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World
Peace Conference Draws Serious Criticism for Lack of Substance Santa
Fe World Peace Conference: “Giving Peace a New Face” We understand that most people believe in peace but we would ask you to think again before participating and attending the “World Peace Conference” in Santa Fe, NM. We hope you will learn more about the circumstances surrounding this conference and choose not to attend.
In a nutshell, this conference is meant to be a whitewash. In planning meetings it has been made crystal clear that none of New Mexico’s most serious issues of peace, war, and justice will be themes. Attempts to point out the fallacy/phoniness of annual state-funded world peace conferences in a state that profits so monetarily from weapons and war were ignored. Some of the organizers of the conference do not understand the moral, conscious choices that have split the activist community. Based on direct communications as well as long experience, many of us believe that no matter what conference speakers and participants say, the overall take-home message of the conference will be that New Mexico is a peace-oriented state and its political leaders, especially Governor Richardson, are committed to and working for “peace.” The truth is otherwise. The entire New Mexico congressional delegation and its Governor have endorsed construction of a new factory for nuclear weapons components near Carlsbad, NM to replace the defunct Rocky Flats plant. In fact, none of our congressional delegation, Governor, or legislature has worked to stop expanding nuclear weapons research and development in the state. Not one. Most work to enable it. This legislative session there are more waking up to the problem yet fearful of making a stand.
Not just nuclear weapons, but space weapons too are a specialty in New Mexico, with treaty-challenging weapon systems under development like the Starfire ground-based anti-satellite laser at Kirtland Air Force Base, to mention just one project among many. In the midst of this nuclear military extravaganza, New Mexico remains among the very poorest of U.S. states, with all the social and health problems that go with it. Democrats have worked hard with the Republicans to expand the military infrastructure in NM. Presidential candidate Richardson boasted in his campaign that expanding the war industry where possible would be a key part of his economic development strategy. Governor Richardson, Senator Jeff Bingaman, and Rep. Tom Udall stand with Senator Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson to keep obsolete Cold War era military bases like Cannon Air Force Base open, or to keep the old F-117s flying down at Holloman Air Force Base. Even in Santa Fe, where this conference is to take place, the administration hosting this conference has supported increasing the number of Black Hawk helicopters based west of the City. Not to put too fine a point on it, Democrats and Republicans stumble over each other to get to the Pentagon planners to put more killing machines in our state but can’t agree on programs to decrease poverty, increase health care, or save our educational system, close to the worst in the country. In effect, they are all actively working against peace. Now comes this tourism-oriented conference (which aspires to be an annual travesty) to give peace “a new face.” Many long-term progressive activists in New Mexico are finding this new level of official hypocrisy unsupportable, even Orwellian. If successful by its own lights, it risks permanent damage to the language and meaning of peace, undercutting any and all efforts to use the democratic process to change priorities. Change requires building a challenge to the status quo, not “reconciling” with it. We think any “peace conference” in New Mexico that does not feature, as a primary focus, New Mexico’s lead role as a purveyor of militarism around the globe will do more harm than good, no matter what excellent, good-faith words are offered by the speakers. It will, we believe, promote continued denial and amnesia. The speakers (and participants) will just end up being used, we believe, to promote new myths about “The Land of Enchantment” and the political fortunes of those running it. There is really nothing any speaker could say at the conference that could change this; any attempted dissent or calls to action would just fit into the broader program of “diversity of views” and “tolerance.” In our combined decades of work for peace, we have learned that the war-makers need only distract and divide us to win. Just distraction is enough. Just work for a “culture of peace,” doesn’t challenge us. Just mediate, don’t challenge us. Just listen to inspiring peacemakers, don’t challenge us. Just find inner peace, don’t challenge us. Just build community, don’t challenge us. Just go to conferences, don’t challenge us. Just work for “peace,” don’t challenge us. Albert Einstein said, “Mere praise of peace is easy, but ineffective. What is needed is active participation in the fight against war and everything that leads to it.” In our view, the primary value of this conference seems to be in the public controversy it is creating now, which has the potential to raise awareness about the very issues this conference would submerge. We urge you to inquire more deeply about the nature of
this conference, its precise agenda, how it came to be, and what good
it could possibly accomplish relative to the active programs of the
existing peace, justice, and disarmament organizations in New Mexico.
Your pointed questions, especially if they were public, would do far
more for peace before the conference than during it. Please help us
build real public awareness, rather than the hollow spectacle and political
self-promotion inherent in this faux peace conference, which in our
view would be better off cancelled. The substantial funds involved
would be better off redirected toward genuine work for disarmament,
which requires at a minimum a prior commitment to it. This is an excerpt
of a larger discussion given to all prospective conference participants
and speakers asking them to re-think their position. This conference
will only set back work by peace groups that have made a moral and conscious
decision to work for non-proliferation. Elaine Cimino and 105 individual
signers including Stop the War machine Nukes out of Duke City Los Alamos
Study Group The Empty Chair Project The Duck and Cover Coalition Citizens
for Environmental Safeguards And other groups representing 5000 Peace
Activists in New Mexico. |
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The
conference, organized by the New Mexico Department of Tourism, is attracting
growing public controversy in New Mexico. Organizational and financial
issues concerning the conference and the lack of endorsement by long-time
peace and anti-war activists in New Mexico have been themes in recent
two copyrighted articles by Polly Summar in the Albuquerque Journal.
Fully
half of U.S. nuclear warhead spending occurs in New Mexico, and at Kirtland
Air Force Base in Albuquerque our state harbors more nuclear weapons
than any other, in fact more than at any other single place in the world.
We have four military bases, two military nuclear waste disposal sites,
the two largest nuclear labs in the world, a $715 million nuclear weapons
administrative and contracting center, and a good deal more besides.
Los Alamos, the pivotal site in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, is
poised to begin factory-scale production of plutonium warhead cores
for a new generation of nuclear weapons.