[PEN-L:11961] Avoidable Consequences

["Shawgi A. Tell" <tell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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      GRANMA INTERNATIONAL 1997. ELECTRONIC EDITION. Havana, Cuba

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 Avoidable consequences

 BY MARELYS VALENCIA ALMEIDA (Granma International staff writer)

 THE effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still
 being felt. The damage of that criminal action was not confined to the
 being felt. The damage of that criminal action was not confined to the
  [Image] massacre of 63,000 people on the first day of the disaster,
          because the fatalities have continued; 52 years later, a
 total of approximately 200,000 have died as a result of being exposed
 to radiation.

 Even though nuclear weapons have produced the most horrific crime of
 the present century, the issue is still high on the agenda of problems
 to be tackled in the next millennium, given that steps taken to date
 in favor of disarmament cannot be considered very encouraging.

 The arms race took off with those two explosions, as the possession of
 armaments, principally nuclear ones, was seen as a strategic necessity
 for attaining military and political domination of the world, and for
 some nations as an element of defense.

 During the cold war period, missile and nuclear warhead production
 was, in part, justified among the most powerful countries of the time
 (i.e., the United States and the Soviet Union), as a way of
 maintaining the balance between them. However, with the collapse of
 the socialist bloc and the recent acceptance of Russia into the North
 Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), many people are asking what is
 the sense in having U.S. strategic weapons trained on some 2500
 targets in former Soviet territory.

 It's true that the actions and joint treaties to scale down the arms
 race constitute an advance in that context. Nevertheless, economic
 motives would appear to make the total elimination of nuclear weapons
 impossible. A further problem has also arisen, which is where to put
 all that dismantled equipment, which, as it rusts, will create another
 source of danger.

 For the moment, arms control treaties permit possession of up to 2000
 nuclear warheads.

 A new source of potential danger is now spreading: the unfettered
 production of plutonium in industrial processing plants. Due to that
 material's high fission qualities, unpredictable quantities can be
 obtained from just a few kilograms.

 The ease of obtaining plutonium, a substance used in the manufacture
 of atomic weapons, is a cause for concern in the world, given its
 potential for illicit marketing.

 Nuclear testing increased along with the arms race. Between 1945 and
 1993, around 2020 tests were carried out. The approximate toll of such
 experiments on human health by the year 2000 is 430,000 deaths from
 cancer.

 Even so, the debate on nuclear test bans dates back to the 1950s and
 the Comprehensive Treaty on these tests remains bogged down. Testing
 by computer, for example, doesn't affect the environment, although it
 is also an example of continued interest in the arms race.

 The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not appear to carry enough
 weight to substitute humanitarian interests for those commercial ones
 that exist behind the arms industry.


Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
tell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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