We are all shamefully silent about a man who spoke out like Mandela

We should insist the EU demands Vanunu’s return to Italy.

If necessary, we should set down a marker by breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel, call on all other EU states to do likewise and introduce economic sanctions if he is not returned to Italy without further delay

WHEN it came to selecting the most outstanding person of the 20th century, various individuals came to mind. Many British people thought of Winston Churchill and a number Americans considered Franklin Roosevelt.

People in this country might have had Eamon de Valera or Michael Collins, but all of those famous people had their detractors. One could argue on valid rational grounds that each of them also made monumental mistakes that impacted on the lives of millions.

My choice was Nelson Mandela because his positive achievements were not offset with any huge negative. He spent much of his life in prison where he was treated as subhuman, but he emerged a remarkably tolerant man.

Mandela provided his country with phenomenal leadership. He gave a magnificent example for all of black Africa not only in his composed, tolerant leadership, but also in the manner in which he surrendered power when the time came for him to retire.

The world may eventually look back and realise the great pity that Mandela’s phenomenal talents were wasted for so long in jail. Many people campaigned for his release. For decades we heard the haunting refrain: “Free Nelson Mandela”. Yet our governments essentially did nothing.

The treatment of Mandela during those years was an outrage. We are witnessing a similar outrage at the moment, but much of the world is again strangely silent.

Earlier this month an Israeli court sentenced Mordechai Vanunu to six months in prison for speaking to foreigners and for daring to go to Bethlehem to attend Christian services at Christmas. The Israelis invoked draconian 1945 British mandate emergency regulations to forbid Vanunu from leaving Israel or speaking to media and foreigners since his release from prison three years ago.

What the Israelis have been doing is an affront to the rest of the world because it effectively prohibits everybody other than an Israeli from talking to Vanunu.

The restrictions on him are jarringly similar to what white South Africans were doing under apartheid. He has been convicted of the ‘crime’ of speaking to the press.

Vanunu, who was born in Marrakech, Morocco, on October 13, 1955, was a mid-level technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel, but left the country in protest against its nuclear programme. He travelled to Australia where he told Peter Hounam of the London Sunday Times that Israel had been producing plutonium to make nuclear bombs. Vanunu converted to Christianity. He was kidnapped shortly afterwards by agents of the Israeli secret service, Mossad, after being lured to Rome. He was then spirited back to Israel where he was tried in secret and sentenced to 18 years in jail for disclosing the country’s nuclear plans.

He spent 11 of the next 18 years in solitary confinement under torturous conditions with a camera and a light always on in his cell because guards supposedly feared he would commit suicide. In 1995, when he petitioned an Israeli court to be returned to Italy, his case was heard in secret and he was masked and gagged so that he could not communicate with waiting journalists. After serving 18 years he was ‘released’ in 2004 and went to live at the guesthouse of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem.

His latest prison sentence was for giving a taped interview to an Israeli who was acting of behalf of Hounam, who was also briefly jailed. Vanunu pointed out that the Dimona reactor, where he worked, was 46 years old, even though such reactors were only supposed to last for 25 to 30 years.

“Twenty years ago when I worked there, they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan 10 miles away,” Vanunu said in March 2006.

“The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism. They are currently talking about a tactical nuclear strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. The world needs to wake up,” Vanunu warned.

Of course, that is not the kind of thing Israelis want the world to hear. “Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew,” he added. The Israelis have proved this by their behaviour towards their own Arab and Palestinian people, as well as by the way they have treated Vanunu.

“This administration tells me I am not allowed to speak to foreigners, the media, and the world,” he said. “But I do because that is how I prove my true humanity to the world.”

The Israeli behaviour is a flagrant violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 affirms: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Vanuna, who is 52, said after the sentencing at Jerusalem magistrate’s court recently: “I don’t want to live here. I have the right to be free. I want to be free and I want to leave.”

The treatment of Vanunu has been an insult to the professionalism of the media and an affront to civilised standards of justice. The Nuremberg trials established that people owe a greater loyalty to humanity than to their own governments. People in Israel should understand that best of all.

VANUNU did the world a service in exposing Israel’s nuclear plans and humanity owes it to him to demand his immediate release.

Can we do anything? Of course we can. We should insist our Government demands that the EU insist on his return to Italy, from where he was kidnapped.

If necessary, we should set down a marker by breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel, call on all other EU states to do likewise and introduce economic sanctions if Vanunu is not returned to Italy without further delay. Eamon de Valera is often criticised for what was supposedly an indifferent neutrality during World War II, but that was a logical consequence of the failure of the League of Nations to act during the 1930s when the Long Fellow was one of the most outspoken proponents for the League to take strong stands against Japanese and Italian aggression.

As Mussolini was preparing to invade Ethiopia, de Valera called on the League to act. If the League was prepared to go to war with Italy, he indicated Ireland would have a moral obligation to fight. Of course, that decision would for the Dáil.

This country was still in the midst of the economic war with Britain, and de Valera was criticised for not using the Ethiopian conflict to extract concessions from the British for backing the economic sanctions they proposed against Italy.

“If we want justice for ourselves, we ought to stand for justice for others,” de Valera contended. “As long as I have the honour of representing any government here outside, I stand on every occasion for what I think is just and right — thinking thereby I will help the cause of Ireland, and I will not bargain that for anything.”

Will our government take a stand to free Vanunu? Bishop Desmond Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has nominated Vanunu for this year’s award. No one would be a more deserving winner.

Free Vanunu now.