CONTACT: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CAREs: 925-443-7148; cell 925-255-3589
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation: 510-839-5877; cell: 510-306-0119
For Immediate Release: August 3, 2006
ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVOR TO SPEAK AT LIVERMORE LAB
PROTEST AND RITUAL MARK FIRST USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Special Event August 6 Marks 61st Anniversary of U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima
Livermore— On Sunday, August 6, starting at 8 am, a protest, march and ritual at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will mark the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Featured speakers will include Keiji Tsuchiya, an A-bomb survivor from Hiroshima, author and media critic Norman Solomon, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, and David Seaborg, whose father, Glen Seaborg, discovered plutonium.
“We gather at Livermore Lab on the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima not only to commemorate the past, but also to make visible and oppose continued U.S. nuclear weapons development,” explains Marylia Kelley, executive director of the Livermore, CA-based Tri-Valley CAREs.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of the world’s primary sites for the development of nuclear weapons. At present, the Lab is conducting design work on a new "replacement" submarine-launched nuclear warhead. This is the first new weapons type in an ambitious Bush Administration program to re-design and rebuild every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, under the “Reliable Replacement Warhead” program along with powerful new delivery systems to assure “prompt global strike” capability.
“Designing and maintaining nuclear weapons that should not exist, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is integral to preparations for global holocaust,” charges Norman Solomon, author and rally keynote speaker. “Pouring billions of dollars into weapons labs each year, the U.S. government is propelling an arms race that humanity can only lose. The unconvincing message to North Korea, Iran and other countries is: 'Do as we say, not as we do.'”
Solomon adds: “The University of California's direct participation in this work on weapons of mass destruction continues to make the UC system shamefully culpable. The most important issues related to the weapons labs are not about mismanagement but about involvement – not about dysfunction but about function.” The University of California (UC) has managed the Livermore Lab since the facility’s inception in 1952. This year will see the first Livermore contract to be competitively bid by the U.S. Department of Energy. Bechtel Corporation is expected to partner with UC to bid for Livermore Lab management, following last year’s successful partnership bid to manage the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico.
The August 6 event will also “bring home” the true terror unleashed by the atomic bombings of Japan by featuring the testimony of Keiji Tsuchiya, an A-bomb survivor from Hiroshima. Mr.Tsuchiya explains the reasons why he came to Livermore from his home in Japan to speak at this event: “Our strong will and actions are needed now to put an end to the use of nuclear weapons on our planet Earth. The kind of experience that the Hibakusha [atomic bomb survivors] had to go through should never, under any condition, be repeated to anybody.” Mr. Tsuchiya will be in the Bay area and available for interviews from August. 5 - 9.
Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation observes, “As we remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 200,000 mostly civilians who were incinerated or dead by the end of 1945 as a result, the horrifying conflagrations in the Middle East are foremost in all our minds. That first use of nuclear weapons, by the United States, set a new standard for ‘tolerable’ levels of violence, against which all subsequent wars have been fought. It’s time for a global ceasefire and immediate commencement of good faith negotiations on the elimination of all nuclear weapons, as recognized by the International Court of Justice. Nuclear disarmament: it’s the law.”
The Livermore action is organized by the Aug 6 and 9, No Nukes! No Wars! Coalition, including the Livermore Conversion Project, Tri-Valley CAREs, Western States Legal Foundation, California Peace Action, International Indian Treaty Council, Greenaction and Global Exchange. The events are co-sponsored by dozens of regional and national peace and religious organizations, including United for Peace and Justice, the largest anti-war coalition in the country (www.unitedforpeace.org [1]). From August 6 – 9 events will take place in over 60 cities in 24 states, at nuclear weapon sites where Bechtel has profited, at locations including the Nevada Test Site, the Los Alamos Lab in NM, the Y-12 Complex in Oak Ridge, TN and the Pantex facility in Amarillo, TX.
Driving Directions: Sunday, August 6, 8 AM, Take 580, exit south at Vasco Road, the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab will be on your left, the gathering will be on the corner of Vasco Rd & Patterson Pass, Livermore, CA; the march to the gate will begin at 9 AM.
Photo Opportunity: As part of the “Art Nuko World Tour,” an exhibit of paintings by Canadian artist Carl Chapin will be displayed at the Livermore rally. The original paintings, which graphically depict the horror of atomic mushroom clouds exploding over cities around the world, will be premiered at a show, “Hiroshima Nagasaki Remembered,” opening at the 1000 Cranes Gallery in Vancouver, Canada August. 4 - 9, 2006.
Speakers and Musicians:
Keiji Tsuchiya, Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor
Norman Soloman, nationally-syndicated media critic
Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers
Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, in Livermore
Jackie Cabasso, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation
David Seaborg, son of Nobel Prize scientist who discovered plutonium
Francisco Herrera, song writer and activist
Ras K'Dee, hip hop and spoken word artist
Master of Ceremonies: Wilson Riles, former City Council member and Oakland community activist and Sophia Ritchie, from the Coalition to Demilitarize the University of California.
More information is available at www.trivalleycares.org [2], www.wslfweb.org [3], and www.august6.org [4]
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