Monday 8 September 2008

The arms fair planned for Adelaide has been cancelled. Read MAPW Media Release, 8 September 2008.

The major Asia-Pacific Defence and Security Exhibition (APDSE) was due to open on Remembrance Day, 11 November. 

The SA government made the announcement on 6 September, as peace activisists were planning a massive November convergence on Adelaide.

Activities in the pipeline included a major Festival of Peace and Remembrance, a minutes silence in memory of those who have died in wars, choirs, theatre performances, and an alternative peace market-place.

Dr Sue Wareham, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War said, that the decision to cancel the arms fair was wise.

“The APDSE promoters deliberately listed tensions in the Asia-Pacific region as a selling point to attract exhibitors and buyers. In other words, the more tensions there are, the greater the potential profits to be had. This is nothing to do with our security. It’s about profiting from war and violence.”

While the organisers cite “the threat of violence” as the reason, it would be surprising if their own extraordinary ineptness and insensitivity in choosing Remembrance Day for the opening did not play a part in the decision to cancel.”

“In any event, let’s look at where the real “threat of violence” lies. Surely with the industry that sells tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons every year, to fuel wars that kill and maim men, women and children in the dozens of wars that are currently being fought. That’s violence, threatened and executed” said Dr Wareham.
 

• Contact: MAPW office on 03 8344 1637 or 0431 475 465

JULE 2008: TWO NEW REPORTS based on recently released documents, show Australia's willilngness to test and use weapons of mass destruction during the cold war period.

US PLANNED TO TEST NERVE GAS ON AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS
Newly declassified Australian Defence Department and Prime Minister’s office files show that the United States was strongly pushing the Government for tests of VX and GB — better known as Sarin — nerve gas. Only a few of the guineapig soldiers would have been informed. Full details of what eventuated are not yet available.

See reports including:

• http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23979410-601,00.html
• http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=287260  

1968: PM GORTON WANTED AUSTRALIAN BOMB
Newly released secret documents shed fresh light on Australia's push for its own nuclear arsenal and reluctance to sign the NPTi.

• See report by Sunday Age Foreign Editor Tom Hyland, at www.theage.com.au/national/when-australia-had-a-bombshell-for-us-20080705-32ai.html?skin=text-only

SATURDAY 14 JUNE: Visiting Chamoru activists Lisa Natividad and Julian Aguon inspired over fifty participants at an Melbourne workshop on the expansion of US bases in Guam, and the creation of new bases in Okinawa. See the Events column for details of further Australian meetings.

Participants heard of the health and social effects of the US bases in both countries, and of Australia's close links with military operations in Guam and Okinawa.

The workshop was part of a national tour to publicise the Guam's campaign against an extra 50,000 US military personnel due to arrive on their tiny island. Lisa and Julian are visiting Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane and Canberra.

• MAPW is helping organise the tour in several states: the speakers come highly recommended by those who have already heard them.

INDIA, 10 JUNE 2008. Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) - MAPW's sister organisation and fellow affiliate of IPPNWi - have issued a press release welcoming Australia's decision not to sell uranium to India, and Prime Minister Rudd's announcement of a new international Commission to advance nuclear disarmament,

The Press Release reads:
In a statement released here today Dr.Livar Singh Chawla – Vice President IPPNW & President IDPD and Dr.Arun Mitra – General Secretary IDPD welcomed the statement of Australian Prime Minister Mr.Kevin Rudd not to sell Uranium to India.

The Uranium is directly linked to the production of nuclear weapons and its supplies to India could increase the nuclear arms race in the already fragile region of South Asia.

A delegation of Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) had met Mr.Murray Harris, Counsellor (Political) and Head, Public Affairs, Australian High Commission, New Delhi on 15th May 2008 and submitted through him the view point of IDPD in this regard. IDPD has carried out a study on the Health Effects of Uranium Mining on people living around Jadugoda Uranium Mines and found alarming results. T

he IDPD further welcomes the statement of Mr.Rudd to create a nuclear non proliferation and disarmament commission which could be step forward for nuclear disarmament.

IDPD also welcomed the statement of Dr.Manmohan Singh – Prime Minister of India impressing upon the need to implement Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan for global nuclear disarmament and hoped like minded countries could come forward to meet this challenge.

 Dr Arun Mitra
General Secretary
Indian Doctors For Peace and Development (IDPD)
139-E, Kitchlu Nagar,
Ludhiana - 141001
Punjab (India)
Phone: +91 161 2300252, 2304360
Mobile: +91 94170 00360
 

MELBOURNE, APRIL 25. Over 100 people attended Melbourne's first Alternative Anzac Day commemoration today.

MAPW was invited to make one of a series of brief interventions. Nancy Atkin read a message from IPPNWi Turkey and a poem from David Menkes of IPPNW New Zealand; and commented briefly on the rapidly escalating human costs of war, over the last 100 years.

Other speakers remembered the effects of wars on the lives and health of veterans and their families. Draft resistors from the Vietnam war described their experiences and motivations, whilst acknowledging the mental and physical effects on those conscripted to this war.

• Read Nancy Atkin's speech, including the Turkish and NZ messages.

R.S. (Bob) WHITE is Professor of English at the University of Western Australia.

Wars have been waged so continuously through human history that they are regarded as unavoidable, but the increasing destructiveness to civilians and the environment makes pacifism an urgent and viable alternative.

Professor White's latest book, Pacifism and English Literature: Minstrels of Peace, argues that imaginative writers have, since the fourteenth century, written powerful works and passages condemning war and presenting visions of peace that are imaginable and achievable.

The book is recommended for Peace and Conflict Studies courses around the world, while for literary students it provides a unique, thematic history of English literature based on the pacifist theme.

It is should inspire readers who believe that war does not solve problems in the modern world, and that a fresh approach to conflict is necessary. 

See more details and read a sample chapter on the publishers' website, Palgrave McMillan.

MAPW's succinct submission to the Australian Government’s 2020 summit, in April 2008, was prepared by MAPW President Dr Sue Wareham. It discusses three areas of concern: nuclear weapons; war as a response to terrorism; and our future security.

MAPW proposes that :

• Australians cannot be secure in a nuclear-armed world. We urges the Australian government to act on its commitment to nuclear weapons abolition as a matter of urgency. 
• War as a response to terrorism has been a catastrophic failure. 
• Our security will be best served by using our financial and technical resources to seek global solutions to the enormous challenges that we face, in health, the environment and susbtainable resources; rather than by acquiring threatening weapons systems. 

Read the submission.