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www. arcuk. org. Arms Reduction Coalition. ‘Towards the peaceful use of national resources in the 21st century’ How can we achieve this? And what is the role for campaign groups and civil society?. Arms Reduction Coalition. Monday, 27th February 2006 The House of Lords, Room 4 Chair
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ArmsReductionCoalition • ‘Towards the peaceful use of national resources in the 21st century’ • How can we achieve this? And what is the role for campaign groups and civil society?
ArmsReductionCoalition • Monday, 27th February 2006 • The House of Lords, Room 4 Chair • Lord Peter Archer of Sandwell
ArmsReductionCoalition • Dr Stuart Parkinson • Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) • “The role of science and Technology in building peace”
ArmsReductionCoalition Diana Basterfield • Co-Founder of UK Ministry for Peace • “Violence and the war in Iraq cost society dear-What a Ministry for Peace could do”
info@arcuk.org • Vijay Mehta • Chairperson of Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC) • “Changing the priorities and mindset of our world turned upside down”
ArmsReductionCoalition • Prof. J Paul Dunne • Co-ordinator of Economists for Peace and Security-UK (EPS-UK) • “Economics and Disarmament”
ArmsReductionCoalition • Prof. Sir Richard Jolly • Institute of Development Studies • “Human Security-a frame for rethinking arms reduction and development”
ArmsReductionCoalition • 5 out of 10 Nobel Peace Prize winning Economists (who worked for the UN) are Passionately in favour of Disarmament.
ArmsReductionCoalition • World Disarmament Campaign Annual General Meeting And Spring Conference. • Saturday 18 March 06 10.30am • Bloomsbury Baptist Church, Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC1 • Speaker: Dan Plesch: Disarmament: What is possible now?
ArmsReductionCoalition 'We should recall Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations, which envisages an international system based on the "least diversion for armaments of the worlds human and economic resources".' UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the foreword to the 2004 Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development.
ArmsReductionCoalition • “The 25bn required to replace the trident nuclear capacity could be spent on 120,000 newly-qualified nurses every year for the next ten years, Scrapping student top-up fees for the next ten years, 60,000 newly-qualified teachers every year for the next twenty years, 100,000 extra fire fighters every year for the next ten years, protecting 900 million acres of rainforest, 100,000 extra community midwives every year for the next ten years and Meeting UN Millennium Goals aid target of 0.7% of GNP every year for the next six years”. • Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament web:http://www.cnduk.org/pages/ntrep.pdf
ArmsReductionCoalition • “The progressive, balanced and controlled elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the stabilization at the lowest possible level of the defensive weapon systems of countries, is an objective that should obtain the necessary consensus as a firs step toward increased security.” • Pope John Paul II-From the Vatican, 31 May 1988
www.arcuk.org • “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.” • President Eisenhower-January 1961
ArmsReductionCoalition • “More arms do not make mankind safer, only poorer.” • Willy Brandt-Coordinator of the Brandt Commission • “The cause of development and the cause of peace are one.” • Louis Fréchette-UN Deputy Secretary-General
ArmsReductionCoalition The Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC) is calling for the United Nations (UN) to agree a legally binding instrument requiring UN member States to reduce the amount of resources spent on arms by between 1 and 5 percent per year for a period of 10 to 25 years. This is based on Article 26 of the UN Charter which states "In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources".
www.arcuk.org "In considering this proposal, Please be mindful of the fact that 9.2 millions people have died in Africa in the last 10 years (1994 to 2003) due to the effects of conventional arms in conflicts. 9 millions dead in the last 10 years. That’s like the whole of London or New York, or Yokohama and Los Angles, or Sydney and Uruguay, or Ireland and Central African Republic dead in the last 9 years. 9 Million dead, over 70% being civilians; mostly women and children. 9 million dead, yet incredibly, not one person has been prosecuted for supplying the weapons of their destruction and death. It's like legalised aiding, abetting and facilitating mass slaughter of the innocents." Karl Miller
ArmsReductionCoalition • "Every gun, every warship, every tank and every military aircraft built is, in the final analysis, a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, from those who are naked and are not clothed." • Dwight D Eisenhower
info@arcuk.org • The present cycle that must be broken is: • A) Large amounts of resources are used to make weapons. • B) The weapons are used to maim and kill people and to destroy their homes, their infrastructure and the environment. • C) The UN, NGOs and people who care are left to pick up the pieces and try to alleviate the resulting poverty and suffering and rebuilding their environments. • D) The world turns. Humanity advances. The weapons are replenished by more advanced and destructive ones and the cycle starts again."
www.arcuk.org The ArmsReductionCoalition is working for the implementation of UN Charter Article 26 by transferring resources from arms to programmes that help the Earth and its inhabitants.
ArmsReductionCoalition • "Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest points consistent with domestic safety"Point 4 of President Woodrow Wilson's 'Peace Programme', which he insisted, form the basis of the 1918 post-war Armistice.
ArmsReductionCoalition • "Halt and eventually reverse a disturbing increase in global and military expenditures, and to redirect such funds into much-needed development projects". • Kofi Annan on the need for Arms control agreements. January 2003
www.arcuk.org • " Convinced that reductions of military expenditure could be carried out without affecting the military balance to the detriment of the national security of any country". • UN Resolution 35/142B: "Reduction of military budgets": December 1980
ArmsReductionCoalition • "We have a moral obligation and duty to think, speak, and act first as citizens for a peaceful world, and next as scientists. The higher our education is, the higher our responsibilities are for a humane world." Plato 5th-4th Century BC
ArmsReductionCoalition • "All states have the duty to promote the achievement of general and complete disarmament under effective international control and to utilise the resources released by effective disarmament measures for the economic and social development of countries, allocating a substantial portion of such resources as additional means for the development needs of developing countries"Article 15 of of the Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States (UN Economic and Social Council Charter)
ArmsReductionCoalition • " Isn't it time to ask the leaders of the Third World these questions: • Why do they insist on spending two or three times as much on arms as on the education and health of their people? • Why do they have 20 times more soldiers than doctors? • How can they find the resources for air-conditioned jeeps for their military generals when the lack even windowless classrooms for their children? • Jayantha Dhanapala
www.arcuk.org • And isn't it time to ask the leaders of the rich nations to stop the continuing arithemetic of death and destruction in the Third World --- where 22 million people have died in more than 120 conflicts during the 'peaceful transition' since the Second World War? Should they not fix a concrete timetable -- say, the next three years --- to: • Close all foreign military bases in developing countries? • Convert all existing military aid to economic aid? • Stop the arms shipments of more than $35 billion a year that make huge profits from poor nations that cannot even feed their people? • Eliminate subsidies to arms exporters and retrain their workers for jobs in civilian industries?“ • Jayantha Dhanapala
ArmsReductionCoalition • Disarmament and development are two of the international community’s most important tools for building a world free from want and fear.
