Oak Ridge Today

Peace activists will remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombings, call for ban on nuclear weapons

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OREPA-Ralph-Hutchison-Aug-6-2016-2

Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, is pictured above during a rally at Alvin K. Bissell Park on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Peace activists will have events in Oak Ridge and Knoxville starting Saturday and ending Wednesday that will recall the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II, and the activists will call for a ban on nuclear weapons.

The events have been organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. OREPA has events each August remembering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb used in wartime. Code-named “Little Boy,” the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of the war.

OREPA has scheduled a Saturday event called “And We Are Saying Peace.” It will start at 12:30 p.m. with a concert and theater presentation at Alvin K. Bissell Park in Oak Ridge. Those who attend will call on the United States to join the countries that passed a legal treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons at the United Nations on July 7, a press release said.

The Saturday event will also mark the conclusion of a peace pilgrimage from Asheville, North Carolina, to Oak Ridge, led by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji, the press release said. The walk left Asheville last Sunday and is expected to arrive at Bissell Park on Saturday. The final leg will leave Solway at 9 a.m. Saturday. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge group sends delegation to Germany to address U.S. nuclear deployment

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Ralph Hutchison

Ralph Hutchison

Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance will join peace activists from around the world in Büchel, Germany, from July 12-18 in protests at the Büchel Air Base to call for the withdrawal of the 20 U.S. B61 nuclear bombs that are currently deployed there, a press release said.

University of Tennessee student Carmella Cole, an OREPA Board member, and Ralph Hutchison, OREPA coordinator, will join nuclear abolition advocates from the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Belgium for a week of actions culminating in an international day of action on Sunday, July 16, the press release said.

“We have been invited to participate in this gathering because of the role the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex (the Y-12 National Security Complex) plays in the refurbishment of U.S. nuclear weapons,” Hutchison said in the press release. “Y-12 is currently making plans for the ‘life extension upgrade’ of the B61-Modification 12. The upgrade will result in a new, more threatening nuclear bomb, which will then be deployed in Büchel over the objections of the German Bundestag, which has voted, overwhelmingly, across all parties, for the removal of NATO nuclear weapons from German soil.” [Read more…]

Guest column: Peace activists deserve leniency; actions exposed dangerous security flaws

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Danielle Brian

Danielle Brian

By Danielle Brian, executive director of Project on Government Oversight

If justice is served Tuesday, a federal judge will exercise leniency when he sentences Sister Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli for their non-violent protest at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge in July 2012.

The three peace activists did much more to raise awareness about the security gaps at Y-12 than any harm committed when they breached the compound’s outer fence.

Important lessons were learned about the nuclear weapons complex’s security failings and, more importantly, the failings were discovered through non-violent methods. [Read more…]