Home | Contacting Us | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up | Archives
var mydate=new Date() var theYear=mydate.getFullYear() var
day=mydate.getDay() var month=mydate.getMonth() var daym=mydate.getDate() if
(daym Wednesday, May 09, 2007 Home > Progressive Community > NewsWire >
For Immediate Release
Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 8, 2007
6:16 AM
CONTACT: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Ellen McClure, 2nd-year UCSB student: (858) 663-9326
Mark Valen, 3rd-year UCSC student: (619) 395-2794
Chelsea Collonge, UC Berkeley alumna: (408) 813-5625
Will Parrish, NAPF: (805) 965-3443
Jedidjah de Vries, Tri-Valley CAREs: (925) 443-7148
University of California Students and Alumni to Hunger Strike to
Demand Nuclear Weapons Lab Severance
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA - May 8 -
WHAT: UC Student & Alumni Hunger Strike
WHEN: Wednesday, May 9th until ?
WHERE: UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Berkeley
WHO: The Coalition to Demilitarize the UC and supporters
Students and alumni at three UC campuses will begin a fast this week to
demand that the University of California stop designing, engineering and
manufacturing nuclear bombs. Many of them pledge to go without solid food until
the demand is met. The hunger strikers are calling on the Regents to pass a
resolution at their next meeting -- scheduled for May 17th -- severing all ties
to the nuclear weapons complex (see attached). The UC has managed, since their
inception, the two US national labs responsible for all nuclear weapon design
in the U.S., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos
National Laboratory (LANL).
This bold act of principled non-violent resistance is timed in response to the
US Nuclear Weapons Councils recent announcement that LLNL would design the
first new Hydrogen bomb since the end of the Cold War, as well as to the
planned resumption of plutonium bomb core (pit) manufacturing en masse at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2008. These programs are the first step in
plans to revamp the entire nuclear weapons complex, under the auspices of the
DOEs Complex 2030.
There has never been a more critical time for the UC Regents to take a
principled stand against the US nuclear weapons programs, says Will Parrish,
a UCSC alumnus (2004) who has pledged to go without solid food until the
Regents meet the demand for severance. They are in a very powerful position to
do so: They can withdraw their management of the Los Alamos and Livermore labs,
which are the keystone institutions in the US nuclear weapons complex. They
could cast the UC's enormous political and intellectual weight on the side of
international law and morality, and seize this opportunity to work toward
nuclear disarmament. To do otherwise is to continue to provide a much-needed
veneer of academic legitimacy to the creation and maintenance of weapons that
poison communities and endanger the entire world.
According to second-year UCSB student Ellen McClure, The university should not
be involved in any way with the production of weapons of mass destruction. The
UC's involvment has done nothing to make the research at the labs more
transparent or less deadly. Jedidjah de Vries, outreach director of Tri-Valley
Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), said: The programs of
the UCs nuclear weapons labs threaten our security by driving foreign nations
to develop their own weapons, as well as our environment by continuing to
contaminate the already heavily-polluted nuclear weapons complex sites. It also
opens the door to new nuclear tests, something the U.S. has not done since 1992
and is banned under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Not only is severing
ties with the labs the right thing to do, but it would have a real impact on
the ability to carry out this plan and begin building new nuclear bombs.
During the week the hunger strikers will camp at central locations on their
individual campuses. You can follow their progress at:
http://nonukeshungerstrike.blogspot.com. On May 17th they will converge, along
with supporters, at the regents' meeting in San Francisco to hold the Regents
accountable to the will of the students and to the moral responsibility of the
university. Student governments at multiple campuses have passed resolutions
opposing the UC's ties to the weapon labs, and more are considering similar
resolutions.
The students of the UC have a long history of organizing and taking action on
this issue. The multi-campus Coalition to Demilitarize the UC has worked on
several fronts to sever the UC's nuclear ties, including writing letters,
generated petitions and speaking at Regents meetings during the public comments
period. Most recently, this past November, they undertook an act of nonviolent
civil resistance, disrupting the Regents meeting during its discussion of the
nuclear weapons labs. Students are concerned with the Regents actions, not
only because of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, but because the Regents
presume to act on their behalf and in their name.
To arrange an interview with the hungers strikers, contact any of the
individuals listed above. ###
Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article Common Dreams
NewsCenter is a non-profit news service
providing breaking news and views for the Progressive Community.
The press release posted here has been provided to Common Dreams NewsWire by
one of the many progressive organizations who make up America's Progressive
Community. If you wish to comment on this press release or would like more
information, please contact the organization directly.
*all times Eastern US (GMT-5:00)
Making News?
Read our Guidelines for Submitting News Releases
Common Dreams NewsCenter
A non-profit news service providing breaking news & views for the progressive
community.
Home | Newswire | Contacting Us | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up | Archives
© Copyrighted 1997-2007
www.commondreams.org
_uacct = "UA-76573-1"; urchinTracker();
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0508-02.htm
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
