Nobel peace prize winners called. Obama declined.
In a letter signed by five Nobel Peace laureates, the city nuclear-bombed 65 years ago by the United States asked U.S. President Barack Obama (2009 Nobel laureate) to attend the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates (November 12-14) and the president said “no.”
Signed by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa of Poland, former South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk, East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta and former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez,” the letter asked President Obama to keynote the meeting.
“There could not be a better venue for such a speech than Hiroshima,” the letter said, “nor, perhaps, a more fitting forum than one presented by fellow Nobel Peace Laureates.”
“Militarism, the painful legacy of the twentieth century, which in the past repeatedly brought our planet to the brink of disaster, must be forever relegated to the past, while the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes must become the imperative norm of international relations.” —President Gorbachev —The 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, organized by the Permanent Secretariat of Nobel Peace Laureates Summits and the City of Hiroshima, Japan, meets “under the theme ‘The Legacy of Hiroshima: a World without Nuclear Weapons.’ The objective of nuclear disarmament is a complex and formidable challenge for which all attending Laureates will call on the international community to take immediate action.
“The Summit will issue a Final Declaration to inspire greater support for the ongoing international practical efforts to achieve, finally in this 21st century, the elimination of the nuclear threat.
“Twenty-thousand nuclear weapons held by a handful of nations remain poised over humanity and present an ongoing threat to everything we hold dear, stimulating dangerous proliferation and the possibility of their acquisition by terrorists. There is an urgent necessity for all leaders to downgrade the political currency of nuclear weapons, pledge never to use them, and commence a process leading to negotiations on their elimination. …”
The Arms Control Association writes on its website—
“Twenty-thousand nuclear weapons held by a handful of nations remain poised over humanity and present an ongoing threat to everything we hold dear, stimulating dangerous proliferation and the possibility of their acquisition by terrorists. There is an urgent necessity for all leaders to downgrade the political currency of nuclear weapons, pledge never to use them, and commence a process leading to negotiations on their elimination. …”
The Arms Control Association writes on its website—
“Four years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan (August 1945),” the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device followed by the United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964).
“In the decades since the 1968 signing of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), several states have abandoned nuclear weapons programs but others have defied the NPT.
“India, Israel, and Pakistan have never signed the treaty and possess nuclear arsenals.The Nobel Laureates’ Summit will take place at the same time as the G-20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea, and the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Yokohama. President Obama will be in the region. If he attended the Summit, he would make foreign relations history as “the first sitting U.S. President to visit the city that was the victim of the first atomic bomb.”
“Iraq initiated a secret nuclear program under Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 and has tested nuclear devices since that time. Iran and Libya have pursued secret nuclear activities in violation of the treaty’s terms, and Syria is suspected of doing the same.”
The U.S. President traveling in India and his Secretary of State from Washington this week and over the weekend lectured the Burmese people’s election while pushing U.S. weapons sales in war/conflict-torn Asia. However, the president declined the invitation to attend the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Hiroshima.
— Same ole two-faced policy in foreign relations
What an insulting act of continued regress
What a disgrace —
Sources and notes
Article by ERIC TALMADGE AP, The Canadian Press, http://www.nobelforpeace-summits.org/news-about-the-summit/; http://www.nobelforpeace-summits.org/nobel-peace-laureates-summit-inspiration-from-hiroshima/http://www.nobelforpeace-summits.org/news-about-the-summit/
Posted on Monday November 8, 2010http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/08/2404941/obama-skips-peace-prize-winners.html#ixzz14hgQ61o0
Arms Control Association, http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
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