Atomic Mirror speaks in the Great Hall of the General Assembly of the United Nations

See the webcast at: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/conferences/npt2005/npt050504am.rm
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4 May 2005, following the Wednesday morning plenary session of the 7th Review Conference of the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Remarks by Janet Bloomfield - Coordinator of the Abolition Now! Campaign

Mr President , Excellencies, distinguished diplomats, Mayors, civil society representatives and honourable Hibakushas. It is a great privilege to address you all today. I speak on behalf of the Abolition Now citizens’s campaign which came into being just over a year ago at the 2004 NPT Prep Comm. The campaign grew out of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons. Abolition 2000 was born at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and is now a network of over 2,300 citizen groups from North, South, East and West. This past year we have worked in partnership with Mayors for Peace. Our joint effort calls for the commencement and conclusion of a Nuclear Weapons Convention by 2020

Our goals when we began last summer were to mobilize civil society support for the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign and to focus on the 2005 NPT Review Conference as the next best opportunity for the world’s governments to commit to the negotiation of a total ban on nuclear weapons. We aimed to deliver millions of signatures to this conference calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons and we wanted to see a significant civil society presence at the conference. I think that we can all acknowledge that we have achieved just that.

We did it because we believe that true security does not come from the ability to kill but from the ability to provide an abundant life for all in order that humanity can flourish. A small minority, of states and non state groups, put their faith in weapons of mass destruction to provide peace and security. The majority put their faith in negotiation and diplomacy and in this house. We want you to know that we are ready to support any initiatives that will move us toward a world free of nuclear weapons. We are hopeful that sanity will prevail, we will not give into despair that our vision is unattainable. We owe the Hibakusha nothing less.

Millions of people will be following the progress of tbis conference over the next four weeks. I would like to conclude my remarks with the words of just one of them. Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate, who is almost 97 years old and unable to travel to New York. He sends this message to us all:

“At this Seventh Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is vital for governments and people alike to recognize that the current crisis of international insecurity will not be resolved by anything other than a working system of collective security, as clearly envisaged in the United Nations Charter, and as set out in the provisions of the NPT. Science and technology have made the global community interdependent – whether it is in matters of communication, trade, global warming, or security. We all have a common interest: survival. We have to move forward from a now outdated security system based on nuclear deterrence and alliances, to one based on cooperation and allegiance to humankind. In the words of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto:

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Above all: Remember your humanity.”

Above all over these next days and weeks – Remember your humanity.

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