[Jerusalem] On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu,
a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two
years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions
against his right to leave the state or to
speak with human beings if they are not Israelis.
On April 9, 2008 it was reported that now Norway has joined Sweden,
Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu.
Norway's Bergens Tidende recorded "that Vanunu's application for
asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country's
immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004.
UDI was overruled, however, by Norway's center-right government
at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway's efforts to
remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more
important than Vanunu's human rights." [1]
UDI officials have a mandate to make asylum decisions without
political interference. UDI officials had determined that Vanunu
qualified for asylum and immigration authorities had determined that
his application should be granted.
Israel developed its nuclear program with the help of Norwegian heavy
water and between 1976 and 1985; Vanunu was employed as a mid level
technician and shift manager at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility
underground in the Negev desert where it was utilized.
In 1986, Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby was employed by the London
Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu and review the 57 photos he had
obtained at various restricted/secret locations in the Dimona. Barnaby
spent three days with Vanunu in London before he was lured and
abducted by the Mossad from Rome. Barnaby also attended Vanunu's
closed door trial and was called by the defense to give expert testimony.
Barnaby testified, "I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a
camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly
sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing…I very vigorously
cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a
number of different ways and at different times…I found Vanunu very
straightforward…[After questioning him] about his motives for
violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed
that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about
the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting
ideologically. Israel's political leaders have, he said, consistently
lied about Israel's nuclear-weapons programme and he found this
unacceptable in a democracy…The knowledge that Vanunu had about
Isreal's nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about
security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left
Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today's Israeli nuclear
weapons will have been considerably changed since then…
Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of
the mid-1980."[2]
In a phone call with Vanunu on April 9, 2008, he expressed
disappointment but no surprise that political motives were behind the
rejection of his Norway asylum application or that, "For the fifth
year Israel has continued the restrictions against me. They say I am a
danger to their security if they let me go."
Vanunu has not set foot into the Dimona for over twenty-two years and
international inspectors never have. America's politicians declare
that no option is off the table to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions while
the Israeli government fails to secure the health and safety of it own
citizens.
In November 2007, the London Sunday Times reported that "Israel put
defenses around its Dimona nuclear reactor on 'red alert' 30 times…The
Dimona...is the region's largest nuclear plant and sole producer of
atomic weapons materials…Dimona is no Chernobyl. It generates only
about 5 percent of that failed Soviet reactor's power. Still, the
plant - along with its spent nuclear fuel, extracted plutonium, and
nuclear reprocessing waste - poses significant radiological hazards
that a military strike [against it] could disperse into the
environment…during the June 1967 war Israel shot down one of its own
Mirage jet fighters when it strayed over the facility. In 1973,
Dimona's defenders downed a wayward Libyan civilian airliner heading
for the reactor, killing 108 people. But the 1991 Gulf War upset
whatever solace Israel could take from the past. Iraqi Scud missiles
hit Tel Aviv, and one came close to hitting Dimona. Hizbullah's
bombardment of northern Israel in 2006 further demonstrated the
country's vulnerability to missile attack…Dimona has produced all the
plutonium that Israel reasonably needs, and the reactor - one of the
worlds oldest - has suffered minor mishaps and evident deterioration,
raising the specter of more serious accidents." [3]
Vanunu had previously informed me that, "The Dimona is 46 years old;
reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and
Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the
Arab states have...Twenty years ago when I worked there they only
produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No
one knows what is happening now.
"The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the
occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime
for 40 years. When I decided to expose Israel's nuclear weapons I
acted out of conscience and to warn the world to prevent a nuclear
holocaust."
"Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew."
During our April 9, 2008, phone call, I asked Vanunu if he thought
that Israel had intended to drive him insane during his solitary
confinement and had hoped to make an example of him to others who
might speak up about Isreal's WMD Program.
Vanunu agreed and also added that he believed Israel had hoped he
would end up homeless for he has not been employed since 1986. Vanunu
is dependent on friends and supporters to eat and pay his lawyers.
Since April 2004, Vanunu has lived in a guestroom at St. George's
Cathedral, a hostel with twelve others packed into one room and is
currently sheltered in a $10.00 a night hotel.
I also asked Vanunu if it were true that just prior to his release
from 18 years in an Israeli jail, John Bolton then Undersecretary of
State for Arms Control and International Security for the George W.
Bush Administration traveled to Israel to demand they not allow Vanunu
to leave Israel because it would embarrass this Administration that
was hunting for WMD's in Iraq while ignoring them in Israel.
Vanunu replied, "I heard this too, but I cannot prove it."
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle
East but has a policy of neither confirming nor denying its arsenal.
American corporate media and politicians play along; as they also do
that Israel is a democracy.
1 http://www.aftenposten.no
2. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide
3.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
article.asp?edition_id=1
MY EMAIL to Norway- and Vanunu has requested
others please write them too:
To <statsministeren@smk.dep.no>, <umin@mfa.no>
Dear H.E. Mr. Jens Stoltenberg and H.E. Mr. Utenriksminister Jonas
Gahr Støre,
As a USA Journalist, Author and Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
and "13 minutes with Vanunu" I was shocked to learn that Vanunu's
application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the UDI
in 2004, but was overruled, because politics superseded Vanunu's human
rights.
"Israel is bound by international law not to impose arbitrary
restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu, including on his right to travel
within the country or abroad, his right to peaceful association with
others and his right to express his opinions."- Amnesty International
Press Release of April 19, 2004 and July 2, 2007.
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), which Israel ratified and is obliged to uphold, stipulates:
"everyone [has] the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose
his residence" and that "everyone shall be free to leave any country,
including his own".
In 1986, Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby was employed by the London
Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu and review the 57 photos he had
obtained at various restricted/secret locations in the Dimona. Barnaby
spent three days with Vanunu in London before he was lured to Rome,
clubbed, drugged, bound and kidnapped. Barnaby also attended Vanunu's
closed door trial and was called by the defense to give expert testimony.
Barnaby testified, "I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a
camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly
sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing…I very vigorously
cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a
number of different ways and at different times…I found Vanunu very
straightforward…[After questioning him] about his motives for
violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed
that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about
the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting
ideologically. Israel's political leaders have, he said, consistently
lied about Israel's nuclear-weapons programme and he found this
unacceptable in a democracy…The knowledge that Vanunu had about
Isreal's nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about
security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left
Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today's Israeli nuclear
weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear
weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980."-
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide
I beseech you to renew Vanunu's appeal for asylum and will look
forward to report that Vanunu will soon be free in Norway.
Sincerely,
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American
'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Send Vanunu a message of support through his site:
www.vanunu.com
