Membership reaches 3,241 with remarkable support of Nicaraguan Association of Municipalities

November 2, 2009

As of November 2nd Mayors for Peace counts 3,241 member cities and municipalities in 134 countries and regions. During October 94 new members joined the movement of local authorities demanding the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020. Especially the 48 new members from Nicaragua signal that the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign is gathering new momentum. Mayors for Peace is aiming to count 5,000 members during the upcoming NPT Review Conference in May 2010.

Today 120 out of 153 Nicaraguan members of the Nicaraguan Association of Municipalities have joined Mayors for Peace. This is the result of an initiative by Mr. Fernando Martinez, the Nicaraguan Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure (see letter Association of Nicaraguan Municipalities). Following a visit to Hiroshima he involved the Nicaraguan Association of Municipalities. The President Sadrach Zeledon Rocha, also Mayor of Matagalpa,  pledged to enroll all its 153 members.

Other new members include Belgium (4), Benin (1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2), Egypt (1), France (1), Hungary (1), Japan (12), Palestine (1), Portugal (7), Spain (12), UK (2), USA (1) and Ukraine (1).

With an steady increase of members in Japan membership has grown significantly in Asia  (788). Europe still remains the region with most members (1,806), followed by North-America (224), Latin America and the Caribbean (194), Africa (134) and Oceania (95).

The Nicaraguan initiative will probably be the forebearer of further positive developments in Latin-America. Pol DHuyvetter, an Executive Advisor for the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, has been appointed as International Development Director and is now based in Rio de Janeiro. While his assignment remains global, he will have a particular focus on capacity building in Latin-America and the Caribbean. As a start he is also developing closer working relationships in Latin-America with PNND, Peace Boat, Mundo sin Guerra and OPANAL (Organismo para la Proscripción de las Armas Nucleares en la América Latina y el Caribe).

OPANAL is the international intergovernmental organization which promotes nuclear disarmament. The agency was created as a result of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, ratified in 1969, which forbids its signatory nations from use, storage, or transport of nuclear weapons.

Although Latin-America was the first NWFZ with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and has championed a world free of nuclear weapons ever since, membership and activities of Mayors for Peace remained low. An increase in members and activities in Latin-America and the Caribbean should give new input to its leaders to work towards the total elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020. 

Christoph Pilger is now fully in charge of the Mayors for Peace campaign secretariat in Ypres (Belgium).