Greetings to this Conference from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain. I am moved to be with you to commemorate the great crime that was perpetrated against this city.
We are living through a time of great danger. The United States is threatening the peace of the world through an aggressive unilateralism. It is tearing up international treaties and trampling upon international law. With the support of the British government the U.S. administration has launched a doctrine of pre-emptive war and a nuclear first use policy. There is no doubt that they were prepared to use nuclear weapons in their illegal and immoral war on Iraq.
Our greatest task today is to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, while we continue to work for their abolition. In this task, world opinion is on our side. Our challenge today is to turn that support into an unstoppable movement against war.
This process has already began. On 15th February, tens of millions of people throughout the world demonstrated against- 2 million in London alone.
This is an extraordinary new movement. It draws together peace campaigners with a mass of new organizations- against globalization and for social justice. It unites those campaigning for nuclear disarmament with all those who realized that the war on Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. It was a war for the strategic and economic interests of the United States.
Together we must build on the diversity of this new movement, which has peace at its heart. We must embrace all the forces against war in a unity so strong it will be unstoppable. Together let us take the peace movement forward, confident that we will prevail in the struggle for peace, that will be the greatest tribute to those lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Thank you.