L’urgente compito di abolire le armi nucleari: iniziata a New York la terza Conferenza TPNW

Un’intensa prima giornata ha contraddistinto l’inizio della Terza Conferenza degli Stati Parti del Trattato per la Proibizione delle Armi Nucleari (TPNW). In una Trusteeship Council Chamber al Palazzo di Vetro gremita in ogni posto i rappresentanti degli Stati e della società civile hanno ascoltato i sopravvissuti all’uso e ai test delle armi nucleari, i leader politici e gli esperti che hanno ribadito un unico messaggio: non bastano più solamente il controllo degli armamenti e la non proliferazione, serve subito l’eliminazione totale delle armi nucleari.

Come ha affermato la Direttrice Esecutiva di ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) Melissa Parke nel suo discorso di apertura, le armi nucleari sono state costruite con mani umane e possono essere smantellate con mani umane. Non si tratta di un sogno utopico. Riunendosi questa settimana, gli Stati firmatari del Trattato TPNW ci stanno portando in questa direzione: “Come John F. Kennedy ammoni proprio in questo stesso Palazzo di Vetro nel 1961: le armi da guerra devono essere abolite prima che loro aboliscano noi”.

E Melissa Parke ha anche ricordato cosa disse il Premio Nobel per la Pace Joseph Rotblat, l’unico scienziato nucleare ad aver abbandonato il Progetto Manhattan per motivi morali: “la deterrenza nucleare è la più alta forma di terrorismo”.

Dichiarazione di Melissa Parke di ICAN durante il Segmento di Alto Livello della Terza riunione degli Stati Parti del TPNW (estratti in italiano e versione originale in inglese)

Gli hibakusha sono sempre stati chiari nella loro richiesta di abolizione. Non solo il controllo degli armamenti e la non proliferazione, ma l’eliminazione totale delle armi nucleari in tutto il mondo.
Qualsiasi cosa in meno sarebbe inadeguata, data la gravità della minaccia che questi ordigni rappresentano per tutta la vita sul nostro pianeta.

Non ci sono ostacoli tecnici all’eliminazione delle armi nucleari, ma solo politici.
Con leadership e determinazione, i progressi potrebbero essere raggiunti molto rapidamente.
In tempi difficili come questi, potremmo essere portati a ridurre le nostre aspettative, a temperare le nostre richieste. Ma più la posta in gioco è alta, più dobbiamo essere ambiziosi. In effetti, storicamente, alcuni dei più grandi progressi nel campo del disarmo sono emersi da situazioni di crisi.
Il nostro obiettivo deve rimanere l’eliminazione, non il semplice prolungamento del periodo di non utilizzo delle armi nucleari. E dobbiamo insistere affinché l’eliminazione non sia un sogno lontano, ma una necessità urgente.

Dodicimila ordigni nucleari “da Apocalisse”, molti dei quali in stato di massima allerta, in più di cento località in tutto il mondo, conflitti importanti che coinvolgono Stati dotati di armi nucleari, un’escalation di scontri e minacce, l’uso crescente dell’intelligenza artificiale nelle forze armate, una nuova corsa agli armamenti nucleari in corso: cosa potrebbe mai andare storto?
La litania degli incidenti e dei quasi incidenti nucleari durante la guerra fredda e negli anni successivi deve servire da monito a tutti sulla pericolosa fallacia della “deterrenza nucleare”. Una teoria inventata per giustificare l’inazione sul disarmo e mascherare l’immoralità di possedere i mezzi per uccidere e mutilare su vasta scala.
Il Premio Nobel per la Pace Joseph Rotblat, l’unico scienziato nucleare ad aver abbandonato il Progetto Manhattan per motivi morali, ha detto che “la deterrenza nucleare è la più alta forma di terrorismo”.

Mr President, Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues,

Eight decades ago, two nuclear weapons – considered small by today’s standards – obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

More than a quarter of a million people perished, the vast majority of them Japanese and Korean, including some 38,000 children.

Others, like Jiro Hamasumi-san, (who is speaking today) managed to survive and have dedicated their lives to warning humanity of the nuclear peril.

I thank him and all other hibakusha for their courageous, unstinting advocacy, and congratulate them once again on their Nobel Peace Prize.

The hibakusha have always been clear in their demand for abolition. Not just arms control and non-proliferation, but the total elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Anything less is inadequate given the gravity of the threat these devices pose to all life on our planet.

With few exceptions, those hibakusha who are alive today were children in 1945. Through their young eyes, they witnessed unimaginable horror.

Last October, I was struck by the words of Toshiyuki Mimaki, a co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, who survived the Hiroshima bombing as a three-year-old boy.

Responding to the Nobel announcement, he said that his foremost wish was to “please abolish nuclear weapons while we [the hibakusha] are alive”.

Next week, he will turn 83.

Why can his vision not be realised?

Too many people have become resigned to the view that nuclear weapons are a permanent fixture in our world. We must never accept that idea.

Nuclear weapons were built with human hands, and they can be dismantled with human hands.

This is not a utopian dream. The fact that large geographic regions have been declared free of such weapons suggests that, one day, the entire world can be.

As states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, you are leading us in that direction.

You have each rejected nuclear weapons, completely and forever. For yourselves and for all.

It is especially significant that the country presiding over this meeting, Kazakhstan, once had more than fourteen hundred nuclear weapons on its territory.

It relinquished them all.

South Africa, another prominent supporter of the TPNW, has also shown that disarmament is possible, by dismantling its arsenal of Apartheid-era nuclear bombs.

There are no technical barriers to eliminating nuclear weapons, only political ones.

With leadership and resolve, progress could be achieved very rapidly.

In challenging times like these, we might be inclined to lower our expectations, to temper our demands.

But the higher the stakes, the more ambitious we must be.

Indeed, historically, some of the greatest breakthroughs in the field of disarmament have emerged out of situations of crisis.

Our focus must remain on elimination, not simply extending the period of non-use of nuclear weapons. And we must insist that elimination be pursued not as a distant dream, but an urgent necessity.

Without action soon, a nuclear catastrophe – perhaps orders of magnitude deadlier than the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is all but inevitable.

As John F Kennedy famously warned in this very building in 1961, “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

More than six decades on, it is clear that our time is running out. The Doomsday Clock is ticking.

All nine nuclear-armed nations continue to upgrade and expand their nuclear forces, with no plans in place for disarmament. And dozens of their allies aid and abet this nuclear madness.

Even at a time of global chaos and upheaval, some still claim, self-servingly, that nuclear weapons bring balance and peace to the world.

Their arguments ring hollower by the day.

Who today can confidently assert that nuclear weapons will never be used again, whether by accident or design?

Twelve thousand doomsday devices, many on high alert, at more than a hundred locations across the globe, major conflicts involving nuclear armed states, escalating confrontation and threats, the increasing use of artificial intelligence in the military, a new nuclear arms race underway – what could possibly go wrong?

The litany of nuclear accidents and near-misses during the cold war and in the years since must serve as a warning to all of the dangerous fallacy of “nuclear deterrence”.  A theory invented to excuse inaction on disarmament and disguise the immorality of possessing the means to kill and maim on a massive scale.

Nobel Peace Laureat Joseph Rotblat, the only nuclear scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds, said that “Nuclear deterrence is the ultimate form of terrorism.”

The insidious reality is that the manufacturing of these weapons, their maintenance and their eventual disposal all cost the earth, even without any direct use. These weapons displace people and communities from cradle to grave, diverting funds and scientific know how from pressing global needs. Deterrence theory is a distraction and an abstraction. The reality is these weapons create harm on many levels through their very existence. Survivors of the more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests conducted so far in the world can verify the breadth of harm from developing this supposed deterrent.

Distinguished Colleagues,

There are five key messages that I believe we, as members of the TPNW community, must communicate more widely.

One, so long as any country has nuclear weapons and insists they are necessary for their security, others will want them. The continued failure of possessor states to advance disarmament will only lead to further proliferation.

Two, so long as nuclear weapons exist, they are bound one day to be used, whether by accident or design. Thus, the only way to eliminate the risk of their use is to eliminate the weapons themselves.

Three, any such use would be utterly catastrophic for life on this planet.

Four, as TPNW states parties have made clear, the promotion of and reliance on nuclear deterrence poses an existential security risk for all countries. 

And five, disarmament is eminently achievable. Of all the global challenges we face, this is the least complex. All it requires is political will and leadership.

I thank each of you for exercising true leadership and doing your part to advance this vital cause. To ensure that there are no more victims of the use or testing of nuclear weapons.

Today, exactly half of all countries in the world have joined the TPNW, either as parties or signatories. We know that many more countries support this landmark treaty. You are the global majority. Do you know how powerful you are?

Each new signature and ratification will make the treaty stronger and more effective.  Please consider what more your president, prime minister or foreign minister could do to advance the goal of universal adherence.

This treaty is solidifying the global norm against the use and possession of the only devices ever created that can destroy all complex life on earth.

And it is bringing us closer to the goal of eliminating them once and for all, in our lifetime.

Thank you.