International Code of Conduct
on
ArmsTransfers
Elie Wiesel
New York, 29 May 1997Why are we here? We are here to fight death. We are here to celebrate those who want to live, who want to respect life. Those of you gathered here today are young people, you have a future. We'd like to celebrate your future. So the time has come to introduce some ethical concerns into foreign policy matters. That's why we are here. For that is the primary goal of our endeavor, great powers must be made to realize that selling weapons indiscriminately may bring them business, contacts, and checks - but not honor.
(applause)
Weapons, sophisticated weapons, especially in these times of advanced technology, can easily become instruments of large-scale destruction and death, not only to soldiers on the battle field, but also to innocent civilians and children. Usually, adults fight and children die. Usually, adults hate each other and children pay the price. Usually, adults do whatever they can to make war. Therefore soon, if the war continues, there will be no more children left.
There is idea that only democracies are worthy of their trust, I mean, of the trust of those who sell weapons, if they must sell weapons. That idea has been founded with good reason. Democracies do not wage wars with one another, only dictatorships do. Only rulers, brutal rulers, cynical rulers who believe in conquest, who believe whatever they do must be translated in terms of conquest. Only they want arms, and they must not be armed, not with weapons bought from democracies. That weapons have been misused by wrong governments is now a common knowledge. Indeed, just read today's New York Times story from Switzerland. How this neutral nation with a strong humanitarian tradition allowed its industries from 1939, 1940 to 1944, to sell war material to Hitler's Third Reich is beyond me. Why did they do that? Why has our own country, the United States, chosen to sell weapons to Latin America? It's something I can't understand.
Was it then, or is it now in the national interest of any great power to strengthen the enemies of freedom in the Third World? I believe that morality is in the national interest of any power that is bound to be great. Great powers are not great because they are wealthy, or because they have armies. They are great because they have great principles, principles of morality. Even if, at times, in Machiavellian notions, they do things that do not always conformed to these principles, principles must exist.
I fear that the sale of conventional weapons could fuel the spread of nuclear weapons. We have got to forbid the market in nuclear weapons. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possibility of nuclear theft has become increasingly serious, and I am sure that our friends on the hill -- my good friends here today, Congressman Gilman and Senator Pell -- they surely have information that has not yet been published. There have been attempts to steal nuclear weapons, which luckily were intercepted. Out of all those officers of the former Soviet Union who are under-paid now at the loss of purpose, who knows, one of them might be seduced by a Swiss Bank account.
The Cold War is over. There is no real war now. No war in the traditional sense between two people. Now there are civil wars. Horrible wars. And still, there are nations that suppress others, communities of other nations. One example is Tibet. We must remember China, which, because of its size, because of its importance, because of the metamorphosis it goes through, could afford giving Tibet back to Tibetans. Why they don't do that... I don't know.
(applause)
Why the obstinacy of dictators? The Burmese dictators are so obstinate, so stupid. Because dictators are stupid. And why do they keep a great woman, a hero of our time, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest? Why do they do that? They'll only lose. They always lose. I don't know. But there are many wars that sill exist. They can, of course, be reduced by international agreements. Surely. But that is not sufficient. Wars are fed by weapons. So the only thing to do is to stop feeding, and then the deaths will be relinquished, or at least, curtailed. I know that all this -- what we are trying to do -- sounds utopic. I'm not that naïve. But so what? So what.
Wars of supremacy are threatening humanity everywhere. War is angry. War is absurd. War is grotesque. My friends, I have seen war. War is when humanity ceases to be human. The aim of war is to dehumanize the human being. Only the victims remain human; the victimizers do not. Why can't we demystify peace? Why can't we educate ourselves? After all, we must be educators. Why can't we celebrate peace as our preachers and ancestors have glorified war. How to do that is only through education. I don't know of any other way. I'm an educator and education is a long process. But time is running out.
(Exerpts are taken from Elie Wiesel's speech at the public signing of the Nobel Peace laureates' International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers. Transcript courtesy of Globalvision.)
For more information on the International Code of Conduct,
contact Carlos Walker at code@arias.or.cr
