Abolition 2000

Abolition 2000

PERTH — A new campaign, Abolition 2000, was launched on August 6 by WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts and People for Nuclear Disarmament campaigner Jo Vallentine.

Speakers included Bill Ethel from the CFMEU, Peter Holland and Fiona Guthrie from the ABC and Willem Bouwer from the United Nations Association of Australia.

Sunflowers were planted for hope at the Wesley Church, mirroring the actions of defence ministers from Russia, the Ukraine and the US, who planted sunflowers at a former Ukrainian missile base in June.

Abolition 200 is calling for: a nuclear weapons convention to be concluded by the year 2000 which requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons; the prohibition of commercial and military reprocessing of all weapons-useable radioactive materials; and an end to the production and deployment of nuclear weapons.

Margetts called on the Australian government to withdraw from ANZUS, refuse US nuclear warships visiting rights, close down the spy base Pine Gap and withdraw from the nuclear fuel cycle. "While international moves are towards pushing for nuclear disarmament, it is an absurdity that our federal government is pushing for a massive expansion in uranium mining", she said.

From GLW issue 242