This was the speech delivered by Cora Weiss, President of the Hague Appeal
for Peace at the just concluded Millennium Forum held at the United Nations
headquarters, New York, USA. on May 23rd, 2000. What good food-for-thought
and action.
Plenary:
Peace, Disarmament and Security
There are only three documents you need to be informed, effective members of
organized civil society, The Charter of the United Nations, The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for
the 21st Century. They are pocket sized, easy to read, and universal in
their application. The Hague Agenda is a 50 point program on how to get from
a culture of violence which defined the past century, to a culture of peace
which must define this new century.
Disarmament
Peace and security do not depend on disarmament alone. Yet without the
abolition of nuclear weapons which hang like the sword of Damocles over all
our heads, without the end to the illegal trade in arms and the banning of
guns, without the complete eradication of land mines including their
production and export, there can be no peace. Space, which tragically is
already militarized must not become weaponized. Space must be reserved for
the heavens, the moon and the stars, not star wars.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, five years ago at the time of the last NPT review
conference said, "Agitate as passionately as you can for the banning of
small arms, they kill as effectively as the nuclear bomb." Speaking of
nuclear bombs, the final statement of the NPT conference leaves it to
organized civil society to call for a campaign to Set The Date for the
abolition of nuclear weapons, and it shouldn't take more than ten years!
Justice and Gender Balance
Peace and human security depend on a reallocation of the world's resources
so that billions of people who never see more than $1 or $2 a day are not
held hostage to unconscienable poverty. Peace and Human security depend on
universal adherence to and respect for human rights, including economic,
social, and cultural rights as well as civil and political.
It is very likely, and we will never know until we try it, that one major
reason for the unrelenting history of bloody battles and extreme violence
over the past centuries has been the complete absence of women from any
negotiating table, from decision making where the fate of humanity is at
stake. Until women, who hold up half the sky, are sitting in equal numbers
in every room where leadership is pronounced, and at every table where
negotiations take place, efforts at keeping the peace will not be sustained.
Root Causes of violence
Peace and Human Security in this new, young century will depend on
eliminating the egregious root causes of violent conflict including racism,
violations of our precious and only home called Earth, religious intolerance
and misunderstanding, and contempt for the rule of law. We continue to
ignore the rights of indigenous and unrepresented peoples
while we militarize and nuclearize their lives and lands. Violent conflicts
are fueled by economic greed and the grab for raw materials. Billions, and
increasingly more billions are spent on the arms trade and forms of
militarization. Peace and Security will depend on preventing children from
being kidnapped to be slaves in war.
Time to Abolish War
Humanity once embraced slavery, colonialism and apartheid. They were funded
by taxes and protected by laws. The United Nations exists to prevent future
generations from the scourge of war. The Hague Appeal for Peace calls for
peace as a human right and for the abolition of war. Archbishop Desmond
Tutu, in welcoming and launching the Hague Appeal for Peace, said, "If we
could get rid of apartheid, why not war?" ( The Hague
May 8, l998)
Civil Society
This new century calls for new ways of thinking and doing. The evolution of
organized civil society is as significant as the invention of the nation
state. Central to any discussion of suggestions for reform or new
initiatives must be the role of civil society as a partner in the
deliberations and implementation of the new social order. For it is us, mere
mortal civilians, who are on the ground. We cry with the wounded, provide
blankets for the refugees from war and refugees from unemployment or
waterless wells; we know the raped women, bandage the hacked off hands, and
see and hear the warning signs of new violence. Governments should not fear
us. Governments should welcome us. In return we must be democratic,
responsible and accountable.
New Democratic Diplomacy
The new century calls for new democratic diplomacy. We have seen its success
with the land mine ban treaty, with the decision of the International Court
of Justice when it declared nuclear weapons generally illegal under
international law, and we see it now as civil society helps governments
understand and support the much needed International Criminal Court so that
impunity is buried with the history of the past. Key to peace and the new
democratic diplomacy is the inclusion of international organizations,
especially the United Nations and its remarkable agencies, working together
in a troika partnership governments and civil society.
GAP and Peace Education
At least two new ideas that will contribute to Peace, Disarmament and Human
Security and which emerged from the enormously successful Hague Appeal for
Peace conference last May, call for the application of the new democratic
diplomacy. They are the Global Action Plan to Prevent War which is a
comprehensive plan to negotiate deep phased reductions in military forces,
weapons and budgets aimed at a global defensive security system and the
strengthening of non violent conflict resolution.
The other, which is being launched with the blessing of UNICEF, and many
teacher organizations, is a Global Peace Education Campaign. We firmly
believe that we can not have a peaceful people without educating for peace.
Peace does not come with our DNA. The Hague Appeal for Peace has launched a
campaign to train teachers and to influence ministries of education to
consider adding peace to the core curriculum. Everywhere in the world
children who go to school... learn the basic skills of reading, writing and
arithmetic. The 3 R's. We propose a 4th R, reconciliation, which will help
children confront their biases, redirect their aggressive behavior, learn to
negotiate, and discover non violent peaceful means to relate to one
another. They will study root causes of violent conflict and figure out ways
to cure them.
They will learn to detect early warning signs of violence and whom to
alert. They can become skilled at mathematics by researching the amount of
money every nation spends on preparation for war and military might and how
much it spends on education and health, and figure out what that comes to
per person, in their country, in their world. Perhaps the next generations
will be more caring, and better prepared to muster courage and political
will if they learn to listen, to forgive, to respect themselves and others,
to reject violence, to glorify acts of humanitarianism not acts of
war.......
They can learn about great literature reading Tolstoy, who said, " the evil
called war must become quite impossible." ( Stockholm, l909 last message)
or Gandhi, and learn about great leaders, like John F Kennedy, who,
speaking in this fragile, august house of peace, said, "The program to be
presented to this assembly, for general and complete disarmament under
effective international control, moves to bridge the gap between those who
insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total
achievement...
It would achieve, under the eyes of an international disarmament
organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional,
until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for
internal order and a new United Nations peace force." (Sept. 25, 1961)
Religion
Too often religion has been a cause of violence and war. Yet the best of
religion is about reconciliation, peace and justice. The army chaplains at
the Nevada test sites in the l950' s reassured 18 and 19 yr old recruits
forced to watch the atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs that they were
doing their patriotic duty as one after another later succumbed to cancers
and traumatic syndromes.
Half Ban Treaty
Those same tests spread radioactive fall out over the ground which found its
way into cows milk and eventually into the teeth of children. That is what
activated an entire generation of young mothers to the dangers of anything
nuclear and as a result we eventually got the half ban treaty, which
prohibited testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. We can not wait for
new generations of genocidal experiments to arouse public opinion. We must
go home from this Forum with a new sense of caring, a sense of urgency,
equipped with new ideas on how to create a permanent culture of peace for
our new century.
What we can do
We all have become very smart. We know about conflict prevention,
transformation and conflict resolution, we know how to eliminate nuclear
weapons and prevent the manufacture of other weapons of mass destruction. We
have a whole new lexicon of peace filled language. We know how to
negotiate. And we know what would be helpful. Our suggestions include:
To get to peace, disarmament and human security the United Nations should:
Activate Chapter 7, Art 47 of the UN Charter, which provides for a "Military
Staff Committee to assist the Security Council ...for the maintenance of
international peace". The UN needs a voluntary international military force
under a single command and control. What is lacking is the political will
and funding. Civil society needs to organize in order to muster that will
and those funds. Sierra Leone could have been avoided. The Israel Lebanon
border need not see further violence. The Secretary General's proposal for a
rapid intervention force needs our support. AIDS has become a security
threat. It needs rapid medical intervention to avoid violence. The SG's
proposal for a world conference to reduce the dangers of nuclear weapons
needs our support.
At the same time we need a non-violent international civilian peace keeping
force. Trained in gender sensitivity, in the history, culture, and politics
of the crisis. They would be trained in early warning detection for conflict
prevention, and also in conflict resolution to accompany sensitively trained
military peacekeepers. The world needs a civilian 911....a way to call for
help and not bring on a tank or AK47.
The United Nations should re open its peace education unit, so that teachers
and students the world over can have a place to contact to understand what
peace is all about and how to get there.
The Secretary General is the world's top moral authority, and this Secretary
General is greatly admired and loved. He speaks and writes dozens of times a
day and needs to tuck into every message, no matter what the subject, that
the world needs human security, not national security, we need economic
rights as well as political rights, we need women, women everywhere. He
needs to repeat these ideas until they become common place.
The Draft Statement for Peace, Security and Disarmament is a terrific
beginning. We welcome you to our discussion sessions, all those that begin
with the number 1, all in Conference Room D. The point of our message is
that peace requires a holistic approach. That security needs to be human
security not national security.
We need environmentalists, development experts, women, lawyers, the
religious community, human rights activists, peace and disarmament experts.
We need governments and inter governmental organizations. But most of all,
we need the next generation of young people to whom we will hand over the
stewardship of this beautiful, wonderful, place called Mother Earth. For
their sake, we must put out the fires and hand
over a world without war.