“Peace is everyone’s right and nonviolence is a shared and permanent responsibility”, wrote the President of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, Dr Tabaré Vazquez, in an official communiqué that publicly declared his commitment to these values of peace. In turn he explained that the endorsement of the World March campaign for Peace and Nonviolence will be channelled through the Uruguayan Ministry of Education and Culture.
With Tabaré’s endorsement, this international campaign promoted by the international Humanist organisation, World without Wars, can now count on five Latin-American presidents officially backing and publicising it. In recent months Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Cristina Fernández of Argentina have all communicated their public commitment to this initiative.
The letter from the Presidency, dated 4th June, is addressed to Ana Maria Mahserdjian, representative of the Community for Human Development of Uruguay, the organisation that is promoting the World March in this country. What is interesting about the letter is the informal way it is addressed to Mahserdjian as “Dear friend”, showing the closeness of the relationship between the organisation and Tabaré Vázquez’s Government.
The international campaign is aiming to immediately eliminate nuclear arsenals, the signing of non-aggression treaties between countries, the end of wars and hunger and the overcoming of all types of violence. Even if these are objectives that face strong resistances in carrying them out in the short term, the organisers argue that the important thing today is to create a consciousness in the population, governments and organisations about this problem.
