The tiny island nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands is rising against some of the most powerful bullies of the world to shine a light on one way the bullies maintain their power: nuclear arsenals.
“Those without a lot of wealth or a lot of power are getting absolutely killed in America today,” according to Michael Snyder from “The American Dream.” The same is true worldwide. Big corporations, major financial institutions, the ultra-wealthy and those connected to the top levels of governments — the privileged — are in a “mad scramble to survive at the expense of the poor,” said Chris Hedges in his essay, “A Message from the Dispossessed,” as he sees the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. Meanwhile, ordinary people are being abused, regulated, taxed and mistreated like never before.
Nuclear weapons are the currency of power, according to Anne Harrington de Santana. To maintain this status quo, the nuclear nations spend $100 billion yearly upgrading nuclear arsenals, according to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
And they aren’t stopping.
Enter onto this world stage a tiny nation with another form of the message to say “no!” to the economically lopsided world we all inhabit, the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islanders have been abused for 60 years by U.S. nuclear testing, accompanying deadly nuclear radiation and resulting suffering and deaths. Sixty-seven nuclear bombs were detonated there from 1946 to 1958, according to “Nuclear Zero.” This David and Goliath little nation has filed land mark cases in the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court against the nuclear giants, claiming that the nine nuclear-armed nations with their 17,000 nuclear bombs have failed to comply with their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law, to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.
The nuclear nations are the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China, who have signed on to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have not signed on, but are nuclear nations “bound to the obligations by customary international law,” according to the Nuclear Zero law suits.
Hearings in the case are expected in the coming year.
May the “little guy,” the Republic of the Marshall Islands, show the way. The world will be infinitely safer and become increasingly equitable.
Peace Train runs every Friday in the Colorado Daily.
