By World BEYOND War, April 3, 2023
The Zaporizhzhya Protection Project of World BEYOND War will send a team of four volunteers to Ukraine on April 7 at the invitation of people on the front line of the war, closest to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.
These four are part of a larger group of volunteers from eight countries who have been meeting for months to learn about unarmed civilian protection (UCP) methods for keeping people safe in areas of violent conflict.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has called for a nuclear safety zone around the plant to protect it from combat activity that could create a nuclear disaster on the order of Chernobyl, but have been unable as yet to accomplish this.
Out team is asking for your best wishes and blessings. If you wish to help defray the cost of the mission, please donate to World BEYOND War, and note it is for the Zaporizhzhya Protection Project.
The team’s mission statement is as follows:
Zaporizhzhya Protection Project Travel Team Mission Statement
The Zaporizhzhya Protection Project is a movement of international volunteers seeking to contribute to the safety of people whose lives are at risk from a war-related disruption of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. A few of us will travel to Ukraine on April 7, 2023 to meet with people who share our mutual concern for the safety of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). This page explains the “what” and “why” for this visit.
What:
The aim of our visit is to meet community leaders and people in the plant zone who are at high risk due to current levels of conflict, and will be among the first to suffer effects of radioactivity if the nuclear plant is seriously disturbed. We want to see for ourselves the conditions the population is enduring. Our main activity will be to listen deeply to what people wish to share about living in such conditions, and what needs currently exist. We are particularly interested in people’s ideas and proposals for non-military solutions, since military activity is widely agreed to be a serious threat where nuclear power plants are concerned.
Why:
Our project is inspired by the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and others working to reduce the elevated risk resulting from continued disturbances at the plant, for the sake of large populations in Eurasia and beyond. Parties near the plant continue to report potentially region-threatening incidents at and around the plant. Since a more stable safety situation would affect all parties in the plant zone, we plan to listen to as many parties as possible to understand their positions on stabilizing the plant’s safety and reducing the possibility of region-threatening nuclear disaster.
Charles Johnson
Illinois, USA
Peter Lumsdaine
Washington, USA
John Reuwer
Maryland, USA
On behalf of the dozens of volunteers from eight countries around the globe.
6 Responses
This is astounding. You all certainly must be highly evolved human beings to exhibit this much love and care for humanity and the earth we all share. Please be careful, as I’m sure you will be. I hope you’ve been trained long and well to be successful in this incredible act of selflessness. From now on, whenever I hear about the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, I will think of you courageous, disciplined people doing the work of angels at this critical time. All the very best to you. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely,,
Gwen Jaspers
Land of the Kalapuya, aka. Oregon
Liebe Freiwillige,
ich wünsche Euch alles Gute und Erfolg für Eure Mission. Ich hoffe sehr, dass dieser Krieg im Interesse aller Menschen bald beendet wird.
Viele Grüsse aus dem sonnigen schwedischen Wald
Evelyn Butter-Berking
Is there a place for a disabled, mobility-challenged person to do this, who only speaks English?
I am Professor from Nat. aviation university in Kyiv but am living in Germany as a refugee now. I had a Sci Project with Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in the past. However, I am NOT signing this so-called peace appeal as it understands the problem wrongly!
No peace is possible with the Russia currently as it is an international terrorist.
All the world is kindly asked to go on its support to Ukraine until its final Victory over the Putin’s crime dictatorship!
Yevgeny,
I totally agree! There is no way to confront aggression against Ukraine without engaging in a “defensive war of necessity” against the aggressor. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter recognizes an “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense.”
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes, in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
— Robert H. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor, Nuremberg Military Tribunal
Many other nations have engaged in “defensive wars of necessity,” from the Vietnamese, the Israelis, and now the Ukrainians.
“Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine)!”
How were the volunteers selected? Wouldn’t it be better to send qualified nuclear engineers?