist on seeing it said, "I can now believe stories of Lord Krishna lifting a hill." India Today May 1998. It'll go down in history books, provided of course we have hist= ory books to go down in. Provided, of course, we have a future. There's nothing new or original left to be said about nuclear weapons. Th= ere can be nothing more humiliating for a writer of fiction to have to do tha= n restate a case that has, over the years, already been made by other peopl= e in other parts of the world, and made passionately, eloquently and knowledgeably. I am prepared to grovel. To humiliate myself abjectly, because, in the circumstances, silence would be indefensible. So those of you who are willing: let's pick our parts, put on these discarded costumes and speak = our second-hand lines in this sad second-hand play. But let's not forget that the stakes we're playing for are huge. Our fatigue and our shame could me= an the end of us. The end of our children and our children's children. Of everything we love. We have to reach within ourselves and find the streng= th to think. To fight. Once again we are pitifully behind the times - not just scientifically an= d technologically (ignore the hollow claims) but more pertinently in our ability to grasp the true nature of nuclear weapons. Our Comprehension of the Horror Department is hopelessly obsolete. Here we are, all of us in India and in Pakistan, discussing the finer points of politics and foreig= n policy, behaving for all the world as though our governments have just devised a newer, bigger bomb, a sort of immense hand grenade with which t= hey will annihilate the enemy (each other) and protect us from all harm. How desperately we want to believe that. What wonderful, willing, well-behaved, gullible subjects we have turned out to be. The rest of humanity may not forgive us, but then the rest of the rest of humanity, depending on who fashions its views, may not know what a tired, dejected, heart-broken people we are. Perhaps it doesn't realise how urgently we ne= ed a miracle. How deeply we yearn for magic. If only, if only nuclear war was just another kind of war. If only it was about the usual things - nations and territories, gods and histories. If only those of us who dread it are worthless moral cowards who are not prepared to die in defence of our beliefs. If only nuclear war was the ki= nd of war in which countries battle countries, and men battle men. But it isn't. If there is a nuclear war, our foes will not be China or America o= r even each other. Our foe will be the earth herself. Our cities and forests, our fields and villages will burn for days. River= s will turn to poison. The air will become fire. The wind will spread the flames. When everything there is to burn has burned and the fires die, sm= oke will rise and shut out the sun. The earth will be enveloped in darkness. There will be no day - only interminable night. What shall we do then, those of us who are still alive? Burned and blind = and bald and ill, carrying the cancerous carcasses of our children in our arm= s, where shall we go? What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we breathe? The Head of the Health, Environment and Safety Group of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay has a plan. He declared that India could surviv= e nuclear war. His advice is that in the event of nuclear war we take the s= ame safety measures as the ones that scientists have recommended in the event= of accidents at nuclear plants. Take iodine pills, he suggests. And other steps such as remaining indoors= , consuming only stored water and food and avoiding milk. Infants should be given powdered milk. "People in the danger zone should immediately go to = the ground floor and if possible to the basement." What do you do with these levels of lunacy? What do you do if you're trap= ped in an asylum and the doctors are all dangerously deranged? Ignore it, it's just a novelist's naivet=E9, they'll tell you, Doomsday Prophet hyperbole. It'll never come to that. There will be no war. Nuclea= r weapons are about peace, not war. "Deterrence" is the buzz word of the people who like to think of themselves as hawks. (Nice birds, those. Cool. Stylish. Predatory. Pity there won't be many of them around after the war. Extinction is a word we must try to get used to.) Deterrence is an old thesis that has been resurrected and is being recycled with added local flavour. The Theory of Deterrence cornered the credit for having prevente= d the cold war from turning into a third world war. The only immutable fact about the third world war is that, if there's going to be one, it will be fought after the second world war. In other words, there's no fixed sched= ule. The Theory of Deterrence has some fundamental flaws. Flaw Number One is t= hat it presumes a complete, sophisticated understanding of the psychology of your enemy. It assumes that what deters you (the fear of annihilation) wi= ll deter them. What about those who are not deterred by that? The suicide bomber psyche - the "We'll take you with us" school - is that an outlandi= sh thought? How did Rajiv Gandhi die? In any case who's the "you" and who's the "enemy"? Both are only governments. Governments change. They wear masks within masks. They moult and re-invent themselves all the time. The one we have at the moment, for instance, does not even have enough seats to last a full term in office, = but demands that we trust it to do pirouettes and party tricks with nuclear bombs even as it scrabbles around for a foothold to maintain a simple majority in Parliament. Flaw Number Two is that deterrence is premised on fear. But fear is premi= sed on knowledge. On an understanding of the true extent and scale of the devastation that nuclear war will wreak. It is not some inherent, mystica= l attribute of nuclear bombs that they automatically inspire thoughts of peace. On the contrary, it is the endless, tireless, confrontational work= of people who have had the courage to openly denounce them, the marches, the demonstrations, the films, the outrage - that is what has averted, or perhaps only postponed, nuclear war. Deterrence will not and cannot work given the levels of ignorance and illiteracy that hang over our two countries like dense, impenetrable veils. India and Pakistan have nuclear bombs now and feel entirely justified in having them. Soon others will too. Israel, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Norw= ay, Nepal (I'm trying to be eclectic here), Denmark, Germany, Bhutan, Mexico, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Burma, Bosnia, Singapore, North Korea, Sweden, South Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan=85 and why not? Every count= ry in the world has a special case to make. Everybody has borders and beliefs. And when all our larders are bursting with shiny bombs and our bellies ar= e empty (deterrence is an exorbitant beast), we can trade bombs for food. A= nd when nuclear technology goes on the market, when it gets truly competitiv= e and prices fall, not just governments but anybody who can afford it can h= ave their own private arsenal - businessmen, terrorists, perhaps even the occasional rich writer (like me). Our planet will bristle with beautiful missiles. There will be a new world order. The dictatorship of the pro-nu= ke elite. But let us pause to give credit where it's due. Who must we thank for all this? The men who made it happen. The Masters of the Universe. Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America! Come on up here folks, stand up = and take a bow. Thank you for doing this to the world. Thank you for making a difference. Thank you for showing us the way. Thank you for altering the very meaning of life. >From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living. All I can say to every man, woman and sentient child in India, and over there, just a little way away in Pakistan, is: take it personally. Whoeve= r you are - Hindu, Muslim, urban, agrarian - it doesn't matter. The only go= od thing about nuclear war is that it is the single most egalitarian idea th= at man has ever had. On the day of reckoning, you will not be asked to prese= nt your credentials. The devastation will be indiscriminate. The bomb isn't = in your backyard. It's in your body. And mine. Nobody, no nation, no government, no man, no god has the right to put it there. We're radioacti= ve already, and the war hasn't even begun. So stand up and say something. Ne= ver mind if it's been said before. Speak up on your own behalf. Take it very personally. In early May (before the bomb), I left home for three weeks. I thought I would return. I had every intention of returning. Of course things haven'= t worked out quite the way I had planned. While I was away, I met a friend whom I have always loved for, among othe= r things, her ability to combine deep affection with a frankness that borde= rs on savagery. "I've been thinking about you," she said, "about The God of Small Things - what's in it, what's over it, under it, around it, above i= t=85" She fell silent for a while. I was uneasy and not at all sure that I want= ed to hear the rest of what she had to say. She, however, was sure that she = was going to say it. "In this last year - less than a year actually - you've = had too much of everything - fame, money, prizes, adulation, criticism, condemnation, ridicule, love, hate, anger, envy, generosity - everything.= In some ways it's a perfect story. Perfectly baroque in its excess. The trou= ble is that it has, or can have, only one perfect ending." Her eyes were on me, bright with a slanting, probing brilliance. She knew that I knew what she was going to say. She was insane. She was going to s= ay that nothing that happened to me in the future could ever match the buzz = of this. That the whole of the rest of my life was going to be vaguely unsatisfying. And, therefore, the only perfect ending to the story would = be death. My death. The thought had occurred to me too. Of course it had. The fact that all this, this global dazzle - these lights in my eyes, the applause, the flowers, the photographers, the journalists feigning a deep interest in m= y life (yet struggling to get a single fact straight), the men in suits fawning over me, the shiny hotel bathrooms with endless towels - none of = it was likely to happen again. Would I miss it? Had I grown to need it? Was = I a fame-junkie? Would I have withdrawal symptoms? The more I thought about it, the clearer it became to me that if fame was going to be my permanent condition it would kill me. Club me to death wit= h its good manners and hygiene. I'll admit that I've enjoyed my own five minutes of it immensely, but primarily because it was just five minutes. Because I knew (or thought I knew) that I could go home when I was bored = and giggle about it. Grow old and irresponsible. Eat mangoes in the moonlight. Maybe write a couple of failed books - worstsellers - to see what it felt like. For a whole year I've cartwheeled across the world, anchored always= to thoughts of home and the life I would go back to. Contrary to all the enquiries and predictions about my impending emigrati= on, that was the well I dipped into. That was my sustenance. My strength. I t= old my friend there was no such thing as a perfect story. I said that in any case hers was an external view of things, this assumption that the trajectory of a person's happiness, or let's say fulfilment, had peaked (= and now must trough) because she had accidentally stumbled upon "success". It was premised on the unimaginative belief that wealth and fame were the mandatory stuff of everybody's dreams. You've lived too long in New York, I told her. There are other worlds. Ot= her kinds of dreams. Dreams in which failure is feasible, honourable, sometim= es even worth striving for. Worlds in which recognition is not the only barometer of brilliance or human worth. There are plenty of warriors I kn= ow and love, people far more valuable than myself, who go to war each day, knowing in advance that they will fail. True, they are less "successful" = in the most vulgar sense of the word, but by no means less fulfilled. The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead. (Prescience? Perhaps.) "Which means exactly what?" (Arched eyebrows, a little annoyed.) I tried to explain, but didn't do a very good job of it. Sometimes I need= to write to think. So I wrote it down for her on a paper napkin. This is wha= t I wrote: To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of li= fe around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its la= ir. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget. I've known her for many years, this friend of mine. She's an architect to= o. She looked dubious, somewhat unconvinced by my paper napkin speech. I cou= ld tell that structurally, just in terms of the sleek, narrative symmetry of things, and because she loves me, her thrill at my "success" was so keen,= so generous, that it weighed in evenly with her (anticipated) horror at the idea of my death. I understood that it was nothing personal=85 Just a des= ign thing. Anyhow, two weeks after that conversation, I returned to India. To what I think/thought of as home. Something had died but it wasn't me. It was infinitely more precious. It was a world that has been ailing for a while= , and has finally breathed its last. It's been cremated now. The air is thi= ck with ugliness and there's the unmistakable stench of fascism on the breez= e. Day after day, in newspaper editorials, on the radio, on TV chat shows, o= n MTV for heaven's sake, people whose instincts one thought one could trust= - writers, painters, journalists - make the crossing. The chill seeps into = my bones as it becomes painfully apparent from the lessons of everyday life that what you read in history books is true. That fascism is indeed as mu= ch about people as about governments. That it begins at home. In drawing roo= ms. In bedrooms. In beds. "Explosion of self-esteem", "Road to Resurgence", "A Moment of Pride", th= ese were headlines in the papers in the days following the nuclear tests. "We have proved that we are not eunuchs any more," said Mr Thackeray of the S= hiv Sena (Whoever said we were? True, a good number of us are women, but that= , as far as I know, isn't the same thing.) Reading the papers, it was often hard to tell when people were referring to Viagra (which was competing fo= r second place on the front pages) and when they were talking about the bom= b - "We have superior strength and potency." (This was our Minister for Defen= ce after Pakistan completed its tests.) "These are not just nuclear tests, they are nationalism tests," we were repeatedly told. This has been hammered home, over and over again. The bomb is India. Indi= a is the bomb. Not just India, Hindu India. Therefore, be warned, any criticism of it is not just ant-national but anti-Hindu. (Of course in Pakistan the bomb is Islamic. Other than that, politically, the same phys= ics applies.) This is one of the unexpected perks of having a nuclear bomb. N= ot only can the government use it to threaten the Enemy, they can use it to declare war on their own people. Us. When I told my friends that I was writing this piece, they cautioned me. = "Go ahead," they said, "but first make sure you're not vulnerable. Make sure your papers are in order. Make sure your taxes are paid." My papers are in order. My taxes are paid. But how can one not be vulnera= ble in a climate like this? Everyone is vulnerable. Accidents happen. There's safety only in acquiescence. As I write, I am filled with foreboding. In this country, I have truly known what it means for a writer to feel loved (and, to some degree, hated too). Last year I was one of the items being paraded in the media's end-of-the-year National Pride Parade. Among the others, much to my mortification, were a bomb-maker and an international beauty queen. Each time a beaming person stopped me on the street and sai= d "You have made India proud" (referring to the prize I won, not the book I wrote), I felt a little uneasy. It frightened me then and it terrifies me now, because I know how easily that swell, that tide of emotion, can turn against me. Perhaps the time for that has come. I'm going to step out fro= m under the fairy lights and say what's on my mind. It's this: If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti-Hindu and anti-national, then I secede. I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic. I am a citizen of the earth. I own no territory. I have no flag. I'm female, but have nothing against eunuchs. = My policies are simple. I'm willing to sign any nuclear non-proliferation treaty or nuclear test ban treaty that's going. Immigrants are welcome. Y= ou can help me design our flag. My world has died. And I write to mourn its passing.=20 India's nuclear tests, the manner in which they were conducted, the eupho= ria with which they have been greeted (by us) is indefensible. To me, it signifies dreadful things. The end of imagination. On the 15th of August last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of India's independence. Next May we can mark our first anniversary in nucle= ar bondage. Why did they do it? Political expediency is the obvious, cynical answer, except that it only raises another, more basic question: Why should it ha= ve been politically expedient? The three Official Reasons given are: China, Pakistan and Exposing Western Hypocrisy. Taken at face value, and examined individually, they're somewhat baffling. I'm not for a moment suggesting that these are not real issues. Merely th= at they aren't new. The only new thing on the old horizon is the Indian government. In his appallingly cavalier letter to the US president our pr= ime minister says India's decision to go ahead with the nuclear tests was due= to a "deteriorating security environment". He goes on to mention the war wit= h China in 1962 and the "three aggressions we have suffered in the last 50 years [from Pakistan]. And for the last 10 years we have been the victim = of unremitting terrorism and militancy sponsored by it . . . especially in Jammu and Kashmir." The war with China is 35 years old. Unless there's some vital state secre= t that we don't know about, it certainly seemed as though matters had impro= ved slightly between us. The most recent war with Pakistan was fought 27 year= s ago. Admittedly Kashmir continues to be a deeply troubled region and no doubt Pakistan is gleefully fanning the flames. But surely there must be flames to fan in the first place? As for the third Official Reason: Exposing Western Hypocrisy - how much m= ore exposed can they be? Which decent human being on earth harbours any illusions about it? These are people whose histories are spongy with the blood of others. Colonialism, apartheid, slavery, ethnic cleansing, germ warfare, chemical weapons, they virtually invented it all. They have plundered nations, snuffed out civilisations, exterminated entire populations. They stand on the world's stage stark naked but entirely unembarrassed, because they know that they have more money, more food and bigger bombs than anybody else. They know they can wipe us out in the cou= rse of an ordinary working day. Personally, I'd say it is arrogance more than hypocrisy. We have less money, less food and smaller bombs. However, we have, or had= , all kinds of other wealth. Delightful, unquantifiable. What we've done wi= th it is the opposite of what we think we've done. We've pawned it all. We'v= e traded it in. For what? In order to enter into a contract with the very people we claim to despise. All in all, I think it is fair to say that we're the hypocrites. We're th= e ones who've abandoned what was arguably a moral position - ie. We have th= e technology, we can make bombs if we want to, but we won't. We don't belie= ve in them. We're the ones who have now set up this craven clamouring to be admitted into the club of superpowers. For India to demand the status of a superpo= wer is as ridiculous as demanding to play in the World Cup finals simply beca= use we have a ball. Never mind that we haven't qualified, or that we don't pl= ay much soccer and haven't got a team. We are a nation of nearly a billion people. In development terms we rank = No 138 out of the 175 countries listed in the UNDP's Human Development Index (even Ghana and Sri Lanka rank above us). More than 400 million of our people are illiterate and live in absolute poverty, more than 600 million lack even basic sanitation and more than 200 million have no safe drinkin= g water. The nuclear bomb and the demolition of the Barbi Masjid in Ayodhya are bo= th part of the same political process. They are hideous byproducts for a nation's search for herself. Of India's efforts to forge a national identity. The poorer the nation, the larger the numbers of illiterate peo= ple and the more morally bankrupt her leaders, the cruder and more dangerous = the notion of what that identity is or should be. The jeering, hooting young men who battered down the Babri Masjid are the same ones whose pictures appeared in the papers in the days that followed the nuclear tests. They were on the streets, celebrating India's nuclear bomb and simultaneously "condemning Western Culture" by emptying crates o= f Coke and Pepsi into public drains. I'm a little baffled by their logic: C= oke is Western Culture, but the nuclear bomb is an old Indian tradition? Yes, I've heard - the bomb is in the Vedas [ancient Hindu scriptures]. It might be, but if you look hard enough you'll find Coke in the Vedas too. That's the great thing about all religious texts. You can find anything y= ou want in them - as long as you know what you're looking for. But returning to the subject of the non-vedic 1990s: we storm the heart o= f whiteness, we embrace the most diabolical creation of western science and call it our own. But we protest against their music, their food, their clothes, their cinema and their literature. That's not hypocrisy. That's = humour. It's funny enough to make a skull smile. We're back on the old ship. The SS Authenticity & Indianness. If there is going to be a pro-authenticity/anti-national drive, perhaps t= he government ought to get its history straight and its facts right. If they= 're going to do it, they may as well do it properly. First of all, the original inhabitants of this land were not Hindu. Ancie= nt though it is, there were human beings on earth before there was Hinduism. India's tribal people have a greater claim to being indigenous to this la= nd than anybody else, and how are they treated by the state and its minions? Oppressed, cheated, robbed of their lands, shunted around like surplus goods. Perhaps a good place to start would be to restore to them the dign= ity that was once theirs. Perhaps the government could make a public undertak= ing that more dams of this kind will not be built, that more people will not = be displaced. But of course that would be inconceivable, wouldn't it? Why? Because it's impractical. Because tribal people don't really matter. Their histories, their customs, their deities are dispensable. They must learn to sacrific= e these things for the greater good of the Nation (that has snatched from t= hem everything they ever had). Okay, so that's out. For the rest, I could compile a practical list of things to ban and buildings to break. It'll need some research, but off the top of my head here are a few suggestions. They could begin by banning a number of ingredients from our cuisine: chillies (Mexico), tomatoes (Peru), potatoes (Bolivia), coffee (Morocco), tea, white sugar, cinnamon (China) . . . they could then move into recipe= s. Tea with milk and sugar, for instance (Britain). Smoking will be out of the question. Tobacco came from North America. Cricket, English and Democracy should be forbidden. Either kabaddi or kho-kho could replace cricket. I don't want to start a riot, so I hesitat= e to suggest a replacement for English. (Italian? It has found its way to u= s via a kinder route: marriage, not imperialism.) All hospitals in which western medicine is practised or prescribed should= be shut down. All national newspapers discontinued. The railways dismantled. Airports closed. And what about our newest toy - the mobile phone? Can we live without it, or shall I suggest that they make an exception there? Th= ey could put it down in the column marked "Universal"? (Only essential commodities will be included here. No music, art or literature.) Needless to say, sending your children to university in the US, and rushi= ng there yourself to have your prostate operated upon will be a cognisable o= ffence. It will be a long, long list. It would take years of work. I could not us= e a computer because that wouldn't be very authentic of me, would it? I don't mean to be facetious, merely to point out that this is surely the short cut to hell. There's no such thing as an Authentic India or a Real Indian. There is no Divine Committee that has the right to sanction one single, authorised version of what India is or should be. Railing against the past will not heal us. History has happened. It's ove= r and done with. All we can do is to change its course by encouraging what = we love instead of destroying what we don't. There is beauty yet in this brutal, damaged world of ours. Hidden, fierce, immense. Beauty that is uniquely ours and beauty that we have received with grace from others, enhanced, re-invented and made our own. We have to seek it out, nurture i= t, love it. Making bombs will only destroy us. It doesn't matter whether we = use them or not. They will destroy us either way. India's nuclear bomb is the final act of betrayal by a ruling class that = has failed its people. However many garlands we heap on our scientists, however many medals we p= in to their chests, the truth is that it's far easier to make a bomb than to educate four hundred million people. According to opinion polls, we're expected to believe that there's a national consensus on the issue. It's official now. Everybody loves the bomb. (Therefore the bomb is good.) Is it possible for a man who cannot write his own name to understand even the basic, elementary facts about the nature of nuclear weapons? Has anyb= ody told him that nuclear war has nothing at all to do with his received noti= ons of war? Nothing to do with honour, nothing to do with pride. Has anybody bothered to explain to him about thermal blasts, radioactive fallout and = the nuclear winter? Are there even words in his language to describe the concepts of enriched uranium, fissile material and critical mass? Or has = his language itself become obsolete? Is he trapped in a time capsule, watchin= g the world pass him by, unable to understand or communicate with it becaus= e his language never took into account the horrors that the human race woul= d dream up? Does he not matter at all, this man? I'm not talking about one man, of course, I'm talking about millions and millions of people who live in this country. This is their land too, you know. They have the right to make an informed decision about its fate and= , as far as I can tell, nobody has informed them about anything. The traged= y is that nobody could, even if they wanted to. Truly, literally, there's n= o language to do it in. This is the real horror of India. The orbits of the powerful and the powerless spinning further and further apart from each other, never intersecting, sharing nothing. Not a language. Not even a co= untry. Who the hell conducted those opinion polls? Who the hell is the prime minister to decide whose finger will be on the nuclear button that could turn everything we love - our earth, our skies, our mountains, our plains= , our rivers, our cities and villages - to ash in an instant? Who the hell = is he to reassure us that there will be no accidents? How does he know? Why should we trust him? What has he ever done to make us trust him? What hav= e any of them ever done to make us trust them? The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made. If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man's challenge to God. It's worded quite simp= ly: We have the power to destroy everything that You have created. If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon. This article was published in India, in Frontline and Outlook, last Mon= day =A9 Copyright Guardian Media Group plc.1998 =20 ******************************************************************* HOME: WORK: Sanho Tree Institute for Policy Studies 1801 16th St., NW, #505 733 15th St., NW, #1020 Washington, DC 20009-3363 Washington, DC 20005-2112 202/234-6854 (voice) 202/234-9382 ext. 266 (voice) 202/234-7952 (fax) 202/387-7915 (fax) stree@igc.apc.org www.ips-dc.org ******************************************************************* - --------------8ABA921E28FC31099200ED46-- - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. 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