Pakistan
Dear Garry,
I have received your newsletter and have read it with interest in response to my reply, your letter dated August 12, 1996. As we are an NGO and serving the refugees (non-Afghans) from Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, China, Burma, Somalia, Sudan, and also minorities, women and children. We are posting you our latest research booklet by mail, "The Plight of Refugees Under UNHCR" today only.
Now here in Pakistan there are about 5000 registered families of refugees who are stateless, their countries Iran, Iraq, Burma, Sri Lanka, Sudan have refused to recognize them as their citizens. And they need your International World Citizen Identification Cards and Passports and Birth Certificates so kindly send me number of forms for these refugees who are stateless, and also there are hundreds of Pakistanis and Indians and Bangladeshis interested to be members of World Government. Can they be issued the identification documents and passports?
Can you officially allow our NGO to coordinate between you and these refugees who are stateless for passports and further guidance etc.?
Waiting for your reply at the earliest.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Sincerely,
Dr. Mrs. J. Jacinta Benedicta Pereira
Human Rights World Crusaders
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Dear Marcia Mason,
. . . Keith Beggs, editor of our newsletter died on May 4, 1996. . . . Our new editor will be Gary Shepherd...United World,...401 S. Dixon, Carbondale, IL 62901. . . .
Congratulations on your Aug./Sept. issue of WCN. Please tell Garry that I particularly liked his item "Nuclear Ruling Explodes Fallacy of International Law." I am amazed at the reaction of some members of the peace movement considering it a victory-but it does give world governmentalists an opportunity to attack its frailty. I am writing an editorial right now on this theme for the newsletter of the Rotary Club of Montreal and will send a copy when it comes out. I expect to meet Canada's foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, at a small conference near Ottawa later this month and will give him an earful.
Yours sincerely,
Ross Smyth
World Government Organizations Coalition (WGOC)
26 August 1996
Dear Garry,
In the past two months in San Diego, we've had international visitors and global attention. *The GENI Initiative was personally given to Vice President Al Gore last month and to Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich last week during the Republican National Convention. *The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright received GENI information at a recent "Town Hall Forum."
. . .Recently, we had a great opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of electrical system integration. The power failure last week of the Pacific Intertie, which supplies power to 15 Western States, caused widespread upset and demands for answers.
. . .One important realization is that a power loss to us in the developed world is mostly an inconvenience. Power is normally restored within a few hours. For the 2-billion people in developing nations who have no electricity, life hangs in the balance. They are eager for just a simple light bulb. . . .
In partnership for the planet,
Peter Meisen, President
Patricia Stevens, Executive Director
GENI (Global Energy Network International), P.O. Box 81565, San Diego, CA 92138
USA; phone: (619) 595-0139; fax: (619) 595-0403; e-mail: geni@cerf.net;
internet: http://www.geni.org/
Dima Refugee Camp, Ethiopia
Dear World Citizens,
It is my honor to write to you as a World Citizen, and to commend you for the important work you do towards world peace.
There are many horrible wars throughout the world. In Sudan, where I am from, young boys and girls have become orphans, and women have become widows. It is difficult to find food.
World citizens, I appeal to you to work towards world law, which can give freedom to all sovereign world community citizens now deprived of peace. Developing world law now for the year 2000 is our first priority. Let us all become peaceful World Citizens. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Joseph Loku Loboka
India
Dear Mr. Garry Davis,
I was very pleased to meet you and exchange views with you on your great but impossible dream of a World Government or One World at Ladnun in December 1988 on the occasion of a World Conference. Then we lost touch with one another. Needless to say that your presence at the First International Conference on Peace and Nonviolent Action held at Ladnun from December 5 to 7, 1988, was a source of inspiration to all of us. Your significant contribution to the drafting of Ladnun Declaration will always be remembered with gratitude.
I am very glad to know of the momentum of your work through your journal World Citizen News. What gladdens me is the fact that despite odds your relentless struggle against the forces that have caused division in humanity and your resolute determination in the pursuit of your goal have been continuing uninterrupted. Just to update information about my work, I enclose the two declarations issued by the Second and Third ICPNAs held in 1991 and 1995 for your perusal and comments. Both these declarations are in consonance with the declared objectives of your World Government of World Citizens, which we support wholeheartedly.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
S. L. Gandhi, Secretary General
ANUVIBHA
Algeria
Dear Sir:
It is really a great honor to write to you for the purpose of obtaining an international passport.
As you know, I'm a 27 year-old Algerian and a teacher in primary school.
My hobby is traveling and that is what compels me to apply for this kind of passport. I wish to see as much of the world as possible.
Would you please accept my greetings, and thank you for your assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Kheira Kenouda
New York City
Dear Garry, In the August issue of World Citizen News, you stated that the International Court of Justice, in its ruling on the legality of nuclear weapons, "in effect condemned humanity to nuclear destruction."
Unfortunately, you seem to have put words to the ruling that do not exist except in the inaccurate New York Times report.
The Court did not say that the threat or use of nuclear weapons should be outlawed. It said that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is already generally illegal under existing international law, in particular the principles and laws of humanitarian law.
You are correct in noting that there was uncertainty by the majority of the judges on whether the use of small "clean" tactical weapons may be used "by a State in an extreme circumstance of self-defense in which its very survival would be at stake."
While it would have been useful for the Court to categorically rule out the use of nuclear weapons even in this extreme circumstance, you are incorrect to interpret the Court's action as having "countenanced every State's desire to construct and use the weapons...." President Bedjaoui was clear when he noted that the Court's indecision on this extreme circumstance was "not a green light" to use atomic weapons in such a circumstance, but that the Court was rather merely giving voice to a legal uncertainty.
With the decision of the Court, we have moved from legal uncertainty regarding any use of nuclear weapons to a ruling that the threat or actual use of these weapons is generally illegal, with uncertainty now existing only in regard to a remote circumstance. We have moved from an empty glass to one 99 percent full. And the Court has opened the way to that last one percent. It concluded that States have an obligation to "bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects," i.e., the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
You are correct that international law is not perfect. But neither is federal or state law. While we applaud the efforts of World Citizens to improve international law, we should not throw away the gains we have made under existing international law, such as the prohibition of atmospheric nuclear testing, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and hopefully, soon, the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons.
Let us support each other's efforts in this rather than splitting the movement.
Yours sincerely,
Alyn Ware
Executive Director, The Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, Inc.
Garry Davis replies:
When considering nuclear power, temporary or halfway measures are not only illusory but worse, the bankruptcy of reason. Ware makes no mention either of world law or world government as THE answer to nuclear war much less war itself. As for his advocacy of "international law," a world nuclear threat obviously requires a world legal response. His left-handed compliment applauding "the efforts of World Citizens to improve international law" either insults our almost 50-year rejection of "international law" as an oxymoronic smoke screen behind which nations plied their war games or deliberately obfuscates the fundamental issue: the outlawing of war, including nuclear weaponry. In short, his unwillingness to recognize the totality of the threat underlines his entire response. Comparing an empty glass to one 99 percent full as a metaphor for dealing with nuclear weaponry is like comparing cancer with pneumonia. Both are killers. The problem which faced the ICJ obviously required 100 percent assurance of safety, not the cowardly equivocation it rendered.
Finally Ware refers to "the movement" being split by our absolute stand as citizens of World Government. Alyn, a "movement" cannot outlaw nuclear weaponry; only world law can. Who is doing the splitting here?
England
Dear Sir or Madam,
This is a hurried letter to tell you that I have received back from the Malta High Commission in London, England, my World Service Authority Passport.
I recently wrote asking you to ask them to return the passport to me.
They have now done this.
Thanking you for acting so promptly, and for your help and consideration in this matter,
Yours sincerely,
Peter Cousins