Secretary-General Stresses Plan to ‘Stop the Bomb’ as Annual Dpi/Ngo Conference

 

Opens on Theme ‘For Peace and Development:  Disarm Now!’

 

(Received from a UN Information Officer.)

MEXICO CITY, 9 September -- Kicking off the sixty-secondannual gathering of non-governmental organizations this morning, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon made a passionate call to States parties to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith a convention to rid the world of its nuclear and conventional arsenal and to civil society to pressure leaders worldwide to stem the more than $1 trillion global weapons industry.

“The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded,” Mr. Ban said.  “I urge you, civil society and the NGO community, to continue speaking out to leaders across the board to stress that nuclear weapons are immoral and should not be accorded any military value.”

Addressing an estimated 1,200 non-governmental organization (NGO) and civil society representatives from some 70 countries gathered in Mexico City, seat of the signing of the Treaty of Tlatelolco ‑‑ which in 1969 established Latin America as the first densely populated region to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone ‑‑ the Secretary-General said leaders must recognize that the doctrine of nuclear deterrence had proven woefully wrong in its intention to guarantee security and national defence.  Instead, it had accomplished the opposite.

Organized by the Department of Public Information (DPI) in cooperation with NGOs, the three-day event entitled “For Peace and Development:  Disarm Now,” will focus on national, regional and global programmes and strategies to tackle militarism head on, ahead of the five-year NPT Review Conference next May at United Nations Headquarters in New York to examine the state of the treaty’s three pillars:  disarmament; non-proliferation; and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.  The DPI event will give civil society organizations a chance to exchange ideas and influence efforts towards peace, disarmament and development.

Mr. Ban said the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States had made a good start to create a nuclear-weapons-free world when they recently joined forces to seek to reduce their respective nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles in accordance with their obligations under Article VI of the NPT.  At Mr. Ban’s request, the Security Council would hold a summit meeting on 24 September, chaired by United States President Barack Obama, to address nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.  On 21 September, the world would celebrate the International Day of Peace dedicated to the “We Must Disarm” Campaign.  And next March, President Obama would convene a meeting in Washington on nuclear security.  Now was the time for all stakeholders to build on that momentum.

“I have come here to give you my full encouragement to continue your work in disarmament.  I also want to expand the coalition of support for my five-point plan ‑‑ first introduced on October 24, 2008 ‑‑ to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons based on key principles,” Mr. Ban said.

That plan “to stop the bomb” required enhancing security and protecting non-nuclear-weapon States from nuclear weapon threats, as well as having non-NPT States freeze their weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments.

Disarmament must also be reliably verified, he said, supporting the United Kingdom’s proposal for recognized nuclear-weapon States to discuss nuclear disarmament and confidence-building measures, including verification.  It must be rooted in legal obligations.  Universal membership in multilateral treaties was key, as were regional nuclear-weapon-free zones and a new treaty on fissile materials.

Also in September, the United Nations would hold a special meeting to promote the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).  Mr. Ban welcomed President Obama’s support for United States ratification of the CTBT, noting that the treaty only needed a few more ratifications to enter into force.

“As former Chairman of the CTBTO (Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization), I encourage you to reach out to those countries that have not yet acceded to the CTBT and urge them to do so without further delay,” he said.

Further, he called on countries with nuclear weapons to publish more information about their efforts to make good on their disarmament commitments, stressing that the precise number of nuclear weapons in existence worldwide was unknown.  The United Nations Secretariat could serve as a repository for such data.  He proposed that the Council, through an appropriate mechanism, consider how to increase transparency and openness on nuclear weapons programmes of the recognized nuclear-weapons States.

Disarmament must also anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons, he said, urging progress in eliminating other arsenals of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms.

“There can be no development without peace and no peace without development.  Disarmament can provide the means for both,” he said.

The end of the cold war had led the world to expect a massive peace dividend.  But more than 20,000 nuclear weapons existed today, and military spending continued to rise, with weapons flooding markets and destabilizing societies, feeding the flames of civil war and terror.  In Latin America, gun violence was the leading cause of civilian casualties.  That, coupled with ever-growing ballistic missile proliferation and increasing threats from terrorists, had demonstrated that nuclear weapons were existential threats to humankind.

At present, more than 110 countries were covered by nuclear-weapons-free zones, Mr. Ban said.  Recently, the treaty for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in Central Asia entered into force.  Global leaders had negotiated a treaty to outlaw all nuclear explosions, but it still had not entered into force, while the obstacles continued to derail tireless negotiations for a global ban on the production of fissile materials for use in nuclear explosives.  The Conference on Disarmament ‑‑ a multilateral negotiating forum set up in 1979 in Geneva ‑‑ broke the gridlock on its programme of work for the first time in 12 years, yet it failed to advance because of procedural disagreements.

Moreover, many countries have agreed to ban anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions, but some major players had chosen to remain outside of these commitments.  And an international Programme of Action has been agreed to stem the illicit trade in small arms, yet it, too, faced many challenges in achieving its goals.  No multilateral legal norms existed concerning missiles.

“We the peoples” had the legitimate right to challenge international leaders by asking what they were doing to eliminate nuclear weapons and fund the fight against poverty and climate change ‑‑ global goods that every Government and every individual in the world should strive to achieve together in the spirit of renewed multilateralism.  No nation could act alone to solve the four “F” crises:  food; fuel; flu; and financial.

Mr. Ban said his commitment to disarmament was deeply personal.  His homeland, the Republic of Korea, had suffered the ravages of conventional war and witnessed the devastating consequences of atomic weapons in neighbouring Japan.  It remained concerned over nuclear issues related to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Iran, which should fully comply with relevant Council resolutions to allay doubts about the nature of its nuclear programme.

Echoing those concerns, General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, in a pre-recorded videoconference, said that in August he met with the victims and families of the 1945 atomic bombing in Nagasaki, Japan.  The gruesome reality for them had lost none of its power to inspire grief and terror, as well as shame and righteous anger.

The NPT had created a central institutional framework for global cooperation on nuclear arms control and disarmament, but 40 years on its implementation remained weak, Mr. D’Escoto lamented.  He credited civil society’s robust activism in the past decade with helping to preserve and revitalize public demand for Governments everywhere to make good on the Treaty’s noble goals.  Many of them were doing just that.  On 5 April, United States President Barack Obama declared his commitment to seek global peace and security through complete nuclear disarmament; the Russian Federation and other nuclear powers had also responded concretely to new opportunities.

“Any new approach to achieving the ‘global zero’ based on the NPT framework must address some very profound deficiencies of credibility and legitimacy surrounding the NPT process, or risk being portrayed, accurately in my opinion, as old wine in new bottles,” Mr. D’Escoto said.

The General Assembly President said it was crucial to set an early date for achieving disarmament and a clear, realistic timetable.  He strongly supported the 2020 deadline proposed by the Mayors for Peace in Nagasaki and Hiroshima ‑‑ a year that would mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of those two cities’ terrible destruction and the fiftieth anniversary of the NPT.  Experts and negotiators must address the technical and political issues of disarming below minimum thresholds to zero, and begin seriously analysing requirements to set up an effective international regime in support of global abolition.

“Eleven years is not too little to demonstrate real commitment and real progress, Mr. D’Escoto said, adding that:  “We can have realistic, time-bound interim benchmarks, against which the world community must hold all ‑‑ not just some ‑‑ nuclear powers accountable.”

All 192 United Nations Member States and the Organization’s observers must begin the task at hand immediately, he said.  An international commission of experts, among them scientists, economists and others experienced in handling and tracking nuclear materials, should be convened to provide an objective foundation for policy decisions, drawing on existing knowledge to assess full international control of the nuclear fuel cycle in practical, reliable terms and its cost ‑‑ issues that had never been seriously examined by an international body.

All countries with nuclear weapons, including non-members of the NPT, should begin to build credibility and enhance the legitimacy of the international non-proliferation regime by placing their own enrichment and weapons programmes under international monitoring and inspection regimes.  That step, he stressed, was indispensable for managing nuclear rivalries in the short-term and persuading countries like Iran that the world was ready to accept a peaceful Iranian nuclear energy programme, not a weapons programme.  The entire disarmament process must be brought fully into the United Nations system, in cooperation with private-sector efforts and scientific inquiry.

Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, said nuclear weapons were a threat to international peace and security and an intolerable threat to human survival.  The end of the cold war had not resulted in the abandonment of nuclear doctrines.  On the contrary, more countries had nuclear weapons then ever before.  Mexico was a peace-loving nation that believed in international cooperation and considered it inhumane to misuse fundamental resources on weapons instead of human development.

“For us, it has always been clear that international peace and security cannot be built on strategic security doctrines based on stockpiling or development of weapons of mass destruction,” Ms. Espinosa said.

Still, signs of hope were apparent, she said, lauding the start of the talks between the United States and the Russian Federation on a strategic arms reduction treaty, and the call by other global Powers for a nuclear weapons-free world.

“We must work towards making it a reality.  And all of you play a fundamental role in this task,” she said, calling on NGOs to actively participate in multilateral forums on disarmament and arms control, and for security organizations, including the United Nations Security Council, to open their doors to civil society’s involvement, which was crucial for international relations in the modern era.

She also called for a partnership among civil society, States and international organizations to make strides in disarmament and non-proliferation, prohibiting conventional weapons that caused indiscriminate effects and combating the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons, which were particularly harmful to developing countries.

Mexico was resolute in its commitment to end that lucrative illicit trade and it would promote negotiation of a legally binding instrument that guaranteed that those smaller weapons ‑‑ often used by offenders and criminal organizations to carry out attacks against society and security forces ‑‑ were traded responsibly.  Mexico was currently a non-permanent member of the Council and its President Felipe Calderón would work during the Council’s disarmament summit in September for a nuclear weapons-free world.

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, founder of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, Chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative and the Conference’s keynote speaker, also expressed her outrage over the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  She said no child anywhere should have to grow up fearing it would happen again.  No war planner should be able to sit in remarkable isolation from the desire of most of the planet’s population to eliminate nuclear weapon, holding the world’s collective fate in their hands and holding on to nuclear deterrence doctrines or worse ‑‑ such as the Bush Doctrine.

“The time has more than come for us to stop accepting such nuclear absurdity,” Ms. Williams said.  “It is well beyond time for us to push with single-minded determination for an international convention that completely bans the use production, trade and stockpiling of nuclear weapons for all time.”

The International Campaign, she said, in cooperation with like-minded Governments and international bodies and agencies, had been instrumental in bringing about the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which effectively banned for the first time a conventional weapon that had been widely used for generations.  That success had inspired other civil society organizations to adopt similar partnership models with Governments to effectively address a problem, such as the Cluster Munition Coalition launched in 2003, which, under the Norwegian Government’s leadership, led to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions banning cluster bombs.  Meantime, NGO efforts to stop the proliferation of small arms and light weapons continued unabated.

But since the United Nations Charter’s passage in 1945, which, under Article 26, called on the Council to create an international arms regulation system to guide Member States, little had been accomplished.  China, India, Israel, France, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Russian Federation, United States and the United Kingdom still possessed nuclear weapons.  And there were growing concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions and Myanmar’s desire to obtain a nuclear arsenal, too.

The world was on the cusp of an historic opportunity to stop nuclear proliferation, Ms. Williams said.  “Or we can stand by and listen to strong words followed by weak and vague action that by design or ineptitude fritter away this chance and a new nuclear arms race spirals out of control.”

“Global zero” ‑‑ a plan launched by some of the world’s former leading military experts in December 2008 to phase out nuclear weapons ‑‑ offered hope for the future, as did the vows of the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation to cut the nuclear stockpiles of their respective nations.  But much more must be done to bolster that process and ensure it moved forward.  A coherent strategy and plan to lay the groundwork for genuine disarmament was needed, she said dismissing as “nonsense” the claims of nuclear weapon States that is was premature to negotiate a nuclear weapons convention.

In his five-point disarmament proposals, the Secretary-General referred to the model nuclear weapons convention drafted by NGO experts and circulated to all United Nations Member States at the request of the Governments of Costa Rica and Malaysia as “a good point of departure,” Ms. Williams said.  That model suggested ways to address some of the tough technical, legal and verification problems likely to be encountered.  Non-governmental organizations must take up that issue with their respective Governments and work to ensure that the issue of a draft convention was discussed during next year’s NPT review conference, including in the opening statements and relevant working papers of participating States.

Miguel Marin Bosch, a career Mexican diplomat and leading figure in international disarmament negotiations, agreed, adding that NGOs deserved a place at the negotiating table to rid the world of nuclear weapons, a place they were long denied by Government officials.

“The work of NGOs such as yours is very important. Do no let anyone tell you otherwise,” Mr. Marin said.  For decades, while NGOs that promoted human rights and development were allowed in international forums, major weapons holding and selling Governments restricted those involved in peace and disarmament from participating in discussions of the Assembly’s First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) and the Conference on Disarmament.  Only recently, had that begun to change.

While many people had argued that small and light weapons had killed or maimed more people than weapons of mass destruction, the latter were still the greatest danger facing the world, he said.  The second half of the twentieth century was marked by several disarmament agreements, spurred by a military Power, notably the United States, which had deemed certain weapons or weapons systems no longer useful and thus had decided to eliminate them unilaterally, while demanding a universal treaty to ensure no other country could have them.  One could conclude that nuclear disarmament could only occur with the blessing of the United States military.

But under the current political climate in Washington, D.C., it was difficult to contemplate such a possibility in the future, he said.  Former United States President George Bush’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review assigned nuclear weapons an important role; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose membership was expanding, also shielded itself behind its members’ position to maintain the option to use nuclear weapons.  Mr. Marin expressed hope that the Nuclear Posture Review of Mr. Bush’s successor, Mr. Obama, would move in a different direction.

Rather than rely on the United States Government to dictate disarmament affairs, the world could in fact take a different tack, he said, suggesting that a world conference be held to draft a treaty, outside the United Nations and the Geneva Conference, to eliminate nuclear arsenals.  There were hopeful signs in that regard.  In London and Washington, there was talk of a nuclear-weapons-free world.  In October 2008, the Secretary-General had issued a five-point proposal to achieve nuclear disarmament and prevent nuclear proliferation.  In April, President Obama had relaunched the long dormant negotiations with the Russian Federation on the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START).

Governments everywhere were also coming to the conclusion that weapons were not the best way to enhance national security, Mr. Marin said.  Deterrence and mutually assured destruction were outdated concepts in a world more concerned with the threats and challenges of widespread poverty, climate change, a global economic crisis and the new H1N1 virus.

Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, said the decision to gather in Mexico City to act on disarmament, peace and development was not a random one.  The Treaty of Tlatelolco, ratified in the Mexican capital by 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations, had remained a crucial benchmark of regional cooperation on disarmament and non-proliferation.  Mexico, a nation with a proven history of championing disarmament, was also a key partner in the United Nations work in peace, development and human rights.

The Conference was taking place at an important time ‑‑ when the question of disarmament was taking centre stage internationally, Mr. Akasaka said.  If the CTBT could enter into force, and if the NPT review conference made progress, the world would be off to a good start on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.  Advances in disarmament would also contribute to progress in peace and development, liberating massive resources for education, health, the environment and the Millennium Development Goals.  The Conference would give civil society a chance to raise awareness of the true costs and dangers of nuclear weapons, and of disarmament as a vital means to peace and development.

Last year, global military spending totalled more than $200 per person, while more than 1 billion people struggled to live on $1 a day or less.  That was untenable, Mr. Akasaka said, calling for ways to address the gross imbalance.

“We must work together to build on the hard won achievements by civil society on disarmament ‑‑ from the banning of landmines to the outlawing of cluster munitions ‑‑ and influence Governments to adopt enlightened disarmament and arms control policies,” he said.

Further, he urged young people to learn about the links between disarmament, peace and development.  “Get informed.  Join our campaigns and those of civil society organizations.  Each one of you can make a difference in your communities and beyond.”

Charles Hitchcock, NGO representative of Peace Action International to the United Nations and the Conference Chair, said this year’s Conference was being held in the Mexican capital in a bid to reach out to NGOs in Mexico and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.  He welcomed NGOs that had travelled from as far as Asia and Africa to participate in the event.  The organizers, he noted, had also called upon members of the Latin American Coalition for the Prevention of Armed Violence, or CLAVE, to share during the Conference’s daily afternoon breakout sessions its successes in helping to reduce the role of small arms.

The Conference will reconvene in the afternoon to hold a roundtable discussion titled “Zero Nuclear Weapons, Zero Weapons of Mass Destruction:  Why, How, When?”

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For information media • not an official record