This year the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Fast is coming to London! The fast is an international initiative which has been followed in France for over 30 years now, and for several years in Germany also. For two years running it has also been held in Burghfield with support from Action AWE and Trident Ploughshares.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and there is a strong will across Europe to mark the occasion in different ways, and to say: never forget, never again, nuclear disarmament now.
In France, for many years the fast was held outside the French strategic command based in Taverny, near Paris. Since 2005, it has been held in Paris itself, and as numbers and support for the fast grow (there are now over 100 fasters in France), it has spread to other symbolic sites: the Valduc Weapons Research establishment in Burgundy and also the nuclear science directorate CEA-CESTA in Le Barp, near Bordeaux where research is conducted into simulating nuclear tests.
In Germany, the fast will again be held outside the Buchel NATO base, the only base in Germany at which nuclear weapons are still stationed. A fast will also be held at Los Alamos and various other nuclear weapons research labs in the States, and there is talk of the fast being followed in Russia and the Ukraine as well as in parts of Africa. The global reach of nuclear weapons is motivating more and more people to join in.
We have decided to fast in London this year in a deliberate bid to raise the media profile of the fast, and to bring the issue to the very seat of power, in and around Whitehall. We will be camping and holding vigils in Whitehall Gardens, and protesting peacefully outside Parliament, outside Downing Street, and outside the Ministry of Defence.
We will commemorate the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings by special vigils at the time of their occurrence, in sympathy and harmony both with the present-day inhabitants of those cities and with our friends and fellow-fasters across Europe. We will inform passers-by, Londoners and tourists alike, of the reasons for our fast. We will also join up with other commemorative protests in this period: the CND commemoration in Tavistock Square on Hiroshima day, and the Pax Christi prayers and vigil outside Westminster Cathedral on Nagasaki day.
We will be conveying a simple message concerning the urgency of nuclear disarmament worldwide, and a specific message aimed at the British government and people calling for non-replacement of Trident.
We welcome the support of anyone who can spare an hour or so to come along and support our presence. To find us and join in you can ring Angie on 074-565-88943 or email at reforest@gn.apc.org or email Marc at marcwmorgan@btinternet.com, or visit https://tridentploughshares.org/fast-2015-whitehall-gardens-london/.
For details of the fast in France and Germany see http://maisondevigilance.com/projets.htm and
http://www.buechel-atomwaffenfrei.de/fastenaktion/
respectively.