World sleepwalking down Nuclear weapons path?

Excerpt:

?A stirring in human consciousness is taking place that would suggest that war does not work,? he said.

 

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=21520

 

 

World almost sleepwalking down n-weapons path, Vatican nuncio warns 10/5/2006 Catholic Online UNITED NATIONS (Catholic Online) ? The international community is almost sleepwalking down a path of nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism, the Vatican nuncio to the United Nations said Oct. 5, calling on U.N. member nations to make a renewed commitment to dialogue and multilateral negotiations. In an address to the U.N. General Assembly First Committee on disarmament issues, including nuclear, conventional and biological weapons, and international security, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, head of the Holy See?s permanent observer delegation to the international body, pointed to existent agreements that have failed to be adequately implemented and proposals needed to reduce the risk of a world at war. As one of eight nations speaking during the Thursday debate, the Vatican also raised the threat of the $4 billion annual global arms trade. ?A stirring in human consciousness is taking place that would suggest that war does not work,? he said. ?Military force does not bring the expected improvement for the common good,? he said. ?Recent wars have unleashed forces that still corrode civilizations and the consequent human suffering is inexcusable in an age that possesses the mechanisms for negotiation, mediation, peacemaking, and peacekeeping. While noting that ?the number of interstate conflicts has been declining? and that peacekeeping operations have prevented many conflicts, the events of recent months ?have been discouraging, with conflicts, destruction and loss of life,? the nuncio said. He pointed to a U.N. conference on small arms that failed to produce significant results, that the world?s 27,000 nuclear-weapon stockpile is ?alarmingly high? and that international military expenditures topped $1 trillion for the second straight year. To realize the benefits of an ?increasingly interdependent world,? Archbishop Migliore said, ?much better dialogue is needed in the disarmament fora of the United Nations.? ?The debate seems to remain sterile,? he said. ?Too often, the debates over small arms and nuclear weapons are carried on in abstract terms from preconceived positions and there is little sign of willingness to learn.? Concerning nuclear weapons, he said, the urgency of dialogue ?increases daily.? He agreed with the belief that the world has come to crossroads concerning nuclear weapons. ?One path can take us to a world in which the proliferation of nuclear weapons is restricted and reversed through trust, dialogue and negotiated agreement. The other path leads to a world in which rapidly growing numbers of states feel obliged to arm themselves with nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear terrorism grows,? he said. ?The international community seems almost to be sleepwalking down the latter path, not by conscious choice but rather through miscalculation, sterile debate and the paralysis of multilateral mechanisms for confidence-building and conflict resolution,? the archbishop said. ?This strong indictment,? he said, should compel the international community to commit to the implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ?to facilitate the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, to legalize the Negative Security Assurances, and to take nuclear weapons off high-alert status.? Such steps, he added, would decrease the risks associated with use, access to terrorists and strengthening of non-proliferation of catastrophic weapons. The archbishop called upon ?governments which openly or secretly possess nuclear arms, or those planning to acquire them, agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament.? ?Policies of nuclear deterrence, typical of the Cold War, can and must be replaced by concrete measures of disarmament based on dialogue and multilateral negotiations,? he stressed. On small arms, Archbishop Migliore said that if the often-ignored ?human dimension,? especially concerning children, were emphasized, a comprehensive global agreement could be achieved to close loopholes in national export laws that ?unscrupulous arms dealers? exploit. ?Six hundred and forty million of these weapons in the world today kill and maim tens of thousands, spark refugee crises, undermine the rule of law and spawn a culture of violence and impunity,? the archbishop said. ?Surely focusing on the huge numbers of those who suffer from the illicit spread of small arms should impel us to achieve an arms trade treaty.? The Holy See delegation urged the establishment of binding regulations of the conventional weapons trade that sets international standards for import, export and transfer of arms.

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