wfn.org | Oscar Arias: Urges AFSC - Stop Spread of Arms, Build ‘World Without

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.apc.org>]

Poverty’

Mustafa Malik
Director of Media Relations
American Friends Service Committee
PH: 215/241-7060
FAX: 215/241-7275
E-MAIL: mmalik@afsc.org
http://www.afsc.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 1997

Contact:  Mustafa Malik (215) 241-7060, or Kate Green (215) 241-7054

Oscar Arias:  Stop Spread of Arms, Build ‘World Without Poverty’

PHILADELPHIA – Oscar Arias Sanchez had strong words here Saturday for arms
traders and the U.S. government policy that patronizes them.

An arms merchant is no different from a slaveholder or a drug trafficker,
said the former Costa Rican president at an American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC) gathering.  All three "reap profits tainted with blood."

Arias, the 1987 Nobel Peace laureate, was the keynoter at the 50th
anniversary celebration of the Nobel Peace award to the Religious Society
of Friends, also known as Quakers.

Donald S. Gann, the AFSC board chairman, said the unchecked manufacture and
sale of weapons are a major cause of violence in U.S. communities and
abroad.  He called upon Quakers and the AFSC, one of their service arms, to
help mobilize U.S. public opinion against the spread of arms.

"The world’s leading producer and exporter of arms," Gann told the
1,000-strong audience, "is our country."

The celebration of the Quakers’ golden Nobel anniversary was the highlight
of the annual AFSC gathering, which drew Quakers, AFSC officials and
activists from around the country.

Arias underscored the need to drum up public support for an "International
Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers," which he, the AFSC and 13 other Nobel
Peace laureates launched last year to curb the transfer of arms to
dictatorial regimes and those abusing human rights.  Jody Williams, the
winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and former President Jimmy Carter
have also announced their support of the code.  Meanwhile, Britain and
Belgium are trying to present a similar code to the European Union for
adoption.

Arias said since the end of the Cold War, Western industrialized nations
are cutting back on their defense spending.  This has spurred Western arms
merchants into a scramble for new clients in the developing world "where
the majority of conflicts take place today."

"The United States," he said, "stands as an extreme case.  Currently, the
U.S. is responsible for 45 percent of all weapons deliveries in the world.
And in the past four years, 85 percent of U.S. arms sales have gone to
undemocratic governments in the developing world."

Those arms, he continued, are bolstering repressive dictatorships at the
expense of the poor, who are "crying out for schools and doctors, not guns
and generals."

Arias said the waste of resources on arms is undermining "human security"
by contributing to the persistence of "ignorance, sickness, hunger, neglect
and persecution."  While "a few" make fortunes by selling arms to poorer
nations, he went on, 1 billion people remain illiterate, 70 percent of them
women, and "around 800 million go hungry every day."  And yet, a fraction
of the global arms budgets could eliminate poverty and provide health care
throughout the developing world.

The 20th century, according to Arias, has been the most violent in all
human history, marked by recurrent human catastrophes from the Russian
Revolution to the Holocaust to the Cambodian genocide to the Rwandan
massacres.  He blamed them on "the ethics" of this century characterized by
"cynicism, selfishness, greed," and warned world leaders that human
survival in the coming century is at stake unless the proclivity for greed
is replaced by values of "solidarity and compassion."

The Costa Rican statesman made an impassioned appeal for the creation of
"an alliance of global citizens against poverty and arms trade" and for
re-channeling the world’s resources "to feed, educate and clothe" the less
fortunate.

"A world without poverty is not a utopia," he declared.  "It is a goal
attainable in the near future."

					--30--