The world is appalled by the massacre caused by the pandemic, which in less than a year and a half has killed more than 3 million people worldwide and more than 400,000 in Brazil. In August 1945, a single atomic bomb instantly killed around 80,000 people in Hiroshima. Three days later, the only other in existence claimed 40,000 lives in Nagasaki. In a few days, more than 200,000 people died.
Today there are about 13,400 of these pumps, each about 3,000 times more powerful than the first. Their targets are densely populated cities.
However, strangely, we don’t think about these things. In addition to the pandemic, the priority is climate change, which, without combined international efforts, could lead to immense disasters in the not too distant future.
The use of nuclear weapons, in turn, would cause immediate humanitarian and environmental slaughter and extinguish life as we know it. Since they haven’t been used for the past 76 years, we don’t care.
It is an unconscious attitude. It suffices to note that the nine countries which have these weapons do not exclude the possibility of using them, at least as a threat; but for it to be credible, the threat supposes a willingness to use it. Will the 185 countries which do not have one accept to live permanently under this risk?
Solving the climate problem is a task of enormous complexity. In the case of nuclear weapons, the solution is simpler. Climate change is due to economic causes, while possession of nuclear weapons is just a distorted assertion of power, with a capital P.
Russia and the United States have 95% of the total atomic weapons. If the two came to an agreement to eliminate them, China and the six other holder countries would accompany them. They all protest that they want to end nuclear weapons, but so far they don’t seem willing to give up on this menacing club.
All other countries, including Brazil, have already pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons by accepting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in force since 1970. One hundred and thirteen countries have doubled this pledge by creating nuclear-weapon-free zones, as is the case in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Other weapons of mass destruction – biological and chemical – are already banned. In the absence of movement on the part of the nuclear states which, on the contrary, embarked on programs to modernize their arsenals, 122 United Nations member states proposed in 2015 a treaty banning nuclear weapons.
Brazil actively participated in the negotiation of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty (NPT), concluded in 2017, and was the first country to sign it. Already signed by 86 countries and ratified by 54, it entered into force in January of this year.
Interestingly, Brazil has yet to ratify the TPAN, which is under consideration in the National Congress. The Treaty confirms and reinforces the obligation not to have atomic weapons, already assumed by Brazil in the NPT and in the free zone of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In addition, article 21 of the Federal Constitution provides that “any nuclear activity on the national territory will be admitted only for peaceful purposes and with the approval of the National Congress”.
If the Brazilian State – National Congress and Government – does not ratify the Ban Treaty, this can only mean that there are doubts about the need for the elimination of nuclear weapons and about the commitments already made at the level. international, which would imply a violation of the above. clause of the Constitution.
Speak up, the National Congress.