Granollers (Spain), November 10th 2011 - Sixteen delegations of Mayors for Peace leading cities and associations of local governments met for three days in the Spanish city of Granollers. The summit meetings included the annual General Meeting of the 2020 Vision Campaign, the Board of Directors and the bi-annual Executive Conference of Mayors for Peace.
The final Resolution of the summit reaffirmed the goal of Mayors for Peace to protect cities from the threat of nuclear mass destruction and approved an action plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. Great concern was expressed that, in a time of global economic crisis, Nuclear Weapons States plan to spend 1 trillion US$ on nuclear weapons in the next decade, while local governments are forced to make deep cuts in vital services with the Millennium Development Goals falling farther and farther behind.
Those were the first meetings presided by Mr. Kazumi Matsui, the new Mayor of Hiroshima, who is now Presiding a network of local governments in 151 countries and regions. Having reached the 5,000 membership milestone, in its
Final Communiqué the organization states it will focus on a shift from quantity to quality. An international committee will meet in the near future to develop a proposal for the creation of national and regional structures and strengthening the financial basis of the organization.
Mayors for Peace will commemorate the 5000-city milestone with a new poster exhibit available to its member cities. The exhibit aims to inform millions of citizens about the realities of a nuclear attack, the impact of a limited nuclear war threatening the entire world with nuclear famine, as well as the constant diversion of economic and human resources from urban and human needs to nuclear weapons and related military spending.
The campaign action plan endorses the announcement of Mayor Kazumi Matsui from last August 6 in Hiroshima, when he declared that: “We plan to host an international conference that will bring the world’s policy makers to Hiroshima to discuss the nuclear nonproliferation regime.”. The delegates decided to ensure that the upcoming August 2013 General Conference of Mayors for Peace will be in a position to make the necessary decisions and plans for the final 2-year push towards a Hiroshima policymakers summit in 2015. Mayors for Peace plans to raise international public demand for the adoption of a realistic and effective 2015 NPT Review Conference Action Plan with the conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention in the same year.
In this context Mayors for Peace also decided to identify celebrities and other opinion leaders who support the 2020 Vision and appoint them to serve as 2020 Vision Ambassadors, both to increase the visibility of the campaign and to attract funds.
The delegates recognized the important contributions made by the 2020 Vision Campaigners, now 24 civil society activists in 21 countries. The delegates decided to further expand this network of 2020 Vision Campaigners and to invite them to participate in the future meetings of the campaign.
With the presence of delegations from Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon and Mexico it was the first time in the 29 year history of Mayors for Peace that both the African and Latin-American continents were represented. This is also reflected in the final resolution as it is recognized that hunger, inequalities and lack of opportunities endanger our world. The active participation by a growing number of member cities from the Global South was recognized with the election of Mayor Daniel Tsakem, from the city of Fongo-Tongo (Cameroon), as Vice-president of the General Meeting. Also the Board of Directors of the 2020 Vision Campaign association welcomes its first members from Africa and Latin America and with the election of Jean Paul Nanfack, Vice-Mayor of Fongo-Tongo, and Ricardo Baptista, Executive Director of AALMAC (Mexico).
In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, Mayors for Peace also calls for the creation of a society that is supported by safer energies, noting that whether the source of radiation is nuclear bombs, nuclear testing or nuclear energy, everything must be done to prevent more hibakusha suffering anywhere in the world.
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