Check out what Bromley CND’s been up to in their annual newsletter:
London CND signs the Korea Peace Appeal
27 July marks 68 years of ceasefire after the Korean war of 1950-53. A peace treaty has never been signed and the Demilitarised Zone Forum has launched the Korea Peace Appeal, a campaign for a formal end to the war. The DMZ Forum is a peace and nature conservation which seeks to transform the no-man’s land between the two Koreas into a symbol of peace between humans and nature.
London CND has been asked by the Centre for Peace and Disarmament in South Korea, a peace appeal partner and part of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy who toured the UK at our invitation a few years back, to support the Korea Peace Appeal call by posting photographs on social media with the message: Let’s End the Korean War! Sign the Korean Peace Appeal.
We responded with the photo above which shows our co-chairs Carol Turner and Hannah Kemp-Welch and National Council member Sophie Selby, left, with CND general secretary Kate Hudson, right. We urge you to do likewise. Post your photos on social media using the hashags #19530727 #EndtheKoreanWar and #KoreaPeaceAppeal. Then send them to endthekoreanwarnow@gmail.com for display on the campaign website. Find out more and sign the Korea Peace Appeal and sign it too.
Kingston Peace News - July 2021
You can read the July edition of Kingston Peace news here:
Articles include:
US prepared to nuke China in ’58, papers reveal
Revelations as Biden heads for new ‘Cold War’
The US under Joe Biden has done little to damp down the anti-China rhetoric of the Trump era – something that was obvious at last month’s UK-hosted G7 meeting and the American president’s follow up visit to NATO.
This has been occurring as new evidence has emerged as to just how close Washington came to authorising a nuclear strike against China in 1958 in defence of anti-communist forces on Taiwan.
Celebrated whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg – whose release of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ 50 years ago famously exposed the US administration’s duplicity over the Vietnam War - has now disclosed documents hitherto unseen by the public.
He told The New York Times, which has published his latest revelations, that he was doing so now because of renewed tensions between the US and China.
Millions would die
The Times reported that American military leaders pushed for a first-use nuclear strike on China, accepting the risk that the Soviet Union might retaliate in kind on behalf of its ally and millions of people would die. The crisis arose at a time when Chinese Communist forces were planning to attack islands in the Taiwan Strait in their ongoing campaign against the nationalist stronghold of Chiang Kai-shek.
The US government published a report on the conflict in 1966 but the specific reference to a nuclear attack plan remained classified. It is these pages that Ellsberg, now 90 years old, has released. Present day commentators have said the new information serves to act as a warning of an escalating confrontation with China over Taiwan. The US continues to supply the island with arms and senior US officials have visited there in recent years.
In 1958, officials doubted whether the US could successfully defend Taiwan with conventional weapons. Since then China has grown exponentially in military terms and now rivals the US as an economic superpower.
This, commented Guardian columnist Rafael Behr, was behind President Biden’s view that the G7 nations he met in Cornwall in early June should be co-opted into a new Cold War against China. The message was pressed home when he then visited NATO headquarters in Brussels before a follow-up trip for his first presidential meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Behr argues that such a meeting with the Russian leader, apart from re-setting relations between the country that were so unhinged by Trump, actually flatters Putin by the pretence that Russia, despite its still formidable arsenal, is still a superpower. Washington, argues the columnist, views Russia as a declining force.
Marked contrast
This is in marked contrast with the White House’s view of China, an actual economic powerhouse that is seriously threatening America’s global dominance. Hence the importance for Biden of enlisting the support of G7 nations in backing the US’s anti-China rhetoric, even though the EU and individual nations such as Germany are involved in substantial trade deals with Beijing, also to the US’s annoyance.
Britain’s position in all this is different, and worrying. Biden takes a dim view of Brexit, writes Behr, which is seen as “a pointless sabotage of European unity.” The White House preferred Britain as a pro-US voice wielding influence inside the EU. Since that is no longer the case, Britain under the present government is more subject than ever to US economic pressures and Johnson is particularly keen to be viewed as America’s ultra-loyal friend. That means toeing a hawkish line on China.
This has influenced the Government’s decision to send a naval force, headed by the brand new aircraft carrier, off to the South China Sea in a highly provocative and destabilising show of force.
Kate Hudson, CND general secretary commented: “How well this demonstrates the Government’s warped priorities: spending vast sums on sending a warship halfway round the world while many British children don’t have enough to eat and the NHS struggles to bear the pressures of the pandemic. This is a provocative voyage that should be called off. Our government needs to end the military posturing and work with all in the global community to meet the enormous challenges we face.”
Don’t start a cold war, warns Bernie
The US’s most popular independent Democrat senator Bernie Sanders has issued a warning about Washington’s burgeoning hostile attitude towards China.
In an article for the website Foreign Affairs on June 17 entitled Washington’s Dangerous New Concensus on China, subtitled Don’t Start a New Cold War, Sanders argues that the current attitude towards the world’s most populous nation is markedly different from the one that prevailed just two decades ago when the US, both political parties and corporations, was keen to open up trade with China in the belief that this would liberalise both the Chinese economy and its political system.
Sanders was one of the few voices opposing this at the time, he explains in the article. “What I knew then, and what many working people knew, was that allowing American companies to move to China and hire workers there at starvation wages would spur a race to the bottom, resulting in the loss of good-paying union jobs in the United States and lower wages for American workers. And that’s exactly what happened.”
And he goes on: “In the roughly two decades that followed, around two million American jobs were lost, more than 40,000 factories shut down, and American workers experienced wage stagnation—even while corporations made billions and executives were richly rewarded.”
Now, China is viewed no longer as a market but as a threat, economically and militarily. But, argues Sanders, if the US now organises its foreign policy around a global confrontation with China it will fail to produce better Chinese behaviour and be politically dangerous and strategically counterproductive. A better way forward is to work with all wealthy nations to raise living standards around the world, to tackle economic inequality and thereby undermine the simplistic populism of authoritarian forces.
Sanders praises the Biden Administration for deciding to provide 500 million Covid vaccine doses to poorer countries and for backing an international intellectual property waiver that would allow poorer countries to produce the vaccines themselves.
And in a telling phrase he comments: “When people around the world see the American flag, it should be attached to packages of lifesaving aid, not drones and bombs.”
London CND at the #NursesNotNukes demo
London CND joined the Peace bloc at the People’s Assembly national demonstration ‘Demand A New Normal’ under the banner of #NursesNotNukes, #NHSNotTrident.
Context
The People’s Assembly had called a national demonstration in response to the government’s shocking mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis. Its pitiful offer to the nurses, the public sector pay freeze, lack of sick pay – all while announcing the first increase in nuclear weapons since the Cold War – makes it very clear that the government doesn’t care about the health and wellbeing of our communities.
It was a lively demonstration, taking us all the way from Langham Place to Parliament where we assembled for a rally. Jeremy Corbyn MP addressed the crowd, pointing out the inadequacy of the 40% increase of the British nuclear stockpile in this context of health and climate emergency.
It was also the first opportunity for London CND’s new group in Lambeth to gather in real life!
Thanks to Marian, who counldn’t make it but sent us a placard to support our NHS not Trident message.
What now?
Put pressure on your MP
A cross-party group of MPs has submitted a Parliamentary motion – EDM 1667 – condemning the increase. Write to your MP to ask them to support it.
Contact the Prime Minister
Let Boris Johnson know your opposition to his plan and ask him to build the kind of world we want to live in.
Legal opinion
Read a legal opinion commissioned by CND on how Britain is breaching international law.
London CND co-chair's speech at the G7/Free Palestine demo
London CND co-chair Carol Turner delivered a speech in support of the Palestinian people at the Resist G7: Justice for Palestine Protest in London on Sat 12 June.
“The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Palestine against the brutality of the nuclear-armed Israeli state.
Today is a Day of Action for International Justice. What better illustrates that injustice than Israel’s long and violent oppression of the people of Palestine?
There is no equals sign between the military force of Israel and the resistance of the Palestinian people.
* * *
The G7 meeting taking place right now in Cornwall brings together some of the world’s most powerful political leaders. They are planning how to defend a system that creates injustice and inequality on a mammoth scale.
A system that stands aside while the people of Palestine are last in line for Covid vaccines.
A system that stands aside while the people of Palestine are forcibly evicted from their homes, and their children abducted and thrown in jail.
A system that stands aside while the people of Palestine are tortured and murdered every day of every week – year after long year.
* * *
And to protect their privileges and profits of the Global North, the G7 countries are armed to the teeth.
They are responsible for the overwhelming majority of global arms sales. And they account for one third of the world’s nuclear-armed powers.
* * *
CND’s message to the G7 is this:
Stop militarism and war
Use our resources to deal with the climate catastrophe and health pandemics.
Protect the human security of the majority, not the privileges of the few.
We want a world where people and planet come first. And we do not hesitate to say:
Free free Palestine !
Free free Palestine !
Free free Palestine !”
London CND says Free Palestine
CND was prominent on the 29th May Free Palestine demo, one of the biggest for many years. As the G7 is coming to Cornwall, we’re taking to the streets again this Saturday to demand no more complicity with Israeli apartheid. Why? The G7 includes the biggest suppliers of arms and military technology to the Israeli state, which are vital to enforce Israel’s regime of oppression.
London CND Co-Chairs Carol Turner and Hannah Kemp-Welch (left) pictured here in Hyde Park with CND general secretary Kate Hudson.
Join us outside 10 Downing Street at 1pm this Saturday! Our message: 'Stop militarism and war – use our resources to deal with the climate catastrophe, pandemics and inequality’. CND placards will be there.
If you can’t come, CND encourages all its supporters to take a selfie with a note/poster showing why you’re against the G7. Send to web@resistG7.org.
Fukushima Vigil at Japanese Embassy
Nuclear Power, No Thanks!
After 14 months of suspension due to Pandemic and lockdown, the Fukushima Vigil at the Japanese Embassy and TEPCO London Office has returned on May 7th, 2021.
Here are a few pictures of the vigil.
London CND at #KillTheBill
The government is planning to make important changes to the law that will restrict the right to protest when lockdown restrictions ease.
CND and London CND oppose this new planned legislation, and joined the national #KillTheBill protest on May 1st in London. After gathering in Trafalgar Square from midday, we marched past Buckingham Palace then through Victoria, past the Department for Education and the Home Office, and finally across the river to Vauxhall Gardens.
About the bill
The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill would give the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, powers to create laws to define ‘serious disruption’ to communities and organisations, on which police can then rely to impose conditions on protests. As the Netpol Kill The Bill Coalition statement explains:
The Bill intensifies police brutality against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and criminalises their way of life.
The Bill gives the police the power to criminalise protests for being “noisy”, disruptive or “annoying”.
The Bill uses ‘protecting’ women as a cover to expand police powers and increase custodial sentences. These measures are not sufficient to prevent violence, and are troubling considering police officers’ implication in cases of violence against women.
The Bill expands stop and search powers, which are already regularly used to harass and terrorise young black people.
The Bill will silence the calls for justice by families of those whose loved ones have died at the hands of the police.
The Bill makes those at the sharpest edge of state violence even more unsafe – including migrants, sex workers, Disabled people, and racialised communities.
But in a victory for protestors, the next stage of the bill has now been delayed until later in the year after huge opposition. This protest aimed to increase the pressure to scrap the bill altogether.
What now?
Our ability to campaign against nuclear weapons is only as strong as our democratic freedom to dissent and protest. We must continue to stand firm against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill.
CND signed an open letter to the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary with other organisations highlighting our concerns, and you can express your opposition to the Bill by signing the Netpol petitition here:
Chernobyl Day Vigil - Bromley Borough CND
Members of Bromley Borough CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ] marked the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26 th with a vigil in Bromley Market Square. They gave out leaflets and lit a candle in memory of the people who died in 1986, and have lost their lives since as result of nuclear reactor disasters ,including the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2009.
At Chernobyl 150 tons of radioactive debri exploded into the air and contaminated 23% of the territory around. The radioactive fallout spread across large parts of Europe including the UK and millions of people have died of cancer as a result. At the time, the Ukraine and Russian governments covered up the facts.
CND are opposed to nuclear power on the grounds that there is always a danger of a disaster and fully support more investment and creation of jobs in green renewables industries.
Ann Garrett and Richard Hart
[ Secretary and Chair of Bromley Borough CND ]
Music as Direct Action - Playlist of anti-nuclear activism
From jazz and folk to anarcho-punk, the cause of nuclear disarmament has been ardently defended by musicians. This listening session will rewind the tapes all the way to the 1950s and take you on a musical journey. Alongside a live YouTube playlist picking out historic moments where music and anti-nuclear activism intersect, join Professor George McKay, an academic of pop music, peace and protest, as well as musicians from Crass and the Fallout Marching Band, and activists from famous women’s peace camp Greenham Common as we explore how music has shaped the peace movement.
Playlist of the event
Aldermaston March, 1958 by Contemporary Films - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w98RGjsaS4
Lies by Alan Kennedy, Fallout Marching Band
You’re Already Dead, Crass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w5AxET519E
Dancing on the silos, Greenham Common Peace Camp
Reading list
Selected works generously offered by George McKay on his website: https://georgemckay.org/campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament-and-music-event-and-open-access-research-links/
Crass and CND by Paul Kerr - https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1210940/crass-and-campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament/