Las Cruces, NEW MEXICO “”mdash; Hundreds gathered at the
UC-managed Los Alamos National Laboratory on Saturday, the 60th
anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to call for
nuclear disarmament.
The protestors at the weapons facility where the atomic bomb was
developed and tested were among thousands who gathered at sites
around the world, including the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, which is also run by the UC, to speak out against
nuclear armament.
The UC managed Los Alamos at the time when the United States
developed and dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Amid protest from students and community members, the university
has recently decided to bid to continue to its long relationship
with the lab.
The message of the protestors was simple and direct.
“No more Hiroshimas. No more Nagasakis,” said Koji
Ueda, a survivor of the bombing on Hiroshima, who spoke at the
event.
More than 500 protestors were with Udea at Los Alamos in New
Mexico, and another 300 met at Livermore in the Bay Area.
The events at Los Alamos began bright and early at 8 a.m. with a
prayer and went through the day with speakers, music, dance and
poetry to a close with a lantern ceremony well after dark.
Speakers condemned nuclear armament, and survivors of the
bombings told of their experiences 60 years ago. Protestors
displayed painted signs with anti-war slogans like “We are
sorry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki” and “War is not the
Answer” and held sunflowers, the international symbol for
nuclear disarmament.
In preparation for the event, 5,000 sunflowers were planted and
harvested, said Claire Long, who attended the event with the Los
Alamos Study Group, the group that planned the event.
At the Livermore lab, protestors carried props, including a
40-foot inflatable missile.
For the protestors, nothing less than complete disarmament of
all nuclear weapons was acceptable ““ and for many, the
problem was clear-cut.
“I think that humanity has to find another way to solve
its problems. We’ve created and used weapons of mass
destruction, and ultimately an eye for an eye leaves everyone
blind,” said Claudia Pavel, a New Mexico resident who
attended the protest at Los Alamos.
The question of who manages the lab was secondary, or even
unimportant to the protestors.
“We’re not going to focus too much on who manages
the facility, but rather what is done,” said Greg Mello of
the Los Alamos Study Group.
Though the primary concern is the development of nuclear
weapons, some protestors had an interest in the lab management.
“The event itself isn’t focused on (the management
of the lab) per se, but as an organization we are concerned about
who ends up managing the labs,” Long said.
The UC has chosen to bid for the management of Los Alamos
because of the vital role many officials within the system believe
the labs have for the safety of the United States.
“Science and technology are critical to national security.
… It is, in the end, about national interest, the national
interest that the university responded to in 1943 when we first
went to Los Alamos and the national interest that calls to us in a
new day,” UC President Robert Dynes said at the UC Board of
Regents meeting in May, when the university made the final decision
to bid for continued management of Los Alamos.
The arguments that many, like Dynes, make for nuclear armament,
based on the idea that possessing such weapons can protect the
United States from being attacked and prevent war, meant nothing to
Long, who said she has not found any convincing reason to develop
such technology.
“The deterrence factor isn’t a factor
anymore,” she said. “I don’t think that nuclear
weapons should exist on the planet. It endangers
everyone.”
In May, the regents were faced with similar protests against
nuclear armament from UC students who disagreed with the
university’s involvement with Los Alamos or any nuclear
weapons facility.
The only official comment the university has made on the
protestors is to emphasize the importance of intellectual
interchange.
“It’s freedom of speech, and we welcome that.
It’s important for people to share their opinions and views
on issues,” said UC spokesman Chris Harrington.
But some think the protestors will have little effect on the
decisions of either the United States or the UC regarding nuclear
weapons.
David Wilkinson, a political science professor at UCLA, said he
thought the protests would be inconsequential.
The protests are “calling attention to people who are
already aware of the implications of nuclear weapons and the fact
that the UC system is competing for ownership,” Wilkinson
said.
With reports from Bruin wire services.