Beatrice Fihn - ICAN Executive Director HARDtalk

Now on BBC News it's time

for a special edition of HARDtalk

with this year's winners

of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Welcome to HARDtalk, iron Stephen

Sackur. Today I'm in Oslo to meet

the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize

in this year, the award goes to the

international -- the award goes to

International Campaign to Abolish

Nuclear Weapons. Two women from very

different generations who have

worked tirelessly for nuclear

disarmament. They believe they have

embarked on a campaign which will

ultimately lead to the elimination

of all the world's nuclear weapons.

But are they changemakers or wishful

thinkers?

Beatrice Fihn and Setsuko Thurlow,

many congratulations on winning the

Nobel Peace Prize. Of course,

welcome to HARDtalk I want to begin

by asking both of you how you felt

when you heard this news is that you

had won the Nobel Peace Prize. You

are the Executive Director of ICAN,

International Campaign to Abolish

Nuclear Weapons. Did you expect it?

Thank you to having me here. We did

not expect it at all. We have been

so preoccupied with the treaty and

had it concluded in the summer.

The

treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons

which got so many nations around the

world to sign up to.

Exactly. So

what I got the phone call, I was in

complete shock, so honoured, I

thought it was a prank at first. We

were nervous. Many powerful people

don't like this treaty. I was a

little bit paranoid. Then we watched

the live -- the live broadcast to

make sure it was real. Just such an

incredible honour for the whole

campaign, for all the people that

have fought against nuclear weapons

for so long.

Just wonderful. As you

say, you look at Setsuko Thurlow.

For you, this is the most

extraordinary, personal story as

well because you use it with me

today as a survivor of Hiroshima.

You were there in 1945. For you, the

news that the Nobel committee had

decided to recognise the work of the

International Campaign to Abolish

Nuclear Weapons, what did it mean to

you?

I just couldn't believe it,

that first moment. I was numb, I

think. I pinched myself. Is it real?

But the people around me were

screaming with joy. So it must be

true. But it took me four days

before I really felt like I actually

won.

I think we have to start this

interview is it so remarkable for me

to sit with you. We have to start by

having you reflect on the memories

you hold of Hiroshima 1945 because,

in a sense, everything about the

campaign today is about the reality

of what nuclear weapons do. So if

you would take me back to that day

in the summer of 45.

I was a

13-year-old grade seven student in a

girls school. I was at the Army

headquarters that morning instead of

classroom because Japan was losing

fast in the war. And they utilised

all the cheap Labour. So I was at

the Army headquarters. And that was

a Monday morning and at eight

o'clock, we had the assembly and the

major said, this is the beginning of

your work and you demonstrate your

patriotism to the nation and loyalty

to the emperor. Yes, sir, we will!

At that moment, I assure the blueish

white flash from the window and then

I had... Was there a noise? No,

nothing. They say there was a

thunderous noise but people far away

heard it. I didn't hear anything. So

the moment I saw the flash, my body

was thrown up in the air and I lost

consciousness. When I regained

consciousness, in total darkness and

silence come -- silence, then I

thought, this is it. I was faced

with death. Then I started hearing

the faint voices of my classmates in

the dark. Help me, mother, help me.

Then, all of a sudden, somebody

started pushing my left shoulder.

Don't give up, girl. Keep pushing,

keep kicking. I'm trying to free

you. You see the sun coming through

that opening? Crawl toward that. As

clear as possible. And that's what I

did in the total darkness. I don't

know how many seconds I took but by

the time I came out, the rubble was

already on fire. There were about 30

girls who were with me in the same

room, they were all burned to death

alive.

Wow. How do you think you

survived? It sounds like a miracle.

Yes, I think so it's like a miracle

but I don't believe, some people

say, well, God saved you to do the

job for disarmament. No, that's a

nonsensical interpretation. God

doesn't help you for that. It was

sheer, sheer luck, I think, the

people who were just half a metre

away from me just incinerated.

And

it's so horrible to reflect on it

but how many members of your

extended family and your classmates

did you lose?

I lost 351 schoolmates

who happened to be at another place

in the centre part of the city.

Together with several thousand other

students. All the kids from all the

high schools who were brought to the

centre and just above them, the

detonation of atomic bomb took

place. Those young people just

didn't have a chance. They simply

vaporised. Melted. And family? I

lost eight of my family, yes. And

when I think of my Hiroshima memory,

the first person I think of is my

nephew, four-year-old little boy,

who kept asking for water because he

was burned so badly. I saw him about

twice or three times, just blood,

condensed, and everybody was begging

for water. 4000dC heat on that

ground level. Everybody was thirsty.

Anyway, I did see that day something

I can never forget. People looked

like ghosts, not human beings,

because of the skin and flesh was

burned, blackened, swollen, melting,

the hair was standing up. Naked. And

some people were carrying their

rivals. Some people just collapsed

onto the ground. At their stomach

burst open, it in test times

stretched out. So I had to learn to

step over the dead bodies to escape.

It is very hard to listen to you

today and not feel utterly horrified

by it all. And yet you are a

survivor and you have become a

committed campaigner through all

your adult life against nuclear

weapons and it's so interesting to

me, Beatrice, that the testimony of

Setsuko has become such a central

part of your campaign. 72 years on

why, in your opinion, is it so

important to harness the real-life

testimony of Setsuko and a few other

survivors that remain, are able to

talk about it?

Well, this is what

the weapons do. This is what they

are. This is nuclear weapons. We

like to think about them as abstract

concepts of power. Theories,

wargames. But this is what nuclear

weapons are. If we keep nuclear

weapons forever, they will be used

again. This will happen. There is

literally no preparedness to deal

with this. There is nothing, relief

agencies or naff -- national

authorities can do to help people.

We help example the Red Cross do

research on what they would do as a

emergency relief act in terms of

helping survivors. They said they

would pull their staff out. They

can't help. The UN humanitarian

agencies to the same thing. They say

they are powerless, they can't do

anything.

But when you say this is

the reality of nuclear weapons, it

was the reality of the nuclear

weapons that we used in 1945. I

guess the point that so many

strategists, thinkers on

international security issues would

make to you is that actually, the

fact that the big world powers have

maintained their nuclear weapons

deter and over the last seven

decades has actually ensured that

they have not been used and that

actually we have not had major wars

between those big powers since the

Second World War.

I wouldn't agree

with that. I think nuclear weapons,

we have been very close to use of

nuclear weapons several times since

the Cold War.

But isn't that the

point of deterrence? You can get

close and have huge confrontation

and have wars even by proxy but you

cannot step over the line because of

the theory of mutually assured

destruction that comes with these

weapons for her Setsuko's testimony

is the ultimate bearing witness.

One

day it will fail. We see now it is

being threatened for use. We see

world leaders about totally

destroying not just a city, not just

a regime but the whole country, for

example and that is really

dangerous. We have multiple threads

now. We have many more actors with

nuclear weapons. We are terrorists,

cyber security issues, we have so

mini accidents. A lot of research

coming out now on how close to

accidents we were during the Cold

War, misunderstandings. They thought

a weather satellite was an incoming

missile. One person in the Soviet

Union said, that doesn't feel right.

He disregarded orders. Nuclear

weapons have bought as to the brink

so many times now fuelling conflicts

today. The war in Iraq. That was

based on this issue of weapons of

mass destruction. We have a tense

situation in Iran. In Kashmir. Right

now with North Korea. Nuclear

weapons are not solving that

problem. Nuclear weapons are

fuelling it.

Let's unpick a bit of

the work you have done, the work

that has led you receiving this

amazing prize here in Oslo. I

suppose more than anything else, you

got the prize this year because you

were in the ICAN, in its national

campaign, were the driving force

behind this international treaty

which more than 120 countries have

proved, which outlaws, which

prohibits nuclear weapons. The big

problem with that treaty is that it

does not include the support of any

of the nations that currently have

nuclear weapons. And that surely

discredits it as a meaningful

treaty?

Absolutely not. We see with

other treaties for example that

norms can be very powerful and

influence behaviour also with

parties that are not a part of it.

Landmines, the big producers, even

though they didn't sign a treaty,

they have shifted their behaviours.

The market for landmines has

dropped. We have seen efforts to

clean up landmines being done,

saving people's lives continuously

because of the treaty.

One practical

question on how this treaty works

because its central to the work you

do. You say when 50 countries have

formally it, it will be

international law. My question is,

what does that really mean, if the

United States and Russia and China

let alone countries like North Korea

and we might talk about that more,

if those nations do not accept this

quote unquote international law,

what meaning does it have?

Still impact their behaviour and

shift their norms. How? The US

Still impact their behaviour and

shift their norms. How? The US did

not participate but last year, the

last American producer stopped

producing destinations, saying that

there is a growing international

stigma, there is bad business to

keep investing in this weapon, and

even if perhaps the Trump

administration now is trying to

reverse the policy is, the company

has said we will not do this.

I want

to quote you something. OK.

Something the Nobel committee said

in their citation in giving the

award. They said this - we live in

the world today where the risk of

nuclear weapons being used is

greater than it has been for a very

long time.

It's true, two years

advance the place, there is a far

greater today than 75 years ago. I

thought what I experienced in that

city, was a catastrophic disaster.

But if anything like under the bomb

is used, human suffering is not

going to be that scale. The whole

city, whole region, half of the

continent, could be melting away.

That kind of different situation

from 72 years ago and somehow, I

think it is a madness to think that

deterrence works, therefore we

manage not to have the war past so

many years.

Well, I'm not sure that

deterrence theory seems so

implausible if one considers the

strategies of the United States,

Russia and China, but I do want to

talk to you particularly about North

Korea because we have seen the North

Korean developing nuclear weapons

programme in recent weeks and

months. We now know that they have

quite an advanced capability, not

just to weaponise but also be into

miniature rise so they can put it on

an intercontinental ballistic

missile. We have seen those tests.

You as a Japanese citizen, albeit a

woman who now in Canada, surely you,

that gives you pause. I mean Japan

right now is protect did by the

American nuclear umbrella. Are you

suggesting to me that the Japanese

people would be happy to see the

Americans give up their nuclear

weapons and to Japan to lose that

protection?

I think many serious

Japanese are thinking that

maintaining the alliance, the

relationship with the United States,

which is ready to use nuclear

weapons as a first strike weapon,

and that makes Japan more

vulnerable.

On a human level what is

your reaction when you hear Donald

Trump talk about fire and fury?

He

doesn't understand there are

millions of human beings who could

suffer from this and I have seen so

many 100 thousand people miles away

-- melt away and how a human can we

be? That is totally unacceptable

moral behaviour. I will tell him

that. And I will say the same to the

North Korean leader as well. They

are behaving charitably and

acceptably.

-- totally unacceptably.

In the not so distant past, we saw

Iran tell lies about the nature of

its nuclear programme. They were

exposed ultimately the IAEA and now

run is strict monitoring programme

but it is easy to disguise nuclear

development, including military

developments. Now, I will quote you

words of one expert in the field, a

nuclear physicist, Peter Zimmerman,

he says that in me" on hydrogen

bonds are small enough to hide in a

coat closet. Verification of their

destruction in the absence of a yet

to be determined mechanism, because

this is nothing you talk about your

specific, and in the absence of a

strong international consensus

verification is impossible. And with

regard to North Korea for example,

isn't that a truth that means the

big powers cannot sacrifice their

nuclear weapons?

No, because as long

as we, some countries keep nuclear

weapons you will inside

proliferation. If a country like

Britain who have spent the last 70

years arguing that if their weapons

equal safety, of course a country

like North Korea will think the

same, or a run. Why wouldn't they?

We're never going to be able to

address the proliferation challenges

and we start rejecting development

as an acceptable means of protecting

ourselves. Threatening to mass

murder civilians should not be a

legitimate way of of ensuring

safety. It creates an safety. It

creates a heightened risk for it.

When we address that, the

verification, the technical

challenges will be solved. It is the

political will that needs to happen.

It is interesting, gibberish talk

about changing the political will

but politics is also about, you

know, politicians listening to them

are trying to appeal to the public

around the world and even

democracies, at least. Here is

something very interesting that I

just saw the other day. Written by a

political science professor, very

respected security expert, at

Stamford University in the US. He

surveyed opinion in Donald Trump's

America about US attitudes to using

nuclear weapons and he found 50% of

Americans today would approve of

killing 2 million, for examples,

Iranian civilians if that would

prevent a military conflict in which

20,000 US soldiers might die. That's

apparently the reality of US public

opinion today.

How are you going to

shift those? We have to do a lot of

work. This is also what the treaty

is for. It is not the end goal, the

treaty is the tool to change

perceptions for, as they said, for

70 years, we have had this kind of

acceptance of nuclear weapons and we

face that all the time, people say

you won't be able to change so of

course people will say that.

It

isn't you will not be able to change

it, the tide is against you, Donald

Trump is proposing to spend tens and

tens of billions of dollars

upgrading and improving America's

nuclear weapons capability and you

can get that will lead to similar

investments in Russia and in China

as well. So it isn't just sort of

coping with the status quo, the tide

is running against you.

The results

are a huge Korean resistance to

that. We have seen in the US Senate,

people are concerned about who has

these weapons. People are worried

that someone rational its control,

someone who can be very easily

provoked with a tweet for example,

would have control of the nuclear

weapons and I think that is the

thing, when people start questioning

who should have these weapons and

when people start being worried

about Kim Jong warned or Donald

Trump having control over nuclear

weapons, I think you are actually

worried about nuclear weapons

because it means that you wreck it

knows.

Deterrence doesn't always

work. You suggesting that few in the

ICAN campaigns the equity --a clear

equivalent is between Donald Trump

and Kim Jong all?

We are focused on

the weapons, who has the weapons,

there own right hands.

Setsuko, a

final word to you.

What did you want

to say? As an interviewer, you of

course have to challenge us and you

are trying to be devils advocate, I

suppose. I hope you don't really...

I am trying to reflect, I am trying

to reflect on seven decades...

As

somebody who personally experienced,

as have seen an entire city just

destroyed, glitter rated, and

hundreds of thousands of people

simply scorched. Carbonised. And we

are talking about human beings. It

is totally unacceptable anyway, any

time.

One final question to you

because we are almost out of time,

we have lived through the most

extraordinary period, you know,

which...

I have to say the whole

thing we are talking about is

madness! Shear madness! My god!

Guest, OK...

You have had time of

your 80s some years to reflect on

human nature, to use it here today

as one of the most passionate

advocates of nuclear disarmament,

you sit here today truly believing

that we human beings are ever going

to agree to give up the most potent

weapon we have ever invented? Do you

believe in your heart we humans are

capable of doing that?

I do. If I

don't, I cannot afford to be in the

peace movement. I do. We have

achieved a small goal and we are

going to achieve many more before we

get rid of all the nuclear weapons.

So we are determined. The ultimate

message is learn from history.

Yes.

Right. And take action.

Based on

your conviction. We have to end

there but Setsuko Thurlow and

Beatrice Fihn, thank you very much

for being on HARDtalk once again and

congratulations once again for

winning the Nobel Peace Prize.