THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON "DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND MORDECHAI VANUNU"
TEL AVIV , OCTOBER 13-14, 1996
PREPARED BY MORDECAI BRIEMBERG
VANCOUVER COMMITTEE TO FREE MORDECHAI VANUNU
In Canada, the campaign to free Vanunu is active in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal. For more information contact: M_Briemberg@douglas.bc.ca
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
For three decades Israel declared "We will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East." During this time it was secretly developing an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and from the international community. Mordechai Vanunu had the courage to break this wall of silence.
Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel's nuclear installation, from 1976 to 1985. In 1986 he revealed the facts to the world through the London Sunday Times. Based on his evidence, experts concluded that Israel had stockpiled up to 200 nuclear warheads making it the world's sixth largest nuclear power.
On 30 September 1986, days before his information was published, Vanunu was drugged and kidnapped from Rome by Israeli agents. He was tried in total secrecy, charged with 'treason' and 'espionage' and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Since then he has been kept in complete isolation in conditions described by Amnesty International as "cruel, inhuman and degrading." The European Parliament has repeatedly condemned "the behavior of the Israeli authorities" and called for his release.
Vanunu has been honoured by several international organizations and has been given the prominent Right Livelihood Award, regarded as the alternative Nobel Peace prize.
I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region. I acted on behalf of all citizens and all of humanity.
CONFERENCE REPORT
"I thank you all. I am happy for revealing what I revealed." That was the resilient message Mordechai Vanunu sent to the international conference held in Tel Aviv.
Mordechai dictated that message to a brother before prison authorities intervened to return him to his 2x3 metre cell. It is the same cell in which he has spent 10 full years of solitary confinement.
Mordechai Vanunu's 42nd birthday was October 12, the day before the conference began. A group of us, led by Frederick Heffermehl, a Norwegian attorney and vice-president of the International Peace Bureau, drove south to Askelon prison to bring Vanunu our personal regards.
Our request to visit him was met with confusion, then rejection. As for the birthday presents we brought, the authorities initially told us to mail them. Persistence got them to accept the presents through the same rotating glass opening by which they provided automatic revolvers and loaded clips to guards going off-duty. The guards checked, loaded and aimed the handguns, then nonchalantly shoved them under the belt of their slacks, as they left for home.
With loud voices we sang "happy birthday", trying to penetrate beyond the guard towers; and we raised placards to passing vehicles, calling for Vanunu's freedom.
But what resounded loudest was the media coverage of the conference and the interviews with the speakers, particularly Joseph Rotblat, Nobel Peace Laureaute (1995) and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers as a "whistle-blower" against America's war on the people of Indochina.
The primary goal of the conference had been to break the wall of silence and slander around the "Vanunu case" that has been erected inside Israel. The conference was very successful in achieving this objective. As Yael Lotan, one of the original Israeli activists in the Vanunu campaign said: "the dam broke."
The prominence of the individuals involved and the scope of the international campaign clearly impressed the Hebrew-language media. Their coverage was extensive, generally serious, and at times even sympathetic.
At the same time a number of Israeli universities had refused facilities to the conference, so it had to be held at a beach-front, tourist hotel. And, given the "uncomfortable presence of secret service agents", as the London Sunday Times reporter put it (October 15), the Israelis who attended showed considerable courage.
The participation of prominent Palestinians in the conference was another encouraging first. One of the speakers was Azmi Bishara, a member of the Israeli Knesset and a professor of philosophy in the West Bank university of Bir Zeit. The highly respected, independent voice, Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi, chief Palestinian negotiator at the Madrid and Washington conferences (prior to the secretly negotiated Oslo Accord), unable at the last minute to attend in person, sent a thoughtful message of support. There were Palestinians from the West Bank who had wanted to attend, but the Israeli authorities denied them permits.
At the conclusion of the conference, Israeli President Ezer Weizman agreed to a personal meeting with Joseph Rotblat. Weizman revealed himself as cruelly vindictive toward Vanunu, saying Vanunu had not been in solitary long enough. Weizman also insulted Rotblat. Rather than congratulate him on his Nobel award, Weizman said he had "done a very good thing by helping to design the atom bomb." Rotblat won the Nobel Prize precisely for his opposition to nuclear weapons, a campaign he embarked upon after he had seen the disaster wrought by the Manhattan project in which he had been involved as a physicist.
Conference participants interpreted Weizman's clear intent to humiliate Rotblat, and to discourage him from continuing in the campaign to free Vanunu, as a political counter-attack that further confirmed our conviction that the conference had made new headway in presenting seriously to Israelis the nuclear dangers they face and the barbarism of their state's treatment of Vanunu.
Rotblat, like the other conference participants, is firmly resolved to continue the campaign, a campaign that encompasses various perspectives, as presentations by different speakers made clear.
There are those who call for Vanunu's immediate release because he has 'suffered enough' for his revelations, because his treatment in prison is indefensibly cruel, and because his revelations did not in fact jeopardize Israel's security. This was the core of Joseph Rotblat's speech.
There are those who regard Vanunu as a model of moral integrity and conscience who never should have been imprisoned, because maintaining oaths of secrecy about nuclear war preparations is antithetical both to democracy and human survival, and Israel is no exception. Whistle-blowing is an honourable ethical duty, not a transgression. Daniel Ellsberg was the most eloquent exponent of this view.
Ellsberg revealed that as an advisor to President Kennedy in 1961 he had framed a question for the Pentagon: if all your nuclear targeting goes as planned, how many deaths will there be? The reply, for the "President's eyes only", but which Ellsberg also was shown, was 600 million deaths.
The Pentagon had planned and calculated it precisely, "the most evil plans ever made in the history of humanity" said Ellsberg. He then asked, how many "target folders" has Israel prepared, how many does it plan to kill? Ellsberg estimated 10 to 20 million people. This from a nation that claims, rightly, the massacre of 6 million is unforgiveable.
Frederik Heffermehl, vice-president of the International Peace Bureau, explained, with a telling example, how secrecy and democracy are antithetical. Circles within the Swedish military secretly had been promoting nuclear weapons at the same period as Israel embarked clandestinely on its program. Swedish military plans became known at an early stage and a public debate ensued. In this debate public opinion moved from being marginally in favour of a nuclear weapons program to being overwhemlingly opposed. In the end the public debate made it politically unfeasible for the Swedish government to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
Heffermehl also argued that not only had Israel violated international treaties in its clandestine production of nuclear weapons, and international laws in the kidnapping of Vanunu from Europe, it had transgressed its own penal code in convicting Vanunu of "treason" and "espionage" which requires proof of "intent to assist an enemy" -- unless the people of the world and its own citizens are the "enemy" the Israeli government fears. The distinction is crucially important: Vanunu, unlike Jonathan Pollard for example, is not a spy; he is a whistle-blower.
And at the conference there were those, like the Palestinian-Israeli Azmi Bishara and the Jewish-Israeli Yehuda Meltzer, a publisher and academic, who argued that the campaign to free Vanunu must be contextualized, without blinking, in the "tribalist" Jewish-Israeli political culture.
For them, a broad and dramatic democratization of Israel is central to Vanunu's own fate.
This is something Vanunu himself seems aware of. In a recent letter he explained his conversion to Christianity as one way to disassociate himself from an Israeli system that, in law and practice, privileges its Jewish citizens above its non-Jewish citizens.
Ehud Gill, a panel chairperson, drew attention to the fact that the conference coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Israeli cold-blooded execution of 49 unarmed Palestinian men, women and children as they returned after dusk from work in the fields of Kufr Kassem village, inside Israel. "Coincidentally", one of the soldiers who murdered many of the villagers was released after a light sentence of four years, and then appointed security chief for Israel's nuclear weapons reactor at Dimona, where Mordechai Vanunu worked from 1976 to 1985.
There were several moving personal messages. The English actor Susanah York read one from Anthony Grey, the Reuters reporter who had been imprisoned in solitary confinement in China for two years; another from Harold Pinter, the playwright. She read Svend Robinson's strong plea for Vanunu's release.
A Jewish-Israeli lawyer, who had studied at Beersheba University when Mordechai Vanunu was a philosophy assistant there, spoke with tremendous admiration for the integrity of his teaching and with affection for his person.
Another memorable moment was when the Russian chemical weapons whistle-blower, Dr. Vil Mirzayanov, spoke of Vanunu as his "mentor", and then expressed his astonishment at and abhorrence of a "shameful double standard" -- for many who had come to Mirzayanov's assistance did not also come to Vanunu's. "Was my KGB investigator, Viktor Shkarin, telling the truth when he said that for what I had done I would spend 20 years in an Israeli prison, though only from three to eight years in Russia?"
Susanah York in a closing presentation chose the theme of the "yawning gap between living and surviving", and ended with a marvelously uplifting poem "On Living", by Nazim Hikmet, one of the greatest modern poets, whom Turkey imprisoned many times, once for 12 years -- of a 35 year sentence -- before he was released and exiled.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind -
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.
Outside the public forums, it was enormously encouraging to spend time with the very capable and determined activists from England, the U.S., Norway, Italy and Israel; to learn of 15,000 demonstrating in Italy for Vanunu's freedom, and to hear of initiatives to promote the campaign in the Ukrainian and Russian media, and to raise the issue in international forums on the environment.
So, on a personal note, I want to end by expressing my gratitude to all those who contributed financially and made it possible for me to participate in the international conference.
The Israeli committee intends to translate the conference proceedings into Hebrew and publish it in a book for the Israeli public.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Chair: Professor Joseph Rotblat (Nobel Peace Laureate 1995)
1. THE VANUNU STORY
Meir Vanunu (brother and campaign organizer) Israel
Peter Hounam (London Sunday Times reporter who wrote initial story) England
Frank Barnaby (nuclear scientist and disarmament expert who vouched for the reliability of Vanunu's revelations in 1986) England
Yael Lotan (Israeli campaign) panel chairperson
2. LEGAL AND MEDICAL ASPECTS
Frederik Heffermehl (president Norwegian Peace Alliance) Norway
Dr. Ruhama Marton (director of Palestinian-Israeli Physicians for Human Rights) Israel
Amedeo Postiglione (High Court Judge) Italy
Gideon Spiro (Israeli campaign) panel chairperson
3. WHISTLE BLOWERS
Hugh Dewitt (senior scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, American Federation of Scientist award for whistle-blowing) US
Daniel Ellsberg (Defence analyst, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower) US
Vil Mirzayanov (Chemist, whistle-blower of Soviet chemical weapons research) US
Alla Yarushinskaya (Chernobyl whistle-blower) Ukraine
Akiva Orr (Israeli campaign) panel chairperson
4. THE RELEVANCE OF VANUNU'S DISCLOSURE TO ISRAEL'S SECURITY
Thomas Cochran (Physicist and disarmament expert) US
Azmi Bishara (Member of Knesset, philosophy professor Bir Zeit) Israel
Yehuda Meltzer (publisher and philosophy professor) Israel
Haim Baram (Israeli journalist) panel chairperson
5. HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECT
Patricia Browning (Episcopal church leader) US
Rabbi Philip Bentley (President Jewish Peace Fellowship) US
Marwan Darweish (Human rights activist) Palestine
Avigdor Feldman (Vanunu's defence lawyer) Israel
Susannah York (Actor) England
Ehud Ein Gill (Israeli campaign) panel chairperson
THEY KNOW AND WE DON'T
Mordecai Briemberg
September 30, 1996
Actors Martin Sheen and Julie Christie, media critic Noam Chomsky, musicians Peter Gabriel and Yehudi Menuhin have name recognition.
Mordechai Vanunu does not.
Yet those listed, and many other prominent individuals and organizations -- like the European Parliament, the American Federation of Scientists, the Sunday Times newspaper of London, the deputy foreign minister of Norway -- know of Mordechai Vanunu.
What do they know that we don't?
They know that Vanunu is locked in a tiny, Israeli prison cell, beginning his 11th year of continuous, solitary confinement. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading," Amnesty calls it.
They know that Vanunu was kidnapped from Italy by the Israeli Mossad. He was drugged, bound, and transported in an Israeli vessel. After publicly denying they knew his whereabouts, the Israeli government tried Vanunu in a secret trial. They censored the entire judgement, except for his sentence to 18 years imprisonment.
Terry Anderson and three other Americans who were kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon, identify with Vanunu, not surprisingly. They call for his immediate release. So does Amnesty International, and all those already mentioned.
But what did Vanunu do?
For nearly ten years, from 1976 to 1985, he worked as a technician at an Israeli nuclear facility in Dimona. There he learned Israel clandestinely had modified this plant in order to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provides for international inspection of nuclear plants precisely to detect such illegal weapons production. Almost all countries have signed the NPT, including Israel's Arab neighbours. Israel steadfastly refuses. The reason is obvious: according to experts, Israel's nuclear arsenal now is on the scale of Britain, France, and China.
Mordechai Vanunu believed in 1985, and believes to this day, that citizens of Israel, and all of us in the world, have the right to know where there are nuclear weapons. No country can be an exception. All nuclear weapons need to be dismantled.
So, as an act of conscience, Vanunu provided technical and photographic evidence in September 1985 to the prestigious London newspaper, the Sunday Times. The paper commissioned two nuclear weapons experts, one in England, one in the U.S., to debrief Vanunu. They determined his information was accurate and were shocked that Israel's secret weapons program exceeded what insiders previously had speculated.
Under Israeli press censorship, the least hint of Israel's nuclear plans had been banned from the media. A member of parliament even complained legislators did not know who made decisions in this area. This is not a theoretical worry; for, in 1973 Israel hurriedly loaded aircraft with nuclear weapons when the conventional war with Egypt was going against them. The warheads were recalled when battle fortunes shifted.
October 5, 1986, the Sunday Times headlined its front-page: "Revealed: the secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal." Vanunu didn't see it; he had been kidnapped five days before. But his
revelations have shifted the terms of Israeli and world discussion.
In the midst of the Vietnam war, Daniel Ellsberg, a senior U.S. official, believed his government was lying to its own citizens. As an act of conscience, he revealed classified documents to the New York Times, who published them. Ellsberg too is a Vanunu supporter.
Joseph Rotblatt, 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate and a former nuclear scientist, hails Vanunu as a "whistle blower". For Vanunu has put morality above obedience to a bureaucratic oath, trying to prevent crimes against humanity rather than be complicit in them. In mid-October Rotblatt will chair an international conference on Vanunu designed to impress the Israeli public with this message, a message no different from the principles of the Nurenberg war crimes trials.Rotblat has nominated Vanunu for the 1996 Nobel Peace award.
But Canada has yet to protest the kidnapping and torture of Vanunu. Neither has it criticized Israel's major nuclear arsenal, nor pressed it to sign the NPT. Canada must work, without double standards, for a nuclear-free Middle East. This is not exactly a region of enviable calm.
And you can send a message of encouragement to Mordechai Vanunu: Ashqelon Prison, Ashqelon, Israel.
CROSS-CANADA ACTIONS OF THE CAMPAIGN TO FREE MORDECHAI VANUNU
September 30, 1996 marked ten full years since Israeli agents kidnapped Mordechai Vanunu from Europe, drugged and chained him and transported him by military vessel to Israel where he has been kept in solitary confinement ever since.
There were protest actions in many countries. Here is brief report of the events in Canada.
Vancouver:
A large graphic display, eight feet high and about 26 feet wide, telling the Vanunu story, was set up in the central Vancouver pedestrian plaza at Robson Square. September 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. dozens of people were engaged in discussions, about 150 signed the petition for Vanunu's release, and nearly two thousand took leaflets. Popular response was overwhelmingly positive.
Three young women high school students took copies of the petition to circulate at their school and plan to incorporate the Vanunu story into their "Global Justice" program. Visitors from many countries also signed the petition. These included people from Japan, Korea, Belgium, Denmark, Slovakia, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and the U.S.
The 24 hour news station with the highest listener rating did an on-the-spot interview which was broadcast several times during the day.
Toronto
September 30, some 40 people demonstrated in front of the Israeli consulate in Toronto. They came from the groups: Science for Peace, ACT for Disarmament and Jews for a Just Peace. There were songs by the "Raging Grannies" and speeches by Peter Kormos, Ontario MPP, local activists and two Israeli citizens.
Flyers and petitions were circulated and the demonstrators signed a card to send to Vanunu in prison.
A representative from Science for Peace tried to deliver petitions to the Consul General with whom she requested an appointment, but she was refused entry and told to mail the petitions. Then the two Israeli citizens tried to deliver the petitions and exercise their right to enter their own consulate. Again they too were refused entry and told they could request an appointment at some time in the future.
Winnipeg
Under the initiative of Project Peacemakers, seventeen people gathered at the Legislative Buildings in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the rain, at 8 p.m. September 30 "to offer our hope for Mordechai Vanunu and for a nuclear free earth."
They lit candles, read Vanunu's poem, and with their own creative efforts composed another poem inspired by Vanunu. They read the story of his arrest and imprisonment and "listened to elders encourage us to keep working at the issues and pushing our Governments to account."
Before closing with a minute of silence and two verses of "We Shall Overcome", Karen Schlichting read a list of cities where similar solidarity activities were organized. New people in their circle then signed the petition for Vanunu's release.
"The evening was great," Karen reports.
Montreal
In Montreal six people, holding placards in French and English, held a noon-hour protest outside the downtown office of the Israeli consulate. Two community radio stations did interviews, one the McGill University station, the other "Radio Centre-Ville" for broadcast on their regular program on "Jewish community affairs".
One of those walking by who observed the protest was the former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Eliot Trudeau.
