Posted on 1-5-2003

Greenpeace Reveals Weapons of Mass Destruction

Auckland/Geneva, 1 May 2003 ­ Greenpeace today launched a unique web site,
Zoom on Doom, www.greenpeace.org.nz/wmdmap mapping the location of all
known nuclear weapons facilities and storage sites around the world.

“Since the US and UK are having such difficulty finding weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, we thought we'd lend a hand by providing this easy
guide to the nuclear weapons we know about, with their coordinates,” said
Stephanie Mills, Greenpeace International nuclear campaign coordinator.
“All information in the map is drawn from publicly available sources, but
this site is believed to be unique in providing one global map with the
exact coordinates of all known nuclear weapons facilities and storage sites.”

The Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee is meeting at the
United Nations in Geneva until 9 May. There are currently around 30,000
nuclear bombs globally. Since 1970 when the Treaty was signed, only 1500
bombs have been eliminated.

This week Greenpeace conducted ‘inspections’ at the US, French, Russian and
Israeli missions in Geneva. Today the inspectors, together with ‘mock
missiles’ visited the UK and China missions - both official nuclear weapon
states. They also visited the missions of India, Pakistan and North Korea,
demanding these countries renounce their nuclear weapons programmes and
join the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states. “State parties to the NPT have
the responsibility to respect international law and guarantee a world free
of nuclear
weapons,” said Ms Mills. “Unfortunately, the NPT's official nuclear
countries - UK, US, China, France and Russia - have failed to comply with
the NPT.” “If the nuclear powers are seriously concerned about the WMDs of
India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, they must lead by example by
immediately cutting their arsenals and halting plans to build new nuclear
weapons,” said Ms Mills.

Greenpeace strongly recommends delegates at the NPT meeting agree five
major proposals:
- States should reject the use of military force to resolve proliferation
concerns, and uphold the value of multilateral legal mechanisms
- States should reject the ‘first strike’ use of nuclear weapons
- All nuclear weapon states should commit to eliminating their illegal
nuclear arsenals and halting the development of new nuclear weapons or the
‘refurbishment’ of existing ones
- States should agree an emergency mechanism to deal more swiftly and
effectively with future crises such as North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT
- States should stop the promotion of ‘dual use’ for energy and weapons.