The time to disarm is now
October 13, 2006
Douglas Roche [images/stories/canada_people/Roche.jpg]Editor’s note: The following address was presented by retired Canadian senator Douglas Roche, a noted author and veteran advocate for nuclear disarmament from Edmonton. It was given at the Lauriston Jesuit Centre for Social Justice in Edinburgh on Oct. 3. Roche, whose most recent book is The Human Right to Peace (Novalis, 2003), was also welcomed at the Scottish Parliament along with Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien and other church leaders and members of Parliament. The visit was facilitated by Pax Christi. A time traveller from the Cold War would find it astonishing that nuclear weapons are still very much part of the global landscape. The opportunity that arose at the end of the Cold War in 1989 to get rid of nuclear weapons was squandered. Today, there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons held by eight states which together comprise almost half of humanity.