By Kristin Scheer
Good works to abolish nuclear weapons are happening, and each one of us can join in support. So said Ann Suellentrop at “Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 4. Ann said the local nuclear weapons plant, the National Security Campus, is doubling in size, and the federal government plans to have new plutonium pits made for the weapons. “These are dangerous times,” Ann warned. “A new arms race is starting.”
Still, we take hope, said Ann, because there are things we all can do to abolish nuclear weapons!
Ann is a vice chair of the PeaceWorks KC Board, a member of the national board for Physicians for Social Responsibility, and a former president of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA).
Ann reminded us there are 12,500 nuclear weapons in 9 nations now—enough to destroy the world four times over. But there used to be more. In the 1970s, there were 70,000. Grassroots efforts and the influence of a movie moved then President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to get rid of most of them in the mid-1980s.
“Today, there are political movements that are working for the total abolition of nuclear weapons,” Ann said. “We have the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that became international law in January 2021.” Ann encouraged us to visit ICANW.org (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) to learn more. She told us of Back from the Brink (preventnuclearwar.org), a movement growing from grassroots pressure to eliminate nuclear arsenals; renounce the option to use nukes first; end the sole, unchecked authority of any US president to launch a nuclear attack; take weapons off hair-trigger alert; and cancel plans to replace the US nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons. Ann told us of WarheadsToWindmills.org that shows how we can move the money—from trillions of dollars being wasted on the nuclear weapons build-up in a futile, fruitless, and deadly effort, to directly address the climate catastrophe instead.
Ann encouraged us to join with ANA. Its next event is happening this fall at one of the US’s eight major nuclear weapons production sites, the Savannah River Site in Aiken, SC. There will be a public tour of the factory on Dec. 5, preceded by two days of ANA meetings. Ann will be attending and invited others who are interested to join her (she’s at annsuellen@gmail.com). Ann read her letter to the editor published in The Kansas City Star Aug. 4 (https://peaceworkskc.org/remember-hiroshima-nagasaki-see-kc-star-letter/).
In addition, Ann read parts of her letter to The Kansas City Star (parts not printed with the rest of her letter). Ann said that as a retired maternal-child nurse in Kansas City, “it is excruciating to watch the slaughter of babies and children in Gaza—to know my tax dollars are paying for these atrocities.”
Ann traveled to Japan in March of this year and had the opportunity to visit with Hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Ann concluded her talk Aug. 4 with words by Shige Moritaki—words shared on a handkerchief:
“As we work to create a peaceful world without A- and H-bombs, let us never forget the victims of the atomic bombings.”
A daughter of Shige Moritaki, Haruko Moritaki, of Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, welcomed Ann to her home and later sent a letter of appreciation that Ann and others would take action (April 15) against the Kansas City, Mo., nuclear weapons plant. For the full letter, see peaceworkskc.org/message-of-solidarity-from-Hiroshima/.
Kristin Scheer serves on the PeaceWorks KC Board.
