The Treaty is set to enter into force soon,only seven of the many UN member states already working on ratification of the TPNW need to completethe task before it enters into force. It’s time to ensure that every town council and every parliamentarian and everyone who dreams of nuclear disarmament speaks out and insists that it is time the UKGovernment to get its head out of the sand and start thinking about the common good. In the week that marks the 75th anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Around the world, people and parliaments are already responding to the hibakusha call to get rid of all nuclear weapons everywhere. Setsuko’s letter to Nicola and Nicola’s reply (see last week’s news) gave Scotland immeasurable reassurance that we are understood in our opposition to nuclear weapons and our determination to play a part in getting rid of them. This is an internationalist rather than a nationalist perspective and Setsuko’s letters to all heads of nuclear armed states are a very powerful tool in putting the humanitarian argument right at the heart of the UK nuclear weapons debate at this significant point in the upgrading and renewal programme. Ireland, always a key player in nuclear disarmament, in ratifying the treaty is a powerful example as we envisage a Scotland that can act responsibly instead of being the UK’s launchpad. As another three UN member states ratified the TPNW in a special cermony in New York with ICAN’s Setsuko Thurlow, a new generation of Scottish campaigners were speaking out at Hiroshima events across the country. They are taking the intersectional relationship between climate change, nuclear weapons and human rights and putting it clearly on the line.The TPNW is urgently needed, and on its way. Dan Haddow from UN House and Secure Scotland was at the Peace Tree in Glasgow

“It is thanks to my connection with Secure Scotland that I have the opportunity to speak with you today. Secure Scotland exists to re-examine the concept of security by asking what it is that makes people feel safe in their everyday lives. Our view is that categorically does not include nuclear weapons.

Hibakusha is a legal term in Japan that encompasses different categories of survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Those officially recognised as Hibakusha are entitled to financial and health support from the Japanese government in recognition of the devastatingly detrimental impact that exposure to either the initial blast of the atomic bombs or the ensuing radiation has had on their lives and livelihoods.

I have never personally met a Hibakusha, but I have had the opportunity to work alongside survivors of landmine accidents through my work with The HALO Trust. I will not insult the Hibakusha and landmine survivors through an effort to compare their vastly different experiences of conflict, however I do strongly feel that both the international campaign to ban landmines and the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons are right to put the testimony of survivors, especially innocent civilians, at front and centre of their campaigns.

This is because survivor testimonies, whether written, spoken, or inscribed upon their bodies are invaluable cultural artefacts. They function as cautionary tales to the rest of humanity through their depiction of the harrowing individual experiences of the human cost of conflict. They achieve this by generating deep feelings of sorrow, compassion and empathy with their audience and, simultaneously, by stirring up a powerful moral conviction that similar atrocities committed by man must never be allowed to happen again. Seen this way, I believe the testimonies of the Hibakusha form the hypocentre of the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

One Hibakusha testimony stood out to me in particular for its graphic depiction of the aftermath of the nuclear attack on Nagasaki. It is the testimony of Yoshiro Yamawaki. His story highlights the chaos, tragedy, fear and confusion caused by the nuclear bomb. Born in 1934, he was just 11 years old when a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped the fat man atomic bomb on his home city of Nagasaki on 9th August 1945. Mr Yamawaki explains how he and his twin brother were at home a few kilometres from the hypocentre and were lucky to survive the initial blast unscathed. After coming around, they crawled from their collapsed home and miraculously managed to reunite with their 14-year-old older brother. Together, the three brothers’ thoughts immediately turned to their father who had been working in a manufacturing plant much closer to the hypocentre. He did not return home on the day the bomb was dropped. The next day, they went out in search of him.

The idea of the boys walking across the apocalyptic scene of their devastated city while at the same time, on the other side of the world, Allied Commanders conveyed triumphant messages of military victory thanks to the technological marvel of ‘the bomb’ reminds me of a quote from war correspondent Marie Colvin. She says, ‘despite all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.’ To this forlorn list we can add children weeping for their parents as soon after embarking on their search, the young brothers’ worst fears came true when they discovered their father’s lifeless body amongst the wreckage of the factory he had been working. Following a suggestion from an adult rescue worker in the vicinity, the boys decided to cremate the body where it lay among the rubble. As the flames around the makeshift pyre grew so did their fear and confusion, so they fled and resolved to come back the following day to collect the ashes. When they returned they were horrified to find that the body had only partially burned, leaving a charred and corrupted corpse in place of the living, breathing man with whom they had shared breakfast together just two days prior on the morning of the attack. They were never able to give their father a proper burial.

Mr. Yamawaki says: ‘I think that all people who lost family members and others close to them went through similar experiences to this.’

I am really struck by this idea. It is hard to listen to Mr. Yamawaki’s story. But it’s even harder to comprehend that to truly grasp the scale of human loss and suffering caused by the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emotive power of his testimony must be multiplied hundreds of thousands of times. This mind-expanding thought really brings home to me the appalling devastation caused by nuclear warfare, and the urgent need to continue strengthening the voice that speaks of the human cost of nuclear weapons.

In February the YesHub in Edinburgh supported three folk to join the Paris Forum organised by ICAN France. Three (very different) women went to Paris thanks to the sponsorship.

Anna Karisto is currently pursuing a nuclear disarmament internship with Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre while completing the last year of my law degree at the University of Edinburgh. She became involved with ICAN in 2017, just before the second TPNW conference, when interning with a Finnish partner of the campaign. She describes the ICAN Paris Forum as a powerful experience;

“ I got to hear and learn about nuclear disarmament directly from activists and scholars who I have watched speaking through my laptop screen for years now and cited in my own research. ICAN places the experiences of individuals and communities impacted by nuclear weapons at the centre of the disarmament debate and how nuclear disarmament requires cooperation between generations..”

Dagmar Schwitzgebel integrates her art and her activism in every aspect of her life, working with a range of performance strategies as tools for resistance, to challenge expectations of political activism. As part of a Trident Ploughshares, she disrupts and draw attention to the ‘nuclear dump’ of Trident submarines at the Devonport docks. “The importance of infinite dignity was expressed, especially that of indigenous peoples that are poisoned and violated by uranium mining. Grassroots movements all highlighted the links to climate change, and aimed to educate. Art in activism makes issues accessible, we need to enact the change, be kind with each other and enable a room for dialogue.” The third of the women who shared the accommodation provided by the YESHUB was Anne McCullagh-Dlyske. Anne has come to campaigning later in a life that has nonetheless always had resistance to supporting the war machine at its core. As a piano teacher she was never to enjoy a full musical career, because she is also a War Tax Resister

“Developing a more peaceful, sustainable world includes divestment from supporting the defence and nuclear  industries, diversification into more positive  alternatives  and education for a better future. War –  the military, and particularly the US military, with the highest carbon footprint of any nation, are the worst offenders on the planet. “ She hopes is that an independent Scotland will create an option for those who refusal to pay taxes for the military to contrbute to a fund to work for non violent conflict resolution.

A great aspiration for Scotland you can hear more about soon. All three women intended speaking at Disarming Women From Paris! (sponsored by the HUB) but the event has been postponed meantime, but we hope that before long they will be sharing ideas about how Scotland can be rid of nuclear weapons and part of the global majority that does not want them here – or anywhere.

Almost every week seems to bring us closer to the edge of nuclear catastrophe, most recently the news that the US is deploying the weapons and doing the war games for “limited” nuclear war. There are however signs, albeit small, that this wild spear-waving is beginning to provoke some realism.

On 23^rd January the Bulletin on the Atomic Scientists moved forward the hands of its symbolic clock which registers the status of existential threats to humanity and the planet, based on the risks of catastrophic climate change and of nuclear war. In its statement, the Bulletin said that any belief that the threat of nuclear war has been vanquished is a mirage and that civilisation-ending nuclear war – whether started by design, blunder, or simple miscommunication – is a genuine possibility. Their assessment was based on the Iranian and North Korean developments as well as on the almost total breakdown in arms control measures applying to the nuclear armed states.

The situation has just got even worse. On 29^th January we learned that US Navy had deployed the new W76-2 “low-yield” warhead aboard the USS Tennessee. The W76-2 It has an explosive yield of five kilotons, a third of the power of the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The unhinged idea behind it is that it could be used militarily, unlike the bigger weapons in the arsenal whose use would lead inevitably to a civilisation-ending exchange. These bright planners are glossing over the fact that it is still a warhead of massive destructive power, capable of inflicting thousands of civilian deaths, horrific injuries, fatal radiation sickness and significant environmental damage. Further, these “tactical” missiles would not be launched singly but as a salvo. Also off the wall is the calculation that any enemy response to its use would be limited to the same level. Once the nuclear threshold is crossed we are on a steep slope to disaster.

On 17^th January the US conducted a simulated war scenario in which they responded to a tactical nuclear attack from Russia with their own nuclear weapons. Far from being secretive or coy about it the Pentagon released the story at a press conference, with the clear aim of impressing everyone they felt needed to be impressed. Granted, this was a “table top” exercise invisible at the time to outsiders but the nuclear planners seem to have forgotten just how close to global nuclear war we were brought during the Cold War by exercises such as Able Archer. Were they also unaware of the study conducted by researchers at Princeton in September last year calculating the effects of such an exchange of “tactical” nuclear weapons? The researchers’ scenario depicted “a plausible escalating war between the United States and Russia using realistic nuclear force postures, targets and fatality estimates. It is estimated that there would be more than 90 million people dead and injured within the first few hours of the conflict.”

In the history of the major Cold War nuclear confrontations a touch of realism tended to appear at the most critical points. Kennedy and Kruschev, then Reagan and Gorbachev, backed off. The ramping up of nuclear tension comes two months before the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which, at least notionally, provides an opportunity to measure the stance and performance of the nuclear-armed states against their responsibilities as parties to the Treaty. On 25^th February the Stockholm Initiative nations (Argentina, Canada, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) laid out their hopes for the Review Conference. While their requests to the big 5 nuclear-armed states are modest, their call for a strong arms control framework and for restraint on the part of the US and Russia is a helpful move.

Yet something more radical is needed. Article V1 of the NPT Treaty states that : Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. No significant progress has been made by the nuclear-armed NPT signatories on this article since the NPT’s’s entry into force in 1968. So long as nuclear weapons exist we will keep coming back to these junctures of extreme peril and always in the background is the realistic threat of an accidental or computer generated initiation of a nightmare exchange. The only real answer is prohibition and elimination. Also at the Review Conference will be the 122 states that voted for the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which provides the legal instrument that article V1 requires to do precisely that. We look forward to hearing their voices at the Conference. We are all downwind on this one.

In is important to note that the missiles on the UK nuclear weapon submarines are not British but are leased from the US. Indeed the UK does not have the facility to remove the missiles from its four Vanguard class boats– that needs to be done at King’s Bay in Georgia. The delivery and targeting software is US made. The Trident warheads – the actual nuclear bombs – have been manufactured and assembled at the Aldermaston/Burghfield complex in Berkshire but the design is American, although the evidence suggests that some design elements have depended on collaboration between US and UK nuclear weapon engineers. Not a sniff of “taking back control” on this one. The UK describes its Trident system as an “independent nuclear deterrent”. The description is false.

There is therefore nothing new or surprising about the announcement by the Pentagon of a UK/US deal to supply Britain with new warheads. What is less often remarked upon is the fact that this promised deal, and the history of the UK dependence on US warhead technology, amount to a blatant breach of Article 1 of the Nuclear-Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which states that “Each nuclear-weapons state (NWS) undertakes not to transfer, to any recipient (underline added), nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices, . .”. In nine weeks time diplomats from across the world will gather for the once-in-five-years NPT Review Conference. This Review takes place at a critical juncture for nuclear disarmament. The world is faced with the dismantling of key nuclear arms control frameworks, the ongoing modernisation of nuclear arsenals, and the indications that new states will seek to acquire their own nuclear weapons.

At the review these five nuclear-armed states will seek to represent themselves as the mature and responsible custodians of nuclear security. This is the opposite of the truth. Article V1 of the Treaty states that : Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

In 2017, the majority world adopted the necessary treaty, its called the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, (TPNW) so why is it boycotted by the nuclear-armed states, and why has no significant progress has been made on Article V1 since the NPT’s’s entry into force in 1968? Currently we are going backwards.

The TPNW, a treaty “on general and complete disarmament” already exists and is tailor-made to slot into that gap in the NPT. The TPNW has been signed by 80 states and already ratified by 35. With 50 ratifications it will enter into force and put nuclear weapons in the same pariah category as chemical weapons and landmines. The nuclear-armed state in which you and I are currently stuck has two contradictory responses to the TPNW. On the one hand it sneers at it as a Utopian irrelevance and on the other it claims that it threatens the stability of the arms control and disarmament regime. Along with the other big 5 the UK will want no talk of the TPNW at the NPT conference. This is why we need Scottish parliamentarians to attend the Review Conference as civil society representatives, to make our support for the TPNW visible and articulate. If you want more evidence of the urgency of this check out the stance of the three candidates for the Labour leadership, who feel themselves compelled to parade their virility by parroting the mantras of delusion that bolster the UK’s sacred slaughter system. We can do so much better.