ARGENTINA - Nobel Laureate, Rights Activists Call for Global Peace

www.oneworld.net Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 6 (IPS) - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace laureate, urged his fellow Argentines Thursday to join in a global day for peace and against the potential U.S.-led war against Iraq, a vigil to occur Saturday, Feb 15, in numerous countries around the world.

''The war is not a response to the threat of Saddam Hussein, but to the interests of the United States military-industrial complex, (which seeks) control over petroleum sources around the world,'' charged Pérez, who received the 1980 Nobel Prize for Peace in honour of his defence of human rights during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983).

According to a survey conducted in 41 countries by the Gallup polling firm, Argentina has the highest anti-war sentiment, with 83 percent of respondents opposed to an attack on Iraq.

Four percent said they would support a military offensive against Iraq if it had the backing of the United Nations, and only three percent were in favour of a unilateral attack by the United States.

Argentina was ranked second in the Gallup poll -- after Switzerland -- in the portion of respondents who said they would oppose their government supporting military action against Iraq.

Some local analysts believe this rejection could be due to the failure of the United States to offer Argentina assistance during the devastating economic crisis this South American nation has been suffering over the last year.

The Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ), the human rights group headed by Pérez Esquivel, organised a ''peace day'' in Argentina Thursday alongside other rights groups, the CTA labour union, and associations of entrepreneurs, artists, intellectuals and unemployed workers.

But the idea for a peace day on a global scale emerged during the World Social Forum last week in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. Delegates and activists there set the date for Feb 15, a day for individuals and civil society organisations worldwide to join in expressing their opposition to a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq.

In Buenos Aires, the proposal that was most popular for a Feb 15 peace event was to stage a march from Plaza Italia, in the Palermo district, to the U..S. embassy, 600 m away. But other events, including ceremonies for reflection and calls for peace, are also being scheduled.

Tati Almeyda, of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association-Founders, told IPS she deeply opposes a military offensive and charged that the United States is going to carry the world into war just because it wants control over sources of oil.

This group of mothers of those who disappeared during Argentina's dictatorship, in addition to taking part in the Feb 15 peace day, will urge ''all women-mothers of the world'', on Feb 12, to demand peace from the authorities in their own countries, from the United States, and from the United Nations Security Council.

Pérez Esquivel, meanwhile, says there is ''a single thread'' connecting the U.S. conflict with Iraq and the crisis in Venezuela, another country that is a leading producer of petroleum, and under normal circumstances the top supplier to the United States.

''The war constitutes a threat to all humanity,'' he added.

The human rights leader wrote an open letter to U.S. President George W. Bush asking him ''not to defy God and not to encourage intolerance and hate.'' Pérez Esquivel, however, said he is sceptical about the chances of achieving a reversal of the war machine that Washington has already set in motion.

''Given the history of the U.S. president since he was governor of Texas, we know that he did not offer clemency to anyone, and that all those who were sentenced to death under his watch were executed,'' noted the peace laureate.

He also sent a letter to the United Nations urging the adoption of ''concrete decisions to prevent the people of the world from being dragged into an armed conflict with unforeseeable consequences, one which could threaten the lives of millions of people.''

Instead -- and along the lines of statements made by the new president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva --, Pérez Esquivel said, ''The battle that the peoples of the world should fight is against the silent bomb of hunger, which kills more people than wars, and against social exclusion and poverty.''