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The
statement was read by Ambassador Tim Caughley of New Zealand in his capacity
as rotating president of the CD.
Distinguished Delegates,
Since 1984, a group of Geneva-based NGOs, together
with members of the NGO Working Group on Peace have held a seminar to
mark International Women’s Day – 8 March – in tribute
to the tireless work done by women around the world for the achievement
of justice, peace and security. We again use this opportunity to engage
the public and governments to look holistically at issues of peace and
security, and to recognize the centuries’ old demand of women for
nations to totally and universally disarm.
Women mobilize support for disarmament and peace.
In the last century alone, educational and petition campaigns, such as
the more than nine million signatures collected and sent to the 1926 disarmament
conference in Geneva, or the one initiated in 1959 by the European Movement
of Women Against Nuclear Armament, have rallied wide public support for
general and nuclear disarmament. The Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom along with many other organizations refused to accept
the cold war barriers and worked to break them down through East –
West dialogues and many other shared events to end the arms race and build
peaceful cooperation. Women demonstrated against the build-up of multilateral
nuclear forces in Europe, as they did, for example at the NATO conference
in the Netherlands in 1964. In the 1960s, 100,000 women in 110 American
communities left their homes and offices in a national "strike"
for a nuclear test ban, sparked by Boston physicians’ documentation
of the presence of Strontium-90, a by-product of nuclear tests, in the
teeth of children across the U.S. and beyond. Millions of women and men
rallied in the cities of Europe and marched across borders to mark their
opposition to the deployment of nuclear missiles and radiological weapons.
We all remember how the women of Greenham Common left their homes to dedicate
themselves to peace as men have often left their homes to fight wars.
Let us be clear: we do not assert that women are "by
nature" more peaceful than men. Women are socialized to be the caretakers
and nurturers of their families and communities; yet in countries the
world over – from the developed to developing nations – many
men assume the role of “protectors” and “defenders”
and often seek to maintain this role through the possession of weapons,
while women in their nurturing role often encourage this step towards
“manhood”. We recognize that women are also actors in conflict
– women take up arms, engage in conflict and even perpetuate it.
It is not enough for us to bring a few more women into security discussions
and negotiations; just as men differ vastly in their perceptions of issues
of importance, just one participant in negotiations cannot represent women
in all their diversities.
Furthermore, increased dialogue with and participation
of NGOs in all disarmament efforts will facilitate a much broader, more
comprehensive understanding of security, one that can form the basis of
a windfall of new security agreements and treaties. The stalemate in moving
disarmament forward must be broken now.
Women have developed an expanded expertise on these
issues over the years and are eager , along with many other members of
civil society and non-governmental organizations, to work with you and
your ministries at the Capitols to move forward. In 1997, a Model Nuclear
Weapons Convention was submitted to the General Assembly by Costa Rica
stating that the model sets forth “the legal, technical and political
issues that should be considered in order to obtain an actual nuclear
weapons convention.”
South Africa submitted a Working Paper to this body
in 2002, outlining some suggestions and food for thought on a Fissile
Materials Treaty. The time is ripe to negotiate this treaty now in order
to address the problems of nuclear proliferation. Large sectors of world
civil Society stand at the ready to do whatever they can to assist in
these negotiations- you in the CD have the power to open your doors to
us; Paragraph 41 of the rules of procedure recognizes that the Conference
may decide to invite specialized agencies, the IAEA and other organs of
the UN system to provide information We are prepared to accept your invitation,
and look forward to receiving it.
This body has struggled for eight long years to move
forward. It will not be able to make substantive breakthroughs as long
as governments continue to equate security with armaments. We have not
seen an increase in global security that matches the global increases
in military spending; rather, we have seen increased proliferation of
weapons, increased threats from non-state actors, and decreased human
security.
Our focus during this year’s seminar was on
nuclear weapons, on the role that these ecocidal, suicidal and genocidal
weapons play in a world struggling to recognize and move towards a holistic
perception of security – one that includes environmental protection,
protection of all actors effected by all phases of conflict, and that
integrates and understands the reasons that make people pick up arms in
order to disarm.
In a large part, the NGOs that monitor your discussions
here, the NGOs that will flock to New York to monitor and bring public
attention to the NPT Review Conference, the NGOs that have organized massive
demonstrations in opposition to nuclear weapons, the NGOs that have brought
organized pressure on governments to negotiate the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty – many of these NGOs comprise women, whose dedication
to the abolition of nuclear weapons is based on their unique, understanding
of the evil of these weapons.
While we laud the CD’s decision taken last year
that codifies the basic rules of engagement with disarmament NGOs, we
urge you to review NGO participation and access to all international disarmament
fora, and to understand, as Croatia has, “the growing beneficial
role that civil society plays in the field of disarmament... (which) may
give additional impetus to initiatives to break the deadlock and finally
move the multilateral disarmament agenda forward.” We urge you to
heed the advice of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who called for “more
organized and sustained dialogue with the NGO community”, recognizing
that more effective engagement with NGOs increases the likelihood that
United Nations decisions will be better understood and supported by a
broad and diverse public.
The culture of militarism that has gained ground the
world over is pushing the cornerstone of the disarmament regime, the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, toward a dangerous precipice. We are all aware
of the significant backsliding from key advancements made at the 2000
Review Conference, and know that drastic measures are needed in order
to arrest this development.
The Conference on Disarmament has a unique opportunity
to do so at the forthcoming 7TH NPT Review Conference, addressing the
concerns and priorities of all States parties, and working to strengthen
both the non-proliferation and the disarmament obligations of the Treaty.
If the CD is able to adopt a program of work and start substantive discussions
on nuclear disarmament, a fissile materials treaty, the prevention of
an arms race in outer space, and/or other items on the proposed agenda,
you will be endowing the Review Conference with a much needed head-start
on its own work. No other body, no other diplomats, have the opportunity
that you do to influence a positive start at the Review, to erode the
paralysis that blocked the Preparatory Committee.
Time is growing short, in the next few months, all
actors within the international disarmament community must do everything
they can to use this Conference as a tool for ensuring the human security
of all peoples, everywhere.
notes:
1.Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was set up in 1981, after women marched
180 kilometres from Cardiff, Wales, to Greenham Common to protest the
British government's decision to allow 96 cruise missiles to be deployed
at the Greenham Common US Air Force base. It was disbanded after 19 years
of action, in 2000.
2. Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, UN Document A/C.1/52/7.
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches02/safrfissilewpcd.html
3. CD/8/Rev.9 Paragraph 41
4. Statement by H.E. Vladimir Drobnjak, Permanent Representative of the
Republic of Croatia at the General Assembly First Committee 59th session,
11 October, 2004. Available at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/1com/1com04/statements/croatia.pdf
5. The Secretary-General’s report on the work of the Panel of Eminent
Persons on Civil Society and UN Relationships, A/59/354.
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