Living in the 21st Century (16): The Lovers

Louis Egbe Mbua

The dripping unending kisses

Heavenly ecstasies are these

And eternal are the silent moments.

From eternity emanates the touch

With the lovers’ entrancing glance

That makes the throbbing hearts ponder,

Thumping and pumping so to push

The very essence of fulfilled lives

With existence founded on lovers!

Living in the 21st Century 15: Love and Hate (Day & Night)

Louis Egbe Mbua

 The wise does not have a self-praise

But praises to the Creator he gives.

He who is in the house scatters

Shall have nothing in his barn but hate,

And he who in high place friends collects

Will in abundance in store as love.

Better a little a man with love abides

Than he who has so much with hate.

That who loves is with eyes open wide,

Yet that who hates’ with eyes shut tight:

 

Vision is to further see

As darkness’ to shorter sight

Vision’s to daylight

As darkness’ to night

Bitter is the taste

As darkness’ to hate

The real honey is too sweet

As a woman is to love!

 

Remember the past of a rumble

And blot not today in solitude

As the little love shown a past

Transforms future can never to hate.

A man who for hate forgets to love

Has a memory less inanimate.

Always in gratitude in awe strive

For that is a duty for a man in love

With the bride in the aisle oblige

To walk in the way of the Lord:

Dreaming is to the true seer

But a mirage is a shimmer

A dream in the night

 And mirage in the day

Sweet’s the juicy fruit

As a dream turns true,

The real money is so good

And the dressed bride is in love!

A Reply to Dr. Susunji’s RE-UNIFICATION: CLARIFICATION NOTE

Louis Egbe Mbua

I was interested in Hon Chief Ayah’s internet-circulated posting, 29 June 2012, which clearly stated that there is no legally binding document deposited at the UN, as required by international law enshrined in the UN Charter that created the so-called Union between the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun. Hon. Ayah was correct. However, it seems Dr. Susunji, in his own rebuttal article equally published yesterday, 29 June 2012,  in various Cameroon internet fora is stating that Hon Paul Ayah’s is misleading and that there is or was a kind of legally binding agreement. This is incorrect as the following analysis and argument will reveal in this essay.

 
In the first place, if there was any “Treaty”, then that Treaty has been violated since Ahidjo abrogated the Treaty in 1972 by violating the Federal constitution that brought to birth the de facto Federation in 1961.  The Federal Constitution which came to force in September 1961 could not possibly be classified as a Treaty since the only signatory in the document was President Ahdijo of the Cameroun Republic who single-handedly signed it in September 1961. Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory at the time; and that the British Commissioner of Southern Cameroons, JO. Fields, who was responsible for the territory, never signed it.

 There is no such a thing as a singled-handed Treaty of Union. A political or economic union is formed and agreed by more than one party and not by a single political or economic entity. The following is that Dr. Susunji’s premise is flawed to begin with. Furthermore, President Biya went further and destroyed any vestiges or pretences of this “Treaty” in yet another single-handed decree signed in 1984 by altering the name of the country from the United Republic of Cameroon adopted in the illegalities of the 1972 constitutional violation to La Republique du Cameroun: the exact name that the French Cameroon employed to gain independence as a UN Trust Territory from France.

 Therefore, even if for argumentation’s sake, we agree that there was a de facto Union, it now no longer exists as the 1961 Plebiscite terms have now been violated single-handedly by the two Presidents of La Republique du Cameroun which is a separate territory from Southern Cameroons: Ahidjo and Biya. No Southern Cameroonian institution or person was ever signatory to these two acts. It follows that Dr. Susunji’s assertions and long explanations are entirely hollow. According to Dr. Susunji, the Joint Communiqué that happened in Yaoundé in 1960 between Foncha and Ahidjo setting the terms of the envisaged UN organised and supervised Plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons; and the envisioned creation of the Federation of Cameroon was a “Treaty”. He attempted to defend it by writing on point 11 of his missive that:

“11. The catastrophic mistake which was committed by Commissioner JO Field is that when Foncha, Muna, Jua and Kemcha took off for Yaoundé for the 3rd round of negotiations with President Ahidjo, the Commissioner did not expect them to succeed. The unexpected "success of Foncha's delegation took the British Government and the Opposition by surprise and changed the course of Southern Cameroons history. The British Government initially took the agreement lightly because it was still believed that the 1st plebiscite option of joining Nigeria would prevail and render the Yaoundé Agreement caduque.”

 I believe the reason given here by the learned Doctor is again grossly flawed. He is assuming that JO Fields and the opposition didn’t know the intent of the meeting between the KNDP and Ahidjo’s UC. They merely took it to be a partisan affair with no direct bearing to the future of Southern Cameroons and rightly so. Political parties have a right to meet and discuss issues of interest. JO Fields and the opposition didn’t have to go to Yaoundé with the KNDP as he, in particular, was not a member of the KNDP; and that his role was non-partisan. If this was to be the actual Treaty, then JO Fields who was the UK representative on behalf of the UN would have had to go with them. He didn’t, meaning that Foncha went for just talks; and any agreement with Ahidjo was just for them: and that, exactly, was what happened. Dr. Susunji should not assume that JO Fields and the opposition didn’t know what the resulting Communiqué stood for.

 He went further on point 12 stating:

 “12. If the outcome of the plebiscite was that the people of the Southern Cameroons had voted for integration into Nigeria, the Yaoundé Agreement would have automatically become useless. However, when the outcome of the plebiscite favored reunion with Cameroun Republic, the Yaoundé Agreement (Joint Communiqué ) became a legally binding agreement between two states, whose terms and conditions had to be executed as required by UN General Assembly resolution 1608 (XV). But it was too late to expand the boundaries of that vague agreement.”

Again, this is mistaken thinking. It was not possible for that Communiqué to be automatically and legally binding as it never carried the signature of the Commissioner of Southern Cameroons who represented the Administrative Authority, the UK, and hence the UN. The Communiqué remained just that until given the authority of the UN as signatory being the authorised Trustee of the Territory in line with the Trusteeship Agreements of 1946.  The UK and the UN could be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if they even as put their signature, retrospectively or presumptuously, to the Communiqué since they were not present, and that it was a simple partisan affair.  That is why the UN General assembly moved quickly to call for a meeting between the Administrative Authority, the Southern Cameroons government and the government of the Republic of Cameroun to meet and work out the “agreed” terms.

If it was automatically and legally binding, then the UN had no reason to pass another resolution for a meeting after the plebiscite -- a compulsory condition for the Cameroon Federation to occur. The following is that as long as this meeting never happened with the three parties agreeing on the kind of Federation, the Communiqué cannot be legally binding. Consequently, this cannot be accepted as a legal document. Furthermore, Southern Cameroons was a democratic state. As a result, all agreements and envisaged constitutions must have to be ratified by the Southern Cameroons Upper and Lower Houses. There is no evidence that such ratification occurred in the Southern Cameroons parliament of both the Ahidjo’s signed 1961 constitution and the alleged Foncha-Ahidjo pre-plebiscite Communiqué of 1960.

In addition, The Joint Communiqué was not a Treaty because Foncha had no powers on foreign policies because Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory in 1960. The UN never put their signature there as they were wont to. The Communiqué was what they
agreed to do if both the Southern Cameroons and the Northern Cameroons voted to be part of the Cameroon Federation with the Cameroun Republic. It did not mention Southern Cameroons alone.

The Northern Cameroons never signed anything because it was not a treaty and no negotiations were involved; and that they were never part of the meeting with Foncha and Ahidjo in 1960. Foncha and Ahidjo could not possibly, and had no powers to decide the future of Northern Cameroons when he [Foncha] was not a citizen of that part of the UN Trust Territory since the Northern Cameroons were actually politically and legally separate from the Southern Cameroons. They eventually went their separate ways to choose Nigeria in the plebiscite. It was just talks. People come up with a joint Communiqué on what they agreed/disagreed after talks but this cannot be counted as a Treaty without the peoples’ consent in a democratic state.

What the UN meant here was the talks after the plebiscite and after the Southern Cameroons independence was voted at the UN in April 1961; and when the people must have made their decision on where they wished to belong; and not before the people had decided. If the Communiqué was the Treaty, it meant that the plebiscite results were, in effect, null and void since there was no discernible reason to hold the plebiscite as the results were a forgone conclusion.  Dr. Susunji appears not to take to this fundamental fact.  It has to be noted, also, that there was no Union of any form between the Republic of Cameroon and Southern Cameroons before the plebiscite; so how can the Communiqué be transformed into a “Treaty” of the Union when it was signed in 1960 while the plebiscite happened but in 1961? This makes little legal sense as it is similar to a birth certificate being issued by the local authority or hospital before a child is actually born! No court of law will accept such a document.

Thus, according to Dr. Susunji's logic, the union existed in 1960, and before the plebiscite results in 1961 were known: meaning that the Union came to being before it was born. This does not make any sense and must be rejected with full force. What mattered was what the UN Resolution said should happen after the plebiscite and the Southern Cameroons independence vote. Nothing happened as the UN envisaged. Consequently, no legally binding document exits in Cameroon that joins the two former UN Trust Territories possibly why Biya is arranging to “celebrate” the “Re-Unification” in a year that means little or nothing to the history of Cameroon -- 2012.

What Cameroon is attempting to celebrate in Buea this year should be viewed as a non-event. Whether it goes on or not, it means nothing in both legal and historical terms. The correct way forward is for the two parties to meet in the auspices of the UN as planned in 1961, reach a mutually acceptable Agreement and then sign a Treaty that meet their political aspirations. Anything short of this is meaningless, and will continue creating tension between the two former Trust territories with a potentially devastating explosion in full view.

Action Cameroon: Stolen Tole Tea, Stolen Baby, Football Fiasco and Ethnic Riots: Part 1

Tole Tea Women Camping in front of CDC Head Offices, Bota, Victoria

Louis Egbe Mbua

I turned back my mind to revisit the general social contour of my country Cameroon as to what has changed and what has stayed the same in the last few years. The pitiful conclusion, in this context, seems to be reached that the more times the earth orbits its lone star the more the state of affairs remain the same at best; or that they progress in a sort of speedy reverse at worse. A kind of peculiarity, this is, one may inveigh, as the earth never reverses its path around the sun for that matter nor does it travel at different kind of speeds – it progresses year in year out in one forward clockwise direction at the same kind of acceleration.

The day one notices a reversal of progress by this rock on which one is permanently implanted on, then we may surmise that something is in dramatic remission in this troubled world of ours because this is an unnatural occurrence, an artificial state of affairs. When one critically examines the Cameroon situation, in a wider context of the world, conjuring a panoramic view, with this invoked concept, it clearly points to the direction that there is something unnatural happening in that country; and that the law of nature is in serious reverse. The trouble here is that we are certain, without a shadow of doubt, that the laws of natural justice can never be reversed by the same natural laws themselves since that would be an anathema; but that if such laws are reversed, it can only be temporally and artificially done by a human hand defect in dominion. The long-term consequences are catastrophic as we shall soon find out.

The grave problem here is that of a leadership whose love of absolute power absolutely is at its zenith while its conscience has plummeted into the almost impossible absolute zero temperature ranges. There are telling and outward signs to this effect, to know the minds of these people, why they act in this inexplicable monstrosity in manners and the barbaric treatment they met onto the most vulnerable in society: how they abuse their powers to manipulate the supposed “weaker” beings to squeeze out the life blood from them so that the defective powers may sit down and drink, eat and be merry on the blood and sweat of the people. These leaders have no shame; this writer insists, have no moral rectitude and are extremely corrupt. The best way, the writer contends, to start curtailing their heartless misadventure vices is to expose them, complete with their sinister agenda, to the world community of mankind as it seems dialogue always meet a deafening silence with them.

It was about a decade ago that a Cameroonian business man called Baba Danpullo of took over a branch of a company attached to the parent Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), a state run company and a huge Agro-Industrial complex. The company in question is now called Cameroon Tea Estate, located in Tole, Buea, Cameroon.  It later transpired that the new “owner”, used fraudulent methods and means to acquire this company by creating a non-existent company called Brobon-Finex in South Africa and then using this company to buy the Tole Tea Estate. Investigations have shown that this company is a fake. It is interesting to observe that South Africa, which was the bastion of racist Apartheid policies and injurious discrimination would be the foundation base that this man, Danpullo, chose as a base for his illegal and diabolical plans.

The reader should also be drawn into the quick notice that there was, and still is, an ongoing land dispute between the Cameroon government and the indigenous Bakweri tribe headed by the action group, the BLCC. At the time of Mr. Danpullo’s “acquisition” of the Tole Tea Estate, the Cameroon government had been banned -- and are still banned -- by the African Commission from further alienating the indigenes from their land. So, first count, two illegalities and fraud – fake company and illegal land deals by the fake company with corrupt Cameroon government officials in complicity with corrupt South African officials. The first line of the poetic fraudulent stanza is now complete. Now the second verse.

The new “owner-landlord” of the “Cameroon Tea Estate (CTE)” proceeded to do exactly the opposite of this acronym and eponymous name brand; reversing almost a century of social policy that was embedded on the founding of the plantation. He stripped the plantation workers (who were already lowly paid) of their basic fringe benefits—free housing, health care, water, fuel and electricity. He then proceeded to commit the most outrageous social crime, dismissing hundreds of workers without compensation and throwing them out of the company houses without any alternative arrangement for their accommodation. It is to be noted that a vast majority of these workers who toiled in sweat and blood, plucking the tea leaves in these plantations to make a name for the Tole Tea brand were women. With their meagre salaries cushioned by their social benefits they could maintain their families, give them a decent education and therefore escape abject poverty.

He went further. In blatant violation of international company rules and regulations, he stripped some of the machines from the Tole Tea processing factory and transferred them to his new private Tea estate in the North-West Region of Cameroon thereby down-sizing the capacity of the Tole Tea Estate; and consequently, the quality of its production. The immediate effect was for more jobs to go without due compensation to the affected workers. While all the drama was unfolding, the Cameroon government, a part of the crime, watched from the sidelines and at a considerable distance without intervening almost certainly because the women were from the English-speaking region of Cameroon; and that the regime and its collaborators feed on corrupting influence. Although many social critics brought this gross injustice into the public and international notice, nothing happened and the dismissed worker’s plight continues to this day – homeless, sick, hungry and destitute.

The Cameroon opposition politicians, having been bought over by the corrupt system merely bleated like captured sheep with no teeth to block the wind pipe of a rapacious, ruthless and politically cannibalistic system. Moral bankruptcy, bribes to the elite is in full swing. The poor and weak abandoned, the same elite went on to campaign for the October 9 2011 Cameroon window-dressing unconstitutional election in Buea with little shame; and where this horrendous crime against the very people was at open play. The second stanza was now complete after the “election” of the “new” Cameroon President who has said absolutely nothing about this grievous bodily harm and disgraceful saga after 5 years in the brew.

The third part of this dramatic tragedy now deals with the heroic reaction and actions of the aggrieved workers. In a show of force, grit, guts and sheer will power, the rejected and dejected women have decided to take matters into their own hands, taking the fight to a different and totally new level. In a society where men have allowed themselves to be politically castrated and, therefore, may no longer function as real men, it is only natural that the woman becomes the ruler. A community, a land, where the “elite” men have no strength left, having willingly transferred their natural powers to an inept and corrupt sea of wine and unsanctified food, there is always – and inevitably-- a social and moral drunkenness leading to stupor, societal blindness and day-dreaming: so, the song continues. If the men have allowed themselves to be stripped of their manhood, well, God made man in his own image, in the image of God he made them; male and female did he make them. Women must now become the new men while the man follows like a complete nobody. This, exactly, is what happened in the Garden; and the Fall.

While these women have been refused their basic rights by the scheming Apartheid and fascist regime of Paul Biya (whose administration openly discriminates against English-Speaking Cameroon and other Cameroon ethnic groups) and his English-Speaking collaborators, he suddenly announced that he will come to Buea, the capital of Southern Cameroons, to “celebrate” the “Re-unification” of Cameroon. It should be noted that this is a fraudulent political posturing as the 50^th anniversary of Southern Cameroons Independence and unification of the two Cameroons was celebrated last year 1 October 2011 amidst arrests and barbaric torture of celebrating civilians by the brutal forces of occupation of that territory. But that is another story; another time. The main thrust of this article is to remind the international community on the impunity and satanic agenda of this present illegitimate Biya regime, in complicity with an unscrupulous business man that is refusing to grant the fundamental rights, dues, of women who have worked all their lives to develop the nation.

Mr. Danpullo,a member of the Biya ruling CPDM regime and who donated up to £150,000 to the Biya campaign but refuses to pay the workers, is in breach of international labour laws with this callous and corrupt method of treatment of employees; and that he obtained that part of  the state owned company by fraud. The women should report the Biya regime and Mr. Danpullo to the International Labour Organisation and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions so that he should be banned from doing international business. The Cameroon community should rise up and challenge the Biya regime’s corrupt government; and come to the aid of these women who are still putting up a courageous fight against this outrageous monstrosity.

In another strange recently poetic development, a young Cameroon mother, Vanessa Tchatchou, had her baby stolen from an elite clinic in Yaounde days after having a successful delivery on 20th of August 2011 at 7:43 am . After she staged a heroic 4-5 months sit-in in the hospital, the case has taken a curious national and international twist with the Communication Minister of Cameroon, Mr. Issa Tchiroma Bakary, this week coming out claiming that the stolen baby has been killed and has been buried. No more details were given. Does this corrupt regime have a hand in the disappearance of this child, and the stealing of a newly born baby? If this turns out to be the case, why is this? Will the law of natural justice follow its irreversible path? These are the intriguing questions that finally end this choral war drama of heroic deeds against despicable misdeeds.

Living in the 21st Century (13): The Gliding Bird

 Louis Mbua Egbe

Men and women a brilliant idea they thought

That in nuclear power they may imitate

As the kind of process in the stars sought

To produce a power so as to proliferate

The earth with her people spoiling for a fight:

Two wars the earth was itself fully eclipsed

One with horses, a million men with might

Two with aircrafts, with new weapons strapped

Like a spear on ostrich egg not given of flight

With a key and lock visible, to be released:

Packed onto Enola Gay the locust’s secret

But a weapon so deadly to humans exposed

To its nuclear fission and white superheat

That burns through all skin and flesh destroyed!

And then arose the played generation new

In the art of enlightenment that ushers

On earth mobile to all gifted who knew

Thus the danger the nuclear tech usurper

Hawks encourage powers standing on pews,

High Priests of heartless schemes and pushers

Of war in the universe for humans slew

But next an event so strange; a brigadier

Of people young and dynamic: anti-nucleus

Artifice, anti-one stand up protester

Against receding powers -that-be who flew

New locust falling from the skies not manner

But the new world knows not still the object flows,

Only a peaceful bird the gliding flyer!

Pause for Thought on the Mentality of the Slave Driver -- and Their Agents.

Louis Egbe Mbua

A people are hardly enslaved without the support of the same people who are in bondage. A man who enters into another man’s house will never know where all the keys are concealed unless he has been tipped by the house owner; and the unsuspecting or unwitting brother may not be friends to the thief and slave-master unless he is also part of the conspiracy to subjugate -- and subterfuge. Thus, if the slave master decides to come and buy more slaves, he can only do so if those vested with power in the slave region will carry his message to the people – the message disguised and sweetened by cheap bribes.

The poverty-stricken population, already in bondage, will have little alternative but to support the actions of the slave agent. Now, since the slave agent is a kinsman, his people will more likely believe him; and the vicious cycle is complete. This has been the case for slave traders since time immemorial – sell your brother, reap meagre profits, buy some luxury from the slave master, come back home to share it with the hapless citizens and brother who will be too happy to have bread and butter and the cycle continues. And unless a revolutionary stance is taken, throw out the slave agents and establish firm laws that completely wipe out this practice, it may continue for centuries.

Solutions to difficult problems, the writer has observed, cannot be solved by those who created the problem in the first place or by those who are benefiting from the inhuman acts: even by having a single dinner with the criminal makes one liable for almost certainly unforgiving judgement by the people; and that nobody would want to be in a position as to be accused as a traitor. Therefore, the easiest and best solutions espoused by such men of conceit are:

1. Pretend that the slave practise does not exist – which they are doing

2. Enter into a delusion that the problem will just go away by some kind of magic wand

3. Begin a propaganda of spreading falsehood believing that the traitor will be saved

4. Condescend to the perpetrator with the hope that the perpetrator will feel sorry for them. A Lion does not feel sorry for eating a well-served meal.

5. Hope, falsely, that the problem will be solved one day in the distant future by “somebody”

6. Believe that the perpetrator will change his ways if he continues for life

7. Create a dynasty where their siblings and offspring will take over and preserve their status quo and ill-gotten wealth

8. Pretend to be an intellectual teaching in a University while publishing dishonest material to support the evil system

9. Pretend that Cameroon is not constituted of two states because Cameroon is

“Indivisible”.

10. Join the army so that they may have an excuse that they are merely following orders

11. Join the slave master to continue the madness; and justifying their abominable actions by using the tired cliché – if you can’t beat them, join them!

It has been proven time and again that those who harbour such views are setting themselves up for destruction. The day the avalanche will start rolling, it would have been better that such men had never existed. Not only will they lose all, but their names will be erased from history as was done in ancient Africa. Consequently, it is better to change one’s direction when the tide is very high to save oneself than to wait when the sea’s rage has abated only to be swallowed up suddenly by an unsuspecting Tsunami; it is better to run for one’s dear life when the lion is miles away than to attempt to run when the lion has entered your enclosed space.

Devastation in Japan 2: A Futuristic Natural and Nuclear Apocalypse

                                                      Source: http://www.iaea.org/

Louis Egbe Mbua

As Japan and the nuclear world battle to contain the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plants from the feared nuclear radioactive leaks, it is but reasonable to delve into the origins of nuclear technology and its possible effects: in the eventuality of a potentially massive nuclear melt-down -- due to natural or man made disasters-- with a far greater power and force of  devastation sometime in the future, somewhere on planet.

Nuclear power is not an overtly new technology. Ironically, the first breakthrough on the practicalities of this enticingly exotic technology was attained in Nazi Germany in 1938: capitalising on earlier findings on the atom and matter by Rutherford while experimenting at Cambridge, England UK and Albert Einstein, ironically, also a German Jew!

It is unclear how the megalomaniac Hitler would have behaved or reacted with the development of such a powerfully destructive discovery if he could see into the future and opted not to persecute the Jews in Germany. But fate waits for no one; and that what one may plan with intentions of annihilating innocent civilians on grounds of their race may turn out to be their own nemesis. Consequently, when Hitler drove out the Jews, the most talented of them all, in terms of this discovery and scientific inventions found themselves in the United States of America where they applied this technology to build the first nuclear bomb in 1942.

However, the first ever commercial nuclear power station for the harnessing of this technology for the good of human kind, generating electricity and connected to electrical grid, was built in Sellafield, UK in 1956. Before then, electricity was generated by the utilisation of fossil fuels – coal, gas and petroleum. 

Although the dangers of radioactive wastes and their chain reactions and by-products that follow nuclear electricity production were anticipated, the scales of danger were not immediately as clear as the case of the test explosion of a nuclear bomb. It was perceived that nuclear fission reaction in a nuclear reactor designed for electricity generation could be effectively controlled; and that international and national laws and regulations set in place were of sufficient cover as to stem any nuclear accident. But were Earthquakes, volcanoes, sabotage and terrorist attacks envisaged in the design of these colossal power factories?

The dramatic  Fukushima nuclear plants accidents are a point of focus: to enquire as to whether it is wise and prudent to build nuclear plants in well-known seismic earthquake; and whether nuclear power – good or bad – contributes to human development or a catalyst of the long-predicted prospect of  human apocalypse before locusts arrive.

A futuristic view of the nuclear world means that humans challenge conventional wisdom: that the “developed” Western world may be so technologically advanced as to control any kind of nuclear accident. The consequences for this over-presumptuous assumption can be a catastrophe for the world. It is known that nuclear proliferation is not only confined to positive use of this power.  Deadly nuclear weapons are in the hands of both the developed and the developing nations. While it may be true – to a limited extent – that the industrial West has more capabilities to deal with a nuclear accident, it still carries a frightening risk if sudden and unexpected explosion do occur.

Nuclear stockpiles have to be stored in line with international laws that regulate the method of this storage. Now, let’s suppose that there is a fire – by arson, sabotage or accident – that begins in one of this depot. The consequences are that these weapons will explode with the high possibility of the nuclear chain reaction continuing for months, if not years. The constant expectations are that the atmosphere will be overwhelmed by radiation with the result that acid rain will decimate human kind for years if not centuries.

In the case of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the heroic stance by “suicide” workers notwithstanding, the question arises as to the usage of sea water to cool the melting and damaged and melting plutonium fuel rods. It is likely that this sea water has to be re-circulated into the natural water cycle because there appears to be no known method of radioactive water treatment before disposing it into the ecosystem of nature. The results will be that this radioactive water will be absorbed by plants which will in turn find its way to the animal food chain and eventually consumed by man.

Although it is assumed or reported that the amount of radioactive iodine that seeped into the water system is “negligible”, it cannot be said that this “small” radioactive iodine is similar to natural background radiation of the universe. What is created on earth by man cannot be favourably compared to that which occurs naturally – and which has been proved to be harmless. As a consequence, the effects to human, animal and plant life cannot be predicted for certain with radioactive materials within their living tissues.

 While these possible inconclusive detrimental conjectures may be slower in penetrating the ecosystem as compared to deliberate nuclear attacks, there are examples on the effects of nuclear radioactivity on human race – and animals and plants. Radioactivity has the power to mutational human genes alteration -- unpredictably. This has been seen in the area of Chernobyl after the 1986 nuclear explosion and the after effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosion in 1945. Thus, if radioactivity slowly enters the food chain, we may have to contend with “Frankenstein” humans for centuries to come.

The multiplier results for future generations are not known but the effects may actually and totally alter human beings – their physical and social nature to the most unrecognisable features and behaviour. Will these humans be weaker in constitution – mentally and physically? If this happens to be the effects, then this may point to a slow and eminent extinction of the human race.  Other thinkers may point to the theories of evolution, the survival of the “best” genes, and the survival of the strongest. On the other hand, the strongest of the future nuclear altered humans may not be as robust as the generation before; and who were never subjected to nuclear devastation as to have their genes altered. Consequently, the likelihood of survival of the human race in this respect may grow slimmer with time.

Again, suppose the opposite effects are true—that the altered genes may mean that humans turn out to be stronger in physical constitution but mentally deranged: for it is unclear how radioactivity will affect the human brain. If it alters the genes that are responsible for the building blocks of the human brain, there are three possibilities: the human becomes far more intelligent; they become far less intelligent; or they become deranged to the point of megalomania. If we take the first scenario – physically stronger and super intelligent – then the case may be that they will move on to discover many more nuclear secrets, advances in science and technology:  threatening the earth further.

We may agree that humans are rational but that is only limited as to what we can predict for certain or what we may perceive as morally right. However, one person’s morality may not be the same as the next human.  It follows that there are always possibilities of moral inconsistencies and unpredictability. Now, if we assume that the second scenario exists such that the future generation becomes deranged from nuclear fall outs, it becomes abundantly clear that the world will be destined for destruction as the combination of being physically strong and unhinged is lethal. The results can be extremely scary as this will breed millions of dictators who will ensure the destruction of the earth – and human life -- further.

The Fukushima incident must have delivered a devastating psychological blow to the nuclear industry.  Nevertheless, human civilisation continues to be hungry for more power to quench their insatiable appetite for luxury goods and the augmentation of their now advanced livelihood. But what if the incident in Japan becomes uncontrollable or that another nuclear accident occurs with dreadful effects on the ecosystem? In this scenario, there is only one solution – abandon the site, evacuate the entire population. But to where?

There is a case for social conflict here. A nation of say 200 million inhabitants may be evacuated but it is unclear as to where they will be moved. Political and social problems abound. Are we going to carve out a complete new state in the middle of the forest to accommodate the affected individuals? And which nation will concede land for this massive and unprecedented location? Surely the affected people cannot be left to their own devices in the nuclear stricken and contaminated land. Or is it?

If left, then there would be a terrible refugee problem that may only be resolved by the international community or a world body such as the United Nations. Again, this may prove a hard politically-charged social and logistic solution although this may be possible. At the same time, the world has to contend that such a nightmare scenario may come to pass. But the most effective solution to this possible scenario should be preventative.

The IAEA, and agency of the United Nations, would have to draft new legislation on nuclear safety to ensure that a nuclear accident of such proportions are grossly minimised. Such legislation should include the clause that no nuclear plant must be cited near a seismically unstable region anywhere on earth. This should include earthquake zones and regions in the vicinity of volcanic mountains –whether active or extinct; and that no nuclear power station should be built in the vicinity of rivers, freshwater lakes and seas as well as known or suspected typhoon, tornado and hurricane susceptible zones. Again, these solutions will create yet another problem since nuclear power requires water to cool nuclear fuels; and to generate electricity. Air-cooled or molten salt cooled plants are viably reliable solutions.

A typical solution, therefore, would be to locate nuclear power stations in regions with heavy rainfall where large encampments to hold excess water may act as sources of water; and that these nuclear stations may only be operational – in the rainy season -- as an auxiliary to other sources of power. In the same vein, nations that agree with these regulations may sign up to a new nuclear treaty. They may be provided with inducements in energy supplement; being provided with incentives to develop alternative power sources in the renewable sector – solar, wind, geothermal and hydro electricity. Deserts in the world may act as solar and wind farms for electrical power generation.

.