Mordechai Vanunu sta per essere rimesso in liberta'

[Carlo Gubitosa <c.gubitosa@peacelink.it>]

Fonte: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/19/israel.vanunu.ap/index.html

Didascalia della foto: "Mordechai Vanunu, shown in 2002, will not be 
allowed to talk to foreigners or to leave the country."

------------------

Man who exposed Israel's nuclear program to be freed

Monday, April 19, 2004 Posted: 7:02 PM EDT (2302 GMT)
	
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Eighteen years after he was kidnapped by Mossad agents 
for exposing Israel's secret nuclear program, Mordechai Vanunu will go free 
this week -- a moment Israel fears will refocus unwelcome attention on its 
"bomb in the basement."

In remarks broadcast Monday, the 50-year-old Vanunu said he has no more 
secrets to reveal, but he'd like to see Israel's nuclear reactor destroyed.

The audiotape of a recent conversation in prison between Vanunu and Shin 
Bet agents marked the first time Israelis heard him explain his actions. 
Vanunu's brother, Meir, said Monday that the prisoner didn't know his 
remarks would be published.

Anti-nuclear crusaders, including actors, legislators and a Nobel Peace 
Prize laureate, were flying in from Europe and the United States for 
Wednesday's release, but they won't be able to embrace their hero.

Trying to quash any celebrations, the security services have barred Vanunu 
from speaking to foreigners, traveling abroad or even approaching foreign 
embassies for fear he might seek political asylum.

Vanunu's campaign began in 1986 when he gave The Sunday Times of London a 
description and photographs of Israel's Dimona reactor, where he had worked 
for nine years. Based on his account, experts said at the time that Israel 
had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The revelations undercut Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity."

That policy was forged in the 1960s when Israel promised the United States 
it would not declare its nuclear status, test nuclear weapons or use them 
for political gain, wrote Israeli historian Avner Cohen. In exchange, 
Washington did not pressure Israel to disarm, he said.

Israel has kept the pledge, neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear 
capability. Some say that by drawing attention to its nuclear capability, 
Vanunu actually boosted Israel's deterrence.

Anti-nuclear campaigners were flying to Israel to greet Vanunu outside 
Shikma Prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon. Among them were Mairead 
Corrigan Maguire, a 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Northern Ireland, 
and British actress Susannah York. Others sent messages, including British 
playwright Harold Pinter who wrote: "You are a remarkable man, a man of 
principle and integrity."

Vanunu received thousands of letters over the years, and was adopted by an 
American couple, Nick and Mary Eoloff of St. Paul, Minnesota.

The prisoner proudly told Shin Bet interrogators the world considers him a 
hero, according to the audiotape.

However, there is little sympathy for him in Israel, a country where just 
about everything is debated openly -- except nuclear weapons. The phrase 
"bomb in the basement" has been frequently used to describe Israel's secret 
nuclear program. It was also the title of a 2001 Israeli documentary, "A 
Bomb in the Basement _ Israel's Nuclear Option."

Israelis believe the weapons are their last line of defense, "the ultimate 
guarantee that another Holocaust will not happen," said legal commentator 
Moshe Negbi. The consensus is that too much talk will only harm security.

Still, critics say, Vanunu's punishment was excessive.

Yossi Melman, a journalist who writes about espionage, said the security 
services were trying to deter others and distract attention from their own 
blunders. The Shin Bet ignored warning signs that Vanunu had been drawn 
into left-wing circles while working at the reactor, Melman said.

Vanunu said Israel shouldn't have trusted him with classified material. 
"You gave information to the wrong man," he told the Shin Bet.

Vanunu was snatched from Rome by the Mossad in 1986 after being lured into 
a rendezvous by a female agent. He was smuggled to Israel by yacht, tried 
behind closed doors and sentenced to 18 years for treason.

He spent 12 of those years in solitary confinement, earning him a mention 
in the 1998 edition of Guinness World Records.

In the first 2 1/2 years, Vanunu was under 24-hour video surveillance, with 
fluorescent lights on at all times in his windowless cell, said his brother 
Meir. He was allowed a one-hour daily walk in a yard shrouded in canvas to 
prevent him from signaling other prisoners. His only human contact was a 
guard and a family visit every two weeks.

The crushing isolation harmed Vanunu's mental health, according to his 
brother, an opinion backed by former Israeli legislator Yossi Katz, who met 
him in 1998. Vanunu improved after getting out of solitary.

Israeli newspapers ran rare photographs of the white-haired, balding Vanunu 
on Monday, showing him in jeans, a brown prison uniform shirt and a blue 
ski jacket. Vanunu, a convert to Christianity, wore a gold cross around his 
neck.

The prisoner, one of 11 children of working-class Jewish immigrants from 
Morocco, seems to have been an accidental spy.

He was a loner who rebelled against his ultra-Orthodox Jewish upbringing. 
He studied at Ben Gurion University in the Negev desert while working at 
the reactor and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy.

In 1985, after getting fired from his job in Dimona, Vanunu flew to 
Thailand, where he stayed at a Buddhist monastery and considered 
conversion, then moved to Australia. He joined an Anglican congregation in 
Sydney, changed his name to John Crossman and met a freelance journalist 
who suggested Vanunu talk to the media about Dimona.

With Vanunu's impending release, Israel's nuclear program has hit the 
headlines again, reviving demands that Israel disarm. Egypt says Israel's 
arsenal is spurring Arab and Muslim countries to develop their own bombs.

In an attempt at damage control, Israel is imposing restrictions on Vanunu, 
with the implicit threat of re-arrest.

"We just want to stop him from spreading state secrets," said Likud Party 
legislator Yuval Steinitz, chairman of parliament's Defense and Foreign 
Affairs Committee. "We think Vanunu still has information he hasn't revealed."