Statement from Latin America – January 4th 2016

Towards IPB Berlin Conference / October 2016

FOR WORLD PEACE, A SUSTAINABLE BUILDING OF A CULTURE OF PEACE AND AGAINST ARMAMENT RACE

Today Peace is a basic need for Humanity and the construction of a Culture of Peace appears to be an urgent ethical will within the Latin American region – like the rest of the world.

The XX Century with its World Wars, holocausts, regional conflicts, atomic explosions and increased economic, social and cultural gaps showed a bigger number of victims compared with the whole former centuries in the history of Humanity..

From Latin America we join our voices with those who demand the cease of the Armament Race asking in particular for the elimination of nuclear weapons as we promote a more just, cooperative and peaceful World, where the dissolution of conflicts happens by concrete and sustainable transformations for the sake of society and individuals.

Tragic conflicts are happening in many regions of the world – Conflicts that cause extreme poverty, thousands of deaths, disappearing of people, eradications and all kinds of suffering. Children, youth, women and men escape from war, from hunger, from aggressions within groups of different origin and they are also victims of shipwreck and hard life conditions at destination sites. At the same time extreme poverty deepens and misery expands while thousands of people die per day due to hunger, illness, non-sanitary services, lack of basic needs and desperation.

This reality gets wider and is reproduced when violence and war prevail.

From Latin America – in order to support the work for Disarmament and the Construction of a Culture of Peace we ask for,

Collaboration and promotion of them at local, national, regional and international levels. We also ask for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the decrease of military budgets and weapon race as well as the promotion of national budgets for development and the application of conflict dissolution strategies by peaceful means.

Supporting the International Peace Bureau Berlin Conference Program, Vision and Mission – we CALL Latin American organizations, governments and society as a whole to make a collective effort to contribute and strengthen the international work that is being developed FOR the International Conference in Berlin to be launched in October 2016.

Alicia Cabezudo ( Argentina), IPB – Co Vice President

Victor Brindisi ( Uruguay), IPB – Board Member

In Argentina and Uruguay , January 2016