Activists Call on World to ‘Consider’ Peace, Abolish Nuclear Weapons – Global Issues
PARIS, Sep 27 (IPS) – In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear weapons must be addressed, and now.
That was the message from the list of delegates at the conference “Imaginer la Paix / Imagine Peace”, which was held in Paris from September 22 to 24, and which was organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, a Christian organization founded in Rome in 1968 and now based in 70 countries.
Describing its principles as “Prayer, service to the poor and work for peace,” the society has held 38 international, multi-religious peace meetings, bringing together activists from around the world. It is the first time that the conference has been held in Paris, as hundreds go to France, a country with nuclear power.
Taking place against a backdrop of brutal, ongoing conflicts in various regions and a new race by some countries to “improve” their weapons, the gathering had a sense of urgency, with growing fears that nuclear weapons might be used by warlords. Participants highlight current and past atrocities and call on world leaders to learn from the past.
“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been blessed by many who have said ‘no’—’no’ a million times, making movements and agreements, (and) raising awareness … weapons are ‘no’,” said Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, based in New York.
Participating in a panel discussion Monday titled “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Envisioning a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” Bartoli and other speakers painted vivid pictures of what life in a nuclear-armed world has meant, and highlighted progress since World War II.
“After the use of the two bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people built more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and conducted more than 2,000 tests. We still have more than 12,500, each with more than two powers used in August 1945,” Bartoli said.
Despite recognizing the catastrophic potential of these weapons and despite a UN treaty banning their use, some governments argue that having nuclear weapons is a deterrent—a fallacious argument, according to forum speakers.
Jean-Marie Collin, director of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an organization launched in the early 2000s in Australia and which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017), said that leaders who cite prohibition “accept the possibility of violating” human rights around the world .
“Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities, kill and paralyze all people, which means that all presidents and heads of government who use a defense policy based on the prohibition of nuclear power and therefore are responsible for giving this order, know this,” Collin. he told the forum.
ICAN campaigned for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, and entered into force in 2021. The adoption took place nearly fifty years after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force. working in 1970.
The NPT terms consider five countries as nuclear weapons states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Four other countries also have nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.
According to ICAN’s 2024 report, these nine states collectively spent 85 billion euros (USD 94.6 billion) on their nuclear arsenals last year, costs that ICAN called “obscene” and “unacceptable .” France, whose president Emmanuel Macron spoke of peace in general, in general terms at the opening of the summit, spent about 5.3 billion euros (about USD 5.9 billion) by 2023 on nuclear weapons, the report said.
The policy of “deterrence” and “reconciliation,” meaning “we’ll give up our weapons if you get rid of yours,” has been criticized by ICAN and other disarmament activists.
“With the constant flow of information, we tend to forget the truth of statistics,” said Collin at the peace conference. “I hope this one catches your eye: it is estimated that more than 38,000 children were killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children!”
All those killed—an estimated 210,000 people by the end of 1945—died horribly, as survivors and others have testified. The delegates said that this information should be a real “barrier”.
At the forum, Anna Ikeda, coordinator of the disarmament program at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International, a global Buddhist organization, described the testimony of a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, Reiko Yamada, as one she will never forget.
“He (Yamada) said, ‘My best friend from the neighborhood was waiting for his mother to come home with his four brothers and sisters. Later, he told me that on the second day after the bomb went off, a black moving lump crawled. they entered the house. At first they thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother, she collapsed and died when she reached her children in the yard,” Ikeda told the audience.
“Who should die such a death? No one!” he continued. “But our world continues to spend billions of dollars to maintain our nuclear arsenal, and our leaders sometimes suggest that they are ready to use them. It is absolutely unacceptable.”
Ikeda said the survivors, known as “hibakusha” in Japan, have a basic answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished – that “no one else should suffer what we have done.”
Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultation with ECOSOC.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
