Declaratio
Dear friends
Please endorse the following Declarations.
Please spread this mail.
Sato Daisuke
No Nukes Asia Forum Japan
❤ Please send your name or the name of your organization →
sdaisuke@rice.ocn.ne.jp
...................................................................
To Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Find out the reality of the Fukushima accident, stop oppressing your own people, and abandon nukes!
Hearing that you would be visiting Japan from November 15 to 18, we are
extremely worried that discussions are going to be held on developments
in a Japan-India nuclear power cooperation agreement. We are strongly
opposed to such an agreement.
Many people expressed their concern about a Japan-India nuclear power
cooperation agreement at the time of your visit to Japan in 2010 as
well. The reasons so many people opposed an agreement between our two
countries at that time are as follows.
India, although it is a nuclear power, has joined neither the NPT nor
the CTBT. Furthermore, in the amendment of the guidelines worked out in
the Nuclear Suppliers Group permitting special measures for India, it
did not commit itself to not carrying out nuclear testing in the future.
It also has only allowed limited inspections by the IAEA to verify that
it is not converting nuclear material produced in India for manufacture
of nuclear weapons.
We protest in the strongest terms that now, two years later and with
nothing done to address the above concerns, Japan and India are pushing
ahead on a nuclear power agreement. We have experienced the Fukushima
nuclear accident and are vividly confronted every day with the reality
of what a catastrophic accident does to human life and to nature.
If you have come to Japan to promote a nuclear power agreement, don’t
confine your discussions to the high and mighty in Tokyo, go to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and visit the peace museums there. Listen to the
experiences of the hibakusha. And by all means go to Fukushima. Find out
how people are trying to live with the 4 reactors emitting radioactive
material around them; find out the horrendous conditions of radiation
exposure that the thousands of workers trying to contain the accident
must endure, and learn what has happened to the seas, the forests and
the farm land. If you do that, we think that you will change your mind.
It is inexcusable for the Indian government, which has closed its eyes
to the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, to crack down as
it is on the people in various parts of India who are opposed to
nuclear power. The massive repression of people opposing the Koodankulam
nuclear power plants on September 9 was reported throughout the world.
Ignoring the concerns of the people, concealing information,
circumventing democratic procedures, and collusion between pro-nuclear
organizations and nuclear oversight organizations are factors that
contribute to nuclear accidents.
Nuclear power is clearly an industry in decline and it is incompatible
with democracy. Japanese people who have experienced the Fukushima
accident are strongly opposed to the export of nuclear power plants to
other countries. We demand the following.
Do not engage in any talks whatsoever aimed at a Japan-India nuclear power cooperation agreement.
Immediately stop repressing people in India who are opposed to nuclear power plants.
Abandon operation of the Koodankulam nuclear power plants and immediately start decommissioning it.
Stop the import of nuclear plants from abroad and the construction of new facilities.
November 15, 2012
Demand that negotiations on a Japan-India nuclear power cooperation agreement not be held
Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko,
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh will be in Japan from November 15
to 18 and will hold talks with you. We strongly demand that you engage
in no talks of any sort directed toward a Japan-India nuclear power
cooperation agreement.
India is a nuclear power that used heavy water reactors from Canada to
manufacture nuclear weapons and which conducted nuclear tests. But it
has joined neither the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nor the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Furthermore, India has almost everything in the nuclear fuel cycle, from
uranium mines to reprocessing facilities, but there are already
numerous reports of damage to health and human rights violations in the
areas around its uranium mines, nuclear power plants and other nuclear
facilities.
No information whatsoever has been made public regarding construction of
new nuclear power plants and the claims of the local residents have
been totally ignored. As the tragedy that occurred in September at the
Koodankulam nuclear power plants in the south coast, the situation is
such that construction can go ahead only with the Indian government
violently cracking down on residents opposed to the plant.
Furthermore, when India was made to agree to specific measures by the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, India did not promise not to conduct nuclear
weapons testing in the future, and it only agreed to limited
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards for preventing the
conversion of nuclear material for use in weapons productions.
The Japanese government is hastily pursuing a nuclear power agreement
with India because it does not want to miss out on business
opportunities in India, one of the most lucrative nuclear power markets
in the world. In 2010, when it became clear that it was pursuing talks
toward a nuclear power agreement with India, the government was harshly
criticized in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and all over Japan for “putting
business before the prevention of nuclear proliferation.”
And now, in the midst of the ongoing catastrophe of the Fukushima
nuclear power plant accident, we are calling on you in even stronger
terms.
A nuclear power agreement with India means throwing to the winds our
responsibilities as a country that has been the victim of atomic
bombings. In no way can we permit moves to export nuclear power while
radioactive material is even now still being emitted from the Fukushima
nuclear power plant, workers at the plant are still being exposed to
radiation, and countless other people are suffering from the accident.
We demand that the Japanese government cease all efforts to pursue a
nuclear power agreement with India and engage in no negotiations to that
end.
November 15, 2010