Category: Gunnar Westberg

A visit to NATO’s HQ in Brussels: Nuclear weapons, fear and blame

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By Gunnar Westberg

A memory: Russia as a candidate for NATO membership

Members of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IPPNW, have for many years regularly visited the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. We also had good contacts with Russian military officers and Foreign Office politicians. In the middle of the nineties members of NATO’s commission on Nuclear Weapons asked if we could arrange a meeting in Moscow, “because we meet the Russians only under very formal circumstances”. Some open discussions over the vodka were hoped for.

We arranged the meeting and got a group of leading Russian military brass and politicians on the participant list. But NATO hesitated. We were told they could not afford the trip… Finally only one officer, a Canadian, came from Brussels. So there we were with a group of disappointed Russian officers. The NATO representative in Moscow showed up for a couple of hours. She assured the meeting that the relationship between NATO and the Russian military leaders was excellent. Actually, she was looking forward to the time, not too far away, when Russia would be a member of NATO.

That was the dream. But more and more countries from the dissolved Warsaw pact became NATO members. And the connections deteriorated step by step.Read More »

Ukraine and nuclear weapons – Scrap all nuclear weapons

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By Gunnar Westberg

”Ukraine is going to make nuclear weapons. You’ll see. There is strong support in the parliament. All the intercontinental missiles in the Soviet Union were made in Ukraine, and there are at least 25 of them left. And we have uranium. And we have the know-how. Just wait, you’ll see!”

So said an officer in the Ukrainian army whom I met about a month ago. This prediction, that Ukraine is going to make nukes, can also be found in some Western news media.

Fortunately, this is not going to happen.

There is no uranium of weapons grade in the country. To produce a sufficient amount of high grade uranium thousands of centrifuges for enrichment are needed. Only Pakistan could sell them, as was done to Iran, but both the USA and Russia will stop this trade. Ukraine could Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Nuclear abolition now !

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By TFF’s Board

Lund, Sweden August 6, 2014 – Hiroshima Day

The Nuclear Age – risk of omnicide and our new responsibilities

Nuclear weapons came into the world and were used for the first time in 1945. Their specific feature as weapons of mass destruction and “omnicide” – able to kill us all – has changed what it means to be alive on this earth and to be responsible for its existence.

Until nuclear weapons, human beings could not decide whether or not to end project humankind and project planet earth.

Today we know that the arsenals and missile projection methods are such that a few decision-makers, or a technical malfunction, could blow up enough of the world to make the living – if any – envy the dead.

We live in the Nuclear Age. It means living with the permanent daily threat of extinction.Read More »

The mouse that roared

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By Gunnar Westberg

The Mouse that roared was a much acclaimed movie comedy from 1955 in which a small European Duchy tried in vain to get the attention of the USA for a trade conflict. To get the attention of the mighty superpower the Duchy finally declared war on the USA. And to its surprise, won!

The story to be told below is less funny.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Marshall Islands, Mr. Tony de Brum, spoke at the recent conference on the treaty against nuclear weapons, NPT, in New York. He remembered his experience of nuclear weapon tests in his childhood:

– “I have witnessed nuclear weapon explosions and my memories from the Lipiep atoll in Northern Marshall Islands are strong. I lived there as a boy during the 12 years of nuclear testing. I remember the blinding white light from the Bravo test on the Bikini atoll in 1954, a thousand times stronger than that over Hiroshima.

The Marshall Islands was used for 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, with an explosive yield corresponding to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years. The consequences are still with us as a burden which no nation, no population, should be forced to bear.” Read More »

Marshallöarna utmanar kärnvapenstaterna

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Av Gunnar Westberg

Marshallöarnas utrikesminister Tony de Brum berättade vid den pågående förberedelsekommitténs möte (Prep Com) i FNs-högkvarter i New York, den 28 april till 9 maj 2014 om avtalet mot kärnvapen, NPT, i New York, om sina upplevelser av kärnvapenprov:

Jag har varit vittne till kärnvapenexplosioner och mina minnen från Lipiep-atollen i norra Marshallöarna är starka. Jag bodde där som pojke under de 12 åren som kärnvapenproven pågick. Jag minns det bländande vita ljuset från Bravo-sprängningen på Bikini-atollen år 1954, tusen gånger starkare än den över Hiroshima.

Marshallöarna utsattes för 67 kärnvapenprov mellan 1946 och 1958, motsvarande 1,6 Hiroshima-sprängningar varje dag I tolv år. Följderna finns kvar hos oss som en börda som ingen nation, ingen befolkning, skulle behöva bära.

Marshallöarna förvaltades vid tiden för kärnvapensprängningarna av USA under FN-mandat. Nu är landet självständigt med namnet Republiken Marshallöarna, som omfattar ett stort antal öar med en befolkning av totalt endast 60 000 personer. Landet ar ett avtal med USA som bl a innebär att USA står för försvar och vissa sociala tjänster.

Marshallöarna tar nu strid för att inget land i världen skall utsättas för kärnvapen, inte testsprängningar men framför allt inte kärnvapenkrig. Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Criminal investigation of the Nobel Peace Prize

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Media release
Lund and Oslo, April 25, 2014

The management of the Nobel Peace Prize has become a case for the Norwegian police, following a request for criminal investigation from 16 prominent Scandinavians, parliamentarians, lawyers, authors and peace activists, 10 Swedes and 6 Norwegians, to the authority on economic crime, the ØKOKRIM.

The move is based on the research of Norwegian lawyer Fredrik S. Heffermehl who in his books has called for respect for Alfred Nobel and the peace plan he wished to support.

– “In his last years Nobel joined the peace movement and wished to support financially its idea of co-operation on disarmament to replace military force and forces. The Norwegian Parliament appoints the five-member selection committee that must step down and be replaced by people who favor the idea of the prize,” says Heffermehl.

He claims that his demands through 6 years, and even an order in March 2012 from the Swedish Foundations Authority have not led the awarders to show any interest in Nobel and what he really wanted.

– “This is unlawful and criminal, and the requested police investigation comes as a last resort to secure justice for “the champions of peace” Nobel specified in his will.Read More »

B61 – A pork barrel bomb*

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By Gunnar Westberg

There are at present about 180 B-61 nuclear bombs in Europe, in Germany, Italy, Turkey, The Netherlands and Belgium. There used to be about three times as many but under pressure from both governments and peace movements most have been returned to their owner, the United States.

We have always been told that these “Nato bombs” were of no military value. Read More »

What’s The Problem With Iran?

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TFF PressInfo 1-2013

On Tuesday February 26, in Kazakhstan, a new round of negotiations are due between Iran and the Five Permanent UN Security Council members + Germany. We’d like to bring the following expert statement to your attention.

Contacts for interviews as well as analytical sources below the statement.

Summary

The problem is not nuclear weapons, essentially. It’s strategic interests such as control of oil and gas and that requires a change of Iran’s ‘obstinate’ and ‘defiant’ regime.



The present US/NATO/EU policy is based on escalating threats without an exit strategy. This increases the risk of war, whether intended or not. If that is not the deliberate purpose, an entirely new Western policy vis-a-vis Iran must be developed.

The Transnational Foundation in Sweden – an independent think tank with 27 years of experience – provides you with the diagnosis, the prognosis and the proposals for improved relations built on trust.
 (See below.)Read More »

They did it again…

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By Gunnar Westberg

The Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union

The Norwegian Nobel Prize committee has again decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize award to a recipient with the intention to encourage the awardee to work for peace, rather than to reward an accomplishment. 

The founders of the European Union saw it as a peace organization, but since then very little has been done to promote peace or to achieve disarmament. Most important, the EU has not at all worked to diminish the greatest threat to mankind, nuclear war. Two of the dominant members of the EU are nuclear weapon states, and have shown no intention to work to prevent a nuclear Armageddon. The EU has rather discouraged work by its member states against nuclear weapons. The two European countries who have been most active for nuclear abolition, Switzerland and Norway, are not members of the EU.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. The Parliament has chosen to appoint mostly politicians. Perhaps that is the reason the members keep rewarding politicians and political organizations? There should be members from peace research institutes and from peace organizations and respected non-political members of the community.

It is simply impossible to see that the European Union meets the requirements in the testament of Alfred Nobel, to give the award to “the one who has worked most or best to promote the brotherhood of men and the decrease or abolition of standing armies or promote peace congresses”.