Month: August 2018

Austria marches against Nuclear Weapons and signs the treaty!

Denis Doherty

In 2017, civil society achieved a special success. On July 7, 2017, 122 states decided on a legally binding nuclear weapons prohibition treaty and launched it on 20 September 2017 for signature at the UN in New York. Then the Foreign Minister Kurz signed this document for Austria.

Austrian diplomacy and numerous civil society organizations had a significant share in the conclusion of the contract. In May 2018 Austria was the fifth country to deposit the instrument of ratification of the agreement with the UN Secretary-General.

 

Now the signatory states have to move to early ratification. The contract comes into force after the deposit of fifty documents within the prescribed period. It is equally important to encourage all deny countries (for example, where nuclear weapons are stationed, all NATO countries, etc.) to join. Here all people are called to exercise about the messages, pressure on the non-signatories.

 

The initiators of the remembrance regret the US withdrawal from the Iran deal, although Iran has met the treaty meticulously in Vienna after repeated information from the Atomic Energy Agency IAEO. We hope for a successful dialogue between North and South Korea and the US for a nuclear-weapon-free Korean peninsula. Just as we demand more nuclear-weapon-free zones (Europe and the Middle East).

 

Those civil society organizations that supported the prohibition treaty (peace movement, IFOR, ICAN, IPPNW, Red Cross) are organizing a memorial service for the victims of the atomic bombings of Japan 1945 and the other victims of military and civilian application of nuclear technology at the Stephansplatz in Vienna on 6th August 2018. On the 9th of August

2018 a commemoration will take place at the Peace Pagoda in Vienna.

 

As part of these commemorative events, we collect messages of support from peace-loving people, which will be printed on Stephansplatz and electronically retrievable on the homepage www.hiroshima.at. Your message of stpport is linked to this type of publication.

 

With a statement against nuclear weapons, we ask you to commit ourselves to the abolition of this most inhumane weapon of mass destruction to give another public vote. We are engaged in a Hiroshima action for a world without nuclear weapons, without nuclear power plants and without war!!!

 

We ask you to send the message of support until July 31, 2018 to pax.vienna@chello.at.

 

We thank you very much for your valuable support in advance and remain with solidary peace greetings

 

Andreas Pecha and Alois Reisenbichler

Hiroshima Group Vienna – Vienna Peace Movement

 

1964 Details of the Hiroshima Planning

Denis Doherty

 

Hiroshima Day 1964 account printed in the Tribune August 1964

March and Sing

SYDNEY : An appeal to all supporters to plan now for the Hiroshima Day march and rally on August 9 has been issued by the Hiroshima Commemoration Committee, the city march will leave Hyde Park (Liverpool Street end) at 2 pm for a rally at the Trocadero, George Street, at 3 pm.

A prominent national speaker on Australia’s relations with Asia will be the highlight of the first half of the rally; the second half will be a program of folksongs of peace and protest from some of Sydney’s leading artists.

The Hiroshima Commemoration Committee suggests that families should hold picnic lunches in the Park before the city march, and should listen to, or join in with, groups of folksingers. On Saturday August 8, the Committee invites local supporting organisations to plan distribution of the pamphlet The Choice, published by a group of women peace supporters.

Besides this, the HCC will have available a single-sheet leaflet for selective distribution with details of the August 9 march and rally. Supplies of both the pamphlet and leaflet will be available at cost from Room 18, 421 Sussex Street, Sydney. Phone MA 4643. ”

The Committee invites supporters to arrange, where practicable, a pool of motor transport to bring others to Hyde Park for the picnic and march Banners and smocks can be prepared from calico available at the Committee’s office.

Melbourne, too

Youth and music are expected to keynote this year’s activities for No More Hiroshimas in Melbourne. There will be a two-day march from Frankston to Melbourne.  In Adelaide, interest in and support for the petition opposing French atomic testing is growing. Signatures have been collected in factories such as Islington Railway Workshops, British Tube Mills and Jury and Spiers, in suburbs and in city streets.

Members of the Eureka Youth League and the Union of Australian Women are prominent in the work and have collected at least 300 signatures.

N-free zones

 

Speaking in Denmark recently Soviet Premier Khrushchov made statements, of interest to supporters of a nuclear free southern hemisphere and to opponents of the US naval communications station in Western Australia.

Asked at an interview what guarantees the USSR could give if a place were declared a zone of peace, he said:

“We are great advocates of making a start somehow, with some territory, to clear the earth of thermonuclear weapons.

“A country which declares itself a non-atomic power and is recognized by all countries as such has the advantage that if war breaks out, no nuclear bombs will fall on its territory. I think this is a not insignificant advantage.”

Asked if the USSR would he ready to include its northern territories in the proposed non-nuclear zone, he said the whole USSR would be included if the other powers would do the same with their territories.

We will hit bases In a contrasting passage of his reply Mr. Krushchov said everyone knew US polaris submarines were based on Britain, spearheaded at the USSR.  He was not threatening Britain, “but since Britain has accepted American rockets directed against us we have, of course, already allocated the necessary number of our nuclear rockets to strike at Polaris submarine bases at once, if war begins, and put them out of action. You can imagine, I think, what this means.

“Countries which renounce nuclear weapons,, refuse to make their territory available for bases with such weapons and proclaim themselves as nuclear-free must be recognised by other powers as not participating in nuclear war if war breaks out.

“The USSR would readily make such a statement and strictly abide by commitments if other nuclear powers undertook similar commitments.”

History of HIroshima Day Marches in Sydney

Denis Doherty

Dear all,

We are endeavoring to find out the first Hiroshima Day Event in Sydney of any size as well as any picture or posters from that time.  At present we have two offerings one from 1964, and one from 1960.

1964

Jim Cairns MHR

A small report in the Tribune July 1964

SYDNEY: Dr. J. F. Cairns, M.H.R., will be the main speaker at Sydney’s Hiroshima Day rally, the Hiroshima Commemoration Committee announces.  The Hiroshima Commemoration’ Committee in Sydney has organised a city march and a rally- at the Trocadero for Sunday, August 9, 1964.

The march will leave the Liverpool Street end of Hyde Park at 2 p.m. and finish at the Trocadero in time for the commencement of the rally at 3 p.m.

 

Media Release for August 6 2018

Denis Doherty

Hiroshima Day 73rd Anniversary

August 6th 1945 at 8.10 am Hiroshima time the first atomic bomb was dropped in anger on this Japanese city and August 9 another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.  Almost instantly over 200,000 were killed by this most violent of weapons.  For 73 years the people of the world and Australia have been calling for the destruction of this most horrible weapon.  In 2018 there is still a long way to go!

There have been recent victories with the UN decision to sponsor a ban nuclear weapons treaty which was passed by 120 countries (Australia voted NO).  In September of 2017 the number of countries that had ratified the treaty was 59.

The other victory was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Melbourne inspired group ‘International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ (ICAN).  The Australian Government has failed to acknowledge the great work of ICAN Australia and its success on the international stage.  Contrast that with the praise (well deserved) heaped on the Australian divers who rescued the boys in the Thai cave recently.

As dawn breaks on August 6 2018 we still need to get Australia to sign the treaty and have us come out from the US nuclear umbrella and fight for a world free of nuclear weapons.  Nuclear exchanges are still a possibility in many parts of the globe and we still need to have nuclear disarmament.

The Sydney Hiroshima Rally will held on Sat Aug 11 at 11 am Town Hall Square.

For more information: Denis Doherty 0418 290 663