The Green Party is proud to be here at this protest against Japan’s continuing slaughter of whales and their ramming of the Sea Shepherd’s vessel Ady Gil.

The Green Party supports non-violent direct action: action that is taken in full conscience and fully aware of the consequences, with no intention of causing harm. Such action should not be met by violence: the Japanese whalers had a choice and chose violence, putting protestors lives at risk.

The Green Party’s view on whaling is clear. We see it as premeditated, deliberate and an unnecessary cause of animal suffering, endangering the survival of some species right now – as we have just heard.

Last year, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding an end to commercial whaling. It is illegal in EU waters. If Iceland and Norway continue commercial whaling, that would be a barrier to any membership of the EU if they wanted to join.

The European Parliament also called for the end of so-called lethal scientific research, as carried out by Japan. No-one can really believe that the arbitrary slaughter carried out really contributes anything to science, but it does contribute to the economy: it is commercial whaling under a label that lies.

I want to see clear leadership from the new Commission against commercial and pseudo-scientific whaling.

Our seas are at risk from climate change: we don’t know how it will affect the whale population but we do know that their food supply is already diminishing due to overfishing and our changing climate. Our biodiversity is under stress.

All countries must show responsibility and take action. A modern democracy, such as Japan, should think again about its policy on whaling. We call here today on the Japanese Government to stop the barbarity and stop the whaling.

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SPEECH TO THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE ATOMIC AND HYDROGEN BOMB CONFERENCE
NAGASAKI, JAPAN, 9TH AUGUST 2001

Dear Friends,

There has been a recurring reminder throughout this Conference that this is the first one this century. So what sort of century do we want for ourselves, our children and the young people present here today and throughout the world?

Obviously we want a future which is free of nuclear weapons. I believe that we have to aim for a future which is free of nuclear production all together. Every aspect of the nuclear cycle produces real and potential victims.

We have to stop producing the material that makes a nuclear weapon possible anywhere in the world. We also have to stop production because we do not know how to clean up the toxic waste that the entire nuclear industry produces. We have heard all too much in this conference about the horrific realities of living and dying through the effects of nuclear contamination.

But to achieve a nuclear-free future, we have to challenge the nuclear-supporting decision-makers in politics and those who support them.

They have to explain to us, the people, why they think we can best secure the future of the world by possessing the fire-power that threatens to blow it up. My own government – the United Kingdom – has nuclear warheads capable of delivering 1000 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The nuclear powers will tell us the genocide in Rwanda was wrong and against international law; the holocaust was wrong and against international law; yet, for them, it is not wrong to prepare the means of indiscriminate slaughter of thousands. Why not?

Next year, in September 2002, our heads of Government will meet in South Africa to discuss the progress they have made towards making this planet a more sustainable place. They will talk about crucial issues such as global warming, biodiversity and the involvement of local people in deciding how best to protect their environment. Some of those governments will still possess nuclear weapons and will see no contradiction in their fine speeches about protecting the planet while having the means to destroy it.

We have to challenge those contradictions. This conference has not been short of proposals as to how to do that.

To protect our planet – the life-force on which we all depend – requires co-operation and taking responsibility. Just as the young people here have spoken of taking responsibility for passing on the experience of the hibakusha*.

Maintaining nuclear weapons means seeing others as enemies and creating them where they do not exist in order to keep the profits rolling and the people’s attention away from problems in their own country.

There have been many calls at this conference for the peace movement to deepen and widen our contacts – to see the truth behind the propaganda.

In closing, I want to say what has touched me most deeply about this, my first visit to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There are many parts of the world where those who have suffered deeply from the actions of others are seeking vengeance – blood for blood, suffering for suffering. All that I have heard in these two great cities is a desire for peace and that no-one else should suffer such agony.

That is a powerful lesson that you have to teach the world. All of us here will do everything we can to pass that teaching on.

Jean Lambert
Member of the European Parliament (Green Party, London)

*Originally used to refer to survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Now also used for all those affected by nuclear weaponry including development testing.

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JAPAN – THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE USA.
Contribution to a workshop 5/8/2001

Many of the issues raised this morning sound very familiar to me. For example:
• the change of port status. We saw this in the British base at Gibraltar, where the base status was changed from rest only in order to accommodate repairs to a nuclear-powered submarine;
• the tensions between private and public. We privatised the base which deals with the repairs to nuclear-powered submarines, so to whom is that company mainly responsible? Its shareholders, the Government, the public?
• the danger to shipping from submarines. We have seen many unexplained deaths and sinkings of fishing boats. We have a choice of culprits – the Russians, USA or the British.

You should resist all efforts to make Japan the UK of the so-called “Pacific NATO”.

You are quite right when you describe the threats to democracy of such a relationship. As militarisation develops, transparency disappears.

The European Union of 15 member states is currently developing a Common Foreign and Security Policy. The Union’s Ombudsman, responsible for overseeing good governance and the implementation of the rules, has said that the CFSP is “poisoning freedom of access to information”. That is a very strong statement.

When we look at the UK Government, we see there power concentrated in the hands of the Executive. Parliament does not even have to be consulted on whether we embark upon any military intervention, as we have no modern written constitution to ensure that. We find that questions tabled by Members of Parliament are not always answered if they touch upon matters of national security and we have a Freedom of Information Act which is badly named. We could not have the crucial debate you are having about Article 9 of your constitution. For us, the Executive decides.

I would also add a warning about how such a relationship will poison your dealings with your neighbours. They will not know whether to trust you or not. You may think you are creating friends everywhere – you may end up with not having friends anywhere!

As the British equivalent, you will be expected to be the first to support any military intervention as the USA wants – as we were in the Gulf and in Kosovo. DU weapons were used in both those missions.

At the moment, the European Parliament has a temporary Committee of Enquiry underway which is looking at the operation of the intelligence gathering system known as ECHELON. The UK has been using its facilities (as has New Zealand) to gather information in a number of areas, which has then been passed to the USA. This information covers both military and commercial information. There is some evidence that suggests that commercial information, provided by the UK, has been used against our Treaty partners in the EU by America. So what are our partners supposed to make of this? Why should they trust us? In many instances, it would appear that the UK may not even know what it has passed on, so this is an equal relationship and it never is if the USA is involved.

Resistance to the USA using those same intelligence-gathering facilities for the Missile Defence System is now a key campaign for the British Campaign against Nuclear Weapons.

You should also remember that when the Bush administration walked out of the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Verification Treaty, one of the reasons it gave was that it could compromise intellectual property rights and commercial secrecy.

This link between the military and the commercial is a growing one. What will it mean for Japan?

I know that this workshop is focussing on the USA but I would urge you not to forget that others are also increasing their nuclear capability – in China, Russia and –to my shame – the UK. We also need to consider what we should make of the Russia/China friendship agreement and the implications of that.

American actions provide both a reason and an alibi for nuclear expansion. We have to develop our contacts in those other countries too, so that we have as strong an international movement as possible.

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