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I met Professor Joseph Rotblat on March 31st, 2000 just exactly two months after
my January 31st, 2000 resignation from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.For
"The Reasons for My Resignation from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory"
please visit:
http://www.globalcomment.com/articles/currentaffairs/andreas/resignation.htm
We had both been invited, among others, to speak at a conference titled
"Averting Nuclear Anarchy: The Current Crisis in Arms Control" which took
place at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. I greatly enjoyed his company and
personality, and I attended his keynote speech. Since listening to his speech that
night, I have wanted to discuss some concerns I have with him. Since I thought that
these concerns are also the concerns of millions of people around the world, I decided
to write him an open letter. For those interested on Dr. Joseph Rotblat's, Nobel
Peace Laureate work on peace they can visit: http://www.wagingpeace.org/bios/joseph_rotblat_bio.html
December, 2001
Open Letter to Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Joseph Rotblat
from Dr. Andreas Toupadakis
Dear Joe,
How are you? I saw that you were going to Athens last summer and I was planning to
talk with you. Since it did not happen, here are my thoughts and concerns.
In view of current militaristic events, I am sending you my open letter related to
my resignation from the nuclear labs. Considering the goal of your publications and
especially Student Pugwash, I thought that your editors would be interested to let
your readers know about why I resigned.
I would appreciate it if you could let me know if you would publish if not all the
letter, at least extracts from it like THE SPOKESMAN #73 did in its last issue. I
would think that a link to my letter, if not the entire letter, would be most appropriate
in your web site for encouraging students to abstain from employment in the nuclear
labs and for encouraging scientists to leave. Is it not that which we want to see?
Also the same statement can be made about Issac Trotts's open letter as to why he
also resigned from LLNL from a permanent high paying job while at the same time he
had over $40,000 in student loans to pay back. Has his example become widely known
in the circles of student Pugwash?
I am surprised that so far, two whole years after my resignation, my letter has not
made its way yet into your publications or web sites, nor into the publications or
web site of the Union of Concerned Scientists, nor into the publications of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists even after I requested its publication. I thought that after
meeting several key people from these organizations during these two years, they
would definitely publicize my resignation as an example to be followed by other scientists,
but it did not happen.
It is a disturbing observation because we have the same goal, which is to see the
abolition of nuclear weapons. I want to believe that it was overlooked even though
I sense that the world has not really weighed properly the Russel-Einstein manifesto,
of which you are the last remaining in life of its eleven signatories. With direct
action, we should let the scientists know that science is supposed to be practiced
for the benefit of humanity, not for its total destruction.
It is my delight to mention that INES (International Network of Engineers and Scientists)
not only let its readers know about my resignation, but also let them know about
an interesting article encouraging scientists to think again. It appeared in their
newsletter as it appears below.
"Living Without the Labs"
"This is the title of an article by Andreas Toupadakis, the nuclear scientist
who quit his job at the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on principle. In
his latest article, published first in The Albuquerque Tribune, 19 Sept 01, Andreas
Toupadakis is urging other scientists to do the same. But quitting is tough, and
scientists who do so need an organization to support them, he says." You can
find the article at: http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/opinions01/091901_opinions_labs.shtml
or below.
If I mentioned your web site and the Union of Concerned Scientists in the Albuquerque
article, why has our resignation (Issac Trotts's and mine) not been mentioned in
yours and theirs?
As a Nobel Peace Price winner you could effectively encourage especially science
students today to follow my example and Issac Trotts's example. Of course your example
is widely known around the world, but I have realized that we have a tendency to
look in the past and not at today. It was the same attitude, if you remember, when
we got together for first time during the editorial board meeting with the South
Bend Tribune in Indiana in 2000. The board members and everybody else was going around
and around the past and no one was willing to touch the burning issues of our times.
When I made a comment on today's issues, a member from the editorial board said that
the newspapers do not make policy. Of course the newspapers do not make policy, but
unless they inform the people of what is happening, how will the people ask for the
best policy for their country? I was shocked after that meeting to see such indifference
at a time when we are ready to burn ourselves and the whole world in the nuclear
fire we have prepared for ourselves and our children.
At your speech that day in Indiana, you predicted that nuclear weapons will be used
and they will be used soon. I believe it myself and want to see our colleagues walk
away from this crime of science. I would humbly disagree though with you in your
comment during the same speech that the rich become richer and the poor become richer.
That is not the picture that the majority of the world sees today. They see a very
different picture and it is documented by United Nations reports that the gap is
widening at an astronomical rate. Even the vulgarly stated USA policy of "full
spectrum dominance" is referring to it in terms of a widening gap between the
"have's" and "have not's".
I am sure that you are aware of this strange, to say the least, document VISION
FOR 2020. My opinion is that if no cool heads find courage to stand up against
such insanity for world domination, our world will most likely end before that date.
But in order to see cool heads, we need to let people know about the facts. And the
facts are that every empire is ruthless be it American, Russian, Chinese, English,
Roman, or Greek. Emperors do not send their soldiers around the world to hand out
candies to people as Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky have many times pointed out.
They are there to divide the people in order to be able to exploit them.
Has the Student Pugwash recommended to its members to read the two books by William
Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
(ISBN: 1-56751-052-3) and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
(ISBN: 1-56751-194-5)? Western racism, at its highest today, will end all life on
earth unless it is checked by direct nonviolent action worldwide. I am afraid that
the time for lectures and writing books is up. We are very close to that horrible
day. Let us pour our humanity into humanity, for that is the reason we were brought
to walk on this earth.
What has gone wrong on this little planet of ours? Awards for peace are given to
leaders that command armies and use force to bring freedom. How about those that
have spent dozens of years in jail for the sake of world peace? These are the real
heroes, not those of us who just did a common sense thing. How many know about Badshah
Khan, who spent 15 years of his life in jail under the British and another 15 years
under his own people the Muslims? In my opinion, Student Pugwash should have the
life and works of Mahatma Gandhi as its Bible.
Dear Joe, am I correct that you advocate nuclear power? Can we forget the millions
of victims around the world because of nuclear materials everywhere? Can we ignore
the very well documented case of depleted uranium and its consequences to the lives
of millions of people? Reading "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted
Uranium" we cannot but be disgraced as scientists.
What will happen tomorrow when wars break out and the nuclear power plants are targeted
to be attacked? My dear friend Joe, we know very well what will happen because we
have the book: Voices from Chernobyl -- Chronicle of the Future by Alexievich,
Svetlana. London; Aurum Press Ltd; 1999, first published in Moscow in 1997. In that
book, we learn that the poor and unfortunate people are already calling the scientists
with a new name. And that new name is a surprise to all of us. They have called the
scientists demons! Should we be surprised if we first read the stories from that
book? If you have not read it yet, I hope that you will. In fact, from the hundred
stories in the book, we need to read just the first and the last, and then we will
know what we will go through tomorrow unless we stop denying the truth about the
attitude of the western governments and in general, the attitude of all governments.
I am of the opinion that if NATO is not dissolved soon, it will dissolve the world.
We must speak the truth Joe; we do not have much time left to compromise when the
whole world is at stake and the people are waiting to hear it from people like us.
I hope that you will change your position before you leave this world, which is in
horrific danger. If I am mistaken about my understanding of your position on nuclear
power please let me know.
With my warmest regards and respect,
Andreas Toupadakis
Andreas Toupadakis
E-mail: atoupadakis@prodigy.net
http://www.geocities.com/toupadakis/TRUSTandLOVE.html
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