FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2010
Contact:
U.S.: Joseph Gerson , AFSC, 617-661-6130 Germany:
Reiner Braun
Cell, 617-216-0576
49-(O)172-2317475
jger...@afsc.org
hr.br...@gmx.net
Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action, 646 723 1749
judithlebla...@gmail.com Japan:
Hiroshi Taka,
Jackie Cabasso, WSLF, (510) 839-5877 81-3-5842-6034
w...@earthlink.net
International Coalition of over 250 Groups Launches Campaign Calling on
Obama and World Leaders to Begin Negotiations to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
Worldwide
*May UN non-proliferation treaty review conference is focal point for
international organizing*
Washington, DC (may want to change this to NY if Judith is the contact, plus
the events will be in NY)– On today’s seventh anniversary of the largest
peace demonstration in world history—the historic February 15, 2003
mobilization against the US-led war on Iraq that saw 12 million people
around the world march for peace-- an international network of more than 250
organizations publicly launched a campaign to press US President Barack
Obama and other world leaders to initiate negotiations to abolish nuclear
weapons worldwide.
The coalition, organizing under the banner “For Peace and Human Needs:
Disarmament Now!” calls for negotiations on ridding the planet of the
scourge of nuclear weapons to begin at or before the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) at the United
Nations in New York City this May. (See http://www.peaceandjusticenow.org.)
“Representatives of the world’s governments will gather at the UN for nearly
a month, to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime,” said Dr. Joseph
Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC.) He continued,
“While President Obama has raised hopes with important speeches calling for
a world free of nuclear weapons, we have been disappointed that negotiations
for arms reductions with Russia are going slowly, the US Senate is not
moving to ratify important treaties like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
and that Obama’s budget calls for a major increase in funding to ‘modernize’
the US nuclear weapons complex.”
“Some 2,000 Japanese citizens, including more than 100 Hibakusha [A- and H-
bomb survivors] will come to N.Y. to join the US citizens in action” said
Hiroshi Taka, General Secretary of the Japan Council against A- and H- Bombs
(Gensuikyo.) “Having lived with agonies in both mind and body, the Hibakusha
carry a message to Government leaders and the citizens the world over, that
there should never be another Hiroshima or Nagasaki anywhere on earth, and
that nuclear weapons should be totally banned and abolished."
Speaking for German and European movements, Reiner Braun of the International
Network of Engineers and Scientists said” We are organizing because we
urgently need concerned people the world over to demand an end to politics
as usual. We must demand that the nuclear powers fulfill their NPT Article
VI obligation to commence negotiations to completely eliminate their nuclear
arsenals. The time is now to start negotiations to ban nuclear weapons, and
to turn away from militarism and toward human and environmental security.”
An international planning committee made up of peace, disarmament and social
justice organizations from Japan, Britain, France, Germany and the US is
coordinating many events around the NPT RevCon to show international
grassroots support for nuclear disarmament, ending the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and cutting global military spending in order to fund human
needs and environmental restoration.
“An international petition campaign calling for the abolition of nuclear
weapons, initiated by Japanese peace groups in August 2008, will pick up
steam between now and the NPT RevCon,” said Judith LeBlanc of Peace Action
Education Fund. Activists from across the world will deliver millions of
petition signatures to world leaders during the first week of the NPT
RevCon, which convenes May 3, and will be delivering the U.S. petitions to
the White House before the RevCon begins.”
Days before the NPT RevCon begins, on April 30 and May 1, an international
educational and organizing conference on peace, disarmament, social justice
and environmental issue will be held at Manhattan’s historic Riverside
Church and surrounding venues, with more than 1,000 people expected to
attend. Sunday, May 2 will be the International Day of Action for a Nuclear
Free World. Tens of thousands of people – including nuclear weapons victims
from Japan and other nations, and Japanese peace activists, will march
across mid-town Manhattan for a peace march, rally and festival that will
conclude near the U.N. Parallel events will be held in many European and
Asian nations.
For more information on the campaign and its various activities, please see
http://www.peaceandjusticenow.org. For additional information about the NPT
and the RevCon see http://
www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2010index.html.
*Member Organizations of the 2010 NPT Review International Planning
Committee*
Abolition 2000, American Friends Service Committee (Nobel Peace Prize
Recipient) , Bombspotting (Holland), Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(Britain), Emile Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies
(Israel), Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Global
Family, Greater New Haven Peace Council, International Association of
Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (Germany), International Network for the
Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, International Network of Engineers and
Scientists (Germany), International Peace Bureau (Nobel Prize Recipient),
International Peace Messenger Cities, Japan Council against Atomic and
Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo), Mouvement de la Paix (France), Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation, Peace Action, Peace Boat, United for Peace and Justice
Western States Legal Foundation, Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom (International Office in Geneva), World Peace Council
*A complete list of endorsing organizations can be found at
www.peaceandjusticenow.org. They include, among others: *
Afghanistan Socialist Association (ASA), Afghanistan, Australian Peace
Committee (SA)Inc., Australia, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canada,
Chelyabinsk Nuclear Victims Organization “AIGUL”, Russia, Chinese People’s
Association for Peace and Disarmament, China, Citizens’ Nuclear Information
Center, Japan, CODEPINK Women for Peace, USA, Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft
– Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen, Germany, Disarmament & Security
Centre, New Zealand, DMZ-Hawaii / Aloha ‘Aina Network, Faithful Security-
The National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger, USA,
Federation of American Scientists, Fundació per la Pau, Spain, Global Peace
and Justice Coalition of Turkey, Turkey, Indian Institute for Peace, Institute
of Human Rights Communication, Nepal, International Coalition to Ban Uranium
Weapons, International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia,
International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Japan Confederation of A- and
H-bombs Sufferers’ Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), Japan, Japan Council of
Religionists for Peace, Japan, Latin American Circle for International
Studies, Mexico, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, USA, Los Alamos Study
Group, USA, Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility, Malcolm X Center
for Self-Determination, USA, Maryknoll-OGC, Mayors for Peace, International,
New Japan Women’s Association (Shin-fujin), Japan, No to Nuclear Weapons,
Norway, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, USA, Ohana Koa, Nuclear Free and
Independent Pacific, Pax Christi International, Pax Christi USA, Peace &
Neutrality Alliance, Ireland, Peace Boat, Japan, Peace Committee of Georgia,
Georgia, Peace Council Aotearoa New Zealand, Peace Union of Finland,
Finland, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Republic of Korea,
Progressive Democrats of America, Reaching Critical Will-WILPF, Science for
Peace, Canada, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, USA, Spanish
Society for International Human Rights Law, STOP the War Coalition,
Philippine Section, Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons, Sweden, The
Black Film Project, USA, The Coalition for a Middle East Free of Nuclear
Weapons, Israel, The Progressive Magazine, Ujama Center, Kenya, United
Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom (International Office in Geneva, and U.S.
branch), World Peace Council, ZENROREN, National Confederation of Trade
Unions, Japan
*Three Pillars of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty:*
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1972. At this
writing 190 nations have ratified the Treaty. The NPT rests on three
pillars:
· Non-Nuclear nations, with the exceptions of Israel, India and
Pakistan, pledged never to become nuclear powers
· The five declared nuclear powers (U.S.A., Russia, Britain, France
and China) pledged in Article VI to engage in good faith negotiations to
completely eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
· Article IV provides non-nuclear nations the right to have access
to resources and technologies necessary for the production of nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes
A NPT Review Conference is held every five years at the United Nations. It
provides a unique opportunity for the world’s nations to press the nuclear
powers to implement their Article VI obligation to negotiate the elimination
of their nuclear arsenals and to tighten inspection regimes to prevent the
break out of non-nuclear nations.
*The 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference Adopted 13
Steps To Be Honored by All Parties to the Treaty. They include:*
*Signing and ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty*
*A moratorium on nuclear-weapon-test explosions or any other nuclear
explosions pending entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. *
*Commencement to negotitiations for *verifiable treaty banning the
production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive
*The principle of irreversibility to apply to nuclear disarmament, nuclear
and other related arms control and reduction measures. *
*An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the
total elimination of their nuclear arsenals as per Article VI.*
*Reaffirmation that the ultimate objective of the disarmament process is
general and complete disarmament under effective international control.*
*(Source: www.reachingcriticalwill.org)*
*World’s Nuclear Arsenals* (source, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace)
Russia: 14,000 USA 10,500
China 125
France 300 United Kingdom 160
Israel 80
India 50 Pakistan 60
North Korea 10
--
Peace Is Doable
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