Tri-Valley CAREs works to strengthen global security by stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the US and by promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons globally. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on the Lawrence Livermore Lab and surrounding communities.
Activists will gather at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on 64th anniversary of Hiroshima bombing
Aug6
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
By: Jeanine Benca
Published In: Valley Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_12991533
LIVERMORE" Protesters will make their annual plea for peace and nuclear disarmament on Thursday morning at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory " a longtime event held on the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
This Aug. 6, the 64th anniversary of the bombing, organizers are partnering with Mayors for Peace, a group ofm ore than 3,000 mayors in 134 countries to "call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020," according to a news release from Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment.
Environmental and social activists will gather at 7:30 a.m. at Vasco and Patterson Pass roads outside the lab "which many consider the brain of the nuclear weapons complex in the United States.
"We've been working since the 80s on anti-nuclear work and one of the big focuses has been the Livermore Lab," said Phyllis Olin, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation. The organization is one of several sponsoring the event, along with the local activist group Tri-Valley CAREs, Peace Action West and others.
"While we admire a lot of the things the Obama administration is doing, he needs a lot more information on this," Olin said.
Among the demands protesters plan to make are an immediate halt to U.S. nuclear weapons research, the phasing out of fossil fuels and nuclear power by 2050 and a declaraton by the nation's leaders to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020 at the upcoming 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
The commemoration will begin with music, followed by remarks from organizers. At 8:45 a.m, participants will march to the lab's West Gate to air their views.
In some years, the protest has drawn hundreds and led to numerous arrests.