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This
statement was given to a parliamentary conference at the UN.
Representatives from the following nations were in attendance:
France, Turkey,Germany, Norway, Russia, New Zealand,
Canada, UK and the United States.
I
want to thank the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
for making possible this gathering at the United Nations.
Here,
at the United Nations, where this structure was built to give
expression to achieving human unity through enhanced
cooperation, we are called upon the confirm that the world
community is taking positive steps toward expressing principles
of interconnection and interdependence.
Nation
states achieve their legitimacy not simply through ballot
exercises, but through addressing the practical aspirations
of their respective constituents for life's basic necessities:
Food, water, shelter,and clothing, I would add peace to that
list.
Peace
is not just the absence of war, It is the active presence
of a capacity for love and compassion, and reciprocity.
It is an awareness that our lives are not to be lived simply
for ourselves through expressing our individuality, but we
confirm the purpose of our lives through the work of expressing
our shared sense of community in a purposeful and practical
way; to sustain our own lives we sustain the lives of others.,
in family, in a community of neighborhoods called a city,
and in a community of nations called the world.
The
Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty recognizes the essentiality,
the practicality of nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition.
The principle of human unity seeks expression in such agreements, It
does so out of healthy awareness that if we protect another
person's life, we protect our own.
The
2005 NPT Review may not produce a final, agreed upon document,
but the very process of reviewing the status of our world
wide nuclear dilemma brings from around the world people
of good will in an exemplification of human unity.
Our
presence here today, as representatives of our governments
and as citizens of the world, speaks for itself, is authentic
in and of itself and is an expression of a physical and spiritual
force at work in the world which sustains the world.
Official
resistance to nuclear disarmament, is consequential
in terms of this conference. It is regrettable that
representatives of my own government deny commitments the
US made to facilitate disarmament, and, even worse, to nullify
this forum through noncooperation.
As
the nation which possesses the largest nuclear arsenal, the
United States has a clear responsibility to lead the way toward
nuclear disarmament. The unwillingness of our Administration
do to so cannot be pinned on Iran and North Korea. We
must take responsibility for the effects of our own actions
in canceling the ABM treaty, in setting aside the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, in failing to negotiate a verifiable fissile
material cutoff, in enunciating a nuclear first strike doctrine,
in trying to build a missile shield, in building new nuclear
weapons, in announcing the intention to dominate the world
through offensive and defensive weapons in outer space.
Non
nuclear states are good students. They look to the nuclear
states for example
Our
government has given an example, of proliferation and other
states will learn well from such conduct. In the wake
of the war against Iraq, which, we in the US were told, was
about destroying nuclear weapon-making capability, Iran and
North Korea may logically decide they are next and take steps
to acquire retaliatory capacity.
Nuclear
weapons have become a means for the projection of military
power and for imposing the force of will upon others.
I would suggest, that we have reached a place in human history
where such thinking is archaic and not expressive of the spiritual
and material development which has taken place in the world.
A
new model is evolving from the NPT. And we see the exemplification
of it in the organization Mayors for Peace. Whereas
the NPT depends upon the agreement of member states, we come
forward with a model for nuclear disarmament and abolition,
which depends on the agreement of members of those states.
As congressional representatives and mayors we declare our
intention, our work is to create and confirm between ourselves
the fact of human unity, representative of a global group
consciousness for peace, an articulation of new structures
for peace and an organized global activity for peace which
includes a new structure to rid the world of weapons which
would destroy the very physical basis for human unity.
As
we work to create new models for enhancing cooperation between
participants of nation states, a new model is evolving in
the world of diplomacy. Wherever and whenever nation
states fail to reconcile their differences, a new citizen
diplomacy arises: Citizen diplomats summon the power of their
own hearts and confirm their own humanity through reaching
out and discovering their brothers and sisters speak other
languages, have other colors and other religions and share
a common desire to live out their lives in peace and tranquility.
The work of nongovernmental organizations is equally urgent
in saving this planet.
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