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Dear
Friends of Abolition 2000, -
Círculo Latinoamericano de Estudios Internacionales (CLAEI)/Latin
American Circle for International Studies (LACIS)
-
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE - USA)
-
Grandmothers for Peace International
- Los Alamos Study Group -
Medical Association for Prevention of War(MAPW - Australian affiliate
of IPPNW)
- Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement (with membership in 33 countries) -
Swedish Peace Council
endorsed
the appeal to the January 17 antinuclear demonstration in Paris. We
thank them and their responsible people for their signatures. We invite
other associations to do the same, if possible before the next national
press and media release, on January 7.
By reading the release below, you will understand that the situation in France becomes more and more diffficult. The demonstration which is scheduled in Paris January 17, 2004 by more than 100 French organizations and several dozens of foreign associations will be an important moment of our struggle against the nuclear politicies, both military and civilian, of the French government. That's why we pray to you to endorse the appeal to this demonstration on behalf of your NGO (in order to reinforce its international support). Thank you very much for sending us your endorsement as soon as possible. Best wishes to everybody for the upcoming year. Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (ACDN) _____________________________________ MEDIA
RELEASE
Translation
by Peter Low
Our
wish for 2004: to drive away all nuclear dangers from France and the
world.
As if all the woes of the world were not enough, the French government, the President and the party that backs them are proposing to add more. They are not satisfied with having 58 potential Chernobyls spread about French territory, and a nuclear "strike force" that is as expensive as it is useless, dangerous, illegal and criminal. - They are preparing to decide on the building of a new reactor of Franco-German design, the EPR, which will make France's "nuclear adventure" incurable - an adventure which Germany has held back from, while still sending radioactive waste to La Hague in Normandy, as do Japan and numerous other countries. - They want to locate at Cadarache (near Marseille), a site already dotted with nuclear installations and in a seismic zone, the headquarters of the international ITER project for research on nuclear fusion. They are selling this to the public with the promises of positive "spin-offs", although this project, will cost at least 30 billion euros in 30 years, and has only limited chances of success. They forget to explain that, according to Masatoshi Koshiba (Nobel prize for physics in 2002) and other eminent Japanese scientists "who don't want ITER at their place", this installation will produce 40000 tonnes of radioactive waste, will not be able to be dismantled for centuries, will risk environmental pollution, notably of groundwater, and will contain enough tritium to kill 2 million people. - They are increasing by over 10%, for 2004 alone, the budget allocated to nuclear weapons. They are modernising the French nuclear arsenal, which can already kill a billion people, despite the fact that France undertook on 19 May 2000 to eliminate it (and the four other nuclear powers on the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreed likewise). To reneg on this promise can only provide justification for non-nuclear states to break their promises and acquire such weapons. To prevent them from doing so will require making war on them, as with Iraq. - They are continuing to build new nuclear warheads, new missiles, a new nuclear submarine, and are continuing military research (at Le Barp near Bordeaux) on laser fusion, with a view to perfecting thermonuclear weapons that can be used on the battlefield. - They are altering France's so-called "doctrine of deterrence" by aligning with to the Bush administration's "nuclear posture review": developing "miniaturised" nuclear weapons and threatening to use them "preemptively" against states without nuclear weapons but suspected of wanting to acquire these or other weapons of mass destruction. - To stifle all dissent and all information that doesn't fit these wishes, they promulgated in July 2003, ostensibly as part of the fight against terrorism, a decree placing nuclear matters in the category of "Defense Secrets" and penalising with heavy fines or imprisonment any individuals or NGOs who breached this. They are intending also to return to the army the task of managing any "radiological emergency", i.e. a catastrophe of the Chernobyl kind. When the spokesman of the "Out of the Nuclear Age" network measures the radioactivity of a wagon of nuclear waste in the railway yards at Bordeaux, they destroy his Geiger counter. Such is "nuclear democracy". Who benefits from this aberrant policies? Certainly not the French people or the rest of humanity. ACDN calls on all sensible citizens and their representatives to use all the means that this threadbare democracy still leaves at their disposal to: - Demand the immediate suspension of these governmental measures or projects, notably by supporting or joining the national demonstration in Paris on January 17 initiated by the "Out of the Nuclear Age" network and over 100 other organisations. - Make the rapid, programmed abandoning of France's civil and military nuclearism a major issue in the next elections. - Reply to the November 2003 Nagasaki Appeal and the World Appeal to Set the Planet Free from Weapons of Mass Destruction launched in 2002 by ACDN, signed by hundreds of personalities and NGOs of every continent, and taken up by the world network Abolition 2000. - Act accordingly. o Saintes, 29 December 2003, Jean-Marie Matagne, President of ACDN (Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire) To subscribe to the Abolition Global Caucus, send an email from the account you wish to be subscribed to: abolition-caucus-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Do not include a subject line or any text in the body of the message.
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