After the hibakusha: the future of Japan’s anti-nuclear movement
After the hibakusha: the future of Japan’s anti-nuclear movement https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1870/
Yoshida Mayu, NHK World Correspondent, 31 Jan 22, Activists calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons have long relied on the powerful testimonies of atomic bomb survivors, or hibakusha, to grow their movement. But with ever fewer people to offer that testimony, both the hibakusha and activists know those days are running out. NHK World’s Yoshida Mayu speaks to different generations who have a common goal: a world without nuclear weapons.
Hellish memories
Oka Nobuko was in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the day the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city. For most of her life, she avoided talking about her experiences as the memories were too painful.
Last year she finally broke her silence to deliver a speech at the annual ceremony commemorating the date of the bombing.
“When I stood up, I was immediately knocked down and I lost consciousness,” she recounted. “When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. Pieces of shattered glass were lodged in my body.”
Oka was a 16-year-old nursing student at the time and helped treat other victims at a first aid center.
“No treatment was possible in a lot of these cases,” she said. “There was flesh dangling from exposed bone. Some people jumped off buildings to kill themselves because they couldn’t endure the pain any longer.”
She described the scenes as “hellish” and said she suffered severe headaches every time the memories returned. For this reason, she always avoided going to the area where the first aid center was located.
Time to speak
In a letter to a close friend three years ago, Oka wrote of her worries that her memories and those of other hibakusha would soon be gone.
“The hibakusha are getting older and someday all of us will be gone,” she wrote.
Estimates put the number of living hibakusha at around 127,000, with an average age of 83.This sense that time was running out is what motivated Oka to finally share her story last August.
“We, the hibakusha, will continue to share our experiences and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We will fight for peace.”
Last November, three months after giving her speech, Oka died at the age of 93.
Inspiring other hibakusha Fukuda Hakaru, a 90-year-old Nagasaki hibakusha, says hearing Oka speak inspired him to share his own story. He wrote her a letter, saying how much her courage had moved him.
Fukuda had gone to the first aid center Oka was working at to get medicine for his father, who was severely injured in the blast.
“I can still hear the screams of the patients,” he says. “Doctors and nurses were running around to help them. It was a painful sight. It is very hard for me to talk about what I saw. The medical workers were the ones who saw up close the inhumanity of the atomic bombs.”
Fukuda was 14 at the time. He did not suffer any serious injuries, but his father, who was working close to ground zero, died a month later.”I’ll never forget how I felt. I had to pick up his remains after the cremation, but I have no idea how I managed. The world needs to know that this is the kind of pain that an atomic bomb causes. It cannot be allowed to happen again.”
Fukuda says he long felt he had a duty to share his story but avoided doing so because he was worried about the anti-hibakusha discrimination he and his family might face.
Many survivors and their families have had to deal with prejudice and discrimination over the years. Initially, little was known about the effects of radiation exposure, and some people incorrectly regarded it as contagious. The social stigma was especially serious when it came to marriage or work.
“The hibakusha continue to suffer today,” says Fukuda. “That’s yet another reason why we need to make sure this never happens again.”
Preserving Oka’s message
In December, a group of university students from Nagasaki hosted a virtual conference about the experiences of the hibakusha, speaking to high school classes about the stories they had heard from survivors.
One of these students was Kaji Misato, who spent a lot of time with Oka during her final days.
“Oka was with her mother and brother at the time of the bombing,” Kaji said at the event. “As she stood up, she realized she was covered in blood.”Kaji spoke to Oka four times last year and recorded five hours of conversation. She said it was an eye-opening experience.
“The atomic bombing always felt like something in the past,” Kaji says. “But after hearing her story, I started to feel a greater sense of attachment. She told us the war had robbed her of her youth and she wanted peace so the same thing didn’t happen with the youth of today.”Every year on August 9, a siren rings out across the city at 11:02 AM, the exact time the atomic bomb exploded. Residents stop what they are doing to observe a minute of silence. But when Kaji visited the city center last year, she was shocked to see how few people were actually paying their respects.
About a month later, Oka was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Kaji met with her shortly after.
“She told me she was worried that once all the hibakusha are gone, their memories would fade as well,” Kaji says.
She took her words to heart and decided to share what she told her with people even younger. The high school students who attended the virtual session said it was an insightful experience.”Her vivid memories made me feel the horror of the atomic bomb,” said one student.
“We cannot take peace for granted,” said another. “We have to take care of the people who are close to us.”
This year promises to be a crucial one for the abolition movement. State parties to the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty are planning to hold their first meeting to try to agree on specific actions. In the meantime, young campaigners like Kaji are ensuring that the stories from those who witnessed the horrors of 1945 are documented and heard.
Horrors of Hiroshima, a reminder nuclear weapons remain global threat
UN News, 15 January 2022, Peace and Security, Despite the annihilation of two major Japanese cities in 1945, atomic bombs have not been relegated to the pages of history books, but continue to be developed today – with increasingly more power to destroy than they had when unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945.
Those first nuclear weapons deployed by the United States, indiscriminately killed tens of thousands of non-combatants but also left indelible scars for the immediate survivors, that they, their children and grandchildren still carry today.
“The Red Cross hospital was full of dead bodies. The death of a human is a solemn and sad thing, but I didn’t have the time to think about it because I had to collect their bones and dispose of their bodies”, a then 25-year-old woman said in a recorded testimony, 1.5 km from Hiroshima’s ground zero.
“This was truly a living hell, I thought, and the cruel sights still stay in my mind”
To highlight the tireless work of the survivors, known in Japanese as the hibakusha, the UN’s Office for Disarmament Affairs, created an exhibition at UN Headquarters in New York which has just come to a close, entitled: Three Quarters of a Century After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Hibakusha—Brave Survivors Working for a Nuclear-Free World.
It vividly brings to life the devastation and havoc wreaked by those first atomic bombs (A-bombs), and their successor weapons, the more powerful hydrogen bombs (H-bombs) which began testing in the 1950s
Quest to save humanity
In the aftermath of the bombings in Japan, the hibakusha, conducted intense investigations with the aim of preventing history from repeating itself.
With an average age of 83 today, the dwindling band continue to share their stories and findings with supporters at home and abroad, “to sav[ing] humanity…through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves”, they say, in the booklet No More Hibakusha -Message to the World, which accompanies the exhibit.
Recounting the day in Hiroshima that 11 members of her family slept together in an air raid shelter, a then 19-year-old woman spoke of how three small children died during the night, while calling for water.
“The next morning, we carried their bodies out of the shelter, but their faces were so swollen and black that we couldn’t tell them apart, so laid them out on the ground according to height and decided their identities according to their size”.
These brave survivors testify that peace cannot be achieved ever, through the use of nuclear weapons.
‘Absolute evil’
A group of elderly hibakusha, called Nihon Hidankyo, have dedicated their lives to achieving a non-proliferation treaty, which they hope will ultimately lead to a total ban on nuclear weapons.
“On an overcrowded train on the Hakushima line, I fainted for a while, holding in my arms my eldest daughter of one year and six months. I regained my senses at her cries and found no-one else was on the train”, a 34-year-old woman testifies in the booklet. She was located just two kilometres from the Hiroshima epicentre.
Fleeing to her relatives in Hesaka, at age 24 another woman remembers that “people, with the skin dangling down, were stumbling along. They fell down with a thud and died one after another”, adding, “still now I often have nightmares about this, and people say, ‘it’s neurosis’”.
One man who entered Hiroshima after the bomb recalled in the exhibition, “that dreadful scene – I cannot forget even after many decades”.
A woman who was 25 years-old at the time, said, “when I went outside, it was dark as night. Then it got brighter and brighter, and I could see burnt people crying and running about in utter confusion. It was hell…I found my neighbour trapped under a fallen concrete wall…Only half of his face was showing. He was burned alive”.Uniting for peace
The steadfast conviction of the Hidankyo remains: “Nuclear weapons are absolute evil that cannot coexist with humans. There is no choice but to abolish them”.
In August 1956, the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombs in Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki three days later, formed the “Japan Confederation of A and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations”.
Encouraged by the movement to ban the atomic bomb that was triggered by the Daigo Fukuryu Maru disaster – when 23 men in a Japanese tuna fishing boat were contaminated by nuclear fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in 1954 – they have not wavered in their efforts to prevent others from becoming nuclear victims.
“We have reassured our will to save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves”, they declared at the formation meeting.
The spirit of the declaration, in which their own sufferings are linked to the task of preventing the hardship that they continue to carry, resonates still in the movement today…………………………………………….
The hibakusha became more and more vocal in the suffering that was inflicted upon them, hoping that it could help create a road map towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.
In oral testimonies, they shared their experiences both during and after the bombings and sent written messages to the NPT Review Conference in 2010 appealing to the world.
In July 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which complements the NPT, was adopted and came into force last year on 22 January……………………
the UN is committed to ensuring their testimonies live on, as a warning to each new generation.
The Hibakusha are a living reminder that nuclear weapons pose an existential threat and that the only guarantee against their use is their total elimination”, Mr. Guterres stated. “This goal continues to be the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations, as it has been since the first resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 1946”.
While the Tenth Review Conference of the NPT, which had been scheduled for January, has been postponed on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, he continued to urge world leaders to “draw on the spirit of the Hibakusha” by putting aside their differences and taking “bold steps towards achieving the collective goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons”. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109602
A free press, a free Julian Assange – would be the best gift for the world
A lonely evening at home for Fukushima man retracing past
Unsurprisingly, concerns about radiation levels are still on the minds of many former residents. His wife, Mikiko, 64, refused to accompany him for that reason. Ikeda was the only individual in his neighborhood who took up the offer to return home.
December 11, 2021
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Settling in for the night, Mitsuhide Ikeda poured sake into a glass and raised a toast to framed photos of his deceased parents: “I finally made it back home. Let’s drink together.”
The last time the 60-year-old cattle farmer spent a night at home was 10 years and nine months ago.
Large parts of this town that co-hosts the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were declared “difficult-to-return” zones after the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Ikeda’s parents died after the nuclear accident.
The Shimonogami district where the Ikeda’s home is located lies about five kilometers southwest of the Fukushima nuclear facility.
As part of efforts to rebuild the areas around the plant, the government recently began letting residents return home for an overnight stay as a means of preparing for the day when they can do so permanently.
Unsurprisingly, concerns about radiation levels are still on the minds of many former residents. His wife, Mikiko, 64, refused to accompany him for that reason. Ikeda was the only individual in his neighborhood who took up the offer to return home.
Dangerously high radiation levels registered immediately after the disaster that made it impossible for anybody to live in the area have gradually fallen. The government spent vast sums on the time-consuming process of decontaminating topsoil as a way of reducing radiation levels.
It intends to lift the evacuation order for some parts of Okuma in spring. That would be the first step for setting the stage for residents to return home.
The temporary overnight stay program began in Katsurao on Nov. 30 and is gradually being expanded to five other municipalities, including Okuma.
A check for radiation in November on the Ikeda plot found one spot with a reading of 3.8 microsieverts per hour, above the level deemed safe enough for the government to lift the evacuation order.
Even though the Environment Ministry is planning additional decontamination work, Mikiko was unsettled by the reading and concluded it would be impossible to pick up the threads of their past life in Okuma.
Other changes in the close to 11 years since the nuclear disaster make a return to Okuma unrealistic.
While a large supermarket, hospital and bank branch remain standing in the town, there is no indication when those facilities might resume operations.
In the interim, the Ikedas plan to commute to Okuma from the community they moved to as evacuees.
The overnight stay program is restricted to an area close to what was once the bustling center of the town. About 7,600 residents lived there before the nuclear disaster.
The town government envisions that as many as 2,600 people will reside in the town within five years of the evacuation order being finally lifted if plans proceed to rebuild social infrastructure.
But the writing is on the wall for many people.
According to the Environment Ministry, about 1,150 homes in the district had been torn down as of the end of September.
And as of Dec. 8, only 31 residents in 15 households applied for the overnight stays.
Even Ikeda admits that Okuma will likely never return to the community he knew before 2011.
“Too much time has passed,” he said.
Nuns against nuclear weapons
Nuns against nuclear weapons – Plowshares protesters have fought for disarmament for over 40 years, going to prison for peace, https://theconversation.com/nuns-against-nuclear-weapons-plowshares-protesters-have-fought-for-disarmament-for-over-40-years-going-to-prison-for-peace-169918December 9, 2021 Carole Sargent Carole Sargent is a Friend of The Conversation. Literary Historian, Georgetown University In July 2012 Sister Megan Rice, an 82-year-old Catholic nun, and two men walked past multiple broken security cameras and into the heart of a high-security nuclear complex. Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was the birthplace of the atomic bomb and now stores enriched uranium for nuclear warheads. Although thanked by Congress for exposing astoundingly lax contractor security, the three were also convicted and served two years in prison.
Rice, who died in October 2021, was part of a protest tradition called Plowshares. Since 1980, there have been over 100 Plowshares actions in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe. The name comes from the books of Isaiah and Micah in the Bible: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Isaiah and Micah are accepted as Scripture by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Civil resistance, not disobedience
Rice’s journey with Plowshares began when she retired after four decades teaching science and math in schools founded in Nigeria by her religious order, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. At Baltimore’s Jonah House, a faith-based activist peace community, she met Sister Anne Montgomery, a Society of the Sacred Heart nun and the daughter of a prominent World War II naval commander. Montgomery became Rice’s Plowshares mentor.
Montgomery helped develop Plowshares’ legal strategies, such as attempting to put nuclear weapons on trial. This means explaining to juries that nukes have been internationally illegal since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and even its 1968 predecessor – and also how their use violates the Geneva Conventions and other binding treaties.
When testifying, these nuns do not describe their actions as “civil disobedience,” because that would mean they did something illegal. Instead, they prefer “civil resistance,” which Montgomery called “divine obedience” to higher principles of peace.
One of Plowshares’ most effective strategies is to represent themselves in court, known as pro se, which in Latin means “for oneself.” It allows protesters, including these nuns, to discuss humanitarian law, the necessity defense – meaning you broke a small law to stop a large crime – and the U.S. 1996 War Crimes Act. Lawyers cannot discuss these issues because judges limit cases to mere trespassing or property damage. Using pro se, activists speak freely in ways that might get a real lawyer professionally reprimanded. Lawyers often do, however, stand by as advisers.
Sabotage charges
Rice wasn’t the first nun to be convicted of sabotage. Ten years earlier, Dominican Sister Ardeth Platte, who inspired the nun character on the popular Netflix prison series “Orange is the New Black,” went to prison in Danbury, Connecticut, on the same charge. Platte (pronounced Platty) spent her retirement years engaging in Plowshares and other protests at weapons sites.
In 2002, along with fellow Dominican nuns, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Jackie Hudson, Platte breached an intercontinental ballistic missile facility in Colorado. The three poured blood in the shape of a cross to remember victims of war. Then they rapped on the blast lid with a household hammer. The small hammers do not damage such massive weapons in any significant way. The three were accused of preventing the United States from attacking its enemies or defending itself, which is the definition of sabotage.
Just like Rice’s group and many other Plowshares activists, the three nuns carried rosaries, Bibles and other objects in small black bags. Explosives experts, however, thought they might have bombs. Attack helicopters swooped in as they sang and prayed. Police pointed semiautomatic rifles at them and shut down a nearby highway. This was an unusual reaction, since Plowshares protesters are usually stopped and arrested with far less fanfare, and it may be why the prosecutors won a sabotage conviction.
Rice’s prosecutors brought up Platte’s case during her trial, in which she and her companions were also convicted of sabotage. However, two years later an appeals court overturned it, admonishing that “no rational jury could find” they actually injured the national defense.
Just like Rice’s group and many other Plowshares activists, the three nuns carried rosaries, Bibles and other objects in small black bags. Explosives experts, however, thought they might have bombs. Attack helicopters swooped in as they sang and prayed. Police pointed semiautomatic rifles at them and shut down a nearby highway. This was an unusual reaction, since Plowshares protesters are usually stopped and arrested with far less fanfare, and it may be why the prosecutors won a sabotage conviction.
Rice’s prosecutors brought up Platte’s case during her trial, in which she and her companions were also convicted of sabotage. However, two years later an appeals court overturned it, admonishing that “no rational jury could find” they actually injured the national defense.
Guest Post from Gordon Frederick Coggon – a Nuclear Test Veteran’s Experience — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND
Gordon Frederick Coggon ·26 Nov 21,
Guest Post from Gordon Frederick Coggon – a Nuclear Test Veteran’s Experience — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/331643/posts/3682558618 During 1957 and 1958 I was one of 20,000 British serviceman sent to the central Pacific testing ground of British Hydrogen bomb tests which in my own case involved being at Christmas Island.(now named Kiritimati). During my year there I was subjected to radiation contamination. I witnessed two hydrogen bombs, the first being Operation Grapple X with a 1.8 megaton yield on Nov 8th. 1957 and the second bomb being on 28th. April 1958. Which had a yield of 3 megatons.( Both these devices were dropped by a Valient ‘V’ bomber about 20 miles off the southern tip of the Island.)
After the Grapple X test I was sent to hand wash a Canberra Aircraft,s engine nacelles after it had flown through the cloud of the hydrogen bomb collecting samples. I was set to work using a small bore hosepipe and a scrubbing brush, (the Aircraft had been hosed down with high pressure jets of water before I was employed on a gantry cleaning where the jets of water were not directed at the intakes of the engines.) Initially, I was given a pair of denims, wellingtons, rubber gloves and a remote breathing apparatus (which consisted of a face mask attached to 38 feet of corrugated rubber hose and connected to a fresh air filter which was fastened down as far away as possible from the aircraft. The face mask head straps were broken so the man in the white suit and gas mask said it was useless for the job in hand so I was given a crude homemade mask made from cotton wool sandwiched between a silver paper foil.
Whilst working on the gantry the mask got wet through and I wasnt able to breathe, so I had to move it from my mouth and nose to enable myself to breathe. I continued to work for between 20 to 30 minutes before I was replaced by someone else and I was then sent to the decontamination tent where I showered several times until the man in the white suit and Geiger counter said I was ok to get dressed in the clean side of the tent and was given a new set of kd shorts and shirt. This showering and decontamination took at least one and a half hours, My contaminated clothing was put in a yellow barrel marked with radiation signs in the dirty side of the facility. I have to say also that some of us were given other dangerous tasks like picking up dead fish and birds after the tests and some guys had to dump contaminated equipment in the ocean or bulldoze contaminated earth. After the Grapple Y bomb on 28th.April 1958, there was a massive downpour of rain, which came from the bomb cloud, a lot of the young innocent troops stood outside bathing in it like one normally did during the rain showers, but unlike the normal rain this was said to be contaminated because there was no other clouds in the sky at the time.
At that time I was 18 years old (picture of me above whilst there) and most of us had no idea what radiation was. Nor was I told anything about it until later in my career when I remustered into the Fire, Crash and rescue trade, where I was trained up to an advanced stage about radiation and biological warfare and every Monday I was teaching an induction course to new arrivals on the station that I was posted too. That was when I began to worry about my own health. Had I been put at an high risk of radiation whilst on Christmas Island ??. The Aircraft that I had helped to decontaminate was still emitting Gamma radiation, to what extent?? Also, did I swallow, inhale Alpha particles.?? ( Alpha radiation cannot penetrate human skin but they can be swallowed in water droplets, eaten if on food, or more commonly inhaled.)
These Alpha particles may remain inside your body for your whole life, attacking cells of your body for decades and could take many years before irrepairable damage becomes apparent. Recently it has been associated with radiation caused diseases and malformities in new born descendants of nuclear test veterans. I have had Cancer and several other illnesses which most lightly have been caused by atomic radiation, so far, even after seventy years, the successive British Governments have continued to deny that their troops were subjected to radiation during their atomic and hydrogen tests in the fifties and sixties. And yet, many of the nuclear armed countries have acknowledged the troops that was sent to take part in their experiments with nuclear fission and have been recognised by being given a medal and/or compensation.
I have only mentioned my own experience at Christmas Island (Kiritimati) but during a period 1952 – 1968 there have been many such tests in Australia, other testing areas of the Pacific where a lot of fellow veterans were irradiated by atomic fallout and nuclear poisoning from various clean-up operations after the tests, many of these young men never got to grow old because of their contamination from the tests. Many test sites were carried out where local people lived, these same people have since lost their homes and way of life by the poisoning effects of radiation . Since; atomic radiation contamination illnesses have continually been killing test veterans and clean-up veterans nothing has been done so far to help the families of these brave innocent troops and civilians by the British Government, who were subjected to experiments during the trials.
It is now becoming more alarming by the number of offspring who have also inherited their veteran father’ s damaged cells genetically. * reference to these tests are also available in two books that I have published on Amazon. The first one is titled :- ‘ Christmas Island 1957-1958 ‘ an Ebook on Kindle. The other is a paperback, titled:-‘ The Life of a Yorkshire Lad’ on Amazon and an ebook on kindle.
All royalties for the (latter paperback/ebook have been donated to LABRATS INTERNATIONAL for their continued valuable work in helping test veterans and their descendants come together from all over the world in their fight for justice.
Libbe HaLevy’s interview with Sister Megan Rice 2019
Anti-Nuclear Peace Nun Sister Megan Rice of Plowshares http://nuclearhotseat.com/2019/12/24/anti-nuclear-peace-nun-sister-megan-rice-of-plowshares/
by Libbe HaLevy | Dec 24, 2019 | Listen Here:
Anti-Nuclear Peace Nun Sister Megan Rice – To celebrate the holidays, a reminder of one of 2015’s successes — the early release from prison of Sister Megan Rice, one of three brave activists who broke into high security nuclear weapons at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – the so-called “Fort Knox of Nuclear“- to protest nukes and war. She was arrested on-site and, at age 82, convicted of sabotage – a conviction that was overturned after she’d already served two years in prison.
We’ll hear from:
- Sister Megan Rice, the now-89-year-old anti-nuclear peace nun. She speaks at length about the peaceful 2012 Transform Now Plowshares protest action. She and two other activists broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee which resulted in her being charged with sabotage and sentenced to almost three years in prison. This interview was recorded when she was newly out of prison pending a re-sentencing hearing. All further charges were later dropped. The break in was an antiwar protest referred to as “the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.” All it took? Three determined senior or senior-adjacent activists, some wire cutters, and a deeply spiritual love for people and the planet.
- Co-defendant Gregory Boertje-Obed, 60, who along with co-defendant Michael Walli, 68, was sentenced to over five years in prison for their non-violent protest.
Originally presented on May 26, 2015, for Nuclear Hotseat #205.
LINKS to the Transform Now Plowshares statement and Indictment of Oak Ridge for War Crimes that were drawn up by these three brave activists and read at the Y-12 site.
Vale Sister Megan Rice – an anti-nuclear hero
Catholic sister who spent 2 years in prison for nuclear weapons protest dies at 91, Catholic News Service 13 Oct 21,
ROSEMONT, Pa. (CNS) — Sister Megan Rice, whose yearslong crusade against nuclear weapons included serving two years behind bars for a felony, died Oct. 10 at the Rosemont residence of her religious order, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She was 91.
Colleen Carroll, director of communications for the order, said the cause of death was congestive heart failure.
“It is incredible to consider how the bravery of this small, smiling, unassuming woman in standing up to the entirety of the U.S. military-industrial complex could bring so much awareness to the devastation our nation’s idolatry of nuclear weapons inflicts on people here in the U.S. and around the world,” Johnny Zokovitch, executive director of Pax Christi USA, said in a statement.
“All of Pax Christi USA grieves at her passing, but we give thanks for her witness, for her life and for the challenge that she issued by standing up nonviolently for a better world for all of us,” he said.
Sister Rice’s bold campaign against nuclear weapons launched her into the spotlight and caused her to become the issue’s ad hoc spokeswoman.
In July 2012, at age 82, she and two other members of Transform Now Plowshares breached security to stage a protest at the self-styled “Fort Knox of uranium,” the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The facility creates and houses materials for making nuclear weapons.
The three activists cut through fences and reached the warehouse that stores bomb-making uranium. There, they splashed blood on the wall, hung banners and spray-painted messages condemning nuclear weapons.
The action sparked national shock and outrage, led to a congressional investigation of the security at Y-12 and sent Sister Rice and her companions, Michael Walli, then 63, and Greg Boertje-Obed, then 57, to prison.
On Feb. 18, 2014, in U.S. District Court, Sister Rice, of Washington, was sentenced to 35 months in prison on each of two counts — one count of depredation of property and one count of sabotage.
Sister Rice toured the country to protest the United States’ nuclear arsenal as the star of the film. She also spoke to a congressional hearing and at the United Nations in New York City on the issue of nuclear disarmament.
And she continued her activism through vigils, marches, prayers and visits to classrooms.
“It’s illegal to deal in weapons of mass destruction — immoral and illegal,” Sister Rice declared during an April 8, 2018, event at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where the documentary was being screened.
“We’re not being taken to the international court of justice and indicted the way Iran or some other place would,” she said.
……….In the 1980s, Sister Rice got involved in the anti-war movement, participating in protests against a variety of American military actions, military sites and nuclear weapons installations.
She was arrested more than three dozen times in acts of civil disobedience, including her anti-nuclear weapons activism. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/10/13/sister-megan-rice-obituary-241640
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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