Speech of Reiner Braun, Member of the Steering Committee of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) at the meeting of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Berlin November 10th/11th 2009
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Chairman,
The most famous peace manifesto in modern times, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, declares that “either we abolish nuclear weapons or they will destroy the planet and humanity”.
The Secretary-General of the IAEA Mohamed El Baradei observed recently that in the beginning of the 21st Century the dangers of nuclear weapons are “more threatening than ever in history”.
The quantity and quality of these weapons of mass destruction, their minimization for use in conventional and asymmetric wars, the threats of massive proliferation and of terrorism, and NATO’s deployment strategy are all evidence of a threat of nuclear war as well as a challenge for achieving a peaceful world.
But there is a uniqueness about the present situation: the “window of opportunity” for the abolition of these murderous weapons is open wide. Nevertheless, this moment will not last forever but certainly it is a historic chance at this particular time.
The President of the USA and the new international atmosphere that is linked to him is only one reason – even though an important one – for this chance.
The new environment of cooperation profoundly contradicts the interventionist war of the USA and NATO in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This continuation and expansion of the failed and bellicose politics of the Bush era exacerbates the threats of nuclear weapons in a highly unstable region of the world.
Conflicts can only be solved peacefully and through negotiations. The well known remark of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Willy Brandt “I have to negotiate with my enemies, I can celebrate with my friends” is being affirmed daily. Civil conflict resolution should be one of the key words of the 21st century.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let us embrace the chance to set the course towards a nuclear weapons free world and let us get concrete and switch from words to deeds — because so far the proliferation of nuclear weapons states continues largely uninhibited.
What needs to be done:
The NPT Conference in May 2010 will either end the NPT regime of an alleged arms control and the established system of “haves” and “have-nots” or an unrestrained nuclear proliferation will start. This is my honest conviction. There are almost no alternatives and due to the international political changes a continuation of the status quo is quite impossible.
In order to open the road to a nuclear weapons free world the conference must agree to open negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention. The nuclear weapons convention – comparable to the chemical and biological weapons conventions and to the ban on landmines – will be a milestone which fulfils a dream of mankind dreamt by leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Joseph Rotblat, and which frees us of maybe the greatest scourge of mankind.
This NPT conference could also contribute to the solution of other global challenges, as a success there will help us arrive at agreements on other global issues like water and climate, and towards the resolution of long-lasting regional conflicts. This “chain reaction” is solely due to the new atmosphere in the international relations among nations and governments.
Ahead of us loom great dangers and naming these is part of political realism and the understanding of the historic challenges ahead of us.
A related challenge is the global military-industrial complex and its connected politics, especially of the USA. $54 billion for nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons programs is the annual volume of the US nuclear weapons sector alone. These powers will not give up their profits and their aggressive bellicose politics voluntarily, as can be seen by the domestic political resistance.
NATO’s clinging to its nuclear first strike doctrine as well as Russia’s lowering of the threshold for a nuclear weapon strike are also threats to the historic opportunity now facing us. These political forces invent and build up enemy stereotypes which tend to legitimize their persistence in developing new nuclear weapons and in the psychological warfare (threats, spying and so on) that goes with them. Not least they have at their disposal a gigantic power over the media. Thus, other nations’ intentions to acquire nuclear arsenals play into their hands.
Hence it is our task to once more mobilize the peaceful forces of the world for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We – the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates as persons and as organizations –must contribute to this effort.
The IPB takes up this challenge. We are part of an international peace coalition which will mobilize for an active intervention of the peace movement in the NPT conference through a programme of related actions, including a huge congress and an international demonstration, right there in New York at the opening of the conference.
In particular we take up this challenge with our own campaign “Sustainable Disarmament for Sustainable Development (D for D)” in which we accuse those responsible for the misuse of approximately $10 trillion for the proliferation of nuclear weapons from the Manhattan Project up to now, as well as the annual worldwide military spending of $1.464 trillion (SIPRI, 2008). It is in this light that we demand global disarmament for development.
How much hunger could have been eliminated, how many diseases exterminated, how many children saved if this money had been spent on the social and ecological development of this planet? The Millennium Development Goals would be history – instead they are unreachable by 2015. We will not rest as long as nuclear weapons threaten mankind and children die of hunger every second, and while we kill people by the misappropriation of our wealth. Everybody is welcome to join this campaign.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The memories of what people accomplished here in Berlin twenty years ago highlight the fact that it is the people who shape history, even though it seems as if only governments do so. Let me reiterate: when they mobilize, it is the people who shape history.
Based on this knowledge and therefore based on our responsibility, we proclaim the hope that we can free ourselves and all future generations from the nuclear scourge.
Let us take the city of Berlin without its wall as a symbolic starting point to seize this historic chance to achieve the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
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