News Item: Friday, April 22, 2005

World Civil Society Leaders Gather in Mexico Next Week to Promote a Nuclear Weapons Free World

Civil Society Forum on Nuclear Weapons Free Zones:
Side event to the Conference of States Parties to Nuclear Weapons Free Zones

Mexico City, April 26-28

Parliamentarians, mayors, disarmament experts and other members of civil society will be gathering in Mexico from April 26-28 to support an initiative of the Mexican government to bring together the world’s nuclear weapon free zones as a step towards preventing nuclear proliferation and achieving global nuclear disarmament.

More than 100 countries from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, South East Asia and Africa have formed nuclear weapon free zones covering most of the Southern Hemisphere and adjacent areas. Now for the first time the governments of these zones will join together at an international conference to produce a joint declaration supporting the establishment of nuclear weapons free zones and the achievement of a nuclear weapons free world.

The threats from nuclear weapons have increased in recent years with India and Pakistan openly testing nuclear weapons, North Korea withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear weapons, the US launching a war against Iraq because of suspicions that Iraq was developing a nuclear capability, concerns about Iran’s nuclear potential, the possibility of terrorist organisations obtaining a nuclear device or nuclear weapons material and the US developing new nuclear weapons and rationales for their use.

The civil society forum will bring together experts and civil society leaders to advise, encourage and assist governments to implement effective strategies for the achievement of a nuclear weapons free world.

Speakers will include:

Iccoh Itoh, Mayor of Nagasaki and Vice-President of Mayors for Peace

Hon Marian Hobbs, New Zealand Minister for the Environment and Minister for
Disarmament.

Senator Abacca Anjain Maddison, Marshall Islands

Senator Dulce María Sauri Riancho, Mexico

Pamela Meidell: Co-founder of Abolition 2000 International Network for the
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

Gabino Aguirre, Mayor of Santa Paula, California, USA

Professor Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, Italy. Secretary General of Pugwash
Conferences

Dr Jans Fromow-Guerra, International Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War (Mexico)

Dr Hiromichi Umebayashi, President of Peace Depot

Konishi Satoru, Japan, nuclear bomb survivor

Speaker information:

Iccoh Itoh, Mayor of Nagasaki and Vice-President of Mayors for Peace. Mayor Itoh travels the world on behalf of the people of Nagasaki to tell their stories about the effects of nuclear weapons use against Nagasaki and to advance their plea that nuclear weapons be abolished. His testimony in front of the World Court in 1995 was instrumental in moving the court to declare the threat or use of nuclear weapons generally illegal and that there is an obligation to eliminate them. Now Mayors for Peace is calling for the negotiation of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

Hon Marian Hobbs, New Zealand Minister for the Environment and Minister for Disarmament. Ms Hobbs is the only Minister for Disarmament in the world, and she uses this position to encourage other governments to follow New Zealand’s example of prohibiting nuclear weapons and to take collective efforts to abolish nuclear weapons globally. New Zealand currently chairs the New Agenda Coalition, which also includes the governments of Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, South Africa and Sweden, and which is promoting an effective and influential disarmament agenda at the United Nations and at the forthcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

Senator Abacca Anjain Maddison, Marshall Islands. Abacca Anjain-Madisson is senator from Rongelap, probably the most irradiated formerly inhabited island in the world. Over 2/3rds of the Rongelapese who were children at the time of the Bravo nuclear test have contracted thyroid cancer. Cancers, still births, miscarriages, deformed babies and various other health effects from the radioactive fallout was so great that the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior was used to evacuate the entire population and resettle them on another island. According to a study released by the US National Cancer Institute estimated the number of cancers caused by the nuclear tests will double in the next 50 years, even though the testing ceased nearly 50 years ago.

Pamela Meidell: Co-founder of Abolition 2000 International Network for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. Pamela Meidell helped found the Abolition 2000 network in 1995. The network, comprising over 2000 non-governmental organisations, calls for the implementation of the NPT non-proliferation and disarmament obligations through the negotiation of a nuclear weapons abolition treaty.

Senator Dulce María Sauri Riancho, Mexico. Senador Sauri is President of the Mexican Senate Foreign Affairs Sub-committee on Asia and the Pacific and a member of the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament, an international network of over 300 parliamentarians in 50 countries.

Professor Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, Italy. Professor Cotta-Ramusino is professor of Mathematical (Theoretical) Physics at the University of Milan and Secretary General of Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs which was established by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein.

Konishi Satoru, Japan. Mr Konishi is a survivor of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. He is a leading member of the Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hidankyo), the prime aim of which is the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Gabino Aguirre, Mayor of Santa Paula, California, USA. Mayor Aguirre is an active member of Mayors for Peace. He was the only US mayor to attend the 2004 Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting in New York, and was instrumental in moving the US Conference of Mayors to adopt a resolution in June 2004 endorsing the Mayors for Peace goal of nuclear abolition.

Dr Jans Fromow-Guerra, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Mexico). International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1985 for its work educating civil society about the health effects of nuclear weapons. Since then they have worked with lawyers and disarmament experts on the drafting of a model nuclear weapons abolition treaty.

Dr Hiromichi Umebayashi, President of Peace Depot and International Coordinator of the Pacific Campaign for Disarmament and Security, Japan. Dr Umebayashi has, among other initiatives, taken a lead in the proposal for a North East Asian nuclear weapon free zone.

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