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Arms Reduction Coalition

• Towards the peaceful use of national resources
  in the 21st century
• How can we achieve this? And what is the role for
  campaign groups and civil society?

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• Monday, 27th February 2006
• The House of Lords, Room 4
• Chair
• Lord Peter Archer of Sandwell

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• Dr Stuart Parkinson
• Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility
  (SGR)
• The role of science and Technology in building
  peace

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• Diana Basterfield
• Co-Founder of UK Ministry for Peace
• Violence and the war in Iraq cost society
  dear-What a Ministry for Peace could do

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• Vijay Mehta
• Chairperson of Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC)
• Changing the priorities and mindset of our world
  turned upside down

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• Prof. J Paul Dunne
• Co-ordinator of Economists for Peace and
  Security-UK (EPS-UK)
• Economics and Disarmament

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• Prof. Sir Richard Jolly
• Institute of Development Studies
• Human Security-a frame for rethinking arms
  reduction and development

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• 5 out of 10 Nobel Peace Prize winning Economists
  (who worked for the UN) are Passionately in
  favour of Disarmament.

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• World Disarmament Campaign Annual General Meeting
  And Spring Conference.
• Saturday 18 March 06 10.30am
• Bloomsbury Baptist Church, Shaftesbury Avenue,
  London WC1
• Speaker Dan Plesch Disarmament What is
  possible now?

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• 'We should recall Article 26 of the Charter of
  the United Nations, which envisages an
  international system based on the "least
  diversion for armaments of the worlds human and
  economic resources".'
• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the foreword
  to the 2004 Report of the Group of Governmental
  Experts on the Relationship between Disarmament
  and Development.

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• The 25bn required to replace the trident nuclear
  capacity could be spent on 120,000
  newly-qualified nurses every year for the next
  ten years, Scrapping student top-up fees for the
  next ten years, 60,000 newly-qualified teachers
  every year for the next twenty years, 100,000
  extra fire fighters every year for the next ten
  years, protecting 900 million acres of
  rainforest, 100,000 extra community midwives
  every year for the next ten years and Meeting UN
  Millennium Goals aid target of 0.7 of GNP every
  year for the next six years.
• Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
  webhttp//www.cnduk.org/pages/ntrep.pdf

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• The progressive, balanced and controlled
  elimination of weapons of mass destruction and
  the stabilization at the lowest possible level of
  the defensive weapon systems of countries, is an
  objective that should obtain the necessary
  consensus as a firs step toward increased
  security.
• Pope John Paul II-From the Vatican, 31 May 1988

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• Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
  compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial
  and military machinery of defense with our
  peaceful methods and goals so that security and
  liberty may prosper together.
• President Eisenhower-January 1961

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• More arms do not make mankind safer, only
  poorer.
• Willy Brandt-Coordinator of the Brandt Commission
• The cause of development and the cause of peace
  are one.
• Louis Fréchette-UN Deputy Secretary-General

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• The Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC) is calling for
  the United Nations (UN) to agree a legally
  binding instrument requiring UN member States to
  reduce the amount of resources spent on arms by
  between 1 and 5 percent per year for a period of
  10 to 25 years. This is based on Article 26 of
  the UN Charter which states "In order to promote
  the establishment and maintenance of
  international peace and security with the least
  diversion for armaments of the worlds human and
  economic resources".

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• "In considering this proposal, Please be mindful
  of the fact that 9.2 millions people have died in
  Africa in the last 10 years (1994 to 2003) due to
  the effects of conventional arms in conflicts. 9
  millions dead in the last 10 years. Thats like
  the whole of London or New York, or Yokohama and
  Los Angles, or Sydney and Uruguay, or Ireland and
  Central African Republic dead in the last 9
  years. 9 Million dead, over 70 being civilians
  mostly women and children. 9 million dead, yet
  incredibly, not one person has been prosecuted
  for supplying the weapons of their destruction
  and death. It's like legalised aiding, abetting
  and facilitating mass slaughter of the
  innocents." Karl Miller

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• "Every gun, every warship, every tank and every
  military aircraft built is, in the final
  analysis, a theft from those who are hungry and
  are not fed, from those who are naked and are not
  clothed."
• Dwight D Eisenhower

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• The present cycle that must be broken is
• A) Large amounts of resources are used to make
  weapons.
• B) The weapons are used to maim and kill people
  and to destroy their homes, their infrastructure
  and the environment.
• C) The UN, NGOs and people who care are left to
  pick up the pieces and try to alleviate the
  resulting poverty and suffering and rebuilding
  their environments.
• D) The world turns. Humanity advances. The
  weapons are replenished by more advanced and
  destructive ones and the cycle starts again."

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• The Arms Reduction Coalition is working for the
  implementation of UN Charter Article 26 by
  transferring resources from arms to programmes
  that help the Earth and its inhabitants.

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• "Adequate guarantees given and taken that
  national armaments will be reduced to the lowest
  points consistent with domestic safety"Point 4
  of President Woodrow Wilson's 'Peace Programme',
  which he insisted, form the basis of the 1918
  post-war Armistice.

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• "Halt and eventually reverse a disturbing
  increase in global and military expenditures, and
  to redirect such funds into much-needed
  development projects".
• Kofi Annan on the need for Arms control
  agreements. January 2003

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• " Convinced that reductions of military
  expenditure could be carried out without
  affecting the military balance to the detriment
  of the national security of any country".
• UN Resolution 35/142B "Reduction of military
  budgets" December 1980

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• "We have a moral obligation and duty to think,
  speak, and act first as citizens for a peaceful
  world, and next as scientists. The higher our
  education is, the higher our responsibilities are
  for a humane world." Plato 5th-4th Century BC

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• "All states have the duty to promote the
  achievement of general and complete disarmament
  under effective international control and to
  utilise the resources released by effective
  disarmament measures for the economic and social
  development of countries, allocating a
  substantial portion of such resources as
  additional means for the development needs of
  developing countries"Article 15 of of the
  Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of
  States (UN Economic and Social Council Charter)

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• " Isn't it time to ask the leaders of the Third
  World these questions
• Why do they insist on spending two or three times
  as much on arms as on the education and health of
  their people?
• Why do they have 20 times more soldiers than
  doctors?
• How can they find the resources for
  air-conditioned jeeps for their military generals
  when the lack even windowless classrooms for
  their children?
• Jayantha Dhanapala

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• And isn't it time to ask the leaders of the rich
  nations to stop the continuing arithemetic of
  death and destruction in the Third World ---
  where 22 million people have died in more than
  120 conflicts during the 'peaceful transition'
  since the Second World War? Should they not fix a
  concrete timetable -- say, the next three years
  --- to
• Close all foreign military bases in developing
  countries?
• Convert all existing military aid to economic
  aid?
• Stop the arms shipments of more than 35 billion
  a year that make huge profits from poor nations
  that cannot even feed their people?
• Eliminate subsidies to arms exporters and retrain
  their workers for jobs in civilian industries?
• Jayantha Dhanapala

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Arms Reduction Coalition

• Disarmament and development are two of the
  international communitys most important tools
  for building a world free from want and fear.

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• By controlling or reducing the availability or
  use of the implements of armed violence and armed
  conflict, disarmament policies and programmes can
  facilitate
• a decrease in military expenditure,
• defuse tensions and encourage trust in
  inter-State and intra-State relations,
• help to impede the development of and spending
  on new weapons and diminish the risk,
• incidence and severity of armed conflict and
  armed violence,
• thus improving stability and freeing resources
  for other activities, such as economic and social
  development.

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• At the same time,
• by promoting economic and social progress
• and by generating opportunities for people,
• development policies and programmes can
  contribute to
• eradicating poverty,
• promoting economic growth
• and stabilizing economies and States,
• thereby creating conditions of increased
  security and well being.
• Security and stability serve as the foundation
  for disarmament and development.
• Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on
  the relationship between disarmament and
  development A 59 119 - 23 June 2004

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• Estimates by Interpol say 600 million illegal
  small arms in the world are being used to kill
  half a million people every year.
• From NGLS Go Between 108 Nov 05

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• In the Last Decade
• 2 Million Children have been killed in situations
  of armed conflict.
• 6 Million Children have been disable or injured.
• Over 500,000 Child soldiers are being abused and
  exploited today in situations of armed conflict
  around the globe.
• From NGLS Go Between 108 Nov 05

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• Remember. "with all its" violence, "sham,
  drudgery and broken dreams it is still a
  beautiful world. Be Careful. Strive to be happy"
  and Enjoy! Whatever you do