ISRAEL SHOULD RELEASE MORDECHAI VANUNU

New York      Dr.  César Chelala

On May 23, 2010, Mordechai Vanunu, whom Amnesty International calls a “prisoner of conscience,” was again sent to prison for a new three-month sentence, accused of violating the terms of his previous release. Previously, he had been in prison for 18 years, and spent the first 11 years in solitary confinement. According to Amnesty International, the restrictions placed on him were not parole, since Vanunu had already served his full term. “They arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law,” said Amnesty International.

Vanunu is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, in 1986, revealed details of Israel’s nuclear program to the British press. While working as a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, he became increasingly concerned about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and possible Israeli nuclear strategies in case of war. The information he revealed was published by the Sunday Times. In it he estimated that, at the time, Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.

He was afterwards lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was kidnapped by Israeli operatives. He was transported to Israel where he was tried on charges of treason and espionage, and condemned to 18 years in prison, in a trial conducted behind closed doors.

Although he was released form prison in 2004, he was subject to several restrictions on his speech and movement. He was arrested several times for violating those restrictions. According to Israeli officials, his last prison sentence is the result of his violating the conditions of his 2004 release from prison.

Acknowledgment of possession of nuclear weapons has considerable practical importance for Israel. By denying possession of such weapons, Israel avoids a US legal restriction of funding countries which have a rapid increase of weapons of mass destruction. Presently, Israel receives more than $3 billion a year in military and other aid from Washington.

Although Vanunu is widely reviled in Israel and by many Jews living overseas, he is vastly admired by peace loving people throughout the world. In 1987, he received the Right Livelihood award and in 2001 was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Tromso, in Norway. In 2005, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the Norwegian People.

Daniel Ellbersg has called him “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era.”

Despite his ordeal Vanunu remains defiant. In a poem he wrote entitled “Buried Alive,” in which he compares solitary confinement to living in a grave he wrote, “….Now iron gates, doors, grills, cement in this concrete world solidifying me. Only my mind, my spirit is free- free to remember why I am in prison but not prison for my spirit, they cannot chain my mind.”

Writing in Haaretz, Yossi Melman, its intelligence and military affairs correspondent, stated, “In a proud country that is celebrating its 60th anniversary, which purports to observe the judicial and moral norms of the enlightened world, one might have expected it to take courage and allow Mordechai Vanunu to be free, once and for all.”

Dr. César Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights. He is the foreign correspondent for The Middle East Times International (Australia).