Activists picket lab on A-bomb anniversary

By Tom LochnerCONTRA COSTA TIMES

The only nation ever to have used a nuclear weapon in war is also the one most likely to trigger a nuclear holocaust, peace activists charged on today's Hiroshima Day observance along the fence at the Lawrence Livermore Lab..

And an attack by the United States could happen sooner rather than later, said Daniel Ellsberg, the dissident former Defense Department analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times 35 years ago during the Vietnam War.

The gathering, on the 61st anniversary of the day a U.S. bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II was to protest the University of California-operated lab's nuclear weapons research at a time the U.S. wants to punish nations such as Iran and North Korea for seeking to build nuclear weapons.

"US=nuclear hypocrite #1 rogue state," read one woman's placard. "Nuclear disarmament begins at home."

The protesters numbered more than 200, including a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, Keiji Tsuchiya, who was 16 and in the Army about 10 miles outside the doomed city when he saw an "intense lightning flash" and everything before his eyes went white.

"No words can adequately describe the horror of these weapons that tortured and killed tens of thousands of people by throwing them into infernos in an instant," Tsuchiya, who was on a detail that removed dead bodies of people and livestock in the ensuing days, said in a statement. The statement also apologized for the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and expressed condolences for the Sept. 11 attacks. "That is why we say nuclear weapons are the weapons of the devil which should never be used under any circumstances," Tsuchiya said. "They cannot coexist with humans."

Ellsberg said he believes current U.S. war planning calls for Iran to be drawn into a widening Israel-Hezbollah conflict, eventually triggering an American attack on Iran's nuclear facilities -- likely beginning with non-nuclear bunker buster-type weapons and possibly graduating to nuclear ones depending on the Iranian response.

Bush Administration officials have denied they seek war with Iran and that instead they are feverishly pursuing a diplomatic solution.

"Who's threatening whom?" Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which co-sponsored today's protest with Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, or Tri-Valley CAREs. "The first use of a nuclear weapon by the U.S. set a new standard for acceptable levels of violence in war," she said.

Ellsberg denounced the laboratory's researchers for "working in the role of the hangman," with all humanity dangling from the hangman's post. "They're working on the technology of mass murder," he elaborated later, "for ending life on earth."

Journalist Norman Soloman said the university, with its stellar renown, serves as the "air freshener" to wipe away the "stench ... of global holocaust."

The lab, on its Web site, describes its mission as "ensuring that the nation's nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable (and) to prevent the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction and strengthen homeland security."

Some passing motorists honked at the protesters in apparent solidarity. A few others shouted support of President Bush.

After the speeches about 150 protesters marched to the lab gate for music, prayers and an Native American purification ceremony.

About 40 Alameda County sheriff's deputies were lined up on the other side of the fence, some filming the protesters as some protesters filmed them back. Eventually, about 30 protesters, announcing they were prepared to get arrested, affixed posters, sunflowers and pieces of yarn to the fence. Ellsberg and several others tossed the flowers over the fence and onto the lab grounds.

Several veteran protesters, including Sherry Larsen-Beville of San Leandro, said arrests at the lab had become "a ritual thing" in recent years, with little adverse consequence other than some time spent in a holding pen awaiting issuance of a citation after which, "you don't hear from them again."

The deputies made no move. A few minutes later the protesters moved away from the fence, proclaiming victory.

"We've shut down the Livermore Lab," Cabasso proclaimed as the group broke into a song, "Peace, salaam, shalom."

"It's always closed on Sunday," said lab spokesman David Schwoegler, adding that a few people were working inside.

About 80 law enforcement officers from the California Highway Patrol, Livermore police, Alameda County deputies, University of California police and the adjacent Sandia Lab were on hand today, augmented by about 20 civilian employees.

No one was arrested.

Source: tm...