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The ATOM Project Presented In Bangkok

November 6, 2013

The ATOM Project Presented in Bangkok, Oct. 24

The following story was published in the Bangkok Post on Oct. 31.

A recent presentation of ATOM Project by the Kazakhstan Embassy hopes to bring an end to nuclear weapons and aid to communities affected by nuclear testing

On 24 October 2013, the Embassy of Kazakhstan held a presentation of ATOM Project and film screening of “The Gift to Stalin” at the Conrad Hotel.

The 2008 Kazakhstani film tells the story of a community affected by a nuclear test carried out by the Soviet Union in 1949 at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in the Semey region of Kazakhstan.

The event was organised within the framework of the presentation of ATOM (Abolish Testing Our Mission) Project.

In August 2012, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev addressed a major international parliamentary conference in Astana and launched the ATOM Project, an international campaign designed to (1) create awareness surrounding the human and environmental devastation caused by nuclear weapons testing; (2) unify global support for a permanent end to nuclear weapons testing and, ultimately, the complete eradication of nuclear weapons by all countries; and (3) establish a comprehensive programme for the rehabilitation of the population and ecologyof the region.

Due to this new initiative, the UN recognized International Day against Nuclear Testing and President Nazarbayev built on his record as a leader and an active proponent of global nuclear disarmament.

For four long decades, against its will and without deep knowledge of what was going on, Kazakhstan, then a Soviet republic, was used as the centre for Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons testing programme. From 1949 to 1991, the USSR conducted more than 450 nuclear weapons tests at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan, bringing illness and death to more than 1.5 million people in the region and radioactive pollution to a huge swath of land.

So it was no coincidence that since 1991, the year Kazakhstan regained its independence, President Nazarbayev has made global nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear responsibility a national mandate. Even before independence from the Soviet Union, and acting against the will of the Soviet government in Moscow, on August 29, 1991 President Nazarbayev shut down the Soviet nuclear test site in Semipalatinsk. And upon independence, against the advice of many both inside and outside of Kazakhstan, he renounced all nuclear weapons in the country. At the time, the country had the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal, with armaments inherited from the USSR.

Since that time, Kazakhstan has fully rid itself of all nuclear weapons and dismantled the infrastructure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Leading by example, President Nazarbayev has been steadfast in his quest to make the world free from nuclear weapons. The ATOM Project comes on top of the more than 21 years of commitment and actions by President Nazarbayev to achieve global nuclear disarmament.

Recognising that in recent decades the cause of abolishing nuclear weapons, weapons testing, and the awareness of the fundamental dangers they pose to life on the planet have become superseded by other humanitarian and environmental issues, the ATOM Project believes the time has come to revive global awareness of how dangerous and appalling the consequences of the testing and retention of nuclear arsenals has been, and of the threats that their continued possession poses to the human race.

The ATOM Project is implementing an international communications effort with a particular focus on the citizens of nuclear weapons-armed states to educate and remind them of the terrible realities of nuclear war that were documented in the 1945 attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and on the enormous human and environmental damage and suffering caused by the legacy of five decades of nuclear weapons testing until the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was open for signature in 1996.

The ATOM Project highlights the suffering of individual victims of nuclear testing over the decades and hopes to bring attention of the peoples of the world to the plight of possibly as many as 15 million victims of radiation poisoning that are suffering today in countries such as Kazakhstan, Marshall Islands, Japan and Algeria.

The stronger the public support the ATOM Project can generate through its educational and awareness-raising efforts and its international petition drive against weapons testing, the more it will be able to generate increased support for the efforts of non-governmental organizations, parliamentarians and activists in support of the initiative to influence the leaders of major nations towards achieving a nuclear weapons-free reality.

The ATOM Project features the stories and images of some of the survivors and victims of the 40 years of nuclear testing in Eastern Kazakhstan and of the severe physical consequences suffered by their descendants.Though sometimes difficult to witness, these individuals are featured in the campaign in order to demonstrate the human toll of nuclear weapons testing.

While the testing and its consequences are a legacy of nuclear weapons testing – and a part of Kazakhstan’s history – President Nazarbayev is adamant that this era will only define the nation’s future in so far as it gives impetus to the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

“We have an opportunity to once more remind the world about tragic consequences of nuclear testing and push the global community towards more decisive actions to achieve final and definitive ban of such testing,” President Nazarbayev told the conference in Astana in August 2012. “Under the ATOM Project, any human being on Earth who stands against nuclear weapons can sign an online petition urging the governments of the world to abandon nuclear tests forever and join the Comprehensive Nuclear Ban Treaty. I urge the participants of the conference and all people of good will to support The ATOM Project and make the creation of the non-nuclear world our main goal.”

Since the first time he stood up for the people of Kazakhstan and denounced nuclear weapons testing decades ago, President Nazarbayev has done more than talk about the cause of nuclear non-proliferation. He has taken concrete and consistent actions to rid the world of nuclear weapons, while demonstrating that Kazakhstan can maintain its security despite giving up the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal. This commitment is an example for the world to emulate.