Soyinka, world leaders urge Americans to vote out Bush
A GROUP of world statesmen, including four Nobel Laureates, has advised the American electorate to vote out current United States President George W. Bush at the coming election.
The eminent persons, including Nigeria's Prof. Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, in a statement made available to The Guardian yesterday, said that the U.S. and the world would be safer with Bush out of office.
The advice is contained in a statement issued by non-U.S. participants at the joint Barcelona International Conference on Higher Education, and First Nobel Laureates Meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
The conference has as its overall theme: "Social Responsibilities and Education for Peace."
With Soyinka as signatories to the statement were Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine Nobel Prize for Peace Laureate (1980) and Federico Mayor Zaragoza, a Spaniard and former Director-General, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The others are Jose Saramago of Portugal who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 and John Hume from Ireland, the 1998 Nobel Prize for Peace recipient. Soyinka won the prize for Literature in 1986.
Their statement, entitled: "An appeal to the American electorate," is directed principally at the U.S. electorate. It is also an appeal to world leaders to stand on the side of what they consider honour for people of conscience.
The statesmen pleaded: "We urge the American electorate to give both themselves and the global community a chance for peace and increased security by voting resolutely for the alternative to the present government, a government whose misguided polices have done so much to undermine trust between nations, destabilise the world and imperil its inhabitants."
The statement read: "Not for a moment do we, the undersigned, propose that the peace and security of the world rests solely on the outcome of the forthcoming presidential elections of the United States. The Middle East crisis will not magically disappear, nor will the Iraqi insurgency, now spiralling out of control, suddenly quieten down. Terrorism will not thereby vanish. The ongoing atrocities in Darfur that have left over a million people displaced will not find sudden resolution, any more than AIDS abruptly cease its ravaging march."
It continued: "Nevertheless, viewing the global effects of the policies of the present government of the United States, we are passionately convinced that a change in global relationships has become critical, and that this change can be most persuasively brought about by a change in the government of that nation."
Accusing the Bush administration of unilateralism, the group said: "We are convinced that a chink in the wall of isolation and alienation that now surrounds the United States, placing her at loggerheads with much of the world community, and with the United Nations, a window of opportunity, however narrow, will emerge through a change of government."
It continued: "We feel that such a change is potent with real possibilities, that it will provide a much-needed pause in the rapid attrition of global accord that is a direct result of U.S. policies."
The statesmen added: "We call attention to the fact that it is not the undersigned, in addition to those who agree with their views, who hereby interfere in the internal affairs of others, but the United States whose actions have been marked by a continuing intervention, and mostly of a unilateral nature, in the affairs of other nations, with consequences that threaten world stability. We therefore claim a right, a transparent and humanistic right to intervene in a crucial decision that will affect the fate of billions.
"We urge the American electorate to give both themselves and the global community a chance for peace and increased security by voting resolutely for the alternative to the present government, a government whose misguided polices have done so much to undermine trust between nations, destabilise the world and imperil its inhabitants."
Some of these statesmen have always been vocal in opposition to some of the Bush administration's policies. Zaragoza of the UNESCO, in an interview with a news agency, World Review last year faulted the war against Iraq.
He said: "If the international community believes a person such as Saddam Hussein must be removed from power, because he was clearly a tyrant, the first thing to do would be to create a Truth Commission-then, following the UN system, we could proceed to trial. "
He added: "The United States has a history of using force. In Chile, for example, in the 1970s, the U.S. thought President (Salvador) Allende was not a good leader, although Allende had been democratically elected. The United States removed Allende and put (Gen. Augusto) Pinochet in power. They did the same in Nicaragua with (Anastasio) Somoza, and in Argentina with (Jorge Rafael) Videla..."
Esquivel, in an open letter to President Bush published on February 30, 2003, said: "You Talk of Freedom; You Detest Freedom"
He told Bush: "I don't know if you will read this letter, not because it will not reach you, but because you are incapable of reading it. Your heart is so hardened by hatred and fear, that you have neither capacity nor courage to open your mind and your spirit to compassion. In spite of all that, however, I cannot keep from sending it to you, because if you do not read it, I am sure it will be read by many men and women, those who ask you to stop the massacre of the people of Iraq."
Esquivel continued: "When you decided to invade Iraq, in spite of the opposition of the people of the world, you did not listen to their cries, 'No to war, yes to peace;' you closed your ears and your heart when the United Nations, churches, humanitarian and human rights organisations demanded that the rule of law and the consideration of the people had to prevail. You were not interested in hearing it. "
He declared further: "I asked you in another letter do not defy God, do not build the Tower of Babel out of pitilessness and hate; do not let yourself be ruled by your own ambitions of power to impose your political, economic and military interests. I asked you to think, because you reap what you sow. Sadly, you do not know how to honour life; you have profoundly damaged humanity as a whole and your own North American people."
On the military action against Iraq, Esquivel said: "You will win wars with your imperial army and with that of your allies; you will be able to show the great power of your weapons and the high technology of death; but none of that justifies you. The greatest of your defeats is that you have lost the respect of the people of the world, and, for all the crimes committed, you have earned the rejection of the conscience of humanity. In this flight from decency you are joined by your deadly allies: Tony Blair, JosZ Mar�a Aznar and Australia."`
