World Without Wars

The association World Without Wars works to promote and foster all kinds of ideas and actions that have the potential of helping put an end to war in our world. Its methodology of action is based on active nonviolence.

Founder Rafael de la Rubia introduced World Without Wars at the international level for the first time in 1995, at the “Open Encounter of Humanism” at the University of Santiago in Chile, an event attended by delegates from more than 50 countries.

Since that time WWW has been developing numerous activities in many countries on the five continents. Over the last year it has focused on campaigns for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

Convinced that a world without violence is possible, WWW takes its inspiration from the philosophy of Universalist Humanism and the doctrine of its antecedents

WWW subscribes to and promotes the “Humanist Document,” whose basic tenets are:

• Rejection of physical violence, whose maximum expression is war, and of all other forms of violence: economic, racial, religious and sexual.

• Freedom of ideas and diversity of beliefs for all human beings.

• Development of knowledge and science at the service of life.

• Recognition of diversity among individuals, peoples and cultures in our world.

• Affirmation of the equality of all human beings.

• The human being as the central value and concern.

WWW observes that the great majority of human beings do not want war, but at the same time do not believe it is possible to eliminate it. Therefore, in addition to carrying out social actions, it is necessary to work to change people’s beliefs about this supposedly unchangeable reality.

WWW understands the meaning of history as:

• A continual effort to overcome personal and social pain and suffering, to achieve happiness, freedom, and joy of life.

• An uninterrupted struggle over the millennia to transform the natural environment into a place congenial to human life, and the social environment into a place worthy of development without limits.

When war has been eliminated humanity will emerge definitively from its prehistory and take a gigantic step forward on the path of human evolution.

WWW organizes itself in each country, each city and each neighborhood by forming grassroots groups that share these ideas. These groups freely plan and develop their activities, including Platforms for Disarmament.

In addition to local and national actions, WWW is promoting the following campaigns at the international level: “Europe for Peace,” “Europe Without Nuclear Arms,” “Mediterranean Without Nuclear Arms,” and “Latin America Without War,” among others.

Countries with mobilizations to celebrate the International Day of Non-Violence on October2, 2007

World March for Peace and Nonviolence 2009-2010

Circling the globe in 90 days

The Great March will begin in New Zealand, the easternmost country on Earth, touring 90 countries on the 6 continents, covering a distance of 99,419 miles (160,000 kilometers) by land, sea and air, and concluding three months later in Chile/Argentina, the countries furthest to the west in the Southern Hemisphere. All modes of transport will be used: 40 train trips (including the Trans Siberian), 100 trips by land (four-wheel-drive, bus, car, motorcycle, bicycle, etc.), including the segments from Paris to Dakar and from North to South America through the Andes Mountains; 14 trips by air; 25 trips by sea (ship, barge, canoe, etc.).

A permanent core team of some 100 people of different nationalities will make the complete journey. All along the route festivals, gatherings, concerts, conferences, demonstrations, marches, forums, etc. will take place.

 

Planned Itinerary for the World March

“So that the voices of millions who yearn for peace can be heard as they call for the end of war and all forms of violence.”

This is the first World March to circle the whole planet calling for nuclear disarmament and the end of war.

An action organized for the first time at a planetary level, with the intention of uniting all organizations and individuals who recognize that the real way out of the current world situation lies in pacifism and nonviolence.

The March is at once a denunciation and a warning to the violent governments that are leading humanity towards a dead end.

It is an action directed toward recovering the best qualities of the diverse cultures and peoples of the Earth; toward bringing into convergence the wills of all human beings in civil society in order to definitively eliminate the social scourge of war.

When will it happen?

The World March will begin in New Zealand on October 2, 2009, the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, declared the “International Day of Non-Violence” by the United Nations. It will conclude in the Andes Mountains (Punta de Vacas, Aconcagua, Argentina) on January 2, 2010. It will last 90 days, three long months of travel, and will pass through all climates and seasons, from the hot summer of the tropics and the deserts, to the Siberian winter.

The longest stages will be the American and Asian, both nearly one month.

Who will participate?

Participation in the World March is wide open to all individuals and groups who are in tune with its spirit. There are many possible ways to participate: joining the WM and its activities at some point along its route; organizing and publicizing activities; and participating virtually through the WM website. We aspire to have thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of participants from all the continents.

What are our objectives?

• To denounce the dangerous world situation that is leading us closer and closer to nuclear war, which would be the greatest catastrophe in human history – a dead end.

• To give a voice to the majority of world citizens who want peace. Although the majority of the human race opposes the arms race, we are not sending out a unified signal. Instead we are letting ourselves be manipulated by a powerful minority and suffering the consequences. The time has come to stand together and show our opposition. Join a multitude of others in sending a clear signal, and your voice will have to be heard!

• To achieve the eradication of nuclear weapons; the progressive and proportional reduction of non-nuclear arms; the signing of non-aggression treaties among nations; and the renunciation by governments of war as a way to resolve conflicts, specifying this at a constitutional level.

Why?

Because we can end world hunger with 10% of what is spent on arms. Imagine how life would be if 30-50% of the arms budget went toward improving people’s lives instead of being used for destruction.

Because eliminating wars and violence means leaving human pre-history behind and taking a giant step forward in the evolution of our species.

Because we are accompanied by the voices of all the war-torn generations that came before us. The echo of their voices still resounds throughout the world, wherever armed conflict leaves its sinister memorial to the dead, disappeared, disabled and displaced.

Because a “world without wars” is an image that opens the future and seeks to become reality in every corner of the planet, as violence gives way to dialog.

The moment has come for the voiceless to be heard! Out of agonizing and urgent need, millions of human beings are crying out for an end to wars and violence. We can make that happen by uniting all the forces of pacifism and active nonviolence worldwide.

Therefore we convoke all individuals as well as representatives and members of organizations, groups, political parties, and businesses, to become part of this great World March for Peace and Nonviolence.

 

Wars in Today’s World

Before, during, and after the American bombing of the Persian Gulf, many other battle fronts have been (and still are) open at other points on the planet. These are the forgotten wars of the 21st century, around twenty wars that are not televised.

Regardless of ones race, country or nationality, a human life is precious in itself. The three hundred thousand fallen in Burundi’s ethnic war, which has already taken ten years, should be just as relevant as the death of an American marine in Iraq, despite the fact in Burundi the same economic and geopolitical interests are not involved.

War is devastating the African continent, where the confrontations are more numerous and long lasting. Western Sahara, Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Angola, the Central African Republic, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia and Guinea Conakry - are all fighting amongst themselves in this most disregarded area on the planet. It’s not by chance that this area is also the area of greatest poverty. Africa’s abundant mineral wealth, far from being utilized for the benefit of the population, motivates and finances most of the conflicts.

In Asia as well we must not overlook the lethal confrontations that have been originated by the great variety of religions and ethnicities, following the same logic that bathes the African countries in blood. The interests that control the natural and energetic resources, combined with secular social inequalities and religious sectarianism, are the real motor of these confrontations. We highlight the confrontations in Afghanistan, Cashmere, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, Timor, the Philippines, and Korea.

This map tour of wars also includes Europe, and involves countries that present very different realities from those of the powers that guide the European Union. Germany, France and Great Britain, to name the most relevant, seem to be more preoccupied with what is happening in Iraq than with the violent conflicts in neighboring Kosovo, Chechnya, and Nagorno Karabaj.

In America, the armed conflict in Colombia – which involves the guerrilla, the paramilitary and drug trafficking – and the conflicts involving the indigenous movements in Mexico, are old confrontations on a continent long punished by military dictatorships.

 

Countries in which wars are being fought

Nuclear Arsenals Around the World

Nuclear weapons are military devices that can release an enormous amount of energy and have great power to destroy and contaminate both the environment and human beings.

The appearance of the first atomic bomb drew a line in human history between “before the bomb” and “after the bomb.” From that point on, the human race had the possibility of total self-destruction for the first time in its history

From a technological point of view, non-nuclear bombs work with physical-chemical reactions and processes. Essentially they derive their destructive power from the decomposition or combustion of chemical compounds at high velocity. These bombs work with the most external part of matter and atoms.

In contrast, nuclear bombs derive their power from provoking a chain reaction that sets off the energy contained at the heart of matter, in the atoms.

The current situation by country is the following:

• Countries that manufactured nuclear arms continue developing and storing them in the following quantities: 9,900 in the USA, 15,000 in Russia, 200 in the United Kingdom, 350 in France, 80 in Israel, 60 in Pakistan, 50 in India, 200 in China, and 10 in North Korea.

• Countries believed to be working on manufacturing nuclear arms: Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iran.

• Countries possessing the capacity to enrich uranium (one of the main elements in the production of atomic weapons): the USA, Russia, China, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, and Japan. Argentina recently announced its readiness to resume enriching uranium in its nuclear plants.

To these countries must be added all members of NATO that currently have North American nuclear weapons in their territory, former members of the Soviet Union, etc.

Countries currently possessing nuclear warheads

In other words, today 13 countries possess the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons and to launch them (since they also have the capacity to manufacture missiles). It is important to point out that first world countries also possess submarines and other ships armed with nuclear weapons, which are dispersed around the world. In terms of the reach of nuclear missiles, including submarines, from different countries: the USA, Russia and China all possess the capacity to send a missile anywhere on earth. In other words, today any human being anywhere on the planet is vulnerable to attack by atomic weapons.

Effects of a Nuclear Explosion

Social Effects

Those who possess nuclear weapons say they have systems of protection to keep from responding automatically if they are attacked.

They say the final decision to return an attack will be in the hands of one individual or a group of trained individuals.

Even if this were certain, to have that level of decision-making in the hands of people who are continually provoking wars all around the world constitutes no guarantee for anyone.

The decision to return the attack or not would have to be made in the first 10 minutes after being attacked, since not responding within that timeframe would imply losing all practical possibility of a military response.

If you add to this time pressure the psychological impact of an attack, the confusion of such a critical moment and the political and personal pressures (everyone has a family living someplace), the possibilities that anyone would use common sense are reduced to almost zero.

These conditions have the potential to provoke a chain reaction among all countries with nuclear weapons producing a “reciprocal attack” where everyone attacks everyone else.

Certainly it is unnecessary to point out that this would cause the almost total destruction of the human race.

Survivors of such an attack would have serious difficulty finding food and water.

 

Effects on Objects

As with any bomb, what produces the greatest damage is the shock wave. In the case of a nuclear bomb, the height at which it is detonated is an important factor.

If it explodes at a low altitude it produces a large carter but little damage to the area over which it is launched.

If it explodes higher up it necessarily produces great winds and the EMP effect, but does not destroy buildings, so the damage is much less. For example, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were programmed to explode at 550 meters altitude since that was the distance required to produce total devastation.

The winds produced by an atomic bomb are equivalent to a hurricane and generally cause damage within a minimal radius of 25-30 kilometers (if it is a 10 megaton bomb).

As if hurricane force winds produced by the shock wave were not enough, the mass of hot gas produced by the bomb vaporizes everything it touches within the same radius.

A millionth of a second after a nuclear explosion the temperature inside the bomb reaches 10,000,000º C.

However, most of the fires are produced by other factors, for example: broken gas pipes, burning paper and wood, short circuits, etc.

Residual (following the blast) and instantaneous (immediate) radioactivity produced by the explosion is propagated over a very wide area of several kilometers.

Residual radioactivity causes a radioactive rain and generally also affects zones not touched directly by the explosion.

Depending on the height of the explosion the degree of residual radiation produced may vary (climate and local winds also have an influence).

All water, soil and food touched by the explosion or by the radioactive rain remains contaminated for a long time.

Since we have little experience with radioactive rain the real duration of contamination produced cannot be determined with precision.

Instantaneous radioactivity is produced by the gamma rays and the neutrons liberated at the moment of the explosion. Today there are people who are still suffering the physical consequences of the explosions in Japan (including descendents of those who were there during the explosion).

To these effects must be added the so-called electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) effect. It should be enough to point out that today everything that allows a country to function has electronic or magnetic equipment at some point in its territory (water, gas, electricity, communications, etc.).

As this pulse produces high voltage, it can be discharged through the existing TV, electrical, telephone lines, etc. so that it may affect a much greater area than the bomb itself.

Effects on the Food Chain

A nuclear war on a large scale could damage agricultural production via a series of mechanisms:

• Brief episodes of cold or freezing temperatures during the development of the plants, associated with the initial sharp climatic disturbance or with extreme phenomena produced during a chronic climatic disturbance of long duration;

• Insufficient duration of the period of plant development to allow grain to be harvested in the median latitudes, as a result of a prolonged reduction of average temperatures by a few degrees (1-3 degrees celcius for some harvests, 3-5 for most, 5-7 for almost all nutritionally important harvests);

• An insufficient integrated thermic period (integration of the temperature during time of cultivation) resulting in prolonged reductions of a few degrees;

• Insufficient hours of sunlight resulting from reductions of a few tenths of a percent in incident sunlight, if this takes place during the season of plant growth;

• Reduced rainfall during the harvest season;

• Other possible physical disturbances, among them ionizing radiation, air contamination (especially at low elevations), localized acid deposits, and an increase in UV-B rays.

• Adverse interactions with ecological effects, such as the unleashing of plagues or illnesses;

• Disruptions of the energy supply or of technology used in agriculture, including reduced supplies of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, combustibles and lubricants for agricultural machinery, seeds, labor, economic incentives and agricultural and meteorological forecasts.

Effects on Human Beings

It must be taken into account that with streets and avenues blocked it is almost impossible for someone who is wounded to receive the immediate help they certainly need, so that most of the deaths will be caused basically by lack of appropriate attention.

A great number of people will be wounded from the indirect effects of the blast, especially by the impact of objects flying through the air on the winds.

Human beings exposed to the explosion within a radius of up to 13 kilometers receive serious burns over more than 25% of the body. Direct observation of the initial fireball causes permanent blindness in persons up to 25 kilometers away.

However any opaque material will be helpful at the moment of the blast. Persons who are protected by thick clothing may receive burns, but they will probably not be lethal.

Any living being receives a tenth of a “rad” per year, which is normal and is not dangerous. En general 400 rads are deadly for a human being.

A nuclear bomb can generate millions of rads where the explosion begins although this radiation is rapidly dispersed through the air.

Generally if a person receives more than 400 rads it is because they are in an area already destroyed by the shock wave, and they will have little possibility of survival.

If death does not take place during the first 30 days from radiation exposure, any adult person has a great likelihood of contracting cancer for many years after the explosion. Permanent genetic alterations are also produced that will affect several coming generations not exposed to the blast.

Another issue that directly affects human beings is the lung damage caused by the abrupt increase in atmospheric pressure produced.

In addition there is a high risk from radioactive rain since radioactive nuclei are incorporated into the food chain, through food ingested by human beings and by animals.

To all this must be added the grave psychological damage produced in populations.