REPORT ON SECOND ORGANIZING MEETING, NOVEMBER 4-5, 1995:
The second organizing meeting of Abolition 2000 was convened
on November 5, 1995, in Den Haag, The Netherlands, by the NGO
Nuclear Abolition Caucus. (See below.)
The first meeting was held in April, 1995,
at the NGO Conference in New York during the United Nations
hearings on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"Through our shared commitment to a nuclear-free 21st
century we will seek ways to weave together the work of our
various organizations and networks into a cooperative, effective,
internationally coordinated campaign," reads the invitation to the
November strategy meeting.
The theme of the weekend-long World Court Project-sponsored
seminar was "REACH OUT!", to lots of different issue groups --
disarmament, environmentalist, human rights, labor, students,
educators, scientists, etc. -- to seek hundreds/thousands of
group endorsers, to sign the Abolition 2000 Statement.
AGREED: Abolition 2000 is a "tight network," a
CLEARINGHOUSE for communications among like-minded groups, a
computer network, which will also make quarterly mailings of
information member organizations provide about related issues.
A committee will come up with proposals about where clearinghouse
should be, plan next meeting, send mailing in December with notes
from this meeting plus requests for other people to be actively
involved. Already hundreds of international, national, and local
groups of all sizes have endorsed the statement.
There was heartening discussion of the need NOT to create
hierarchies.
AGREED: No one can speak FOR the network, but anyone who
endorses the Statement is part of the network, and is encouraged
to seek endorsements from other groups and to share information with co-endorsers.
The next meeting will probably be in March, either in Brussels or at an Edinburgh peace gathering, unless many people show up in Den Haag again when the World Court rules on the question of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.