 |
|
"…
history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences.
Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones," ElBaradei
said. (Reuters)
|
CAIRO, December 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Egyptian Muslim Peace Nobel
laureate Mohamed ElBaradei appealed on Saturday, December 10, for a
world free of nuclear weapons and called on existing nuclear powers to
disarm.
"I
am an Egyptian Muslim, educated in
Cairo
and New York, and now living in
Vienna," the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said in his acceptance
speech, posted on the Nobel Foundation's Web site.
"My
wife and I have spent half our lives in the North, half in the South.
And we have experienced first hand the unique nature of the human
family and the common values we all share."
He
lamented that fifteen years after the Cold War came to an end "we
have yet to build the bridges between North and South, the rich and
the poor."
The
63-year-old Egyptian lawyer, who has been head of the UN's nuclear
watchdog since 1997, was re-elected unopposed for a third term after
the US
swallowed its objections.
He
and the IAEA, represented by the chairman of its board of governors,
Yukiya Amano, were jointly honored for "their efforts to prevent
nuclear energy from being used for military purposes".
The
IAEA was founded in 1957 to promote civilian use of nuclear energy and
at the same time work to eliminate the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
The
award came 60 years after the US dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945, the world's only
nuclear attacks.
Nuclear-Free
In
his acceptance speech, ElBaradei advocated a world free of nuclear
weapons.
"If
we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have
no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our
security," he stressed.
"We
must ensure, absolutely, that no more countries acquire nuclear
weapons. That nuclear weapon states take concrete steps towards
nuclear disarmament, and we must put in place a security system that
does not rely on nuclear deterrence," added the IAE chief.
He
said a good start to rid the world of the threat of nuclear weapons
would be "if the nuclear weapons states reduced the strategic
role given to these weapons.
"Today,
eight or nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Today we still have
27,000 warheads in existence. To me, this is 27,000 too many."
ElBaradei,
who will donate his part of the $1.3 million prize to orphanages in Egypt, also delivered a strong anti-war message in his speech.
"…
history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences. Force
does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones."
Ending
his speech on an upbeat note, he asked the audience to "imagine
what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on
development as on the machines of war."
"Imagine
that the only nuclear weapons remaining are the relics in our museums.
Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children. Imagine that such a
world is actually within our grasp."
