Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

Canadian Church Leaders Seek End to Nuclear Weaponry: The Salvation Army War Cry

On Thursday, February 26, 1998, a representative group of church leaders went before the standing Committee of the House of Commons to talk about the moral urgency of a global drive to abolish nuclear weapons. This is one of the many social justice issues which The Salvation Army in this territory, in partnership with other churches and agencies, is seeking to address and resolve. The following letter addressed to Prime Minister Chretien from church leaders in Canada, was signed by Commissioner Donald V. Kerr, territorial commander.

Salvationists need to be involved actively where we are, in social services, but also in collaboration with others to seek to advocate action on the many and varied social justice issues which threaten to damage and destroy families, and our world.

Dear Prime Minister Chretien,
We write in deep appreciation of your government’s persistent and courageous leadership in the ongoing effort to rid the world of the scourge of anti-personnel landmines, and to challenge you to bring that same visionary dedication to bear on efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Our church communities rejoiced with all Canadians, and especially with people in mine-affected countries, in that proud moment in Ottawa last December when Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy signed the land mines treaty on behalf of Canada and when you handed to the UN Secretary-General a copy of the legislation confirming Canada as the first country to ratify the treaty. It was truly a milestone event, showing the world what can be achieved when governments and movements work together, and particularly, when leaders step forward to challenge and encourage others.

We are grateful for your personal commitment to the effort to ban land mines and for the key role played by Mr. Axworthy and many officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our gratitude and congratulations to you and your colleagues also extend to the many thousands of Canadians, individuals and organizations, who provided energy and expertise to make this achievement possible.

Canadian church communities, responding to God’s call to all people to be agents of love and healing in a world that still knows great pain, participated in the movement to ban land mines. As church leaders, we believe that obedience to that same call of God requires us now to raise our voices in urgent appeal to our own communities, to all Canadians, and to you and your government, to bring a new commitment to what we believe to be one of the most profound spiritual challenges of our era — the challenge to rid the world of the plans and the means to nuclear annihilation.

The willingness, indeed the intent, to launch a nuclear attack in certain circumstances bespeaks spiritual and moral bankruptcy. We believe it to be an extraordinary affront to humanity for nuclear weapon states and their allies, including Canada, to persist in claiming that nuclear weapons are required for their security. Nuclear weapons do not, cannot, deliver security — they deliver only insecurity and peril through their promise to annihilate that which is most precious, life itself and the global ecosystem upon which all life depends. Nuclear weapons have no moral legitimacy, they lack military utility, and, in light of the recent judgement of the World Court, their legality is in serious question. The spiritual, human and ecological holocaust of a nuclear attack can be prevented only by the abolition of nuclear weapons — it is our common duty to pursue that goal as an urgent priority.

The Canadian churches have long worked for the elimination of nuclear weapons. In 1982, we leaders wrote to, and met with, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to affirm “nuclear weapons in any form and in any number cannot ultimately be accepted as legitimate components of national armed forces.” In 1988, we sent the same message to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, stating that ” nuclear weapons have no place in national defence policies.”

Since then we have welcomed the substantial progress that has been made to end the nuclear arms race and reduce the size of the superpowers’ nuclear arsenals, But these steps, important as they are, are not nearly enough. The end of the Cold War has created an unprecedented opportunity to start the process toward the final elimination of nuclear weapons and the World Court has confirmed that it is a legal obligation.

We are therefore especially disturbed by the refusal of nuclear weapons states to even begin negotiations on the abolition of nuclear weapons and to set clear time frames and objectives – and we are profoundly disappointed that Canada has to date chosen to publicly accept that refusal. Indeed, nuclear weapon states continue to take steps to maintain and improve or modernize” their nuclear arsenals for the indefinite future.

It is our sincere belief that Canada has much to contribute to the effort to make nuclear abolition a reality In this regard, we are heartened by your pledge in Securing Our Future Together (the second “Red Book”) that “a re-elected Liberal government will… work vigorously to eliminate nuclear and chemical weapons and antipersonnel mines from the planet.” We are compelled to note, however, that Canada continues to support, and to seek the illusory protection of, nuclear weapons in a number of ways (see the Appendix, pp. 3-4). Canada’s position as an advocate of nuclear disarmament in the UN General Assembly, the Conference on Disarmament, and other forums is compromised by this fact.

The time has come for Canada to take a strong, principled stand against the continued possession of nuclear weapons by any state, affirming abolition as the central goal of Canadian nuclear weapons policy and adding Canada’s voice to the call to immediately begin negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

In support of this goal, Canada should immediately take the following actions:

Urge all states to negotiate by the year 2000 an agreement for the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework;

Urge all nuclear weapons states, as interim measures and as a sign of good faith in such negotiations, to take all their nuclear forces off alert status and to commit themselves to no-first-use of nuclear weapons;

Renounce any role for nuclear weapons in Canadian defence policy, and call on other countries, including Russia and Canada’s NATO allies, to do likewise;

Review the legality of all of Canada’s nuclear-weapons related activities in the light of the International Court of Justice ruling of July 8, 1996, and move quickly upon the completion of this review to end all activities determined to be of questionable legality; and,

Embrace publicly the conclusions of the Canberra Commission report of August 14,1996, including in particular its recommendations that the nuclear weapons states “commit themselves unequivocally to the elimination of nuclear weapons and agree to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for its achievement” and that the non-nuclear states support this commitment and join in co-operative international action to implement it.

As it approaches the dawn of a new Millennium, Canada could offer no finer demonstration of its commitment to being a constructive and healing presence in the international community than to deploy some of its considerable diplomatic skill and political capital to ensure that the world enters the next Millennium with a formal treaty commitment to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

The Canadian churches which we represent are committed to continuing their work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, in co-operation with other Canadian and international nuclear abolition efforts. In this spirit of co-operation and common cause, we respectfully request the opportunity to meet with you at the earliest possible date to explore ways in which Canadian churches can further support the government in taking bold new steps to make nuclear weapons abolition an urgent priority.

We look forward to your early response. Please know that you and your colleagues in the Government of Canada are supported by the prayers and good wishes of Canadians.

His Eminence Metropolitan Archbishop Sotiros, Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada); Fr. Anthony Nikolie, Polish National Catholic Church of Canada; Mr. M. L. Bailey, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Canada; Jim Moerman, Reformed Church in America; Fr. Marcos Marcos, St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church; The Very Rev. Bill Phipps, United Church of Canada; Bishop Telmor Sartison, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; Archbishop H. Derderian, Primate, Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church; Marvin Frey, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada; The Rev. Dr. Kenneth W Bellous, Executive Minister, Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec; Rt. Rev. Dr. Daniel D. Rupwate, General Superintendent, British Methodist Episcopal Church; The Right Rev. Seraphim, Bishop of Ottawa and Canada, Orthodox Church in America; The Most Rev. Michael G. Peers, Primate, The Anglican Church of Canada; The Rev. Messale Engeda, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church; Donald V. Kerr Commissioner, The Salvation Army; John Congram, Moderator, Presbyterian Church in Canada; Bishop Francois Thibodeau, c.j.m., President, The Episcopal Commission on Social Affairs, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops; Gale Wills, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada.

The Salvation Army’s Positional Statement on World Peace (1990)
The Salvation Army as part of the Universal Christian Church, seeks the establishment of peace as proclaimed by Jesus Christ. The Army recognizes that the world’s problems cannot be solved by force, and that greed and pride, coupled with the widespread desire for domination, poison the souls of men and sow seeds of conflict.

Since there exists in thermonuclear weapons a destructive power of vast proportions almost too frightful to contemplate, The Salvation Army believes that nuclear disarmament by all nations is a necessary element of world peace. However, a nation has the right to defend itself against the aggression of another nation.

The Salvation Army continues to be deeply concerned with the investment of huge financial resources to aid the escalating production of terrifying weapons of mass destruction, rather than the diversion of these funds to socioeconomic growth throughout the world. Disarmament, peace and development are inextricably linked.

The Salvation Army pledges its members to pray and work for peace and to seek to realize the Church’s unique witness to the source of true peace, God himself.

April 25, 1998
Countless Voices of Hope

It is with profound appreciation and gratitude that I return to this city of peace, this sacred city of Hiroshima. This city was made sacred not by the tragedy which befell it, but by the rebirth of hope which emerged from that tragedy. From the ashes of Hiroshima, flowers of hope have blossomed, bringing forth a renewed spirit of possibility, of peace, to a world in which hope has been too often crushed for too many.

The massive destruction that was visited upon this city on August 6, 1945 gave birth to the Nuclear Age, an age in which our species would move from the too often practiced power of genocide to the potential of omnicide, the destruction of all humanity and perhaps all life. The devastating power of nuclear weapons, as manifested first at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki, has made peace not only desirable but imperative.

Through the memories of the survivors, the hibakusha, we may learn of the horror they experienced so that we may act to prevent that horror from ever recurring anywhere again. The scenes etched in their memories can pierce us to the marrow of our bones. Sumie Mizukawa, a young girl at the time of the bombing, remembered the sight of a blinded young mother. She wrote:

Her eyes blinded

her dead infant in her arms

with tears streaming

from those sightless eyes

that would never see again.

I saw this in my childhood

as my mother led me by the hand.

That image will never leave

my memories of that dreadful time.

Kosaku Okabe described a scene of misery with “countless bodies of men, women, and children” floating in the river. “It was then,” he wrote, “that I first began to understand the brutality of war.” He continued, “Burned into my memory is the sight of a young mother, probably in her twenties, a baby on her back and a three- or four-year-old child clasped tightly in her arms. Caught against a girder on a bridge her body bobbed idly in the gentle current.”

How could these images not be seared into memory? And how vitally important it is that such images be shared with others throughout the world so that this pain will not again be inflicted on young mothers and their children in other cities at other times. As Akihiro Takahashi, a former director of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Center, wrote, “‘Hiroshima’ is not merely a historic fact in the past. It is an alarm bell for the future of humankind.”

I have had the great privilege of knowing Miyoko Matsubara, who was a twelve year old child when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. Miyoko struggled to learn English so that she could tell the story of what she witnessed and experienced — including her own injury, pain and disfigurement — to young people throughout the world. She was only a child, but she has carried the pain throughout her life. She also carries hope, and her courage gives hope to others.

Miyoko’s message is the message of Hiroshima: “Never again! We shall not repeat the evil.” This message is a clarion call to sanity. It is a cry to the human species to remember our humanity. If we fail to do so, the consequences will be severe. We run the risk of destroying ourselves and much of life. Our capacity for destruction tests our wisdom. The most important issue of our time, although not widely viewed as such, is that of assuring that the evil is not repeated.

I would like you to know that the message of your city awakened me. I first visited Hiroshima when I was 21 years old. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I learned of the human cost of nuclear destruction, of the tragedy and suffering caused by that single bomb. The spirit of Hiroshima entered my soul. I had no choice but to find a way to work for peace and an end to the threat of future nuclear holocausts.

A second experience solidified my commitment to peace. Returning from Japan in 1964, I found that I had been called into the army. Not realizing the full range of my options, I joined a reserve unit rather than serve on active duty. However, four years later this reserve unit was called to active duty, and I received orders to go to Vietnam as an infantry officer. At that time I believed, and continue to believe today, that this was a war both immoral and illegal. I knew that if I went to Vietnam I would be forced to kill and order others to do so. I, therefore, as a conscientious objector, refused the order to go to Vietnam, and ended up fighting the army in federal court.

It was a great awakening for me to realize that my power as an individual was greater than that of the United States Army. The army had the power to give me an order, but I had the power to say No to their order. I might have gone to jail for doing so, but that was my choice. I had a choice, as we all do, to do what I believed was right. To exercise that choice is tremendously empowering. It is the power of conscience, which is a defining human characteristic, one that separates us from all other forms of life.

Above all else, I consider myself to be a citizen of Earth. I believe that the bonds of our common humanity uniting us are far stronger than the artificial boundaries that divide us. I am also a citizen of the United States, having been born in Los Angeles three years before the Nuclear Age began. Speaking as a single individual, but I’m sure representing millions of others throughout the world, I deeply regret the crime against humanity that occurred here. As an American, I apologize to you, although I know from Miyoko and other hibakusha that your forgiveness came long ago.

I apologize because my government has not yet done so. I apologize because my government has not yet heard the message of Hiroshima, nor learned its foremost lesson — “Never again!” I apologize because my government still bases its national security on the threat to use nuclear weapons. I apologize because your pain and your suffering should not be borne by you alone.

What happened here affects us all. If we can find it in ourselves to share in your tragedy — a tragedy that for most people on Earth today is only of historical memory — we may be capable of sharing in your hope. And, if we can do that, we may be capable of bringing forth a new world in which the ever present threat of nuclear holocaust is ended for all time.

Just over 40 years ago, Josei Toda, your second president, called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons, and called upon the youth of Soka Gakkai to help lead the way. Five months ago I was in Tokyo and Yokohama for the commemoration of that fortieth anniversary. In the short time since that fortieth anniversary, the youth of Soka Gakkai, beginning here in Hiroshima, have gathered over 13 million signatures for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I am in awe of your effort and your accomplishment. I know that President Ikeda is as well. I can only imagine how proud Josei Toda would have been to know of your effort. Your effort inspires and motivates. It is a source of hope.

In your effort to gather signatures you have become educators and activists. You have brought this critical issue of nuclear weapons abolition to the attention of over 13 million people, and have obtained their affirmation of the need to end this nuclear weapons era which threatens the future of humanity and, indeed, all life.

The petition on which you gathered signatures was prepared by Abolition 2000, which is a global network of over 1000 citizens organizations in some 75 countries working for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Abolition 2000 draws its strength from the grassroots, from the people. In this respect, it is similar to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. When the landmines campaign succeeded in having a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines signed in Ottawa, Jody Williams, the coordinator of the campaign, said, “Together we are a superpower. It’s a new definition of superpower. It’s not one of us; it’s all of us.” In Abolition 2000, as in the landmines campaign, we are not alone, and together we can become the most powerful grassroots movement in the history of humankind.

The Abolition 2000 International Petition asks for three actions. First, end the nuclear threat by such reasonable steps as withdrawing all nuclear weapons from foreign soil and international waters, separating warheads from delivery vehicles, and committing to unconditional no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Second, sign an international treaty — a Nuclear Weapons Convention — by the year 2000, agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons within a fixed period of time. Third, reallocate resources from military purposes to assuring a sustainable global future.

Each signature you have gathered represents a voice of hope. Together they represent a chorus of hope that can move the world. We don’t know with certainty what forces you have set in motion by your effort, but we do know that you have touched many lives and that they in turn will touch more lives. If other concerned citizens throughout the world will follow your lead, we can achieve our goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

You have concluded your petition campaign, but please don’t consider your task finished until the last nuclear weapon is removed from the world. This will not happen overnight. It will take sustained effort and commitment. It will require the often under-appreciated virtue of perseverance. All that is truly worth achieving requires perseverance — loving relationships, healthy communities, and a decent world.

I will take the message of your achievement to the leaders of the United Nations, to the delegates preparing for the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, to non-governmental organizations working for nuclear weapons abolition throughout the world, and to the leaders of my own country and other nuclear weapons states.

I urge you to take the message of these 13 million voices to your own government, which has not been true to the people of Japan in its nuclear policies. Your government has not only been content to rely upon the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but — by its accumulation of reprocessed plutonium — has become a virtual nuclear weapons power capable of assembling hundreds of nuclear weapons in days or weeks. If we are to have a world free of nuclear weapons, we must convince our respective governments to change their policies. You must help to convince your government and I must help to convince mine that reliance upon nuclear weapons for defense is an act of folly that endangers our future and undermines our decency as well as our security.

Sometimes we cannot see the full fruits of our efforts during our lifetimes. This has been true of many great peace leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also true of Josei Toda whose vision forms the foundation for your effort. It is true for all of us — if our vision is great enough. I believe, however, that a world free of nuclear weapons can and will be achieved within our lifetimes.

I urge you to dream of what can be, and to always hold fast to your dreams. I beseech you never to lose the dream of a world free from the threat of nuclear holocaust. I implore you to listen to your conscience, and to act courageously upon it. I encourage you to walk the path of peace, which is also the path of justice. I call upon you to follow President Ikeda’s sage advice, “Continue to advance, step-by-step! Never, ever, give up hope.”

If we follow our dreams, if we listen to our consciences, if we act courageously, if we walk the path of peace, if we never give up hope, we will rise to our full stature as human beings. We will live lives that are rich and full. We will make a difference and, by our examples, we will influence others to live such lives. I promise you that I will do my utmost to join you in living such a life and will encourage others to join us as well.

I would like to conclude by sharing with you a poem of hope written by Sadako Kurihara just after the bombing of Hiroshima.

WE SHALL BRING FORTH NEW LIFE

It was night in the basement of a broken building.

Victims of the atomic bombing

Crowding into the candleless darkness,

Filling the room to overflowing —

The smell of fresh blood, the stench of death,

The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans —

When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice

“Oh! The baby’s coming!” it said.

In the basement turned to living hell

A young woman had gone into labor!

The others forgot their own pain in their concern;

What could they do for her, having not even a match

To bring light to the darkness?

Then came another voice: “I am a midwife.

I can help her with the baby.”

It was a woman who had been moaning in pain only moments before.

And so a new life was born

In the darkness of that living hell.

And so, the midwife died before the dawn,

Still soaked in the blood of her own wounds.

We shall give forth new life!

We shall bring forth new life!

Even to our death.

To find such hope in the darkness of that awful night is a triumph of the human spirit. In remembering Hiroshima, let us dedicate ourselves to bringing forth new life. Let us dedicate ourselves to building a world in which even the threat of nuclear devastation is not a possibility. Let us dedicate ourselves to bringing forth a new world in which no child ever again must suffer the pain of war or hunger or abandonment. Let us dedicate ourselves to building a world in which there is liberty, justice and dignity for all who share this extraordinary planet that gave birth to life. Let us walk the path of peace, and be active participants in the pursuit of peace!

February 12, 1998
The Universal Declaration at Fifty: David Krieger interviews with Richard Falk

DK: As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights how do you assess the progress in implementing its important standards?

RF: The formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 50 years ago was an achievement that has produced results far in excess of anything that could reasonably have been anticipated at the time it was adopted. It was originally viewed as an awkward response to vague aspirations and public opinion. There was no real feeling of serious commitment surrounding its adoption. It was a prime example of what is often called “soft law.” It was viewed as something that the governments gave lip service to in this declaratory form that was not even legally obligatory and had no prospect of implementation. Many of the participating countries at the time didn’t practice human rights in their own societies, so there was an element of a hypocrisy built into the endorsement of this declaration from the moment of its inception. One has to ask why did something that started with such low expectations of serious impact on the world turn out to be one of the great normative documents of modern times, perhaps of all times.

The Declaration has been referred to as the most important formulation of international human rights law ever made. I think one of the things that helps explain this rise to prominence was that the citizens associations concerned with human rights found effective ways to take the Declaration seriously, as well, and to exert effective pressure on many governments to take the Declaration or parts of it seriously. This was a very instructive example of the degree to which what states do with respect to normative issues can be very much influenced by the degree of effective pressure brought to bear by civil society, both within particular countries and transnationally. The role of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and other groups, I think, was instrumental in putting the provisions and the impetus of the Declaration onto the political agenda of the world.

DK: You feel that the progress that has been made in human rights since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could not have happened without strong pressure from groups in civil society?

RF: Yes, I’m saying that was an indispensable condition for the partial implementation of the Declaration. There were other factors that I think are also important to identify. One of them was the fact that once human rights emerged with this greater visibility, then governments, particularly in the West, found it a useful way to express their identity, their role in the world. It was useful as a means to exert pressure on the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. It was part of the Cold War, a normative dimension that related the conflict to widely shared values. This was the idea that freedom was definitely linked to the promotion of human rights.

Then came the Helsinki Process in the mid-1970s in which the Soviet bloc was given a kind of stability for the boundaries that emerged in Europe at the end of WWII. In exchange, Moscow accepted a kind of reporting obligation about human rights compliance in their countries at the time. Conservatives in the U.S. criticized the Helsinki Accords harshly because they argued that the agreement was a give-away; they alleged it is legitimizing these improper boundaries and in exchange we get this kind of paper promise that has no meaning at all.

As events turned out, the Helsinki emphasis on human rights was much more important than the stabilization of boundaries. Reliance on human rights was critical for a process of legitimizing and mobilizing the opposition forces that operated in Eastern Europe, particularly groups like Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland and even the Moscow Trust group in the Soviet Union. It became clear that, in terms of struggles of resistance within particular societies against oppressive states, international human rights norms provided important political foundations for their commitment and their activity. I think this interplay between human rights norms and procedures at an international level and resistance politics in societies governed in an oppressive manner. was a second important strand.

The third one that I would mention is the anti-Apartheid campaign, which was based on a worldwide normative consensus that Apartheid represented an unacceptable form of racial persecution that was, in effect, such a systemic violation of human rights that it amounted to a crime against humanity. This was reinforced by grassroots activists in the critical countries of the United Kingdom and the United States that put such pressure on their governments that even Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s U.S. felt obliged to go along with an international sanctioning process that was directed at Apartheid, and probably contributed to the peaceful abandonment by the majority of the white elite of Apartheid. This was something no one could have anticipated a decade before it occurred – people thought either Apartheid was so well established, so much in control of the society, that it was not feasible to challenge it, or that the challenge would come about by a very difficult and bloody civil war. I think that mounting this peaceful challenge was a major triumph in terms of peaceful transformation that was aided by a kind of human rights demand that itself can be traced back to the foundations that one finds in the Universal Declaration.

DK: Do you feel that the successes that have been achieved up to this point can be built upon, and the Universal Declaration will become an even more significant document and guideline for the 21st century?

RF: This is a matter of conjecture that is hard to be very clear about at this stage because you find that both possibilities seem susceptible of pretty strong supportive arguments. My sense is that there is a sufficient constituency committed to human rights that will continue to invoke the Universal Declaration and the authority that it provides as a foundation for carrying on campaigns of one sort or another. One of the things that emerged in the 1990s was the degree to which transnational women’s groups and indigenous peoples had organized themselves around a human rights agenda. Their presence was definitely felt in Vienna at the UN Human Rights Conference in 1993, and elsewhere, evidently believing that their own objectives and movements as capable of being articulated by reference to human rights demands and aspirations.

I think there is a political ground on which post-Cold War world human rights can advance further. There are also the important efforts now, outside the West, expressing different concerns but asking the same question: “What do we want the human rights process to become?” These voices are saying, we didn’t participate in the initial formulations. We think the Declaration and its norms are too individualistic or too permissive in terms of the way it approaches the relationship of the individual to the community. This is a common criticism you find in Islam and Asia. How can the Declaration be extended to represent all the peoples of the world and allow them the sense that it not only substantively is reflective of their values, but also that they’ve had some opportunity to participate in the articulation of the norms. I think it is very important that we recognize the incompleteness of the normative architecture that has flowed from the Declaration, if understood as including the International Covenants that were formulated in 1966, and other more focused treaty instruments.

There is still very important work to be done on creating a more universally acceptable and accepted framework for the implementation of human rights.

DK: One of the human rights treaties that has been created in the aftermath of the Universal Declaration is the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It’s nearly universally adhered to. The only two countries that currently have not ratified this important convention are Somalia and the United States. Somalia apparently doesn’t have its government organized well enough to do so, but the United States doesn’t have any excuse. Why is the United States holding out on making this Convention universal, and why is it refusing to give its support to a Convention so broadly adhered to?

RF: One needs to understand that this pattern of holding out against a nearly universal consensus is not limited to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has been playing this obstructive role in a number of different settings, including the Landmine Treaty and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on the Emission of Greenhouse Gases. I’m not sure about the real objections to the Convention on the Right of the Child. I know the Pentagon has mounted pressure because of the recruiting age of soldiers and the feeling that it would not be cost effective for them to give up the right to recruit young people under the age of 18, which I think is the age in the Convention. The present recruiting age of American soldiers includes people who are 17. It seem like a small difference to justify a holdout on a treaty that enjoys such wide backing.

Let me take the opportunity to say that the fact that something is put into treaty form or is in the Universal Declaration is no assurance that it’s going to be taken seriously, either by the human rights part of civil society or by governments. One needs to come to the awareness that when we talk about human rights what we really mean is civil and political rights. Social, economic and cultural rights, which are broadly set forth in the Universal Declaration and are the subject of a separate covenant that was signed in 1966, have received very little implementation over the years. The human rights organizations are by and large devoting all their resources to the promotion of selected items of political and civil rights. For much of the world, particularly the non-Western world, economic and social rights are at least as important, if not more important, than civil and political rights. This is one of the reasons that these organizations are viewed with some suspicion, even the Western human rights organizations that tell governments to be less authoritarian or to increase freedom of participation, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression. I had a conversation a couple of years ago with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malaysia, and he was very sensitive to this issue and spoke about it with sincerity and conviction. It’s also, of course, a convenient pretext for not being responsible and accountable in the area of political and civil relations. It is true that for human rights to be broadly accepted as a desirable source of obligation they have to be seriously responsive to the problems of acute poverty and economic and social deprivation as well as to the problems that arise from authoritarian governments and from the absence of democratic practices.

DK: Do you think that the United States and other Western states are failing in that regard? And, for that matter, also civil society? Have they failed to push for economic and social rights sufficiently?

RF: Yes, I think there’s no question, especially in the recent period where the Reagan and Thatcher administrations were very clear that they didn’t even regard economic and social rights as a genuine part of human rights. They felt these claims were an importation of a socialist ethos that was inconsistent with the way in which a market-oriented constitutional democracy should operate, and that was basic to the existence of a legitimate form of government. There is that real question. In civil society it’s been partly the feeling that it was much more manageable to conceive of human rights violations as challenges that involved very basic affronts to human dignity that arose out of abuses of governmental power, like the torture of political prisoners or summary executions and disappearances. These abuses captured the political imagination, and they were discreet policies of governments that were in many ways objectionable. Focusing on them seemed to facilitate access to media coverage. It seemed to raise issues that one could get some sort of results in relation to. It didn’t raise the ideological question of whether economic and social rights were somehow an endorsement of a socialist orientation toward policy.

DK: Of course, preventing torture and disappearances and other abuses of state power is quite important. It’s also a real problem that there is not safety net–that people are continuing to starve to death and to suffer and die from lack of health care and other very basic human rights–the right to be treated with dignity, the most basic right of all. What might we do from this point on to see that those rights are not pushed to the side or neglected entirely?

RF: There’s no question that by affirming economic and social rights, one doesn’t want to undermine the pressure to prevent the acute violations of civil and political rights. I think there are some new initiatives – there’s a new Center for the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights in New York City, started recently by several Harvard Law School graduates, that is trying to do good work in this area to bring a balance into the human rights picture. It’s not only the sense that one needs to focus on economic and social rights, but also one needs to focus on the structures that generate these violations. There’s a group in Malaysia called JUST, headed by Chandra Muzaffer, that has been very active in trying to show that the global market forces are systematically responsible for the polarization of societies throughout the world, essentially making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The dynamics of globalization contribute to an atmosphere in which even governments feel almost helpless to prevent the impoverishment of a portion of their own societies because of the strength of global capital. It’s important that we understand the thinking that is going on around the world about these issues of economic and social rights.

DK: How do you feel about the failure of the international community to adequately respond to situations of genocide that have arisen in Bosnia and Rwanda and other places? Hasn’t there been a terrible failure to uphold the right to life for hundreds of thousands, even millions of people?

RF: Yes, I think it is a revelation of the moral bankruptcy of the organized international community and of a disturbing and recurrent acceptance in this world of sovereign states of the most severe human wrongs being committed as being beyond control or prevention. At the same time, I have some mixed feelings about those who advocate intervention to overcome genocidal behavior without understanding the political and military obstacles that lie on that path. Intervention is a very difficult political process to use effectively as the United States found out in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Cheap, shallow intervention is almost worse than non-intervening. I had many disagreements with friends about the policies that should be pursued with respect to Bosnia during the unfolding of the tragedy there a few years ago. I didn’t see it as beneficial for the United Nations to establish these safe-havens or to make half-hearted gestures because, and I feel in retrospect that this view has been at least vindicated in that setting, that it would create new options for those who were committing the crimes. Unless there was the political will to defend the safe-havens – as the Srebrenica tragedy showed there was not – it would really herd potential victims together in a way that made ethnic cleansing more efficient and more horrible in its execution. One has to be very careful not to embrace a kind of facile interventionism because of our feeling of the utter moral bankruptcy of a world order system that can’t respond to genocide. To jump from inadequacy to futility is to disguise the true nature of the problem and the solution.

DK: We’ve also experienced a failure of sanctions, which has been particularly evident in relation to the sanctions imposed upon Iraq in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War. This failure has led to the more vulnerable parts of society suffering as a result of the sanctions. What do you see as the answer to this? Do we need to reform the international system? Do we need to have an international security force? If we have problems making sanctions work and problems with intervention, what do we do when we see the worst abuses of human rights occurring?

RF: It’s a difficult challenge for which there’s no quick fix, in my view, because it’s not accidental that we don’t have adequate intervention. We don’t have a Peace Force that is disengaged from geopolitics and able to act independently. Sanctions of the sort that were imposed on Iraq have these devastating effects on civilian society. It comes out of a rather profound dominance of international political life by geopolitical considerations. In the case of the Iraqi sanctions, there was a sense of incompleteness in which the war was waged and ended, leaving Saddam Hussein in control after depicting him as such a brutal, dictatorial leader. Sanctions were a cheap way for the victorious coalition to somehow express their continuing opposition without incurring human or financial costs of any significance. The fact that the real victims of this policy were the Iraqi people was not really taken into account. I’ve seen Madeleine Albright and others confronted by this reality and they brush it aside. They just don’t want to confront that reality, and tend to say “Saddam Hussein is building palaces. If he were using his resources for his people….” The whole point of the critique is that this is a leader that is not connected with the well being of his people. If we know what the effect after seven years of these sanctions is and yet insist on continuing them, we become complicit in the waging of indiscriminate warfare against the people of Iraq.

DK: At this point in time, nearing the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and approaching the new millennium, what advice would you offer to young people with regard to human rights and responsibilities?

RF: The last fifty years shows how much can be done by activists, young people and others, on behalf of making human rights a serious dimension of political life. I think that what needs to be carried forward is a more comprehensive implementation of the human rights that exist, filling in some gaps on behalf of indigenous peoples and the perspectives of non-western society, extending the serious implementation to matters of economic and social rights. We should push hard for this as something that one takes seriously, also for one’s own society. I think Americans particularly are good at lecturing the rest of the world as to what they should be doing, but are generally rather unwilling to look at themselves critically. We could begin the new millennium particularly with that kind of healthy self-criticism, not a kind of destructive negativism, a healthy self-criticism that would allow us to realize that we too are responsible for adherence to these wider norms of human rights; that we really have to rethink the enthusiasm that so many parts of our country have for capital punishment, for instance, in relation to the worldwide trend toward its abolition. I think we have to ask the question, do we really want to endow our state, or any democratic state, with the legal competence to deprive people of life by deliberate design? If we do endow the state with such power, it seems to me we are endorsing a kind of sovereignty-first outlook that has many other wider implications that are not desirable, and that run counter to deeper tendencies toward the emergence of global village realities.

January 1, 1998
1997 Nobel Lecture

Your Majesties, Honorable Members of the Nobel Committee, Excellencies and Honored Guests:

It is a privilege to be here today, together with other representatives of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, to receive jointly the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Our appreciation goes to those who nominated us and to the Nobel Committee for chosing this year to recognize, from among so many other nominees who have worked diligently for peace, the work of the International Campaign.

I am deeply honored — but whatever personal recognition derives from this award, I believe that this high tribute is the result of the truly historic achievement of this humanitarian effort to rid the world of one indiscriminate weapon. In the words of the Nobel Committee, the International Campaign “started a process which in the space of a few years changed a ban on antipersonnel mines from a vision to a feasible reality.” Further, the Committee noted that the Campaign has been able to “express and mediate a broad range of popular commitment in an unprecedented way. With the governments of several small and medium-sized countries taking the issue up…this work has grown into a convincing example of an effective policy for peace.”

The desire to ban land mines is not new. In the late 1970s, the International Committee of the Red Cross, along with a handful of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), pressed the world to look at weapons that were particularly injurious and/or indiscriminate. One of the weapons of special concern was landmines. People often ask why the focus on this one weapon. How is the landmine different from any other conventional weapon?

Landmines distinguish themselves because once they have been sown, once the soldier walks away from the weapon, the landmine cannot tell the difference between a soldier or a civilian — a woman, a child, a grandmother going out to collect firewood to make the family meal. The crux of the problem is that while the use of the weapon might be militarily justifiable during the day of the battle, or even the two weeks of the battle, or maybe even the two months of the battle, once peace is declared the landmine does not recognize that peace. The landmine is eternally prepared to take victims. In common parlance, it is the perfect soldier, the “eternal sentry.” The war ends, the landmine goes on killing.

Since World War II most of the conflicts in the world have been internal conflicts. The weapon of choice in those wars has all too often been landmines — to such a degree that what we find today are tens of millions of landmines contaminating approximately 70 countries around the world. The overwhelming majority of those countries are found in the developing world, primarily in those countries that do not have the resources to clean up the mess, to care for the tens of thousands of landmine victims. The end result is an international community now faced with a global humanitarian crisis.

Let me take a moment to give a few examples of the degree of the epidemic. Today Cambodia has somewhere between four and six million landmines, which can be found in over 50 percent of its national territory. Afghanistan is littered with perhaps nine million landmines. The U.S. military has said that during the height of the Russian invasion and ensuing war in that country, up to 30 million mines were scattered throughout Afghanistan. In the few years of the fighting in the former Yugoslavia, some six million landmines were sown throughout various sections of the country — Angola nine million, Mozambique a million, Somalia a million — I could go on, but it gets tedious. Not only do we have to worry about the mines already in the ground, we must be concerned about those that are stockpiled and ready for use. Estimates range between one and two hundred million mines in stockpiles around the world.

When the ICRC pressed in the ’70s for the governments of the world to consider increased restrictions or elimination of particularly injurious or indiscriminate weapons, there was little support for a ban of landmines. The end result of several years of negotiations was the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). What that treaty did was attempt to regulate the use of landmines. While the Convention tried to tell commanders in the field when it was okay to use the weapon and when it was not okay to use the weapon, it also allowed them to make decisions about the applicability of the law in the midst of battle. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, the laws of war do not exactly come to mind. When you are trying to save your skin you use anything and everything at your disposal to do so.

Throughout these years the Cold War raged on, and internal conflicts that often were proxy wars of the Super Powers proliferated. Finally with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, people began to look at war and peace differently. Without the overarching threat of nuclear holocaust, people started to look at how wars had actually been fought during the Cold War. What they found was that in the internal conflcts fought during that time, the most insidious weapon of all was the antipersonnel landmine — and that it contaminated the globe in epidemic proportion.

As relative peace broke out with the end of the Cold War, the U.N. was able to go into these nations that had been torn by internalstrife, and what they found when they got there were millions and millions of landmines which affected every aspect of post-conflict reconstruction of those societies. You know, if you are in Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and you are setting up the peacekeeping operations, it might seem relatively easy. But when you want to send your troops out into the hinterlands where four or six million landmines are, it becomes a problem, because the main routes are mined. Part of the peace agreement was to bring the hundreds of thousands of refugees back into the country so that they could participate in the voting, in the new democracy being forged in Cambodia. Part of the plan to bring them back included giving each family enough land so that they could be self-sufficient, so they wouldn’t be a drain on the country, so that they could contribute to reconstruction. What they found: So many landmines they couldn’t give land to the families. What did they get? Fifty dollars and a year’s supply of rice. That is the impact of landmines.

It was the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations, who began to seriously think about trying to deal with the root of the problem — to eliminate the problem, it would be necessary to eliminate the weapon. The work of NGOs across the board was affected by the landmines in the developing world. Children’s groups, development organizations, refugee organizations, medical and humanitarian relief groups — all had to make huge adjustments in their programs to try to deal with the landmine crises and its impact on the people they were trying to help. It was also in this period that the first NGO humanitarian demining organizations were born — to try to return contaminated land to rural communities.

It was a handful of NGOs, with their roots in humanitarian and human rights work, which began to come together, in late 1991 and early 1992, in an organized effort to ban antipersonnel landmines. In October of 1992, Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, medico international, Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation came together to issue a “Joint Call to Ban Antipersonnel Landmines.” These organizations, which became the steering committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines called for an end to the use, production, trade and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. The call also pressed governments to increase resources for humanitarian mine clearance and for victim assistance.

From this inauspicious beginning, the International Campaign has become an unprecedented coalition of 1,000 organizations working together in 60 countries to achieve the common goal of a ban of antipersonnel landmines. And as the Campaign grew, the steering committee was expanded to represent the continuing growth and diversity of those who had come together in this global movement. We added the Afghan and Cambodian Campaigns and Radda Barnen in 1996, and the South african Campaign and Kenya Coaltion early this year as we continued to press toward our goal. And in six years we did it. In September of this year, 89 countries came together — here in Oslo — and finished the negotiations of a ban treaty based on a draft drawn up by Austria only at the beginning of this year. Just last week in Ottawa, Canada, 121 countries came together again to sign that ban treaty. And as a clear indication of the political will to bring this treaty into force as soon as possible, three countries ratified the treaty upon signature — Canada, Mauritius and Ireland.

In its first years, the International Campaign developed primarily in the North — in the countries which had been significant producers of antipersonnel landmines. The strategy was to press for national, regional and international measures to ban landmines. Part of this strategy was to get the governments of the world to review the CCW and in the review process — try to get them to ban the weapon through that convention. We did not succeed. But over the two and one-half years of the review process, with the pressure that we were able to generate — the heightened international attention to the issue — began to raise the stakes, so that different governments wanted to be seen as leaders on what the world was increasingly recognizing as a global humanitarian crisis.

The early lead had been taken in the United States, with the first legislated moratorium on exports in 1992. And while the author of that legislation, Senator Leahy, has continued to fight tirelessly to ban the weapon in the U.S., increasingly other nations far surpassed that early leadership. In March of 1995, Belgium became the first country to ban the use, production, trade and stockpiling domestically. Other countries followed suit: Austria, Norway, Sweden, and others. So even as the CCW review was ending in failure, increasingly governments were calling for aban. What had once been called a utopian goal of NGOs was gaining in strength and momentum.

While we still had that momentum, in the waning months of the CCW review, we decided to try to get the individual governments which had taken action or had called for a ban to come together in a self-identifying bloc. There is, after all, strength in numbers. So during the final days of the CCW we invited them to a meeting and they actually came. A handful of governments agreed to sit down with us and talk about where the movement to ban landmines would go next. Historically NGOs and governments have too often seen each other as adversaries, not colleagues, and we were shocked that they came. Seven or nine came to the first meeting, 14 to the second, and 17 to the third. By the time we had concluded the third meeting, with the conclusion of the Review Conference on May 3rd of 1996, the Canadian government had offered to host a governmental meeting in October of last year, in which pro-ban governments would come together and strategize about how to bring about a ban. The CCW review process had not produced the results we sought, so what do we do next?

From the third to the fifth of October we met in Ottawa. It was a very fascinating meeting. There were 50 governments there as full participants and 24 observers. The International Campaign was also participating in the Conference. The primary objectives of the conference were to develop an Ottawa Declaration, which states would sign signalling their intention to ban landmines, and an “Agenda for Action,” which outlined concrete steps on the road to a ban. We were all prepared for that, but few were prepared for the concluding comments by Lloyd Axworthy, the Foreign Minister of Canada. Foreign Minister Axworthy stood up and congratulated everybody for formulating the Ottawa Declaration and the Agenda for Action, which were clearly seen as giving teeth to the ban movement. But the Foreign Minister did not end with congratulations. He ended with a challenge. The Canadian government challenged the world to return to Canada in a year to sign an international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines.

Members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines erupted into cheers. The silence of the governments in the room was defeaning. Even the truly pro-ban states were horrified by the challenge. Canada had stepped outside of diplomatic process and procedure and put them between a rock and a hard place. They had said they were pro-ban. They had come to Ottawa to develop a road map to create a ban treaty and had signed a Declaration of intent. What could they do? They had to respond. It was really breath-taking. We stood up and cheered while the governments were moaning. But once they recovered from that initial shock, the governments that really wanted to see a ban treaty as soon as possible, rose to the challenge and negotiated a ban treaty in record time.

What has become known as the Ottawa Process began with the Axworthy Challenge. The treaty itself was based upon a ban treaty drafted by Austria and developed in a series of meetings in Vienna, in Bonn, in Brussels, which culminated in the three-week long treaty negotiating conference held in Oslo in September. The treaty negotiations were historic. They were historic for a number of reasons. For the first time, smaller and middle-sized powers had come together, to work in close cooperation with the nongovernmental organizations of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, to negotiate a treaty which would remove from the world’s arsenals a weapon in widespread use. For the first time, smaller and middle-sized powers had not yielded ground to intense pressure from a superpower to weaken the treaty to accomodate the policies of that one country. Perhaps for the first time, negotiations ended with a treaty stronger than the draft on which the negotiations were based! The treaty had not been held hostage to rule by consensus, which would have inevitably resulted in a gutted treaty.

The Oslo negotiations gave the world a treaty banning antipersonnel landmines which is remarkably free of loopholes and exceptions. It is a treaty which bans the use, production, trade and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. It is a treaty which requires states to destroy their stockpiles within four years of its entering into force. It is a treaty which requires mine clearance within ten years. It calls upon states to increase assistance for mine clearance and for victim assistance. It is not a perfect treaty — the Campaign has concerns about the provision allowing for antihandling devices on antivehicle mines; we are concerned about mines kept for training purposes; we would like to see the treaty directly apply to nonstate actors and we would like stronger language regarding victim assistance. But, given the close cooperation with governments which resulted in the treaty itself, we are certain that these issues can be addressed through the annual meetings and review conferences provided for in the treaty.

As I have already noted, last week in Ottawa, 121 countries signed the treaty. Three ratified it simultaneously — signalling the political will of the international community to bring this treaty into force as soon as possible. It is remarkable. Landmines have been used since the U.S. Civil War, since the Crimean War yet we are taking them out of arsenals of the world. It is amazing. It is historic. It proves that civil society and governments do not have to see themselves as adversaries. It demonstrates that small and middle powers can work together with civil society and address humanitarian concerns with breathtaking speed. It shows that such a partnership is a new kind of “superpower” in the post-Cold War world.

It is fair to say that the International Campaign to Ban Landmines made a difference. And the real prize is the treaty. What we are most proud of is the treaty. It would be foolish to say we that we are not deeply honored by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, we are. But the receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize is recognition of the accomplishment of this Campaign. It is recognition of the fact that NGOs have worked in close cooperation with governments for the first time on an arms control issue, with the United Nations, with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Together, we have set a precedent. Together, we have changed history. The closing remarks of the French ambassador in Oslo to me were the best. She said, “This is historic not just because of the treaty. This is historic because, for the first time, the leaders of states have come together to answer the will of civil society.”

For that, the International Campaign thanks them — for together we have given the world the possibility of one day living on a truly mine-free planet.

Thank you.

December 10, 1997
Peace Declaration

It was 52 years ago today that a single atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. The skies flashed brighter than a thousand suns and a huge mushroom cloud rose above the city. Untold numbers perished in the sea of flames that followed, and the survivors still suffer from radiation’s debilitating aftereffects.

This event engendered profound distrust of the scientific civilization that has made such dramatic progress over the last hundred years. Science and technology have spawned many conveniences and made our live more comfortable, yet they have also been employed to create the weapons of mass destruction used over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not only do nuclear weapons imperil humanity’s future, the civilization that created them gravely impacts the whole of the global ecosystem.

We in Hiroshima are outraged that nuclear weapons have yet to be abolished and banished from the face of the earth, and we are very uneasy about the future of civilization.

In signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the international community agreed to put a halt to all nuclear explosions, but much remains to be done before the CTBT can go into force. This was the situation when the United States conducted a subcritical test which it contends is not banned by the CTBT language. On the one hand, the U.S. promises to reduce its stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and on the other hand it obstinately maintains its nuclear testing program. This attitude is utterly devoid of the wisdom needed if all peoples are to coexist. We implore the global community to recognize that nuclear weapons stand at the very apex of all the violence that war represents.

The Fourth World Conference of Mayors for Peace through Inter-city Solidarity currently meeting in Hiroshima seeks a nuclear-free world and is deliberating calling upon all governments and international institutions to conclude a pact banning the use of nuclear weapons and to expand nuclear-weapons-free zones. Hiroshima specifically calls upon the government of Japan to devise security arrangements that do not rely upon a nuclear umbrella.

Japan and other countries differ in language, religion, and customs, and there are also some differences of historical perspective, particularly with our neighbors. All the more do we hope that candid dialogue among all the peoples of the world will result in a shared vision of a brighter tomorrow.

With the world in tumultuous transition, we intend to take every opportunity at home and abroad to convey not only the terrible violence, destruction, and death the atomic bomb wrought but also the inspiring beauty of human life striving toward the future despite experiencing abject despair. The culture of peace generated in the process of Hiroshima’s rebirth is a beacon of hope for all humanity, just as the Atomic Bomb Dome, now designated a World Heritage site, stands as a symbol of hope for all who reject nuclear weapons.

Along with paying our utmost respects to the souls of those who died, we pledge ourselves anew on this Peace Memorial Day to pressing for compassionate assistance policies grounded in reality for the aging hibakusha wherever they may live.

“Since wars begin in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” This thought from the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Constitution must be indelibly etched in our hearts, and I hereby declare it Hiroshima’s resolve.

August 6, 1997
Sowing Seeds of Peace

We are in the season of Hiroshima, having just passed the 52nd anniversary of the bombing of that city by a single nuclear weapon. On the day the bomb was dropped, August 6, 1945, there was a tear in the fabric of the world. It became clear that a chasm had opened between our technological capabilities for destruction and our spiritual/moral precepts of respect for the dignity and sacredness of human life. Of course, war itself has been a breeding ground for undermining respect for the value of human life. But nuclear weapons brought our destructive capabilities to new heights. Albert Einstein, the great scientist who conceived of the theory of relativity, gave voice to the problem confronting humanity when he said, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

The “unparalleled catastrophe” Einstein spoke of included the end of human civilization and the destruction of most life on Earth. During the Cold War each side pursued a strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction and built up arsenals capable of destroying the other side many times over, despite the knowledge that use of these terrible weapons would entail their own destruction as well as the destruction of most life on Earth. This strategy, which has the acronym MAD, is based upon calculations of human rationality. Yet, as we all know, humans act irrationally for many reasons, not least of which are fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, and mistrust. Humans also make mistakes because they lack pertinent information, misinterpret the information they do have, misconstrue the intentions of other humans, or miscalculate their own capabilities or those of others. The strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction was and remains truly MAD.

The Nuclear Age demands greater efforts to achieve peace and a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The great challenge of our time is to end the threat of nuclear annihilation. The end of the Cold War has made this possible, but entrenched ways of thinking have made it difficult. Even after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, the nuclear weapons states are still relying upon their nuclear arsenals to provide security. But security from whom? Security against what? We need a new kind of security that does not place the human future in jeopardy. We need to learn to think and act in new ways.

Let me suggest some elements of this new way of thinking.

1. Think indigenous. Think like a person whose feet touch the land, like one who loves and respects the Earth and all its creatures. Think seven generations. Recognize that all acts have consequences. Protect the Earth that sustains you. Ask yourself what are the consequences for the Earth of each act you take. Corbin Harney, spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone, has reminded us that we have only “One Earth, one air, one water.” Chief Seattle is reported to have said:

The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites our family. If we kill snakes, the field mice will multiply and destroy our corn. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

2. Think like an astronaut. Keep a broad perspective. See the world as one. Recognize that all borders are manmade. They may exist on maps, but they do not really exist on Earth. That is what the astronauts discovered when they went into space and looked back at our small fragile planet that floats in an immensely vast universe. Astronaut Salman Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia described his experience travelling in space with other astronauts:

The first day, we pointed to our countries. The third day, we pointed to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

3. The late Carl Sagan, a space scientist and author of Cosmos and Contact, described the Earth as a “pale blue dot”. He wrote:

After Voyager 2 passed Neptune, I got a chance to do something I had wanted to do for many years: turn the cameras around and photograph the distant Earth…

I look at that picture and I see a pale blue dot. One pixel, one picture element, just a dot. I think, that’s us. That’s our home world. Everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you’ve ever heard of, everybody who ever lived, every human being in the history of the universe lived on that blue dot. Every hopeful child, every couple in love, every prince and pauper, every revered religious leader, every corrupt politician, every ethnocentrist and xenophobe, all of them there on that little dot.

It speaks to me of fragility and vulnerability, not for the planet, but for the species that imagines itself the dominant organism living as part of a thin film of life that covers the dot. It seems to me that this perspective carries with it, as does so much else we know, an obligation to care for and cherish that blue dot, the only home our species has ever known.

4. Think with your heart. Learn to stand in the other person’s shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in that other person’s shoes. Act with compassion. Follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don’t be stopped or molded by so-called enemies. Look into the faces, the eyes, the hearts of those who are labeled enemies. Find their humanity. In doing so, you will also find your own.

5. Think peace. Peace is a process. It requires constant effort to maintain a dynamic balance. I define peace in this way: Peace is a dynamic process of nonviolent social interaction that results in security for all members of a society. Thus, peace is more than the absence of war. Without security, there is no peace.

6. Think like a seed. Recognize that you have the inherent power of growth. You are not static. A tiny seed may become a majestic tree.

Potential is realized in many ways, in the seemingly small decisions that one makes each day. When Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat in the front of a public bus to a white man, she was realizing her potential. Her simple act of courage, which caused her to be arrested, led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. When Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department analyst, risked imprisonment by turning over the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, thus exposing secret reports on the Vietnam War to the American people, he was realizing his potential as a human being.

Let me contrast this way of thinking with what I believe are the main characteristics of the old way of thinking. It is short-sighted without due regard for consequences; technology centered, seeking technological rather than human solutions to problems; high-risk, and often propelled by testosterone; rooted in secrecy, which is maintained by official classification of information in the name of national security; and often arrogant, bureaucratic, and hierarchical. In short, it is thinking and behavior which divides rather than unites, dominates rather than shares, and destroys rather than heals. This is the thinking which underlies war, nuclearism, disparity, environmental devastation, and human rights abuses.

Which kind of thinking do you choose? It is an important question because the world of tomorrow will be rooted in the thinking of today. And your thinking and your acts will help to form the world of tomorrow.

Forty years ago when Josei Toda called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons his thinking was ahead of its time. But he sowed a seed of peace that has taken root. He referred to nuclear weapons as an “absolute evil.” Nearly four decades later, the International Court of Justice issued its opinion that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal under international law. The Court said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be subject to the rules of international humanitarian law. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used if they would fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians or if they would cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. In issuing this opinion, the President of the Court, Mohammed Bedjaoui, wrote, “Atomic warfare and humanitarian law therefore appear to be mutually exclusive; the existence of the one automatically implies the non-existence of the other.” He also referred to nuclear weapons in a manner similar to the way that Josei Toda had referred to them in 1957. He called them the “ultimate evil.”

In many ways we have been too complacent in tolerating this absolute evil in our world. As citizens of the world, we must confront this evil and demand an end to the nuclear weapons era. I have the following suggestions for you:

1. Increase your awareness. Inform yourself. One place to start is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s or other similar web sites. The Foundation’s web address is https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com. We also have a free electronic newsletter, The Sunflower, which provides information on the abolition of nuclear weapons and other issues relating to peace in the Nuclear Age. You can sign up for this at the Foundation’s web site. We are publishing a booklet in our Waging Peace Series on Creating a Nuclear Weapons Free World, A Guide for Students and All Concerned Citizens. You can order a copy from our Foundation.

2. Exercise your citizenship. Speak out. Make your voice heard. If necessary, protest. Demand information, and fight against government secrecy. You have a democratic right to informed consent on government policies. The late ocean explorer, filmmaker and environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, said, The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act. I urge you, every time you have an opportunity, make your opinions known by physical presence. Do it!

3. Sow seeds of peace. You can sow seeds of peace in many ways — by a smile or a kind word, by caring and sharing, by compassion, by demonstrating in your daily acts that life matters, that the Earth matters, that you are committed to creating a safer and saner future.

4. Support Abolition 2000. This is a worldwide network of over 700 citizen action groups around the world working for a treaty by the year 2000 that calls for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons in a timebound framework. Sign the Abolition 2000 International Petition, and help circulate it. There is also an Abolition 2000 Resolution for Municipalities and one for College Campuses. You can help in having these enacted in your municipality and on your college campus.

5. Grow to your full stature as a human being. Think about not only your rights, but your responsibilities as a human being fortunate enough to be alive at this amazing time in history. Recognize that you are a miracle, that all life is a miracle, and treat yourself and all life with the respect due a miracle. One important responsibility of each generation is to assure that the chain of life is not broken. This responsibility is heightened in the Nuclear Age, and thus more is demanded of us all. My greatest hope for each of you is that you will fulfill your promise and potential as human beings, and be a force for peace in a world that is crying out to be healed.

I would like to end with a story about sunflowers. When the former Soviet Union split apart, Ukraine was left with a large nuclear weapons arsenal. Ukraine agreed, however, to become a nuclear weapons free state, and to send all of the nuclear weapons left on its territory to Russia for dismantlement. When Ukraine completed this transfer in June 1996, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine and Russia along with the Secretary of Defense of the United States commemorated the occasion in an extraordinary way. They scattered sunflower seeds and planted sunflowers on a former Ukrainian missile base which once housed 80 SS-19 nuclear-armed missiles aimed at the United States. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

Of course, sunflowers alone will not be enough. But sunflowers are a great symbol of hope. They are bright and beautiful. They are hardy and healthy. They make us smile, and they can nourish us. They represent everything that missiles do not. They are life and they affirm life. Nuclear armed missiles, on the other hand, are technological instruments of genocide. They are symbols death and the mass destruction of life.

Sunflowers have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. They are a powerful symbol, but they are not enough. To achieve a world free of nuclear weapons will require a great effort of citizens united from all parts of the world, and particularly an effort by young people who will inherit tomorrow’s world. I urge you to be part of this effort, and one day we will plant sunflowers to celebrate the end of the nuclear weapons era on our planet.

*David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

August 1, 1997
Captain Cousteau’s Legacy: Rising to Our Full Stature as Human Beings

Jacques Cousteau was larger than life. He was a man who lived fully. He was a resistance fighter during the Second World War, the inventor of the Aqua-Lung, a world famous explorer of the oceans, filmmaker, and writer. Captain Cousteau was at home in the water, and he brought the wonder and mystery of the oceans and its creatures into the lives of people everywhere. He took to calling our Earth the “water planet,” acknowledging the extraordinary treasure that makes life possible and makes our planet unique in the known universe.

Captain Cousteau’s vision encompassed the planet and the future. He once wrote, “There are no boundaries in the real Planet Earth. No United States, no Soviet Union, no China, no Taiwan…. Rivers flow unimpeded across the swaths of continents. The persistent tides — the pulse of the sea — do not discriminate; they push against all the varied shores on Earth.” For Captain Cousteau there was only one planet Earth, and only one humanity. He spent a good part of his life fighting to preserve our planet for future generations.

In 1989 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation presented its Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to Captain Cousteau. On the day that he was scheduled to be in Santa Barbara to receive the award, the Concord which he boarded in Paris was delayed on the runway for hours due to an equipment problem. When Captain Cousteau realized that he would not be able to make his connection in New York to be in Santa Barbara in time for the event, he deboarded. That evening more than 700 members and guests of the Foundation heard Captain Cousteau speak to them from Paris over a speaker telephone at the Red Lion. Many were disappointed by his absence.

When I told Captain Cousteau how much he was missed at the banquet in his honor, he said that he would come to Santa Barbara the following weekend to be with us and receive the Foundation’s award. I remember being surprised when I met Captain Cousteau at the airport by the straightness of his bearing (for a man nearly 80 years old), by his abundant energy (after a long flight), and by the warmth of his manner.

We arranged for Captain Cousteau to speak in the sunken gardens of the Courthouse. A large crowd came out to greet him on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

In his remarks, Captain Cousteau spoke of the dangers of nuclear accidents and expressed anger at the manner in which these accidents were treated by technocrats. “A common denominator,” he said, “in every single nuclear accident — a nuclear plant or on a nuclear submarine — is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, ‘There’s no danger to the public.’ They do this before they themselves know what has happened because they are terrified that the public might react violently, either by panic or by revolt.”

He concluded his speech saying that “The problem is to get rid of the arrogance of technocrats. We want to know the truth when an accident occurs. And we want to fight. We want the right of all people to decide on what risks they will or will not take, to protect the quality of life for future generations.”

He received a tremendous outburst of applause, to which he responded, “The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act. I urge you, every time you have an opportunity, make your opinions known by physical presence. Do it!”

In 1995 I wrote to Captain Cousteau to thank him for his outspoken opposition to French testing in the Pacific. He wrote back setting forth eight points in the antinuclear position taken by the Cousteau Society. These included opposition to “any development of atomic weapons, including any kind of test, either in the air, underground or in specially equipped laboratories.” Another point in Captain Cousteau’s letter called for outlawing “any nuclear activity from any country…as we have outlawed chemical or bacteriological warfare.” He said that nuclear bombs were “criminal,” and that we must all struggle to outlaw them.

Captain Cousteau spoke out for many causes — the Earth, the environment, his beloved oceans, future generations. His Bill of Rights for Future Generations was signed by millions of people throughout the world. The first Article of this document stated, “Future generations have a right to an uncontaminated and undamaged Earth and to its enjoyment as the ground of human history, of culture, and of the social bonds that make each generation and individual a member of one human family.”

Men such as Jacques Cousteau are rare. They are treasures, teaching what is real and important. We were privileged to have Jacques Cousteau among us — as we are privileged to have other great peace leaders among us, including many others who have received the Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. If we fail to listen to these leaders of vision, we will bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the devastating destructiveness that our technologies make possible; and the burden of future generations will be even greater.

The life of Captain Cousteau reminds us that we may all rise to our full stature as human beings, and stand straight and proud of our humanity and of the legacy we leave to the next generation. But we cannot reach this stature by complacency, indifference, or blind obedience to authority or dogma. We must think for ourselves, and believe, as Captain Cousteau did, that a better future is not only necessary but possible — if we are willing to work for it.

*David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

July 20, 1997
First Annual Sadako Peace Day

Mayor Harriet Miller declared August 6, 1996 as “The First Annual Sadako Peace Day.” In making this proclamation, she called “for efforts in our community and throughout the world to abolish nuclear weapons and to prevent people everywhere, particularly children, from suffering the horrors of war.”

Sadako Sasaki was a two-year old girl in Hiroshima, who was exposed to radiation when the atomic bomb was dropped on her city on August 6, 1945. She developed radiation-induced leukemia ten years later. Japanese legend has it that one’s wish will come true if one folds a thousand paper cranes. Sadako began folding paper cranes with the wish to get well and achieve world peace. She wrote a poem, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.” Sadako died with 646 cranes folded, and her classmates finished folding the paper cranes. Sadako’s story has become known to people all over the world, and the folding of paper cranes has become a symbol of world peace.

To commemorate Sadako Peace Day, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria hosted an outdoor ceremony at Sadako Peace Garden at La Casa de Maria. The ceremony, with some 100 people in attendance, included a musical program arranged by Harry Sargous of The Music Academy of the West, and poetry read by several Santa Barbara poets, including Gene Knudsen Hoffman and Sojourner Kincaid-Rolle.

Foundation president David Krieger summarized the importance of the event and the day: “This day August 6th has many names. For some, looking back in history, it is Hiroshima Day, a time to recall the terrible devastation that took place when a single nuclear weapon was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. For some, looking to the future, it is Abolition Day, a time to rededicate one’s efforts to the elimination of all nuclear weapons in the world. These are important perspectives. For us here today, the day is also Sadako Peace Day, a commemoration of the loss of an innocent child’s life as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima, and a rededication to preventing other children from being injured and killed as a result of war, any war.”

August 12, 1996
First Annual Sadako Peace Day City of Santa Barbara Proclamation

Whereas, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is dedicated to creating a nuclear weapons free world under international law;

Whereas, the Sadako Peace Garden, located at La Casa de Maria, was created by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria, and was dedicated on August 6, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb in warfare; and

Whereas, Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the bombing of Hiroshima occurred, and died ten years after the bombing of Hiroshima from radiation-induced leukemia; and

Whereas, Japanese legend has it that one’s wish will come true if one folds a thousand paper cranes; Sadako’s wish was to get well and spread the message of peace and she wrote a poem, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world”; and

Whereas, Sadako died with 646 cranes folded, and her classmates finished folding the paper cranes that have since become a symbol of peace throughout the world,

Now, Therefore, I, Harriet Miller, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Santa Barbara do hereby proclaim the day of August 6 1996 as the FIRST ANNUAL SADAKO PEACE DAY and call for efforts in our community and throughout the world to abolish nuclear weapons and to prevent people everywhere, particularly children, from suffering the horrors of war.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Official Seal of the City of Santa Barbara, California, to be affixed this 6th day of August 1996.

Harriet Miller, Mayor
Santa Barbara, California

August 6, 1996
Sadako Peace Garden

The Sadako Peace Garden in Santa Barbara was dedicated on August 6, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima tragedy, as a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, in cooperation with La Casa de Maria. It honors all who work for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.

Two distinguished Santa Barbara artists, Isabelle Greene and Irma Cavat, gave of their time and skills to create the landscaping and the artistry of this magic location.

“I ask you to come up and submerge your hands into the water and then bless this space before you leave.”

-Don George, Director, La Casa de Maria.

“Hundreds of residents and visitors of Santa Barbara, young and old, have come to the Sadako Peace Garden to reflect and to commit, or recommit themselves to the task of peacemaking.

The Garden is open to the public. Please feel free to come back at any time, and spread the word among your friends.”

— Walter Kohn, Co-Chair, Education Committee, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Sadako Peace Garden, La Casa de Maria, 800 El Bosque Road, Santa Barbara CA 93108-2794

August 12, 1995