COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

Israel’s key enablers, the G7, plus Australia and New Zealand, have succeeded in muscling Israel back onto the invite list for the commemorations in Nagasaki on August 9.

Last year Israel was excluded, triggering a refusal by these countries to attend in 2024.

Does the “personal” invitation that Nagasaki has just sent to Israel represent a triumph of Western diplomacy or a sick joke?

You know who your mates are when you’re committing genocide
As I wrote at the time, the boycott by the powerful white-dominated Western nations was a stunning “Fuck you” to the Hibakusha, the last few survivors of the US’s 1945 nuclear attack.

More importantly it was as clear a statement of collective commitment to Israel’s war on Palestine as you could possibly wish for.  You really find out who your true mates are when you’re committing genocide.

At the time, Shigemitsu Tanaka, the 83-year-old head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said he supported the move to keep the Israelis away from the commemorations, saying it was inappropriate to invite representatives from countries waging armed conflicts in defiance of calls from the international community.

Israel’s invitation is a triumph of Western pressure
A year later, the City buckled under pressure and has personally invited the Israelis.

“After Israel was excluded last year over the Gaza war, Nagasaki’s mayor is avoiding renewed diplomatic tensions — especially following a clear message from the US,” Israel’s influential news site Ynet reported this month.

It is a triumph for Netanyahu and his government, cause for celebration in Tel Aviv, but diminishes the nobility of an event that was created with the explicit intention to say Never Again and to remind the world of the indefensible criminality of attacks on defenceless civilian populations.

Nagasaki and the Boycott Israel campaign
Israel goes to incredible lengths to break efforts to impose BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) and so Nagasaki had to be brought to heel.  July 2025 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of BDS, a non-violent campaign designed to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and apply real-world pressure for the state to change course.

BDS is potentially a game-changer which is why Israeli government ministers routinely make threats of physical violence against leading BDS activists.

Israel Katz, currently the Israeli Defence Minister, is on record as calling for Israel to engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence.

70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza – and Israel is invited to a peace ceremony
Think for a moment what the presence of Israel at this year’s event represents as an astonishing piece of semiology.  A state that is actively committing the crime of crimes, genocide, sitting alongside the Hibakusha.

They won’t be the only war criminals in attendance. American, German, and British bombs have levelled the tiny enclave of Gaza.  More of their bombs — 70,000 tons and climbing — have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza than were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (36,000 tons), the fire bombings of Tokyo (1,665 tons) and Dresden (3,900 tons), and the London Blitz (19,000 tons) combined. And it is happening on our watch.

Another piece of astonishing optics: less than two months ago the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, doing so with no UN mandate but only their position as powerful, lawless states.

Their actions dramatically raise the prospect of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others deciding they need nuclear weapons as deterrence.  What look will the US and Israeli ambassadors cast over their faces as the Mayor of Nagasaki delivers the message of “Nagasaki’s wish for the establishment of lasting world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons?”

Is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize the next to be trashed?
Talking of tone deaf and morally repellent, Donald Trump has been openly lobbying to receive the Nobel Peace Prize despite having killed thousands of people and bombed multiple countries this year.

Interestingly, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner was Nihon Hidankyo (Japan’s Atomic Bomb Survivors Organisation).

In his acceptance speech last year, Terumi Tanaka, one of the co-chairpersons of Nihon Hidankyo, said that the organisation was created in 1956 “to demand the immediate abolition of nuclear weapons, as extremely inhumane weapons of mass killing, which must not be allowed to coexist with humanity”.

New Zealand is a genocide enabler.  What happened to our soft power?
As a New Zealander I am deeply ashamed of my country for having refused to attend last year’s ceremony and for its criminal complicity with Israel today. New Zealand’s tragic trajectory from humanitarian champions and nuclear-free pioneers to racist genocide enablers is captured in all its horror in this month’s Nagasaki commemorations.

New Zealand, the country that went to the brink of civil war in 1981 to stop sporting contact with Apartheid South Africa is now a fully-paid up member of Apartheid Israel’s war on Palestine.

Everywhere our government is tearing down the pillars built by decades of struggle in New Zealand. The anti-nuclear policy, the anti-apartheid victories, the non-aligned foreign policies, the sacred principles of partnership between indigenous Māori and the Pākehā (those who settled from Europe and elsewhere) are all being shredded.

We refuse to recognise Palestine, we refuse to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, we refuse to join the Hague Group which is mobilising countries to make those responsible for the genocide accountable and to shoulder state-level responsibility for forcing the end to it.

But we mobilise to get Israel invited to the Nagasaki peace events.

From Auschwitz to Nagasaki to Gaza: whatever happened to Never Again? Whatever happened to our decency?

The Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone wrote this month “If you’re still supporting Israel in the year 2025, there’s something seriously wrong with you as a person.”  That goes triple for governments.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French secret agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population of 320 from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands.

After conducting dozens of above-ground nuclear explosions, the US government had left the population in conditions that suggested the islanders were being used as guinea pigs to gain knowledge of the effects of radiation.

Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage ripped through the population; their former fisheries and land are contaminated to this day.

Denied adequate support from the US – they turned to Greenpeace with an SOS: help us leave our ancestral homeland; it is killing our people. The Rainbow Warrior answered the call.

Human lab rats or our brothers and sisters?
Dr Merrill Eisenbud, a physicist in the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) famously said in 1956 of the Marshall Islanders:  “While it is true that these people do not live, I might say, the way Westerners do, civilised people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Eighty years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War, the threat of nuclear fallout remains.

Last Monday, the UN Human Rights Council issued a formal communication to the Japanese government regarding serious concerns raised by Pacific communities about the dumping of 1.3 million metric tonnes of treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater into the ocean over 30 years.

The council warned that the release could pose major environmental and human rights risks.

Te Ao Māori News spoke with Mari Inoue, a NYC-based lawyer originally from Japan and co-founder of the volunteer-led group The Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World.

Recently, at the UN, they called for global awareness, not only about atomic bomb victims but also of the Fukushima wastewater release, and nuclear energy’s links to environmental destruction and human rights abuses.

Formed a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the group takes its name from the original Manhattan Project — the secret Second World War  US military programme that raced to develop the first atomic bomb before Nazi Germany.

A pivotal moment in that project was the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico — the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb. One month later, nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people.

Seeking recognition and justice
Although 80 years have passed, victims of these events continue to seek recognition and justice. The disarmament group hopes for stronger global unity around the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and more support for victims of nuclear exposure.

The anti-nuclear activists supported the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Their advocacy took place during the third and final preparatory committee for the 2026 NPT review conference, where a consensus report with recommendations from past sessions will be presented.

Inoue’s group called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to declare Japan’s dumping policy unsafe, and believes Japan and its G7 and EU allies should be condemned for supporting it.

Nuclear energy for the green transition?
Amid calls to move away from fossil fuels, some argue that nuclear power could supply the zero-emission energy needed to combat climate change.

Inoue rejects this, saying that despite not emitting greenhouse gases like fossil fuels, nuclear energy still harms the environment.

She said there was environmental harm at all processes in the nuclear supply chain.

Beginning with uranium mining, predominantly contaminating indigenous lands and water sources, with studies showing those communities face increased cancer rates, sickness, and infant mortality. And other studies have shown increased health issues for residents near nuclear reactors.

“Nuclear energy is not peaceful and it‘s not a solution to the climate crisis,” Inoue stressed. “Nuclear energy cannot function without exploiting peoples, their lands, and their resources.”

She also pointed out thermal pollution, where water heated during the nuclear plant cooling process is discharged into waterways, contributing to rising ocean temperatures.

Inoue added, “During the regular operation, [nuclear power plants] release radioactive isotopes into the environment — for example tritium.”

She referenced nuclear expert Dr Arjun Makhijani, who has studied the dangers of tritium in how it crosses the placenta, impacting embryos and foetuses with risks of birth defects, miscarriages, and other problems.

Increased tensions and world forum uniting global voices
When asked about the AUKUS security pact, Inoue expressed concern that it would worsen tensions in the Pacific. She criticised the use of a loophole that allowed nuclear-powered submarines in a nuclear-weapon-free zone, even though the nuclear fuel could still be repurposed for weapons.

In October, Inoue will co-organise the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima, with 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nihon Hidankyo as one of the promoting organisations.

The forum will feature people from Indigenous communities impacted by nuclear testing in the US and the Marshall Islands, uranium mining in Africa, and fisheries affected by nuclear pollution.

Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.

As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7200 Hiroshima explosions.

During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”.

Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy — one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.

Between March and April, we travelled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing:

• Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests;
• Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted; and
• Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a US medical experiment to test humans’  exposure to radiation.

This isn’t fiction, nor the distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today.

Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.

These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability.

Our mission: why are we here?
With the permission and support of the Marshallese government, a group of Greenpeace science and radiation experts, together with independent scientists, are in the island nation to assess, investigate, and document the long-term environmental and radiological consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.

Our mission is grounded in science. We’re conducting field sampling and radiological surveys to gather data on what radioactivity remains in the environment — isotopes such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240. These substances are released during nuclear explosions and can linger in the environment for decades, posing serious health risks, such as increased risk of cancers in organs and bones.

But this work is not only about radiation measurements, it is also about bearing witness.

We are here in solidarity with Marshallese communities who continue to live with the consequences of decisions made decades ago, without their consent and far from the public eye.

Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll — the dome that shouldn’t exist

At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 US nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world — the Runit Dome.

Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome — cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimetres thick in some places — lies 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater — they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time.

The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.

We collected coconut from the island, which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks.

The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination.

They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.

One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure — it is in direct contact with the environment, while containing some of the most hazardous long-lived substances ever to exist on planet Earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change.

The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities?

We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed is an emotional and surreal journey.

Stop 2: Bikini — a nuclear catastrophe, labelled ‘for the good of mankind’

Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident.

The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.

Bikini Atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.

Castle Bravo alone released more than 1000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations, together with thousands of US military personnel.

Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited, and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island.

As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard — behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, US military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.

On our visit, we noticed there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the US Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.

On dusty desks, we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots.

The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated.

We collected samples of coconuts and soil — key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: What does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide?

The US declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.

Stop 3: Rongelap — setting for Project 4.1

The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll, anchoring one mile from the centre of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun.

n 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash — fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The US government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The US government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 — but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more.

In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and four trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes, bringing everything with them — including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material — where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll.

It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage — in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.

Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — a period when the US Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe — a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before.

Here, once again, we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks — especially for communities considering whether and how to return.

This is not the end. It is just the beginning

Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.

We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living with their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades.

There are 9700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons — and the legacy persists today.

We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands.

And we will keep telling these stories — until justice is more than just a word.

Kommol Tata (“thank you” in the beautiful Marshallese language) for following our journey.

Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine and was part of the Rainbow Warrior team in the Marshall Islands. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A leading peace campaigner is calling Aotearoa New Zealand’s decision to stay away from a peace event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the Japanese city’s 1945 nuclear bombing “outrageous”.

Former trade union leader Robert Reid said New Zealand could have acted as a strong independent Pacific voice by attending today’s peace gathering, held annually on August 9 to commemorate the estimated 70,000 people killed in a US nuclear attack on the Japanese city at the end of World War II.

“New Zealand has missed an opportunity to demarcate itself from the cheerleaders of the Gaza genocide, from the US and the UK and other Western countries, and in a way has turned its back on Japan, which was an ally with us in the anti-nuclear position that New Zealand has held for many years,” the former Unite president said.

His comments come after a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) spokesperson confirmed to In Context neither New Zealand’s ambassador to Japan Hamish Hooper nor any other consulate official would be attending the peace ceremony, stressing the move was due to “resourcing” and unrelated to a boycott by Western nations following the city’s decision not to invite Israel.

The US and its Western allies are staying away from the peace ceremony because Nagasaki’s Mayor Shiro Suzuki declined to send an invitation to Israel to attend, over events in the Middle East and to avoid protests against the war in Gaza at the event.

In a statement a Mfat spokesperson said: “The New Zealand government will not be represented at the commemorations at Nagasaki on 9 August 2024. This decision reflects limited resourcing of the Embassy in Tokyo, and is not associated with attendance of other countries.”

However, it is understood New Zealand was represented at a commemoration event at head of mission level in Hiroshima last Tuesday. Nagasaki is located south of Hiroshima and a journey three-and-a-half hours by train.

Cancelled last year
The Nagasaki commemoration was cancelled last year due to a typhoon warning. New Zealand had been represented at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events in recent years, at head of mission level in 2022 and 2021.

It only attended the Hiroshima commemoration in 2020, a period when covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions were widespread.

New Zealand’s absence comes after envoys of the US, Canada, Germany, France, the UK and other Western nations sent a letter to Nagasaki organisers expressing concern over the city not inviting Israel.

The letter, dated July 19, warned that if Israel was excluded, “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation” in the event as it would “result in placing Israel on the same level as countries such as Russia and Belarus,” both having been excluded from the ceremony since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a statement on July 31 outlining the reasons for excluding Israel, Suzuki said officials feared protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza would take away the ceremony’s solemnity.

He added that he made the decision based on “various developments in the international community in response to the ongoing situation in the Middle East”.

ICJ ruled Israel as apartheid state
An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on July 19 ruled Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal and that Israel was administering a system of apartheid through discriminatory laws and policies. Apartheid is a crime against humanity.

In a 14-1 ruling, the ICJ directed Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity, evacuate settlers from occupied Palestinian territories, and pay reparations to Palestinians. It also voted 12-3 that UN states not render aid or assistance to Israel to continue the illegal occupation.

On July 30, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said in light of the ruling: “States must immediately review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities.”

There were protests on Wednesday following a decision by the Hiroshima municipality to allow Israeli representation at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park event the day before, while not inviting a Palestinian envoy on the basis that the occupied country was not a United Nations member and that Japan did not recognise it as a state.

“I understand New Zealand is not calling its absence a boycott, but just that it’s too busy, but it has attended in the past,” Read said.

“I think we’re just playing with words here. This was a chance for New Zealand to stand with the people of Palestine, to stand with the Japanese people, who have had bombs dropped on them and they have perhaps taken a weak way out by not attending.”

The Disarmament and Security Centre Aotearoa is holding a Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration event on Sunday, August 11, at Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens.

Virtual centre
The non-profit organisation is a virtual centre connecting disarmament experts, lawyers, political scientists, academics, teachers, students and disarmament proponents.

Its spokesperson, Dr Marcus Coll, said he was shocked New Zealand would not be attending the Nagasaki event this year.

“These sorts of things should never be about resources because it’s the symbolism of it that is so important and actually showing solidarity with the victims of Nagasaki,” he said.

“In the Pacific region especially, we’ve really felt the effects of nuclear testing throughout the decades and then in Japan, there still are a lot of the survivors and their families are affected because of the intergenerational effects.”

Dr Coll spent seven years studying and working in Japan. His doctoral research involved interviewing and researching survivors of the atomic bombings, as well as indigenous rights activists, religious and military leaders, peace campaigners, and others who were instrumental in shaping New Zealand’s nuclear free identity.

He said Japan’s survivors had expressed awe at a small country in the Pacific taking a strong stand against nuclear weapons.

“New Zealand has really been a kind of a beacon of hope for a lot of those people,” he said.

Nuclear-free legacy
New Zealand became a nuclear-free country in 1987, with a Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act that effectively banned US nuclear vessels from its waters.

It led to New Zealand being frozen out of the ANZUS security treaty and allowed the country to develop a more independent policy engagement with the Pacific and the rest of the world.

“That came from the government level as well,” Dr Coll said.

“It was a groundswell from the public, which changed our policy, but governments of all stripes up until recently have really not contested that legacy and actually been kind of proud of it.

“It really is something that sets us apart, especially internationally and we’re respected for it . . . So, it seems like a real let down that our own government can’t even show up.”

Dr Coll said New Zealand had nurtured a significant link with Nagasaki, being the last place to suffer a nuclear attack in warfare.

“Our former director used to go to Nagasaki. She had very strong connections with the mayor there. There’s actually a sculpture in the Nagasaki Peace Park, given to the city on behalf of New Zealand cities and the New Zealand government back in 2000s, forging that strong connection.

“It’s called the Korowai of Peace. Phil Goff as foreign minister, the New Zealand ambassador and other civil society people were there . . .  This decision I suspect is a kind of PR and not to attend is a blow to our heritage of promoting disarmament and being anti-nuclear.”

The US envoy to Japan Rahm Emanuel is expected to attend a peace ceremony at the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo on Friday instead.

Nagasaki was bombed by the United States on August 9, 1945, after Hiroshima had been hit by atomic bomb on August 6. The two attacks at the end of World War II killed up to 250,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15.

Republished from Mick Hall In Context with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

REVIEW: By Pat Baskett

In the days before mobile phones and emails, there were telephone trees. They grew and spread messages like leaves, thriving on the fertile ground of common beliefs and support for a particular cause.

It worked like this: one member of a group phoned 10 others who phoned another 10, each of whom phoned 10 more. On and on . . . The caller was never anonymous, relationships were established — or you simply said, “no thanks”.

The task of spreading information, before the internet, was time-consuming and labour intensive. Photocopiers, which became widely used only in the late 1970s, replaced an invaluable machine called a duplicator. You cranked the handle, one turn for each page, hoping the paper wouldn’t stick. How long did it take to do a thousand?

Next came the mail-out — folding, stuffing envelopes, sticking on stamps if funds allowed, or delivering them by hand into letterboxes.

The process was convivial, the days were busy but there was always time. There needed to be, because the issue was urgent.

The Cold War, that period of perilous mistrust between the communist Soviet Union and the “free” West, led by the United States, engulfed us in fear of a nuclear holocaust. Barely a generation separated us from the end of World War II when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

The mutually assured destruction (MAD) these weapons promised was a fragile pseudo peace. In our neighbourhood peace groups, we understood the devastation a nuclear winter would bring and we worked out the radius of death and damage from a bomb dropped on our own cities.

An essential step

Yet more than nuclear weapons was, and still is, at stake. The movement was called the Peace Movement because banning nukes was considered the essential step in ensuring world peace.

The stockpile of nuclear weapons held by each side was more than enough to eradicate all, or most, life on earth — and it still is.

Those existential threats have a familiar ring, though the cause we face today adds another dimension. So far, the benefits of almost instant communication and dissemination of information haven’t enabled the world to devise for climate disruption what activists, uniquely in New Zealand, achieved — the 1986 nuclear weapons-free legislation.

Passed by the Labour government of David Lange, it prohibits not just weapons but nuclear-powered warships — including those of our former ANZUS allies, namely the United States.

There has never been any question of rescinding this act. It remains in safe obscurity — to such an extent that I wonder how many of our Gen X contemporaries are aware of its existence.

Yet more than nuclear weapons was, and still is, at stake. The movement was called the Peace Movement because banning nukes was considered the essential step in ensuring world peace.

In 1984, 61 percent of the population were living in 86 locally declared nuclear-weapons-free zones. Academic activists came together to form Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA) and Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR – this group now focuses on the climate disruption).

The medical fraternity formed a local branch of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

Extraordinary sleuthing talent
Much of the information which fuelled the work of all these groups was brought to light by the extraordinary sleuthing talent of one man. Owen Wilkes is described as ” . . . the intellect behind New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance” in a recent book, Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes international peace researcher, published by Raekaihau Press in association with Steele Roberts Aotearoa.

The book consists of 12 essays by friends and collaborators, themselves experts in their individual fields and who leave their own legacies of contribution to the knowledge that led to the anti-nuclear legislation.

They include physicist Dr Peter Wills who was instrumental in setting up SANA and Auckland University’s Centre for Peace Studies; investigative journalist and researcher Nicky Hager; and veteran peace and human rights activist Maire Leadbeater. Two contributions are by Wilkes’s colleagues at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo Norway, Dr Ingvar Botnen and Dr Nils Petter Gleditsch.

Wilkes spent six years from 1976 working in Oslo and also at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The work is edited by Mark Derby and Wilkes’s partner May Bass. While a traditional biography with a single author may have avoided the repetition of information, the various personal anecdotes and responses result in the portrayal of an unconventional, highly talented individual.

In his introduction, Derby sums up Wilkes’s life: “Although invariably non-violent, politically non-aligned and generally law-abiding, Owen encountered official opposition, harassment and intimidation in various forms as he became internationally known for the quality and impact of his peace research.”

Wilkes was born in Christchurch in 1940 and died in Kawhia in 2005. In his early adult years he worked as an entomologist on various projects supported by the US military, including at McMurdo base in the Antarctic. These, he discovered, were connected with a US military germ warfare project.

Using official information laws
His gift was to see through, and behind, the information government made public about our relationship to our official allies, essentially the US. To do this he used our own official information laws and the American equivalent, plus any public reports to congress and US budget reports he could lay hands on.

Rubbish bags also feature in a couple of accounts.

What now may be stored as megabytes of information consists of boxes and folders of carefully catalogued material, the bulk of which is lodged at the Alexander Turnbull Library (with information also at the university libraries of Auckland and Canterbury).

The truth Wilkes was committed to appears, in retrospect, somehow simpler than that of the struggle towards a fossil-free future and a liveable planet for all. Peace is a part of this and the nukes are still there.

Wilkes documented how in many cases what was billed as civilian also had profound military implications. This was nowhere more clear than in the anti-bases campaign which Murray Horton chronicles — bases being sites in remote locations for monitoring or receiving satellite information, some of which new technology has rendered obsolete.

These include Mt St John near Lake Tekapo and Black Birch near Blenheim, and those still operating at Tangimoana in the Manawatu and at Waihopai, also near Blenheim.

Wilkes’s unconventional appearance and lifestyle — he famously wore shorts in sub-zero temperatures when skiing in Norway — made him a target for accusations of being a communist, a not uncommon slander of the peace movement.

Having sharp eyes
Maire Leadbeater, in her account of his long investigation by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, suggests his only “crime” was “to have sharp eyes and the ability to put two and two together”.

Yet there were more conventional sides to his interests. One was archaeology, beginning in his 1962 when he worked as a field archaeologist for the Canterbury Museum. This continued after he left the peace movement in the early 1990s and worked for the Waikato Department of Conservation in a variety of jobs including filing archaeological and historical records.

The truth Wilkes was committed to appears, in retrospect, somehow simpler than that of the struggle towards a fossil-free future and a liveable planet for all. Peace is a part of this and the nukes are still there.

• Peacemonger – Owen Wilkes: International Peace Researcher, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby. Published by Raekaihau Press in association with Steele Roberts Aotearoa (2022). This article was first published by Newsroom is republished with the author’s and Newsroom’s permission. Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie is one of the contributing authors.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Churches across Tonga have commemorated the victims and the struggles endured as a result of the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on 15 January 2022.

The eruption, the largest atmospheric explosion recorded during modern history, was estimated to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

It generated a huge sonic boom that could be heard as far away as Alaska — more than 9000km away.

Hundreds packed the Cathedral of St Mary in Nuku’alofa — one of the largest churches in Tonga — where sermons were delivered, commending Tongans for showing resilience over the past year.

“All the different churches are commemorating,” said Monsignor Vicar Lutoviko Finau, who overlooked the service at the cathedral.

“We’re coming together to thank God, and to encourage one another,” he said.

“Listening to the various people on the radio across this week, there’s been a lot of conviction from people that January 15th was a miracle.”

A conviction that is shared by vicar Lutoviko himself. The cathedral he oversees sits less than 100m away from Nuku’alofa’s waterfront. Remarkably, the church suffered little damage, thanks in part to a reef system entrenching Nuku’alofa’s bay area.

“I was with parishioners cleaning up this place, preparing for the liturgy on Sunday … all of a sudden I heard the big bang. We took off right away because we knew there would be a tsunami . . . I took my family and went to higher ground.

Tongan volcano eruption — relocation nothing easy.    Video: RNZ Pacific

“I couldn’t sleep that night because I wanted to know what happened to the cathedral because it [was] so close to the seafront,” vicar Lutoviko said.

“When I drove around to the seafront the next day . . . the seawater flooded the area of the cathedral, but there was none inside the cathedral . . . the only damage to the building was from the ashfall which . . . covered it.”

Three people died as a result of the eruption, a remarkably low number of deaths considering the magnitude of the disaster. Thousands of Tongans were left homeless as a result, and livelihoods destroyed.

“For myself, today marks history”, said Kilistiana Moala, a member of the congregation.

“Being alive today, I’m just glad to be still here.”

For many Tongans, the commemorations did not just pay tribute to Tonga’s survival of the eruption. Less than a month afterwards, the covid-19 pandemic reached Tonga, resulting in the deaths of at least a dozen people and leaving thousands ill.

“It was a very tough year,” Moala said. “I worked with Tonga’s Geological Services, so we did a lot of work in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption.

“After the volcanic eruption, we had to work during lockdowns because of the Covid outbreak . . . it was really hard because we couldn’t be with our families whenever we wanted.”

It is a sentiment shared by Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni Hu’akavameiliku, who came into power just days before the eruption. Three months later, he fell ill to covid-19.

“Thank the Lord that we are still here,” Hu’akavemeiliku told RNZ Pacific.

“Moving into a new year, hopefully things will continue to get better.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Congresswoman Katie Porter along with Senators Mazie Hirono and Ed Markey brought in the resolution to coincide with Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day on March 1.

On 1 March 1954, the US exploded the biggest of its dozens of nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, a country that is still measuring the impacts.

Congresswoman Porter, who is from California’s Orange County said it was “fortunate to be enriched by one of the oldest Marshallese American communities, but the reason the Marshallese came to the United States remains one of the darkest chapters in our history”.

She said: “Our government used the Marshallese as guinea pigs to study the effects of radiation and turned ancestral islands into dumping grounds for nuclear waste.

“By finally taking responsibility for the harm we caused, the United States can send a powerful signal in the region and around the world that we honor our responsibilities and are committed to the Indo-Pacific region,” Congresswoman Porter said.

The United States conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958 while the US was responsible for the welfare of the Marshallese people.

Most powerful test
These tests had an explosive yield equivalent to roughly 1.7 Hiroshima-sized bombs every day for 12 years.

The most powerful test took place on 1 March 1954, when the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll. The damage and displacement from these tests in part drove Marshallese migration to the United States, including to Orange County.

The United States is currently negotiating to extend its Compacts of Free Association with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, as well as the Republic of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.

These agreements give the United States control over an area of the Pacific Ocean the size of the continental United States, stretching from Hawaii to the Philippines, in exchange for modest economic assistance and access to certain federal programmes.

Senator Hirono from Hawai’i said: “The United States’ nuclear testing programme in the Pacific led to long-lasting harms to the people of the Marshall Islands.”

Bikinians in the Marshall Islands being evacuated from their home island after nuclear testing in the area by the United States. Photo: US Navy

Senator Markey said “a formal apology is long overdue to the Republic of the Marshall Islands for the harmful legacy of U.S. nuclear testing.”

He said,”the resolution calls on the United States to prioritize nuclear justice in its negotiations with the Marshall Islands on an extended Compact of Free Association and to help Marshallese battle the existential threat of the climate crisis.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Hiroshima devastation 75 years ago today. Image: ICAN

By David Robie

While the globe struggles to cope with the deadly onslaught of the covid-19 pandemic, communicators, historians, journalists and activists have been deploying innovative ways of marking three nuclear-related anniversaries in barely a month.

Over the next few days, the devastating destruction, cruel loss of life and survivors’ stories from the world’s first and only deployment of nuclear weapons are being remembered in Japan and around the world.

The United States dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima 75 years ago on 6 August 1945 and then on Nagasaki three days later left two utterly destroyed cities and more than 215,000 people dead. Thousands more lives were lost in the following years from leukemia, cancer and other diseases caused by the radiation from the weapons.

READ MORE: Another Hiroshima is coming – unless we stop it now

With the third anniversary, 10 July 1985, although only one life was lost – there could easily have been more – the repercussions for New Zealand and throughout the Pacific have also been shattering.

One outrage was a wartime atrocity, claimed falsely that it was carried out to shorten the Pacific war, and the other was a peacetime atrocity.

One of the champions of the South Pacific’s nuclear-free and independence campaigners, Oscar Manutahi Temaru, made an inspirational guest appearance last week in a retrospective webinar about the impact of the Rainbow Warrior bombing 35 years on.

The webinar, titled “The Rainbow Warrior Incident: 35 Years Later”, featured several protagonists, analysts and authors speaking about the sabotage of the environmental flagship.

It was originally planned as part of an H-France history conference in Auckland but the pandemic forced organisers to go virtual.

Temaru, five times president of French-ruled Polynesia (Ma’ohi Nui) and the mayor of Faa’a, the “nuclear-free” airport suburb on the fringe of the capital of Pape’ete, made some challenging comments.

Four years ago, he told Tagata Pasifika’s John Pulu that a half-century legacy of nuclear tests in Polynesia was to blame for the at times toxic relationship with the coloniser.

“The French government, through its President, General De Gaulle decided to use our country for the French nuclear testing,” Temaru said.

“They came down here with their private enterprises – the French army – and they have dismantled the whole life of this country. They pulled it upside down.”

Temaru knew what to expect, as during the Algerian War of Independence he was in the French navy and he was deployed to the conflict at a time when France was conducting its early nuclear tests in the Sahara Desert.

Early years of devastation
Temaru was later a customs officer in Tahiti and saw at first hand the early years of the devastation of the military machine in Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in the southern Gambier islands as they became the new host for French nuclear tests.

France conducted 193 nuclear tests – 46 in the atmosphere – in the 30 years between 1966 and 1996, but the legacy of the testing was still felt for 50 years with the medical and environmental consequences and lawsuits continuing to this day.

Temaru’s rallying cry has been to seek independence from France.

With a Cook Islands mother and Tahitian father and having worked on school holidays in freezing works in Auckland, he has long had a strong affinity with the “independent” nations of the Pacific and aspires to Tahiti one day becoming a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Thanks to strong support of several Pacific nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, the UN General Assembly voted on 17 May 2013 to put the country back on the UN list of non-self-governing territories.

Since then he has been a marked man for vindictive elements in the French establishment who see it is payback time.

Oscar Temaru … legal challenges against France. Image: Tavini Huiraatira

In June, he was on a hunger strike over his treatment by the French judiciary. A prosecutor has seized his personal savings of US$100,000, in an act described as illegal by his defence lawyers, in a case which he is being accused of political “undue influence”.

Last week, his Tavini Huiraatira party launched a petition outside the lawcourts of Pape’ete calling for the sovereignty of the Ma’ohi Nui people. The petition, open for a year and expected to be presented to the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum, also calls for compensation from France for the damage caused by three decades of nuclear tests.

‘Scandalous’ legal action
One of the two Tahitian politicians in the National Assembly in Paris, Moetai Brotherson, branded the action as “scandalous”, claiming prosecutor Herve Leroy had exceeded his powers.

The judicial controversy is over the local pro-independence station Radio Tefana which the prosecution claim is benefitting his pro-independence party Tavini Huiraata (People’s Servant Party), founded in 1977.

“As a Mangarevian, I see Oscar Temaru as our only voice for indigenous sovereignty and it starts – as he has said so many times – by making the French accountable for what they have done,” says Ena Manuireva, an Auckland-based Tahitian researcher studying the loss of cultural identity among his Mangarevan community, its origin and impact.

“Temaru has has always fought the same fight – we, the local population, must be the masters of our own destiny. The French coloniser needs to leave if they don’t want to give us independence.”

Tahitian researcher Ena Manuireva … “Oscar has always fought the same fight.” Image: David Robie/Pacific Media Centre

Manuireva was one of the speakers at the webinar, hosted by Canada’s Simon Fraser University of Vancouver with support by Massey University and the University of Auckland is part of a “France and Beyond” joint conference of the Society for French Historical Studies and George Rudé seminar on French history and civilisation.

A doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Manuireva was born in Mangareva (Gambier), the smallest archipelago in Ma’ohi Nui in 1967. He left the island after the first nuclear test on July 2, 1966.

Nuclear panel speakers
Key organiser and moderator was Dr Roxanne Panchasi, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University who specialises in 20th and 21st century France and its empire. She is the author of Future Tense: The Culture of Anticipation in France between the Wars and her recent research has focused on French nuclear weapons and testing since 1945.

Also featured on the panel were:

Stephanie Mills, currently director of campaigns at NZEI Te Riu Roa, and Greenpeace’s former Pacific nuclear test ban campaigner; Dr Rebecca Priestley, associate professor at the Centre for Science in Society at Victoria University in Wellington; and me, a Pacific media educator and director of the Pacific Media Centre-Te Amokura at AUT. As a journalist, I was on board the campaign ship and wrote Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.

• French nuclear tests: ‘I bury people nearly every day, what was our sin?’
• John Pilger’s article on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2019/08/14/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-remembrance-bolsters-peace-and-protest/ Wed, 14 Aug 2019 05:15:51 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2019/08/14/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-remembrance-bolsters-peace-and-protest/

By Michael Andrew

The devastating loss of life and suffering from the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been remembered in Auckland.

Organised by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the 74th anniversary of the bombings brought activists and members of the public to the Ellen Melville Centre to commemorate the estimated 220,000 people who were killed in the blasts and the resulting fallout.

The evening featured a variety of musicians and speakers whose powerful words stressed the importance of a global pursuit of peace and the rejection of nuclear power and weapons.

READ MORE: Marchers in Tahiti ‘mourn’ French nuclear weapons test legacy

Waitematā Local Board member and anti-nuclear activist Richard Northey spoke of New Zealand’s historic anti-nuclear stance and its legacy in resisting nuclear initiatives, such as French testing in the South Pacific in the 1960s.

However, he said nuclear power was becoming more appealing to some as an alternative energy source to emission-producing fossil fuels.

– Partner –

He said there was a need for the public to continue pressuring politicians to ensure that such options were not entertained.

“None of us can leave these issues just to others who seem more powerful than us. We must claim and assert power over our own future and take what action we can to achieve a peaceful, just, diverse and empathetic society locally and worldwide,” he said.

Letter of survival
WILPF member Anna Lee then recounted her first anti-nuclear protest in the 1960’s in Auckland where Susumu Yoneda, a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb handed her a letter describing his harrowing experience of the blast and trying to find refuge in a razed and burning city while people were suffering in the inferno.

“All around me were wounded people. Some had their eyeballs protruded, others had their bowels burst out. Some were almost burnt to death by heat rays, showing their red flesh,” the letter read.

It finished with an emotional appeal for a total ban and elimination of nuclear weapons to prevent such horror from ever occurring again.

The destruction of the bombs was strikingly contrasted with the beauty of contemporary Nagasaki through WILPF member Del Abcede’s photos, taken on a trip to Japan earlier this year.

A recurring theme on the evening was a warning against the narrative that the dropping of the atomic bombs was justified.

Intense controversy
Since 1945, the bombs have been the subject of intense controversy and debate with the American argument usually following the narrative that their use was necessary to bring about the end of the war.

This has been countered by arguments that the bombs were grossly unjustified, that the Japanese would have surrendered regardless and that their use was to justify their enormous cost and intimidate international rivals like the Soviet Union.

Valerie Morse from Auckland Peace Action warned against the justification narrative, saying that such arguments could be used as an excuse to use weapons of mass destruction in the future.

Aiko Sakurai, a member of global Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International then spoke about the need for youth to recognise its power and responsibly to bring about global peace.

She recalled stories from her grandmother who had survived WW2 in Japan, where food was scarce and cities were ruthlessly firebombed by the American air force.

Plight of Japan
While the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks are infamous for the immediate loss of life and the horrific radiation illnesses they caused, an estimated 300,000 to 900,000 people were killed in firebombing in other parts of Japan in the months prior.

On March 9 1945, much of Tokyo was destroyed in a huge firestorm which resulted in a death toll as large, in not larger, as the first day at Hiroshima.

Sakurai declared her commitment to prevent such horror recurring through self-reflection, compassion and awareness of the precious value of each human being.

She concluded with a quote from Soka Gakkai President Dr Daisaku Ikeda: “A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.”

The evening concluded with a candle-lit vigil. In the spirit of the Japanese custom to “send off” spirits through the lighting of fire, people were invited to light candles and place them on the ground, eventually forming a large and glowing dove – the international symbol for peace.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2019/08/11/gallery-a-peaceful-day-remembering-the-horrendous-fate-of-nagasaki/ Sun, 11 Aug 2019 06:15:53 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2019/08/11/gallery-a-peaceful-day-remembering-the-horrendous-fate-of-nagasaki/

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

This week marks the 74th anniversary of the United States atomic bombings of Japan, bringing with it the annual renewed debate over the morality of the decision to force the country’s unconditional surrender by unleashing the Allies’ terrible new weapon on two heavily populated cities that were critical to the Japanese war effort.

Hiroshima was chosen first due to its compact topography, strategic port, and hosting of two major Army headquarters. It was bombed on 6 August 1945.

The city was devastated with between 90,000 and 150,000 deaths.

Three days later, on August 9, a second port city of Nagasaki was bombed with up to 80,000 deaths. About half the death tolls in both cities was within the first day.

The Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede visited Nagasaki in January this year. Her portfolio of images – prepared for a display hosted by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Auckland on 11 August 2019 – shows the modern City of Peace.

Nagasaki Day 2019: Click here to view the photo-essay.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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