International Day against Nuclear Tests
This Thursday, 29th August, marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests. In the 1950s and 60s, nuclear weapons tests were inflicted upon communities and indigenous peoples in French Polynesia, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Australia, Algeria, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, and the United States. The lives and environments of those affected would be forever altered.
By pursuing nuclear weapons, Britain and other nuclear-armed states, including the US and France, have caused lasting humanitarian and environmental devastation — sometimes in their own backyards, but also in places they have treated as expendable and forgotten.
Despite the clear human impact, successive British governments have failed to publicly acknowledge or apologise for the harm caused by these nuclear tests. For many, these are not mere historical events but ongoing tragedies, as the fallout from radiation poisoning continues to affect generations.
The testing and use of nuclear weapons are acts of violence, and no political circumstances can justify weapons of mass destruction. As nuclear-armed states expand and modernise their arsenals, creating bombs even more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must recognise the catastrophic human and environmental costs.
Nuclear disarmament and the total abolition of nuclear weapons are the only absolute guarantees against destroying the planet and all forms of life.
