Japanese Trade Union Confederation (RENGO)

Protest against New-Type Nuclear Quality Tests by the United States

1. According to the reports on May 22, it was made clear that the United States of America carried out new-type nuclear tests which did not involve the critical state, at a laboratory in New Mexico State in November last year and in March this year. The tests were the same with the subcritical nuclear test in the meaning that they did not  accompany nuclear explosion. The number of the subcritical nuclear tests that have been already identified counts 26 times since 2006, and, under the Obama administration, three times including the tests of this time.  RENGO which is tackling realizing a world without nuclear weapons from the standpoint  of the citizens of the sole country that was subjected to nuclear bombs, truly regrets the tests and cannot help but  have a strong feeling of mistrust due to the fact that the tests were identified  after a few months later from their tests. RENGO cannot allow any nuclear test and strongly protest against the tests of this time.
   
   
2. The United States Department of Energy(DOE) is emphasizing the significance of the tests, saying that they were carried out, neither using underground testing site nor    accompanying  high quality powder explosion, in order to create a state of super-high  temperature and super-high pressure which is close to that which appears at the time of  nuclear weapon explosion. It also says that the tests aimed at examining the reaction of plutonium for the purpose of   maintaining safety and reliability of nuclear weapons.  Whatever be the reason, however, they were certainly the tests of the nuclear weapons which have the potential to exterminate humanity. Any nuclear test carried out to make “usable weapons” should not be permitted.
   
   
3. President Obama’s speech made in Prague in April 2009 in which he expressed that concrete measures should be taken toward a world without nuclear weapons as well as the agreement reached between the U.S.A. and Russia on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons were appreciated as a first step toward an elimination of nuclear weapons all over the world and heightened the expectation for peace. In addition, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama was to appreciate for his “achievement to have promoted international cooperative foreign policy”, especially for his initiative for diplomatic negotiations for extermination of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the United Nations Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held in New York in May 2010 unanimously adopted a final document toward “a world without nuclear weapons”.
   
   
4. The tests carried out this time will turn the tide of world peace appeared over the  last few years backward and will lead to hollowing out of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Moreover, Obama administration, while claiming to be positive in nuclear arms reduction, made clear of its policy to maintain nuclear forces as long as nuclear weapons exist, and declared to continue subcritical nuclear tests so as to “maintain the reliability of nuclear weapons”. This should be blamed as a grave challenge to the international opinions which hope for world peace.  The mayors of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki  expressed their mistrusts upon such  new-type nuclear quality tests.
   
   
5. We earnestly call on the U.S.A. to return to the spirit of the CTBT and make efforts for promoting the ratification of the treaty so that it is put into effect with a satisfactory number of the parties to the treaty required for its coming into effect. The U.S.A. is urged to sincerely listen to the voices all over the world which call for the elimination of nuclear weapons and to immediately halt all nuclear tests, including subcritical nuclear tests.