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DPI日本会議

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第6回DPI世界会議札幌大会報告集　世界の障害者―われら自身の声

March 30, 2003

Statement to Urge an Immediate Halt to the Military Attacks against Iraq
DPI-Japan (Japan National Assembly of Disabled Peoples' International)

On March 20, the United States and the United Kingdom started attacking Iraq over opposition of many people in the world.

War is an act of violence, with whatever reason or at whatever region it breaks out, destroying all over the country and killing many people. In the past wars, many people have lost their lives or been injured to be disabled. The majority of them still live in extreme difficulties.

In Iraq, many lives again are lost and lives of many with disabilities in the country have been threatened, through the violent means of war.

Wars are the most inhuman acts. Defenseless civilians become victims of war as a result of the exercise of power by superpowers. Persons with disabilities suffer most among them. Children, and even adults, with disabilities can hardly escape from an attacked area during battle. While other flee from the battlefield, people with disabilities are left behind to become victims of attacks. In addition, in the wartime with social and economic destruction, the special needs of people with disabilities are hardly recognized. People are so tied up with taking care of themselves that they come to ignore people with disabilities. Needless to say, however, people with disabilities have a right to live as well as people without disabilities.

Witnessing the death of their family members and separation from their family members and friends, children become emotionally stressed and also suffer from psychological trauma caused by plunder and assaults, which often happen in the wartime. Mental damage caused by wars sometimes become severer than physical damage leading to disabilities. Lack of appropriate treatment of mental damage triggers prolonged problems.

As citizens in the twenty-first century, we oppose the war which is identical to political violence. The U.S. and U.K. coalition forces should immediately halt military attacks against Iraq and start seeking peaceful solutions to the problems through dialogue and diplomatic efforts.
This is not only for the sake of the Iraqi people. Soldiers of the U.S. and U.K. forces will also suffer from both physical and psychiatric disabilities due to the war. Damages to the global environment are also immeasurable.

What we have to do right now are to stop violent acts that cause the chain of revenge in the name of prevention of terrors, and to give up arms. In addition, we should ask the governments, especially the Japanese government, which have expressed their support to the war in early stages, to withdraw its support.

Following the Peace Statement declared by the World Council of DPI in Hiroshima in 1982, the Japan National Assembly of Disabled People's International shall call for work with social justice on the tragedy that would be caused by this new war which takes innocent lives.

Peace Is A Disability Issue

On 24 June 1982, Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) adopted its Peace Statement at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima Japan. 

DPI Peace Statement 
"Disabled people all over the world know from their deepest personal experience, the capacity of war to cast its mantle of death and destruction over life and limb. The ability of modern weapons of war to devastate a people, to sear human memory with permanent scars of personal tragedy, to shatter the dreams and hopes of children, to maim and injure, is nowhere more eloquently proclaimed than here, the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. 

Everyday the absolute sanctity of human life is asserted by the aspirations of this planet's 500 million disabled people. The creation of disability and the ending of life by the waging of war is an abomination. Yet the accumulation of the engines of war gains pace. 
The talents of human kind are turned from the satisfaction of people's needs to the invention of more and more horrific devices of destruction. 

The products of human labors, wrested from the earth with all the ingenuity of generations of men and women, are dissipated in gigantic stockpiles of armaments which are of benefit to no one. The power of cooperation amongst individuals and the organizing capability of the human race are squandered in the creation of gigantic war complexes whose sole intent is the destruction of people. 

HOW LONG CAN THIS OBSCENITY CONTINUE? 

We, the representatives of the world's disabled people, have come to Hiroshima to make known our resolute condemnation of the arms race. We affirm, in the strongest terms, our determination to join with others and take our rightful place in the forefront of the worldwide movement for disarmament. 

Disabled Peoples' International says: 

LET ALL OF US JOIN TOGETHER IN A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT FOR PEACE. 

LET US CALL FOR ALL NATIONS' ECONOMIES TO BE TRANSFORMED FROM WAR ECONOMIES TO PEACE ECONOMIES. 

LET US INSIST THAT THE $600 BILLION NOW SPENT ON ARMAMENTS IS DIVERTED TO SOCIALLY USEFUL PROJECTS. 

LET US DEMAND THAT THE WORLD LEADERS NOW, IN THIS MOMENTOUS EPOCH, WHERE WE HAVE THE POWER TO DESTROY AND CRIPPLE, BEGIN THE ENORMOUS TASK OF REDIRECTING OUR RESOURCES, OUR PRODUCTIONS, OUR TALENTS AND OUR ABILITIES FROM THE CREATION OF THE WEAPONS OF WAR TO THE CREATION OF INSTRUMENTS OF LIFE. 

Disabled Peoples' International calls on all people to affirm this movement." 
(Disabled Peoples' International, Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Japan, June 24, 1982.) 

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最終更新日2003.4.10