United Nations Radio

nuclear testing

There are renewed calls to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force, to mark 29 August the first International Day Against Nuclear Testing. CTBTO's Kirstie Gregorich Hansen reports.

Duration: 4'04"

HISTORICAL RECORDING - Man's voice: "Five, Four, Three, Two, One. [SFX: bomb exploding]

GREGORICH HANSEN: It started early morning on 16 July 1945, at a desert test site in New Mexico. It was here the United States exploded the first atomic bomb -- and sparked a global race for the ultimate weapon. [SFX: bomb exploding]

THUNBORG: "Today it is difficult to imagine nuclear bombs went off all the time in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Imagine that over 2000 nuclear bombs exploded in over 60 different locations -- all over the world, affecting people, animals and land everywhere.

GREGORICH HANSEN: CTBTO spokesperson Annika Thunborg.

The 29th of August marks the first International Day Against Nuclear Tests.. It was 19 years ago on that date the Semipalatinsk test site closed. The Soviet Union conducted over 450 nuclear blasts at the site, in what is today Kazakhstan. It did so with scant regard for health and safety.

It was an all too familiar story that echoed across the world and saw the planet become a military playground for perfecting bombs.

THUNBORG: "In the bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands for example the whole eco system has been completely changed. The flora and fauna look completely different now than it did before the testing and people are not able to move back there due to the radioactivity."

GREGORICH HANSEN: The world witnessed over 2000 nuclear explosions. Before testing screeched to a halt in 1996-- the year the Test Ban Treaty opened for signature.

THUNBORG: "It was finally in 1996 with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test- Ban- Treaty that nuclear testing came to an end. But the Treaty has not entered into force, which means that the door to nuclear testing remains open and all this can come back to us if we don't close this door once and for all and put this legal instrument firmly in place; erecting a firm barrier to any further nuclear weapons development."

GREGORICH HANSEN: The Treaty bans all atomic explosions everywhere on the planet - in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. CTBTO chairperson, Selma Ashipala-Musavy.

ASHIPALA-MUSAVY: "...It is important because it preserves peace. Before you use a nuclear weapon, you have to test it, to see whether it works or not. So this is the first step of preventing the use of nuclear weapons. And it is important to everybody, whether you are an African, a European, or a Latin-American or an Asian. As long as you are a human being on this Earth it is important."

GREGORICH HANSEN: The Treaty not only stops new countries joining the nuclear club it prevents countries that already have atomic bombs, modernizing and advancing their nuclear arsenal. CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Tóth:

TOTH: "The Nuclear weapons are too many, in too many hands, and they might end up in the hands of terrorists. It's important to close the door to nuclear weapon developments. And the test ban treaty is part and parcel of this program. It closes the doors to new nuclear weapon states and it closes the door for the existing ones."

GREGORICH HANSEN: Today over 150 countries have fully joined Treaty. But it will only enter into force when the remaining nine so called 'hold out States' ratify.

SFX: Noisy protesters chanting for peace and the Treaty.

GREGORICH HANSEN: There is a groundswell of opposition coming from all corners of the globe. The demand: a world free of nuclear weapons.

PRESENTER: Kirstie Gregorich Hansen is an information officer with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.