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Appeal to George W. Bush on the occasion of his visit to Germany
February 23, 2005
We turn to you, Mr. President, as the German section of International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an international
doctors' peace organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1985 for its contribution to peaceful East-West understanding during
the Cold War.
We greet you in the country that, following years of a devastating
reign of terror, owes its democratic rebirth especially to U.S.
support - and we remember that support with gratitude.
But our physicians' organization is now observing with dismay that the
US government is endangering and sometimes violating the
international
peace order that they themselves were instrumental in establishing in
the UN to protect against violent tyranny. For this reason we entreat
you:
Mr. President, stop dividing the world into good and evil, thereby
constantly threatening it with war! Stop referring to colonial
conquests as thought they were humanistic good deeds. Make it clear
that the freedom you so often beseech neither includes the right to
conduct unilateral military strikes nor to wage war, nor can it
repudiate inalienable international legal and ecological commitments.
It is also your responsibility to free humanity from its most
dangerous bondage. This is the nuclear threat, in the face of which,
if realized, would show our complete powerlessness as physicians. We
must remind you that you have yet to fulfil the terms of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, which commits you to initiating
negotiations on complete nuclear disarmament, and which prohibits in
Article I the direct or indirect transfer of nuclear weapons to
nuclear weapons-free countries. Ninety-three percent of all Germans
expect you to immediately remove the U.S. nuclear bombs stored on
German territory in violation of this treaty.
Mr. President, we call upon you to take to heart the clear lesson
extended to all of us by the horrible Tsunami disaster that warns us
to keep the great existing moral strength of individuals and peoples
vigilant, working together to overcome our global problems instead of
reverting to the archaic and dangerous level of dragonslayer
scenarios.
Responsible for content: Prof. Dr. Dr. Horst-Eberhard Richter, German
Section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
(IPPNW), Körtestr. 10, 10967 Berlin, Germany, email: kontakt@ippnw.de |
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