DELEGATES TO FIRST COMMITTEE SHOULD SPONSOR RESOLUTION TO SAY USE OR THREAT OF USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS INADMISSIBLE.
September 26 is designated by the UN as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
On this day in 1983, at half – past midnight Moscow time, in the command bunker at Serpukhov-15, as Colonel Stanislav Petrov assumed command, alarms blared and lights flashed indicating that the US had launched missiles at the USSR.
The international scene was tense in the extreme, as Ronald Reagan had just given a radio broadcast in which he joked about 'starting bombing in five minutes'. The USSR had just -accidentally – shot down a Korean civilian flight that strayed into its military airspace. NATO was preparing for the Able Archer exercise in which it rehearsed for the apocalypse. The USSR was to make the assumption that it was not a rehearsal.
The situation now is if anything worse – Vladimir Putin has made repeated nuclear threats and vice- president Medvedev keeps on making those threats. The Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to 'midnight'. In 1983 it was at three minutes to midnight.
Were there to be a repeat of the situation in Serpukhov 15 in which computers are satellite warning systems indicated a US launch, there might not be a Colonel Stan Petrov to exercise a calm judgement and take steps that would avoid the launch of thousands of nuclear warheads and end civilisation.
In this context, the statements by the G20 Governments in both Bali and Delhi that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible is welcome and bears repeating by the UN General Assembly when First Committee meets in October.
Governments should sponsor a First Committee resolution to that effect.
John Hallam
UN Nuclear Weapons Campaigner,
Human Survival Project, People for Nuclear Disarmament,
Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group,
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