XIV World Congress
Paris, France
June 30-July 2, 2000
Closing Plenary Speech
Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, Co-President
Twenty years ago, in the dark times of the Cold War, a handful of doctors challenged orthodox beliefs about the enemy and founded an organisation of doctors determined to prevent nuclear war. From its beginning, IPPNW focused on the fact that there could be no meaningful medical response to a nuclear war, that prevention is the only rational course.
We are not a group of activists who happen to be doctors: we are doctors first, committed to easing suffering and death. We bring that commitment to the global stage in our attempt to prevent the ultimate suffering and death of nuclear war . The tools of our work are research, education and advocacy, and our unique contribution is that we bring the skills, expertise and ethics of medicine to the work of preventing war. We are non-partisan and neutral with regard to conflicts. We recognize that nuclear war cannot be prevented without preventing conventional war.
We know that in more than half the world, doctors face the immediacy of other issues such as inadequate nutrition, polluted water, disease and poverty, and that nuclear war seems a distant problem. At the same time, we know that the effects of a nuclear war would not spare the South. In 1993 the mandate of IPPNW was expanded to read "IPPNW seeks to prevent all wars, to promote non-violent conflict resolution, and to minimize the effects of war and preparations for war on health, development, and the
environment."
We have been part of several major successes on the path to disarmament. Let me remind you of them briefly. The World Court Project, brought to IPPNW by the new Zealand affiliate, galvanized members all over the world to write letters to their own governments and to lobby at WHO and the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion of the World Court regarding the legality of nuclear weapons. These actions were singularly successful and culminated in the 1996 statement of the Court that in general, the threat or use of nuclear weapons is not legal under international law. The World Court marked the first time that a global citizens' initiative resulted in action at the UN General Assembly and a case at the World Court.
A second example of IPPNW collaborating in a powerful action by civil society is the International Campaign to ban Landmines. In this case, government took up the cause raised by NGO's and parallel work at the official level resulted in the 1997 Treaty to Ban Antipersonnel Landmines.
Often it is assumed that the countries of the South are not concerned about nuclear weapons, or that they can have little effect on the policies of the nuclear weapons states. The facts are otherwise. When the World Court Project sought governments to take the question to the general assembly, it was the nonaligned movement of 110 states that took up challenge and led the way. When IPPNW lobbied the World health Assembly to also submit the question of the legality of nuclear weapons, Zambia, Mexico and others were pivotal in reaching that agreement.
The recent Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference produced a final document that gives an unequivocal commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The enormous power of the Nuclear 5 states was countered by the tenacity of a handful of states known as the New Agenda Coalition - Mexico, Egypt and South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and Ireland. Of these, Egypt was a tenacious leader in holding the N-5 to their obligation to full and complete nuclear disarmament.
These successes mean that our efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons are backed by international law, and now by the agreement by 187 countries including the nuclear weapons states. India, Pakistan and Israel must now be brought into this agreement.
In his introductory speech at the NPT Review, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan proposed a conference on Reducing Nuclear Dangers. Such a conference, held outside the NPT, could include India, Pakistan and Israel. This proposal must be taken up by a nation willing to host the conference, and would benefit from the strong support of the NGO community, particularly from IPPNW.
In other recent developments, Russia has ratified the CTBT and START II, and is pressing the US to agree to reduce nuclear warheads to 1500 on each side.
On the other hand, the development of the US National Missile Defense Program will reverse the progress made in decades of disarmament agreements by undermining the ABM Treaty and by stimulating a new nuclear arms race. While the NPT Review was in progress, the United States was embarrassed by the release by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist of documents showing that the US was trying to convince Russia to permit modifications to the ABM Treaty that would allow the missile defense program. The Americans told the Russians not to worry about NMD because with 2000-2500 nuclear weapons they would be able to overwhelm the American missile defense scheme. The US told Russia that both countries would have nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. In other words, the US was saying one thing at the NPT Review and doing another in its negotiations with Russia. China indicated that if the US went ahead with NMD, China would have to respond by increasing its arsenal.
The world is at a fork in the road. If we allow the US missile defense system, we cannot achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. Either we go in the direction of missile defense and a new arms race, or we go in the direction of de-alerting and eliminating nuclear weapons. We cannot go both ways.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, put it this way in his letter to this IPPNW Congress:
"The characteristic feature of the current situation of which the international community is getting increasingly aware, is the following. Either we will be able to save and enhance by joint effort everything we achieved in non-proliferation and reduction of nuclear weapons, or the entire system of the international and bilateral agreements developed in past years in this field will be threatened. Particularly important will be the outcome of the debate over the ABM Treaty triggered by the US intention to create a national missile defense."
The US stands alone in its plan for missile defense, against both its enemies and its allies. This situation presents a unique opportunity for IPPNW affiliates, and indeed the entire NGO community, to work with our governments, supported by international law, to oppose the development of this scheme. Missile defense is based on a world view that only domination by force can guarantee security. This world view has given way in most countries to the view that common security is ensured by strengthening international law and cooperation with other nations. It is time for the
US to join this new way of thinking.
You have heard about IPPNW's annual delegations to decision makers in the nuclear weapons states. These delegations continue to build on the early strategy of IPPNW to meet with key leaders. In his book, Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev wrote:
"The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has come to exercise a tremendous influence on world opinion in quite a short period of time... I had met Professor Lown before, but this time, after their congress in Moscow, I met all the leaders of the movement. It is impossible to ignore what these people are saying. What they are doing commands great respect. For what they say and what they do is prompted by accurate knowledge and a passionate desire to warn humanity about the
danger looming over it.
In the light of their arguments and the strictly scientific data which they possess, there seems to be no room left for politicking. And no serious politician has the right to disregard their conclusions."
The changes in warfare in the past century have resulted in increasing the proportion of civilian deaths, until civilians now make up 95% of the deaths in war. Recent changes in military strategy from targeting populations to targeting infrastructure have been described as "war on public health" In the case of Iraq and Serbia, sanctions have prevented reconstruction and restoration of the basic needs of a modern society. The significance of this change has raised little outcry because when the bombing stops the media withdraw and the impression is left that the war somehow spared the innocent. The insidious effects of destroying the water supply, sewage system, agriculture, food distribution, electricity, fuel systems and the economic base for an entire country are not obvious until starvation and disease create a humanitarian crisis that cannot be ignored. In fact, far from sparing the innocent, this deliberate strategy disproportionately kills the very young, the very old and the very weak. IPPNW must take this issue to the public as an inhuman violation of all standards of civilized behavior and demand that civilians not be held hostage to the dictators they are powerless to remove.
One further issue has slipped from the agenda of social action. It is the issue of militarism and the environment. In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development inadvertently sparked a downturn in the level of collaboration between activists working on environment and those working on disarmament. President George Bush prevented the topic of militarism and the environment from being on the official agenda of UNCED. The NGO Forum focused to a large extent on the issue s that were on the table, and gradually, the importance of the environmental destruction wrought by the world's military forces seems almost to have disappeared from the agendas of environmental conferences. This loss is of grave concern, because of the level of devastation caused by worldwide military activities. IPPNW must restore it associations with related environmental researchers and activists and rebuild the synergy of collaborative work on these issues.
IPPNW today has strong affiliates acting on a wide range of issues. We have developed effective e-mail communications that allow us to make decisions rapidly with full participation of our federation. We have a highly effective central office, and a presence at the UN through the new New York office. We are key participants in the Hague Agenda for Peace and the Middle Powers Initiative. We are developing new joint programs with PSR/USA that will bring the influence of an international organization to support the work of our American affiliate. We have a growing student movement and an important relationship with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations.
The next two years will define the world's direction concerning nuclear weapons. We must also work to shine a spotlight on the bloody civil wars in Africa and elsewhere that kill and maim countless thousands, and ruthlessly destroy the prospects for democracy and economic stability.
Viktor Frankl wrote" Auschwitz showed what man is capable of, and Hiroshima showed what is at stake."
Our work is daunting in its scope, but we have many allies and many successes behind us. For twenty years we have worked together with great respect for the strengths and creativity that come with diversity. Our friendships have overcome disagreements, financial difficulties, and vast distances. Our commitment to our shared ideals gives us the will and the power to change the world.
| 
