CONVOCATION April 24th 2022: NO TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS

NO TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) took effect on 22 January 2021. The treaty was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations and prohibits the signing countries from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, owning, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons. This was achieved after seven long decades of activism on the part of civil society. The countries owning nuclear weapons, as well as the members of NATO, Spain included, did not attend the assembly, did not participate in the voting and have neither ratified nor signed the Treaty.

During the invasion of Ukraine, the government of Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons, as well as the horrifying chemical weapons. This threat cannot be dismissed if we keep in mind that Russia has violated international agreements that prohibit using certain weapons that it has used such as illegal cruise missiles, cluster bombs and thermobaric weapons, all resulting in perverse effects on the people, the infrastructure, the environment and the climate. Neither can we rule out that any of the other eight countries possessing nuclear weapons might resort to using them when they wish to.

Nuclear weapons always presuppose a latent threat, not just for the real possibility of their being used, but also because of chance accidents which have happened and do still occur such as fires, sinking (ship, submarine), collisions, etc: a serious one every seven months. Or technical errors or mistakes interpreting the alert systems.

The nuclear bomb that fell on Hiroshima – today considered ‘small’ – created a destructive force 1,500 times larger than a non-nuclear bomb. A ‘small’ nuclear war in which 100 bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima were detonated (less than 1% of the current global stockpile) would kill 20 million people in the first week and in the instant of the detonations would plunge the planet into a “nuclear winter”, also putting 2 billion people at risk of starvation, with the exceedingly important repercussion in the increase of serious diseases.

There are more than 3,800 nuclear warheads of the more than 13.000 that exist that are at maximum alert, prepared to be detonated in minutes. For that militarized security, in 2020 the nine nuclear armed countries spent 72,6 billion dollars for nuclear weapons (1,4 billion more than the year before), 137.000 dollars a minute.

Women in Black NEED that:

♀ That money be invested in real security for the people and the climate of the entire planet.

♀ The government of Spain sign the TPNW, a commitment that President Pedro Sanchez said he would do in September of 2018.

♀ The financial entities disinvest in the nuclear weapons industry. In Spain, the BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) and the Santander destined at least 5 billion Euros in such financing.

♀ May we demilitarize our minds and work for harmonious living together, for solidarity.

For a planet without wars or nuclear weapons / YES to a world without armaments

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA – Yolanda Rouiller, WiB Spain