NO TO TRIDENT Lobby and Rally Wednesday March 14th
1pm Lobby, 6pm Rally
This Wednesday, CND have called for a Lobby and Rally of Parliament to tell our elected representatives that we don't want £76 billion spent on replacing Trident, in contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Humanitarian Law. Despite strong criticisms voiced by the crossparty Select Committee report, it appears that Tony Blair is again willing to ignore the voice of the majority of public opinion in pushing through Trident's renewal.
TRIDENT is shorthand for 4 nuclear submarines, each with 16 missiles on board. Each missile has between 3 and 8 bombs (warheads) on top: a possible 192 warheads - each one 10 times as destructive as the Hiroshima bomb which killed 100,000.
Like the ruling against the Government in the case brought by Greenpeace over lack of consultation in pursuing a new generation of nuclear power plants, the Select Committee states that Ministers have failed to answer fundamental questions about plants to renew the Trident missile system, including its true cost, why a decision has to be taken now and who it is meant to deter.
Under Article 6 of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (1968), it was the obligation of all signatories to negotiate "in good faith" the abolition of nuclear weapons. The government's promise to cut the number of nuclear warheads by 20% to 160 in the present White Paper will have little effect because of the size of the existing stockpile and the fact that the government does not propose any change to the number of warheads deployed on UK submarines. The government hasn't seen fit to explain how its plans are compatible with its 'commitment' to nuclear non-proliferation. This is just another example of the contempt with which this government views any critics of its policies.
In fact, the only option the White Paper did not consider was scrapping Trident. There is an unanswerable moral argument against Trident since the consequence of its use would be the killing of innocent civilians. Further the NPT ruling strengthened the International Court of Justice ruling on legality: that in every forseeable scenario, nuclear weapons would violate international law.
As with the 'War on Terror', the government is playing on the fear of some future enemy while their foreign policy increases the risk the deterrent is supposed to prevent.
PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY
Tuesday 20 March 2007 from 2PM - 8PM
THE DEBATE PARLIAMENT WON'T HAVE
Central Hall Westminster
Full details: http://tinyurl.com/2kgcou
REGISTER YOUR PLACE NOW. TO REGISTER, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/2dx29u
Please contact us if you are planning to go and we will try to organise the cheapest transportation.
The last two weeks have shown conclusively why we need THE DEBATE THAT PARLIAMENT WON'T HAVE. Two British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, where mass slaughter and destruction are reaching new depths of horror in the wake of the US military's much proclaimed "surge" of troops, which was supposedly intended to bring stability to Baghdad. And in Afghanistan, five British soldiers have been killed in a war which has all the ingredients of becoming Britain's Vietnam.
Since the invasion in March 2003, the Bush-Blair wars have hardly been discussed in the House of Commons. Even when given the opportunity in October 2006 to have an inquiry into how Britain was taken into an illegal and unnecessary war, the majority of MPs voted against the proposal. (SEE: http://tinyurl.com/y95y6q)
This is the background to the People's Assembly on 20 March, the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. The assembly will take place at Central Hall Westminster, just across the road from the Houses of Parliament. It will be an important day of debate. It will also be symbolic of how the views of the anti-war majority in this country have -- in Tony Benn's words -- "rarely found expression in the democratic process".
There will be three sessions at the assembly, each of which will debate and vote on a People's Assembly Declaration, aimed at giving direction to the further development of the campaign against the Bush-Blair wars:
SESSION 1: The Iraq war and how to end it
SESSION 2: British foreign policy after Tony Blair
SESSION 3: Don't attack Iran
The People's Assembly is open to all, but delegations are particularly encouraged from political parties, trade union branches, campaign organisations, community and faith groups -- the aim being to make the assembly as diverse and as widely representative as possible. There is no limit to the number of delegates that organisations can send.
Tickets: Delegates £7, Observers £5