Speeches from the OPANAL meeting
Dr. Gabino Aguirre
from Santa Paula, California, United States
Remarks to General Conference of OPANAL
Santiago, Chile
7-8 November 2005
I’d like to express my deepest appreciation to the President-elect of this session, your Excellency Mr. Luis Winter, and the Secretary General of OPANAL, Ambassador Vargas Carreño, for all your efforts at convening and and organizing this conference. I would similarly like to express my appreciation to the government of Chile for the generous hospitality they’ve shown to all of us.
Mr. President
I bring you greetings from the Chicano-Americano community of the territory
of North America. As a people, we Chicanos acknowledge and celebrate our
indigenous roots and our Latino historical legacy. Our community continues
to struggle for equality and justice within the United States. Socially
and culturally, we feel a powerful connection with compañeros and
compañeras to the south and, as Octavio Paz coined in one of his
books, as la raza cósmica. Politically and economically, we are subjected
to a form of internal colonialism that positions us at the margins of society
along with other ethnic/racial minorities and the working poor. At the margins
of society, our labor is exploited in agriculture, in factories and even
as soldiers in interventionist and imperialist wars waged by a powerful
elite.
I wish to emphasize that I bring these warm greetings from the Chicano-Americano community and not as a representative of the government of the US. This community has been widely skeptical of our sitting president with many of the opinion he took this office through his party’s manipulation of the electoral process in the elections of 2000 and again in 2004. This president’s administration is composed of personnel representing powerful economic interests with connections to multinational corporations. These are the same corporations that continue to accumulate and consolidate wealth to benefit a global elite which now dominates national politics and the world economy. Using neo-liberal policies, they continue the exploitation of resources from the third world, turning them into consumer satellites and in this way limit these countries’ opportunities for development.
As the process of globalization continues seemingly unfettered, one of its greatest economic weapons is the free trade treaty. For example, the North American Free Trade Agreement, otherwise known as NAFTA, promised a plethora of benefits for member countries but the results have been disastrous, especially for Mexico. In this country, a few already wealthy Mexicans became even more wealthy while the great majority of the population fell deeper in misery. Even though these agreements are referred to as “free trade treaties”, in actuality they are no more or no less than a protectionist mechanism set up to inhibit and restrict competition from Europe and East Asia in this hemisphere. What recently happened at Mar del Plata in Argentina against the ALCA this past week is an expression of an enlightened community’s opposition to this form of economic organization.
Mr. President
Today I speak as a Mayor for Peace. Mayors for Peace is an organization
based in Japan, headed by Mayor Akiba from Hiroshima and Mayor Itoh from
Nagasaki, that advocates for total disarmament of nuclear weapons and against
the horrors they bring. Personally, my interest in nuclear issues is partially
based on my experience as a high school Principal in Moorpark, California
which in 1953 became the first city in the world to totally switch over
from conventional electric power to nuclear energy. A few years later the
nearby reactor became the site of the first nuclear plant catastrophe through
a partial meltdown and efforts to clean radioactive residue from this site
are still ongoing. I participated in the Prep Conference of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the United Nations in New York City in
2004 being the only mayor from the United States (from the City of Santa
Paula in California) to be a member of an international Mayors for Peace
delegation. In April 2005, Santa Paula was once again the only American
city that sent an elected official to the Nuclear Weapons Free Zones Conference
in Tlatelolco, Mexico.
Mayors for Peace has developed its “20/20 Vision” which proposes the total elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Within this plan our the task for this year is to pass the torch of activism from the Hibakasha, the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the rest of the world and to awaken our world communities from their “nuclear trance” thereby advancing the abolitionist movement to eliminate these terrible weapons. To accomplish this, we posit two findings:
1. Nuclear arms are obsolete, absurdly dangerous and should be eliminated immediately. These arms are relics of the cold war and its war mentality, they are an anachronism. In the real world, these arms can only be of service to terrorists. The Mayors Conference stated clearly that weapons of mass destruction have no place in civilized society. Chemical and biological weapons are now under international control; the obvious and most logical step is the elimination of the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.
2. Second realization: Abolitionists constitute the majority of the world. The majority of nations have renounced nuclear arms and want them eliminated. Sixty-six percent of the American public believe the best way to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to outlaw possession by any country. Therefore, abolitionists aren’t just some isolated group on the margins of this problem; we, in fact, represent a powerful majority of our society. Our task is to develop models for democratic action to assert our voice as the “other superpower”, our organized communities.
The Mayors for Peace 20/20 Vision advocates for efforts toward a more peaceful world for our future. We invite you to become informed about this vision and to encourage your communities to join our organization.
Mister President
The work of this OPANAL organization is a very important parallel effort
in this popular struggle for freedom from nuclear annihilation. It is an
honor for me to participate in this Conference of States Parties and Signatories
of Treaties Establishing Nuclear Weapons Free Zones with a focus on Latin
America and the Carribean. This is a significant initiative emphasizing
the determination of Latin America aimed at the total elimination of nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Since the Treaty of Tlatelolco
of 1967 that called for the military denuclearization of this region, these
NFWZs have contributed to a more secure and stable world by designating
vast geographical areas as free of these threats. The signatories to these
treaties are countries that have effectively renounced the production, acquisition,
possession and threat of or use of nuclear arms. Asserting their sovereignty,
these countries have decided these regions must be free of these terrible
weapons and are therefore permanently abolished.
The above history and positive impact of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones treaties and principles have not been widely recognized. The Atomic Mirror, a non-governmental organization which advocates for the elimination of nuclear arms, has argued that the movement for nuclear disarmament has been irregular since the end of the Cold War. It asserts that the obligation for promoting disarmament doesn’t exclusively reside with the nuclear weapons states but is all our responsibility. As a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s, the countries of Latin America and the Carribean were induced to create the first world treaty establishing Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZ). The Treaty of Tlatelolco of 1967 became the model for all other subsequent NWFZs, preceding and paving the way for the most agreed upon and widely signed world treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968.
Since 1967, three NWFZs have been established and they provide hope for a world free of nuclear weapons. In 2005, these zones practically cover the southern hemisphere of our planet. Recently, a NWFZ has been proposed for Central Asia and its acceptance is eagerly anticipated. In addition to these NWFZs, hundreds of cities and towns have declared themselves nuclear free zones. Even though they don’t have legal international status, these tiny zones help create a political sensitivity that promotes nuclear disarmament and the further expansion of such areas. Even though the NPT Review Conference of May 2005 did not result in concrete recommendations, we should not forget that NWFZs provide a practical and proven model that promotes the principles of both non-proliferation and disarmament.
Mr. President
We acknowledge that regional NWFZs are a significant and powerful strategy
for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. We should endeavor to link
these zones for the express purpose of isolating the nuclear weapons states
(NWS) into a planetary corner where the only option will be to abdicate
before the collective voices of the other superpower, our organized communities,
and a commitment to total and unequivocal disarmament. With these two major
campaigns, the 20/20 Vision of the Mayors for Peace and strengthening and
expansion of NWFZs, we await a safer future for our world community.
But how do we bring this message home to individuals at the community level? It is said that all politics--be they national or international--is ultimately local. For it is at the local level where we find the purest aspirations for a better world with liberty, justice and for life itself. It is also at the local level that feels the greatest impacts of negative top-down decisions and policies. In other words, the involvement of our local communities is indispensable. Here are some examples of actual and proposed actions for the area of Ventura County in California where this delegation to Santiago emanates from.
1. In Santa Paula, California, the City Council approved a resolution against the existence and use of nuclear weapons and in support of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This was the first city in the United States to pass such a resolution. With this model, Santa Paula has invited and encouraged other local mayors and elected officials to follow their example and perhaps declare themselves NWFZs.
2. We’ve organized a coalition of local organizations that oppose military violence, the War in Iraq, the government’s interventionism, and other struggles for justice and is sending delgations to conferences and meetings that address nuclear disarmament and related issues. These efforts will focus on promoting a global citizen identity with awareness and a global perspective and understanding.
3. Paralleling these strategies are three phases of action:
a. Dialogue Phase -- We will offer leadership training sessions on communicating and conducting dialogue with governmental agencies and their representatives.
b. Democracy Phase -- At the local state university, we will present Terry Tempest Williams who will discuss her book “The Open Space of Democracy”. We are encouraging all students at this university to read this book thereby setting common ground for positive dialogue. An important outcome will be an under- standing of the relationship between the possession of nuclear arms and its incompatibility with democracy.
c. Diplomacy Phase -- This coalition will organize and participate in a Citizen Diplomacy Summit. Based on the leadership trainings on dialogue with government representatives, teams will be organizad to visit embassies in Los Angeles, California (which has the third largest concentration of embassies after New York City and Washington, D.C. in the USA). We will also send delegations to the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Canada in June 2006 and the National Citizen Diplomacy Summit in Washington, D.C. in July 2006.
We dare to dream of a world free of nuclear arms! I come to this conference recognizing that this world is at a crossroads with numerous complicating factors such as environmental contamination/degradation, a declining supply of oil, terrorism by state and non-state actors, the great division among social classes and the existence of nuclear arms. Ultimately, we’ve all come looking for those persons that will positively impact the trajectory of this world crisis and, brothers and sisters, we have found those persons to be ourselves .. for we are those persons and there is no better time than the present!
Mr. President
Permit me once again to thank you personally, your organization and the
government of Chile for having organized this conference with the objective
of advocating for a more secure world in our future. Thank you for your
attention to my comments.
