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The human family is entering the
final stages of a crucial decision-making process. We have been considering
for fifty years, and especially since 1989, the following question. Will we
eliminate nuclear weapons or will every capable nation seek to have its own?
In 1998, India and Pakistan decided that they need nuclear weapons to ensure their
independence. There are 35 countries in the world with significant nuclear
energy programs but without nuclear weapons. If even a few of these become
nuclear powers, the nuclear disarmament option would virtually vanish and the
chances of nuclear weapon use would increase. The present leadership of the United States is pursuing the development of small,
"useable" nuclear weapons, and has publicly reserved the right to
use them in such specific situations as "in the event of surprising
military developments." The difference in the US approach to Iraq versus North Korea only strengthens the conviction of some nations that the
only hope for independence lies in possession of nuclear weapons.
We stand today on the brink of hyper-proliferation and perhaps of repeating
the third actual use of nuclear weapons. As the mayor of Hiroshima, I can assure you that the path we are walking leads to
unspeakable violence and misery for us all. And as the mayor of Hiroshima, I am well aware that we must do more than talk about
this danger. For over fifty years, mayors of Hiroshima have been raising the alarm about nuclear weapons. For
30 years, this august body has been fine-tuning the wording and debating the
implications of the NPT. Hiroshima celebrated in 2000 when the final document that emerged
from the review conference included an "unequivocal undertaking" on
the part of nuclear-weapon states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. And
yet, we are forced to conclude that the United States, the prime mover in all things nuclear, relentlessly and
blatantly intends to maintain, develop and even use these heinous, illegal
weapons.
Given US intransigence, other nuclear-weapon states cling to
their weapons, and several non-nuclear-weapon states appear to be
reevaluating the need for such weapons.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon the rest of the world, the vast majority of
the international community, to stand up now and tell all of our military
leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected by nuclear weapons. We
refuse to live in a world of continually recycled fear and hatred. We refuse
to see each other as enemies. We refuse to cooperate in our own annihilation.
Almost immediately after the atomic bombing, most survivors performed a
miraculous feat of psychological transformation. They channeled their pain,
grief, and rage away from any thought of revenge and toward creating a world
in which no people anywhere need suffer their fate. Having witnessed the
ultimate consequence of animosity, they deliberately envisioned a world
beyond war in which the human family learns to cooperate to ensure the
wellbeing of all. In fact, they believed for decades that the human family
was evolving slowly but steadily in that direction.
Now, however, they see that those who stand to lose wealth, prestige and
control in a peaceful world are determined to maintain high levels of fear
and hatred. They see gullible publics being persuaded that only a powerful
military backed by nuclear weapons can protect them from their enemies. They
see the world diving headlong toward a militarism
far too reminiscent of the militaristic fascism that commandeered their
nation prior to World War II.
We cannot sit silently watching it happen. We must let our leaders know,
first and foremost, that we demand immediate freedom from the nuclear threat.
Nuclear weapons are heinous, cruel, inhumane weapons that threaten our entire
species. Nothing could be more obvious than the illegality of these weapons,
and they should obviously be banned. Therefore, on behalf of the human
family, we demand a complete and total ban on all nuclear weapons everywhere.
We demand that all nuclear weapons be taken off of hair- trigger alert
immediately and all nuclear weapons deployed on foreign territory be
withdrawn. We demand that no more time be wasted postponing or extending the
timeline for nuclear disarmament. It is high time for all recognized
nuclear-weapon states to join in a multilateral process of nuclear
disarmament. We further demand that de-facto nuclear-weapon states terminate
their programs and join the NPT as non-nuclear states.
We demand that all nuclear weapons be dismantled and destroyed and the
radioactive material disposed of as quickly and as safely as possible, with
concomitant dismantling of all dedicated delivery systems, production
facilities, test sites, and research laboratories. We demand that all nations
throw their doors unconditionally open to UN inspectors mandated to, ensure
that all nuclear weapons and all programs to make such weapons are accounted
for and dismantled. All states should declare all relevant activities and
make their own satellites and other national technical means available to
those inspectors. Citizen verification should be supported by domestic laws
requiring publication of relevant information and granting of full legal
protection to whistle-blowers.
To summarize, we demand here and now that, when the States Parties review the
NPT in n 2005, you take that opportunity to pass by majority vote, regardless
of any nations that may oppose it, a call for the immediate de-alerting of
all nuclear weapons, for unequivocal action toward dismantling and destroying
all nuclear weapons in accordance with a clearly stipulated timetable, and for
negotiations on a universal Nuclear Weapons Convention establishing a
verifiable and irreversible regime for the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons.
"Impossible," some will say. "The nuclear powers will never
agree." But just as plants can get along fine without human beings,
people are ultimately the power behind their leaders. The time has come for
the people to arise and let our militarist, competitivist leaders know where
the real power lies. The time has come to go beyond words, reason and non-binding
treaties. The time has come to impose economic sanctions on any nation that
insists on maintaining nuclear weapons. The time has come to use
demonstrations, marches, strikes, boycotts, and every nonviolent means at our
disposal to oppose the destruction of millions of our brothers and sisters,
the destruction of our habitat and the extermination of our species. The time
has come to fight, nonviolently, for our lives.
All of us in this room today, blessed with extremely high levels of
prosperity and education, are duty-bound to educate the rest of the
population in our countries about the nuclear danger. We must inform them and
mobilize them for their own protection. It is our responsibility to launch a
massive, grassroots campaign that will make it clear that the people of all
nations will accept only leaders who undertake unequivocally to eliminate
nuclear weapons.
"The military industrial complex is too powerful," some will say. I
have no illusions about what happens when the people seek to correct their
rulers. It took a hundred years and a terribly bloody war to free the slaves
in the US, then another century to free them from the terror of lynchings and the humiliation of segregation. It took 30
years for Gandhi to free India from British rule. It took 15 years to stop the Vietnam
War. Bottom-up change takes time and great sacrifice, but, unfortunately,
people of moral and spiritual vision must again take up the struggle. The
abolition of nuclear weapons is no less important and no less just than the
abolition of slavery. We are not just fighting a technology or a weapon. As
Martin Luther King Jr. said, we are fighting nuclear weapons in our own
minds. We are fighting the very idea that anyone could, for any any reason that he feels legitimate, unleash a nuclear
holocaust. We are fighting the idea that a small group of powerful men should
have the capacity to launch Armageddon. We are fighting the idea that we
should spend trillions of dollars on military overkill while billions of us
live in dire, life-threatening poverty.
Our immediate target is nuclear weapons, but our long-term aim is a new world
order. In this new world, no man is foolish enough to kill or be killed to
defend his master's wealth or ego. We seek a world in which no man, woman or
child goes to bed wondering whether he or she will live through the hunger,
pestilence, or violence of the next day; a world in which we look around this
room and see not murdering, thieving enemies against whom we have to defend
ourselves but brothers and sisters on whom our own safety, security, survival
and enjoyment depend.
You will soon be hearing about a new campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. The
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, supported by the World Conference of Mayors for Peace,
which represents 541 cities and over 250 million people around the world,
will work with anyone willing and everyone to help design, develop, and
implement this campaign. Please help join us. Please support the campaign in
any way you can. Let us work together for the sake of our children and
grandchildren. Let us ban nuclear weapons in 2005.
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