Ominously, all the nuclear-armed nations are engaged in a new nuclear arms race. Despite their animosities toward each other, they are united in opposition to the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW or Ban Treaty), and the original nuclear-armed states are continuing to ignore their obligations under the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to end the arms race at an early date and to negotiate “in good faith” the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Following the sudden end of the Cold War, after decades of difficulty in focusing attention on the crucial need for nuclear abolition, there are signs of a developing global nuclear abolition movement to respond to these dangers.

These include the July 2017 vote in the United Nations by 122 countries to adopt the Ban Treaty and the Nobel Peace Prize award to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Campaign; nonviolent direct acts of resistance such as the Memorial Day protest at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts and the April Kings Bay Plowshares Action; and unanimous adoption by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in June, of a sweeping Mayors for Peace resolution “Calling on the Administration and Congress to Step Back From the Brink and Exercise Global Leadership in Preventing Nuclear War.”

Since 2006 UFPJ has declared August Nuclear Free Future Month.  Let’s keep the momentum going!

Take action! August 6^th and 9^th will mark the 73^rd anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rallies, marches, vigils and nonviolent direct actions are planned across the country and around the world. Click here to find an action near you. Click here to find more actions, listed by date. Join any and all of these actions that you can! 

Enroll your Mayor in Mayors for Peace! Mayors for Peace, founded in 1982 by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is working for a world without nuclear weapons and safe and resilient cities as essential measures for the realization of lasting world peace. Mayors for Peace has grown to 7,632 cities in 163 countries, with 213 U.S. members, representing in total over one billion people. Mayors for Peace aims to reach 10,000 members by 2020, the 75^th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Click here to find out if your Mayor is a member of Mayors for Peace. Click here to find out how to enroll your Mayor.

During the 1980’s, fear of nuclear war was by far the most visible issue of concern to the American public and people around the world.  Yet following the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons fell off the public’s radar screen. It was almost as if the planet itself breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, deeply embedded in the military-industrial complex, military planners and scientists at the nuclear weapons labs conjured up new justifications to sustain the nuclear weapons enterprise. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991 Colin Powell, then-Chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared: “We no longer have the luxury of having a [specific] threat to plan for. What we plan for is that we’re a superpower. We are the major player on the world stage with responsibilities… [and] interests around the world.”

At its first national assembly in 2003, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) adopted a proposal put forward by Abolition 2000 member groups, to make nuclear abolition “a” priority. The proposal was adopted without much discussion or understanding. At the time we were focused on ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and nuclear weapons were seen by many as a peripheral issue. Over the years, nuclear weapons have moved from the periphery to the center of anti-war concerns and UFPJ’s work.

Today, nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons, most an order of magnitude more powerful than the U.S. atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki— 92% held by the United States and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to humanity.  All of the nuclear-armed states are upgrading their nuclear arsenals, and the dangers of wars among them are growing.

On January 25, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its symbolic Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to the end of humanity. It is now set at two minutes to midnight—as close as it’s ever been set since its inception in 1947. In moving the clock 30 seconds closer to the hour of the apocalypse, the Bulletin cited “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change”, and declared, “the world is as threatening as it has been since World War II.”

 We stand at a nuclear crossroads, in a sharply divided world. Last July the majority of the world’s countries voted to adopt a historic treaty to prohibit the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. While the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) represents the total repudiation of nuclear weapons by most of the states that don’t possess them, the U.S. and the eight other nuclear-armed states, along with Japan, Australia, South Korea and all but one of the 28 NATO member states (The Netherlands) – all countries under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, boycotted the negotiations. (Click here for more information about the TPNW.)

We must keep both realities – the promise of the Ban Treaty and growing dangers of nuclear war – fully in mind as we urgently work for a world without nuclear weapons.

In June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, (USCM), unanimously adopted a sweeping Mayors for Peace resolution “Calling on the Administration and Congress to Step Back From the Brink and Exercise Global Leadership in Preventing Nuclear War.” The resolution rejected the general hysteria that followed Trump’s meetings with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.

 Make no mistake. Donald Trump is a dangerous unhinged megalomaniac, unfit for office, who is taking a wrecking ball to the domestic and international orders – to the detriment of millions of ordinary people. Yet, the hysteria following his meetings with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin is truly frightening. Media pundits and Congressional leaders from both parties would apparently rather remain poised for nuclear war than risk talking with “the enemy”.

The USCM resolution also “urges the United States government to reverse its stance and to embrace the TPNW as a welcome step towards negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on the achievement and permanent maintenance of a world free of nuclear arms”, and “calls on the President and Congress to reverse federal spending priorities and to redirect funds currently allocated to nuclear weapons and unwarranted military spending to support safe and resilient cities….”, along with other measures.

Click here to read the complete text of the USCM resolution. This resolution is designed to be used by a number of campaigns currently underway, including Back from the Brink, Divest From the War Machine, and the Treaty Compliance Campaign. Circulate it widely as an educational and advocacy tool. Quote it in op-eds and letters to the editor. Send it to your Congressional representatives. Consider asking your City Council to endorse the resolution. For more information contact Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator, Jackie Cabasso at wslf(at)earthink.net.

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Join Ann Wright and Pace n Bene in Kansas City, Missouri  for a weekend rabble-rousing. Resist DRONEs at Whiteman Air Force Base, NUKE-Parts making in Kansas City, MO and truthteller BRADLEY MANNING’S imprisonment at nearby Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (before he is taken to Fort Meade, MD for his early May court-martial.)

Join Kansas City Peace Planters coalition April 13, 5pm and all day April 14 for nonviolence training with leaders of Pace e Bene (Peace & Doing Good), at Cristo Rey, Kansas City, 211 W. Linwood.  On April 15, resist death and silence (drones, nukes and prison for truth-telling)

For more information on the Trifecta Resista weekend contact Jane Stoever <janepstoever@yahoo.com> , 919-206-4088, of PeaceWorks (peaceworkskc.org and kcnukeswatch, wordpress.com)

Kansas City April 13-15—Join us!!

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Click here to learn more and to register your opposition to the planned test-launch of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base on February 25, 2012. Click here for a downloadable paper petition.

If you live in California, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom has chartered a bus that will leave for Vandenberg from Oakland, at 5 pm, Feb. 24, returning by 7 am the next day, picking up people in Palo Alto, Salinas and Santa Cruz. Plan to get on the bus! $40 requested; no one turned away. Contact: macgregoreddy@gmail.com

Think globally, act locally! Organize a protest at a nearby federal facility where you live!!

These actions are being promoted and coordinated by the United for Peace and Justice Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security working group.  Click here to find out about the working group and how you can get involved.

The post Protest the Next Nuclear Missile Test at Vandenberg Air Force Base! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Theresa will be joined by supporters – including Edward DuBose, Georgia president of the NAACP;Theresa El-Amin, Regional Director of the Southern Anti-Racism Network; and Anton Flores, Director of the Alterna Community – for a press conference on Friday, January 13 at 8:30am at the Federal Courthouse in Columbus, Georgia, 12th Street & 2nd Avenue

Columbus, GA – Theresa Cusimano, 43, a resident of Kissimmee, Florida was arrested on November 20, 2011 after crossing onto Fort Benning, Georgia in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, calling attention to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC). Theresa’s act of civil disobedience came at the culmination of a protest that drew thousands to the gates of Fort Benning, calling for the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC and a change in US policy towards Latin America. Protestors included actor Martin Sheen and human rights defenders from Honduras, Colombia, Haiti and Costa Rica. The annual protest denounced the institute’s lack of transparency, its ties to brutal dictatorships and the ever-growing number of human rights abuses and crimes committed by its graduates.

“Our message is not being heard in Congress because our lawmakers have been purchased by other priorities,” said Cusimano. “I choose civil disobedience because the lawless acts promoted by the School of the Americas are human rights crimes unfitting of a so-called World Super Power.”

Cusimano was arrested by military police on trespass charges and faces trial on January 13, 2012 – her second trial for such actions at Fort Benning. Cusimano also carried her protest onto Ft. Benning in 2008, an act for which she served two months in federal prison. She now faces up to six months. Protests against the SOA/WHINSEC began 21 years ago; since then over 300 people have been sentenced and collectively served over 100 years of prison time for nonviolent civil disobedience.

The SOA/ WHINSEC, a combat training facility for Latin American security personnel made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works to close the SOA/ WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. policy.

Theresa Cusimano’s trial is scheduled to begin at the Federal Court in Columbus, Georgia at 9am on Friday, January 13, 2011 before Judge Stephen Hyles. Judge Hyles is known for imposing maximum prison sentences on nonviolent SOA Watch activists, who demand that institutions like the SOA/WHINSEC no longer protect the 1%’s corporate greed over the 99% and work to cultivate a culture of peace, mutual respect and justice across the Western Hemisphere.

The post Human Rights Activist Faces Six Months in Federal Prison for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.