Risken för att atomvapen kommer att användas finns fortfarande, 60 år efter förstörelsen av Hiroshima och Nagasaki. Flera av kärnvapenländerna hotar nu att använda atomvapen, inte bara att behålla dem i avskräckande syfte. Denna nya attityd ökar benägenheten hos andra länder att själva skaffa kärnvapen. Risken för kärnvapenkrig, eller för terroristanvändning av atombomber, ökar därigenom. Den största faran är dock att Ryssland och USA behåller sina kärnvapen i »launch on warning«. Den amerikanske eller den ryske presidenten är ständigt beredda att utlösa alla sina kärnvapen om indikationer kommer på att det egna landet anfalls med atomvapenmissiler. Det skulle innebära slutet på den mänskliga civilisationen.
Det vore oåterkalleligt. Den enda meningsfulla åtgärden är prevention: Kärnvapnen måste avskaffas. Det är vad Svenska läkare mot kärnvapen och IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) arbetar för.
World Appeal on the 60th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced the massive, profound, long-lasting horror and trauma of atomic bombing on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. On our behalf, they tasted the hellish end of the world that nuclear weapons hold in store, and for sixty years the survivors have done everything in their power to communicate a single message: it must never happen again. Will they succeed in awakening the world from its insane nuclear trance? Or will the past be forgotten, and repeated. Incredibly, some in the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea still believe that nuclear weapons have a legitimate purpose and can be used to their benefit. They fail to understand that any use of even a single nuclear weapon for whatever purpose will benefit only warmongers seeking to increase violence and terrorists seeking to destroy civilization. Any use of nuclear weapons will overwhelm any meaningful medical response. The day of deterrence is done. The great majority of people and nations on Earth want nuclear weapons permanently gone. It is technically feasible to be safely rid of these expensive, heinous, and absurdly dangerous weapons by the year 2020. All that is needed is the political will, and we are the majority. The time has come to liberate ourselves, our children, and their children from the intolerable, unconscionable threat of annihilation. Please let your leaders know that you will accept nothing less. Morality is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of violence? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use might be to bring the human race to an end. We do not believe that the people of the world would accept a policy that is inherently immoral and likely to end in catastrophe. We all have a common interest: survival. We have to move forward from a now outdated security system based on nuclear deterrence and alliances, to one based on cooperation and allegiance to humankind. In the words of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, signed by Albert Einstein as one of the last acts of his life: »We appeal, as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.« Above all: Remember your humanity. Sir Joseph Rotblat Tadetoshi Akiba Iccho Itoh Ronald McCoy Gunnar Westberg Nobel Peace Mayor Mayor Co-President Co-President Laurate 1995 Hiroshima Hiroshima IPPNW IPPNW
