Members of a local environmental activist group marched down Cumberland Avenue on Tuesday, on their way to the United Nations to protest the United States’ continued nuclear program, according to march organizers.
The United States is in violation of two international nuclear treaties and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, according to Kip Williams, a 2004 University of Tennessee alumnus, member of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, and the event’s organizer.
The article states, “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”
“The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the only international agreement on non-proliferation, and it is about to collapse,” Williams said.
Williams stated that the United Nations has reviewed the possibility of changes to the international treaty, and that only the United States and India opposed any changes that might restrict nuclear arms.
The United States is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which grants the nation veto power over any resolution that comes before it, and was one of five nations possessing nuclear weapons to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that went into effect in 1970.
“We have two goals here: first the abolition of nuclear weapons and the establishment of world peace; and two that the United States live up to the obligations it holds the rest of the world to,” Williams said.
A fellow marcher echoed Williams’ assertions.
“The United States is in fact in violation of international law,” said Marcus Atkinson, a spokesperson for the group.
“I think governments get away with what they’re doing because the people don’t understand the importance of what (their governments) are doing,” he said. “There is very little media attention about what is happening in Western countries.”
Atkinson cited Australia and Japan as examples of the United States’ hypocrisy.
Japan has a nuclear program that is “one thousand times that of which Iran is accused of possessing. But because it’s Japan, it is okay.”
“Our purpose,” Atkinson said, “is to walk in prayer to the United Nations” and encourage people along the way to join in or inspire those who cannot join to “become involved in their community and raise awareness about the cause.”
The march is an international effort. Activists from Japan and Australia joined local members of OREPA to protest.
Mayors from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, target cities of the first atomic attacks in 1945, wrote letters in support of the protest to the event’s organizers, Williams said. The group has also received support from Mayors for Peace, an international organization of mayors who promote nuclear disarmament and abolition.
The international nature of the protest, said Atkinson, himself Australian, “is a way of spreading information between us all. We’re learning things about Japan and what they’re doing that we didn’t know, and they’re learning things about the United States that they didn’t know.”
The protest’s organizers say they plan to arrive in New York on May 2 in time for the United Nations’ review of the treaty beginning that day, and join in demonstrations slated for the conference.
“We’re going to gather in Central Park to voice our protest that the United Nations is not enforcing the non-proliferation treaty,” Atkinson said.
The United Nations will review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty May 2-27. Demonstrations from numerous activist groups are slated to take place throughout the month, most occurring in Central Park.
Atkinson said he saw the event as a way of getting the message out to the people and that, “when people understand what is going on, they’ll do something about it.”
More information on the protest efforts is available at the Web site http://stopthebombswalk.peacehq.com.
