|
Dear Member Mayor,
Here in Hiroshima, the heat of August and the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing is relenting, and with cool hints of
autumn generating new energy for the tasks ahead, I write to bring you
up to date on the 6th General Conference and the 2020 Vision Campaign.
I am happy to report that cities around the
world are rallying to our cause as never before. The 2020 Vision has moved hundreds of our
member cities to fly great distances to take part in our Mayoral Delegation to the NPT Review Conference in New York and to our conference in Hiroshima.
Our membership figures are soaring as well. We surpassed the 1000 mark
in May during the Review Conference. The figure was 1,080 at the time of the 60th anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9), and membership
stands now at 1,155 (as of Sept.14).
Our mayors are involved in so many city events that we are instituting a
new system to keep track of them all!
With a successful General Conference now behind us, we now enter a new
campaign year (August 2005 to August 2006). In my Peace Declaration, I declared it a Year of Inheritance, Awakening, and Commitment, and it
will certainly put Mayors for Peace to new tests. Can we continue to inspire peace
activists and other key constituencies to work harder than ever? Can we maintain and expand the confidence of
governments to cooperate ever more closely with us? Can we actually bring the
nuclear threat to the attention of the global public? Can our finances keep
pace with our phenomenal growth and our determination to succeed?
There are two areas to which I would like
to draw your immediate attention. The first is our effort to support the national governments that are making
a strong effort to promote disarmament in the UN First Committee. This project primarily involves lobbying at the UN level, but we need your active support to make it work. Please click here for a description of our Jumpstart Disarmament Project and how you can be involved.
The second is our call to action for UN Day/ Disarmament Week. This is a globally coordinated, locally implemented effort to educate the public and direct grassroots attention toward the UN and our Jumpstart Disarmament Project. We have been told in no uncertain terms by the government leaders involved that the success of this project will depend on giving national governments a sense that the people support action on nuclear weapons. To convey that concern, we are asking all our mayors to sponsor or at least facilitate events in their cities that bring the UN and the issue of disarmament to the attention of their citizens. For more information and suggestions of activities, please look at UN Day/ Disarmament Week.
In this connection, please look at this joint statement by mayors and members of Parliament. This statement was created by Mayors for Peace and the Parliamentary
Network for Nuclear Disarmament. It will be submitted to the proper UN
officials with a cover letter emphasizing the importance of action in the
First Committee. This collaboration with PNND is one of our most important
current projects, and I do hope you will sign this statement if you possibly
can.If you are willing to sign, please send an email giving authorization
along with your name, title, and the name of your city to Alyn Ware of
PNND. Please send to: alynw@world-net.co.nz
In my view, the 6th General
Conference held in Hiroshima August 4 to 6 was a tremendous success. At this
conference, our organization formally approved our transition into an active
NGO managing a full-scale campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. The participants expressed their
wholehearted support for the campaign and even offered to contribute to
its implementation. Click here for a brief report on the 6th General Conference.
Now I must turn to an issue of vital
importance. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have shouldered practically
all the expenses of Mayors for Peace for the last twenty-four years. The spectacular growth of membership in
recent years and the heightened activity associated with the 2020 Vision
Campaign are outstripping the ‘carrying capacity’ of our two cities. The
Mayoral Delegation to New York and the 6th General Conference have left our coffers empty, i.e., we have
already exhausted the budget available from Hiroshima and Nagasaki through next
April. We need immediate help or the campaign will not have the impact it has
been designed to have. Eventually, we will develop a campaign that sustains
itself through grants, fundraising events and public donations. However, at
this point we are depending on you. If we are to take this campaign to a higher
level and compete seriously for public attention, we must have access to funds.
If
you can write a check to Mayors for Peace tomorrow for $1000 or even $100, we
beseech you to do so. If you cannot respond immediately, please find a way to
make a donation to the international campaign as soon as possible. If you need a letter of request from me
or a specific grant proposal, don’t hesitate to let me know. I will do whatever
I can to help you help us. For example, you may already know the anti-nuclear-weapons
activists in your city, but if not, we would be happy to introduce you to
allies in your area who would be willing and able to help you organize a
fundraising event. In this way, you could help to raise funds for the campaign
simply by supporting the activists in your community.
I have
discovered that performing and visual artists are eager to contribute their
time and work for our campaign.
Concerts, festivals, and exhibitions are events that the public are
willing to pay for, especially when profits go to a good cause. Of course a portion of such funds should be
retained by the city to carry out local campaign activities, but hopefully much
of it can be forwarded to the international campaign. Your assistance will make
it possible for us to provide the global profile and cohesion essential to
successful campaigning at all levels.
Please click here for some ideas regarding Cooperative Fundraising and here to Make a Donation.
Before closing this letter, let me mention three other projects and events.
First, please read about the Ask the People Project and the Mega-Port/Mega-Impact Project. If you have any good contacts with any foundation or government agency that might be willing to contribute to the financing of these projects, please let us know. In the case of the Ask the People Project,
perhaps your political work already puts you in contact with polling
organizations. The newspaper in your town, for example, may commission national
polls, and we may be able to interest it in playing a leading role in this
project. Any suggestions, advice or introductions will be gratefully received.
Third, please see the special note on the World Urban Forum and World Peace Forum to be held in Vancouver in June 2006. Mayors for Peace needs a
strong presence at these important events, and I suspect your city could
benefit from your participation. These will be the most important international events of our campaign
year. Please mark your calendars now and attend these events if you possibly
can.
Please study our newly-adopted Campaign Plan. I believe it outlines activities that will obtain impressive results in all these areas. This belief is founded in my trust in the commitment of our members- you. With your support the campaign will move from
strength to strength toward a nuclear-weapon-free future. This letter is about how you can contribute
most effectively to the 2020 Vision Campaign.
I hope you find these materials useful. For more information about the
campaign, please look at out 2020 vision brochure. And, there is more on our website.
Thank you for your time in considering and following up on these suggestions. We
enter the new campaign year with great anticipation, as the report on the General
Conference conveys. We have a long
journey ahead on a road we must build ourselves. Please help us build a road
broad enough for the entire human family to walk comfortably toward a genuinely
peaceful world free from nuclear weapons.
Sincerely,
Tadatoshi Akiba
Mayor of Hiroshima
Jumpstart Disarmament Project
As you will recall, the 2020 Vision
Campaign began with a focus on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We were well aware of the shaky state of the
NPT, but we felt we needed to make a good faith effort to put the Treaty on
track toward fulfillment of its fundamental objectives. We did our best. We went to the final
preparatory meeting in April 2004 with a delegation of 19 mayors and deputy mayors, then to the
Review Conference in May 2005 with a delegation of 90 mayors and city
representatives. But the Review failed
to produce any substantive results. Thus, we are compelled to find another
venue for action in the international arena.
Fortunately we
are not alone in this search. The vast majority of nations are eager to press
for real progress, and it appears likely that a resolution will be put before
the First Committee of United Nations General Assembly that will mandate a
subcommittee to begin addressing nuclear disarmament early next year. Such a committee would be free to set its agenda and work program by majority
vote, not the consensus rule. Thus, it could actually begin the process
of negotiating and planning for a nuclear-free world. Such a committee
would “jumpstart the stalled disarmament process” and represent a tremendous
first step toward our 2020 Vision. Therefore, we want to do everything
possible to ensure that the resolution creating the committee is strong
- and strongly supported. You can
help with this.
We soon need you
to contact your head of government and request cooperation with our goals for
the First Committee. In due course, I will send you the name of the resolution
and other information that will help you communicate our message. Please be
thinking about how you can have maximum effect. If you have a good contact at
the national level, that person might be the best avenue. Another possibility
is to write a joint letter with a group of mayors or perhaps with
parliamentarians or other government officials. You could also call for the citizens
in your city to join you in writing letters.
I
have set things in motion by writing directly to your Head of Government about
the need to prepare for the First Committee session at the United Nations in
October. Our representatives in Geneva and New York are in direct contact with
the key diplomats. Your government officials and the United Nations should hear from you and
your citizens that the time has come to jumpstart disarmament talks. Click
here for a sample letter called Letter to Heads of Government.
Advance
Notice: World Urban Forum, Vancouver, 19-23 June 2006
The World Urban Forum is a governmental
meeting hosted by the Canadian Government and UN Habitat. If you need financial assistance to
participate, you should be in touch with the proper national agency as soon as
possible. There is no provision for
assistance with expenses associated with participation in the Peace Forum, but
your national government will be forming a delegation of mayors that you could
join.
The third World Urban Forum in Barcelona
drew 4,400 participants, mostly government officials. If your government attended and included city
leaders, you should move quickly to have your city considered for the 2006
delegation. If your government did not,
then you will have to first convince your Foreign Ministry that this is a good
idea. That could require some effort, but if you succeed you will be at the
front of the line!
Mayors for Peace will organize a workshop
at the Urban Forum on the importance of preventive action in averting nuclear
catastrophe. We will make a presentation of the Mega-Port/Mage-Impact Project (including
the conclusions of the international study if they are available at that
time). And will make the case that, since terrorists cannot be completely eliminated
, the only sure, long-term means of preventing the use of a nuclear explosion
by terrorists is to totally eliminate nuclear weapons and weapons-grade
fissile materials as soon as possible, i.e. the 2020 Vision.
For more information see World Urban Forum
Pre-registration through this website begins in Octorber.
Advance Notice: World Peace Forum, Vancouver, 24-28 June 2006
These will be the most important
international events of our campaign year. The World Urban Forum will gather
hundreds of mayors from around the world and will be an excellent opportunity
to recruit new members and communicate our message to mayors who are still
unaware of the nuclear threat.
The World Peace Forum will be the year’s largest gathering of peace
activists, and it is essential that the issue of nuclear weapons play a
high-visibility role. Please mark your calendars now and attend these events if
you possibly can.
The first plenary session of the forum will be devoted to abolishing
nuclear weapons. Mayors for Peace will participate in many other aspects
of the program to draw the links between nuclear disarmament and peace
generally, including preserving the environment.
Mayors for Peace will hold a reception for city representatives on the
final day of the Urban Forum. We will put on a major workshop or plenary
session, and we will have a display at both the Forums.
For more information:
World Peace Forum - http://www.worldpeaceforum.ca/
General notice: Mayors for Peace wants to take advantage of other national, regional,
and international meetings of mayors to spread word of the 2020 Vision
Campaign. If you are planning to attend any such meets,
please let the Secretariat know in advance.
They can provide you with materials for distribution to any city
officials who may be interested in our campaign and organization. For particularly important gatherings, we may
be able to arrange for Executive Committee members or Secretariat staff to join
you.
|
