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World Refugee Problem
The U. S. Committee for Refugees reports that
there are nearly sixteen million homeless persons scat–
tered throughout the world. Uprooted from bornes by
war, by political, religious, and racial persecution and
oppression, and by natural disaster, these people united
in sutfering comprise a group greater in number than
the entire population of the continent of Australia, or
the combined population of the cities of London, París,
and Rome.
Refugees are to be found nearly everywhere
around the world: Bangladesh, India, Southeast Asia,
Hong Kong, the Middle
East,
throughout Africa - and
even in Western Europe, Great Britain, and the United
States. Their numbers and locations change constantly,
making it almost impossible to accurately keep track of
them.
Half of the over four million population of Hong
Kong is made up of escapees from mainland China. In
the Middle East, the protracted Arab-Israeli con–
frontation has produced its share of refugees. Tens of
thousands of Asians were ejected from Uganda last
year, many finding their way to a reluctant Great Brit–
ain. War has displaced millions of Vietnamese, Cam–
bodians, and Laotians in Southeast Asia.
The refugee situation in today's overpopulated
world is possibly the worst in man's history. The Paki–
stani civil war, for example, resulted in the greatest dis–
placement of people in a single year that the world has
known - outweighing in numbers the waves of refugees
who fled Nazi Europe before and during World War ll.
or who escaped Communism's westward rush after the
war. Between March 1971 and January 1972, 10 million
people tled to India from East Pakistan (now Bangla–
desh). The majority have since returned - many to de–
stroyed or pillaged home sites - causing extreme
resettlement problems for the fiedgling nation.
The problem is not likely to abate. As long as natu–
ral disasters, wars, and persecutions continue to affiict
the world. the refugee problem will remain and very
PLAIN TRUTH April 1973
likely intensify - a grim and tragic commentary on the
world of the 20th century.
•
Nuclear Terrorism?
..
Cou1d shipments of nuclear materials be stolen and
fashioned by terrorists into crude, do-it-yourse1f atomic
bombs capable of devastating large cities? Nuclear sci–
entists are beginning
to
worry about such an eventuality.
Professor Mason Willrich, director of the Center
for the Study of Science, Technology, and Public Policy,
of the University of Virginia, is one expert who voices
this very concern. "Most experts," he says, "consider the
design and manufacture of a crude nuclear explosive
device without previous access
to
classified data to be
no longer an extremely difficult task technically." Will–
rich points out that "a very small amount of [nuclear]
material - for example, a few kilograms [severa!
pounds] of plutonium - is enough for a nuclear ex–
plosive capable of mass destruction, and the manufac–
ture of sueh an explosive is
wíthín rhe capabílíty ofmany
groups."
Five kilograms (eleven pounds) of plutonium
could make a bomb comparable to the one used on Na–
gasaki.
Willrich's fear echoes a similar warning issued by
Professor Bernard Feld at the Pugwash Conference on
Science and World Affairs in Oxford last year. Accord–
ing to Feld, as nuclear power plants come into increas–
ing use, large stockpiles of atomic fue! and spent
nuclear fue! elements will be created - from which
people with a certain amount of scientific knowledge
could make crude nuclear bombs.
Highlighting the threat, an underground pamphlet
published last year in London and syndicated in the
United States gave details of how to extract plutonium
from spent nuclear fue! and included a diagram of a
crude atomic bomb.
Nuclear hijackings and nuclear terrorism are now a
potential new threat to the thin fabric of the existing
world social order.
-Gene Hogberg
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