[sacw] PRIZE FOR INDIAN ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS

[Harsh Kapoor]

Please distribute widely the following release from International Peace
Bureau (http://www.ipb.org)

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PRESS COMMUNIQUE - Embargoed until Tuesday October 10, 9.00 am

PEACE BUREAU TO AWARD MACBRIDE PRIZE TO INDIAN ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS

Oct 6,2000, Geneva.

On October 13, the International Peace Bureau will award its annual peace
prize, named after its former President, the Irish Nobel laureate Sean
MacBride, to two Indian peace activists who have been at the forefront of
the international campaign against the nuclearisation of South Asia. The
presentation of hand-crafted silver medals will be the high point of the
IPB Triennial Conference, entitled The Globalization of Peace, to be held
at the H=F4tel de Ville in Nanterre, Paris from 12-14 October.

Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik are both writers and journalists, and
fellows of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam. They are joint authors
of a recent full-length study of the S.Asian nuclear situation 'New Nukes:
India, Pakistan and Global Disarmament' (Interlink Books, Northampton,
Mass, and Oxford, UK, 2000); published in the South Asian Region as 'South
Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global
Disarmament' (Oxford University Press, New Delhi and Karachi). Earlier,
they co-authored 'Testing Times: the Global Stake in a Nuclear Test Ban'
(Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, 1996).

Bidwai and Vanaik have been key figures in the Movement in India for
Nuclear Disarmament (MIND), which, together with many other civil society
organisations, has articulated public outcry in the region against the
decisions in May 1998 to test nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan. Soon
afterwards the upsurge in fighting in the Kargil district of Kashmir caused
many to fear the escalation of the longstanding conflict into a nuclear
armageddon. This risk remains a real one, and the world's geo-politics has
been definitively transformed. The 1999 military coup in Pakistan has
reassured neither the general public in the region nor the wider
international community.

Bidwai and Vanaik have followed this issue for many years and have also
been active in international disarmament networks such as Abolition 2000.
They are involved, with other activists, in organising India's forthcoming
broad-based National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace in New
Delhi on November 11 to 13. The IPB salutes their persistence, commitment
and scholarly attention to detail which have earned their work wide
acclaim. They have been called 'two of India's most courageous radical
journalists' (Tariq Ali, The Guardian).

Previous winners of the MacBride Prize have included Mordechai Vanunu
(Israel), The Committee of Soldiers Mothers (Russia), and John Hume
(N.Ireland).

Bidwai and/or Vanaik will be available for interview during their time in
Paris. Contact : +33-1-4209-2378 or IPB Secretariat in Geneva.

French translation of this text available on request from IPB. More
details of IPB below:

IPB is the oldest and most comprehensive of the international peace
federations, covering nuclear disarmament, small arms, landmines, conflict
resolution, human rights and much more. IPB is one of main organisers of
the Hague Appeal for Peace and its Global Campaign for Peace Education.
With 20 international and 174 national/local member organisations in 53
countries, IPB brings together pacifists and women's, youth, labour,
religious, political and professional bodies. Founded: 1892. Nobel Peace
Prize 1910. Thirteen IPB officers have won the Nobel Prize. Current
President: Maj Britt Theorin M.E.P. Details. www.ipb.org

[E-mail address for IPB is: <mailbox@i...> ]

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Extracts from reviews of Bidwai and Vanaik's 'New Nukes' book:

Not since E.P. Thompson has the illogic, inhumanity, and immense
immorality of the nuclear status quo been so brilliantly laid bare. - The
Independent, London.

'I have never seen a better account of the weaknesses, perils and
immorality of
security policies based on threats of mass destruction.' -- Bruce Kent,
CND, UK.

'This is a book that aims high and succeeds.' -- Peace News, London.