Nuclear Age Peace Foundation /& Nukewatch – 2004-08-10 10:11:04
1000 Cranes: Sadako Peace Day 2004
David Krieger / Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
WISCONSIN (August 6, 2004) — This has been a very soulful commemoration of this 59th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. We have heard beautiful and haunting music, poetry and reflections as well as the sweet sounds of small birds in the oak trees that surround us and provide a canopy above us.
This garden, Sadako Peace Garden, was created nine years ago and dedicated on the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1995, and each year since we have met in this garden on August 6th to commemorate this important anniversary. This garden is dedicated to all who work for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.
As we reflect today, I believe that two critical questions of our time deserve our attention: What have we learned from Hiroshima that will help us prevent future Hiroshimas? And, what are we willing to do about what we have learned?
If we have learned nothing from Hiroshima, as it sometimes seems, we are destined to have a tragic future. But even if we have learned that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated, we still face a tragic future if we are not willing to act upon this understanding. It seems to me certain that in the Nuclear Age, ignorance and apathy will be our undoing. We cannot allow them to become the accomplices of nuclear weapons.
That is why education about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and advocacy for eliminating nuclear weapons are so critical to our common future, and why organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation are so important to building a more secure future.
I want to share with you a poem that I received today by a poet in Tucson, Arizona, Karma Tenzing Wangchuk:
Hiroshima Day –
in my heart, I release
a thousand cranes
I hope that today we can all release a thousand cranes in our hearts and in our world. We are powerful beyond our imaginations, and the power of a thousand cranes released in many human hearts can change our world.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. www.wagingpeace.org
US Protesters Arrested for Remembering Hiroshima
Nukewatch
CLAM LAKE, Wisconsin, (August 8, 2004) -– About 100 anti-nuclear activists from the U.S., England and New Zealand, commemorating the 1945 US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, gathered at the Navy’s extremely low frequency submarine transmitter, and 11 were arrested for trespassing on the site.
About 100 people gathered at the remote antenna grid, south of Clam Lake, in the Chequamegon National Forest which sends secret messages to missile-firing Trident and Fast Attack submarines. During the demonstration, two dozen people conducted a “die in” representing the 135,000 men, women and children who were killed instantly by the August 6 attack on Hiroshima, and the additional 70,000 who died in Nagasaki three days later.
The bombings ushered in the 58-year-old nuclear age, recently punctuated by the US government’s unprovoked war on Iraq based on an alleged potential future threat posed by what President Bush called “weapons related programs.”
The eleven who were ticketed for trespassing walked under an unlocked gate and into the compound. The “Project ELF” transmitter system has been dubbed a “relic of the Cold War” by US Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI).
Eight of those ticketed were from the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams, a human rights group that sends teams of volunteers and observers into trouble spots around the world and which was one of the first groups to call attention to torture of prisoners in Iraq.
Two women were taken into custody by Ashland County Sheriffs’ Deputies for outstanding ELF trespass fines they had refused to pay. Bonnie Urfer of Luck, and Gail Vaughn of LaCrosse, were booked into the jail but released Sunday after their fines were anonymously paid.
The eleven included: Suzanna Collerd, 22, River Forest, Ill; Tom Fox, 53, Springfield, Virginia; Christina Gibb, 75, Dunedin, New Zealand; John Lynes, 76, Hastings, England; Michele Naar-Obed, 49, Duluth, Minn.; Michael T. Smith, 57, Gibson City, Ill; Scott Smith, 26, Tillamook, Oregon; Bonnie Urfer, 52, Luck, Wisc.; Gail Vaughn, 51, LaCrosse, Wisc.; Michael Walli, 55, Duluth, Minn.; Annaliese Watson, 28, Tillamook, Oregon.
The trespass charge carries a maximum penalty of 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine. The 11 were ordered to appear in Federal court in Madison, Oct.12 for arraignment on the petty offence.
Nukewatch, PO Box 649, Luck, WI 54853. Phone 715-472-4185. Fax 715-472-4184. www.nukewatch.com
