Greetings to the delegates and hosts of the World Conference against A & H Bombs!
My name is Sally Light, and I am the Executive Director of the internationally-known non-governmental organization, Nevada Desert Experience, or "NDE," in the United States. I bring you greetings from our 5,000 members around the world.
For 20 years, NDE has organized faith-based, peaceful demonstrations, involving thousands of people from around the world, at the Nevada Test Site in the United States, protesting the nuclear weapons tests that have occurred there (involving over 1,000 bombs). On many occasions, people from Japan, including Hibakusha, have come to our demonstrations. We feel honored to be invited by our Japanese brothers and sisters to participate in this very important conference.
NDE belongs to Abolition 2000, a Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, its US affiliate, the US Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Global Network against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and other coalitions and networks that are local, regional, national and global. I have the honor to be a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000, a Coordinator of the US Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. Thus, NDE has expanded its mission to deal with both nuclear and "Star Wars" issues, as they overlap and must be dealt with comprehensively, not as separate problems.
As you know, the United States is pursuing a path that threatens to undermine international stability. It is both aggressively modernizing its nuclear weapons and rapidly moving toward putting weapons into space. It is in fact rapidly integrating space technology, nuclear technology and high-energy lasers used as weapons with the stated goal of orbiting armed space stations around the Earth by the year 2020.
This is no less than taking over the world by force, becoming a "master race" which dominates the entire planet militarily and economically. It would be the ultimate, and final, wave of western colonialization.
NDE has 20 years of experience in grassroots organizing. We are rapidly expanding our activities to effectively build the movement on local, national and international levels. Invitations have been coming to us from all parts of the world to participate in conferences, actions and strategy sessions: France, England, Japan, Brazil, Russia, and the US. Many more invitations are probably coming to us soon. We intend to be at the forefront of this global groundswell, offering what we can to the international community so that it can, as one powerful entity, stop the US military-industrial complex before it achieves its goal of world domination.
While here in Japan, I will be speaking at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto on both nuclear and "Star Wars" topics, as well as meeting with many groups, students, and others. I also hope to make new connections with many of the organizations represented at this conference so that we may support one another and perhaps develop mutual projects. It will take every ounce of energy for the peoples of the world to stop the US. Only by working together as quickly and as cooperatively as we can, will we be able to prevent the US from implementing its dangerous agenda.
One of the projects that my group hopes to carry out is to build a center in the United States, inspired by the memorial here in Hiroshima. We intend it to be many things - an archive and information center about nuclear weapons, an international pilgrimage point, as well as a way to bring home to the United States the truth about what it has done in creating a monstrous nightmare. It is a way to bring accountability to the United States and to sensitize the people there about the threat to the entire world posed by the nuclear cycle. We hope that some of you will consider being our partners in designing and building this center in the United States. We would be honored by your participation.
Again, it is an honor to be here. Thank you.
To the 2001 Wolrd Conference against A & H Bombs