Tlatelolco 50: A Gift to the World

People from Mexico have a lot to be proud of. Especially their leadership in eliminating nuclear weapons.

The Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed in Mexico on February 14, 1967, establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone throughout Latin America. The 50th anniversary of the treaty is being celebrated, and it coincides with what is now a global movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

To put this in perspective, let's consider the trajectory of nuclear weapons since 1967.

The nuclear weapons era - and the significance of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
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The graph above shows the excruciatingly slow progress in reductions of US nuclear weapons since the peak of the buildup in the early '60s. The red line is the Treaty of Tlatelolco. How important it was that the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean responded to the suicidal behavior of the US, the USSR, and other countries by drawing a line and saying, "It stops here and now!"

I recommend the Wikipedia article on the treaty, because it gives perspective on how the Tlatelolco treaty and its related agreements pulled many other countries (including nuclear weapons states) into participating, in various ways, in the nuclear weapons-free paradigm. The Latin American treaty is the precursor of regional nuclear weapons-free zones in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Mongolia, Central Asia, and Africa, among others, as well as the worldwide Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

What does this mean for us right now? The map below shows the results of the historic vote at the UN in October, 2016, that set the stage for the 2017 negotiations on a global nuclear weapons ban.

Vote on resolution to negotiate a ban on nuclear weapons in 2017 (L-41)
Green - Yes (123, 76%)
Red - No (38, 24%)
Beige - Abstained
(Via @ILPIwmd)

The vote was 123 in favor (green on the map above) and 38 opposed (red). And so the negotiations will proceed.

Let's consider the role of Mexico: virtually all of Latin America and the Caribbean is green on the map above, indicating that all those countries voted in favor of going forward with negotiations on a ban.

Now let's consider the role of the US. The US is red, because it voted against the negotiations on a ban. Moreover, Canada is red. Australia is red. Most of Europe is red. To a very large extent, that can be attributed to US pressure on all those countries to vote against the ban negotiations. (Thankfully, within Europe a few very strong proponents of nuclear disarmament -- particularly Austria -- led the way on the campaign for ban negotiations. And now, one by one, others of those countries are coming to their senses and saying that they will participate in the negotiations.)

So: thank you MEXICO (and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean) for a wonderful Valentine's Day gift to the world. Let's hope this gift reaches its fully fruition with the 2017 nuclear weapons ban negotiations!


Want to know more?

 . . . Frequent updates from the treaty organization @OPANAL on Twitter.
 . . . Get involved in the 2017 nuclear weapons ban movement: nuclearban.org.
 . . . related post: Network Power and the Movement to Ban Nuclear Weapons.

You can help spread the word by sharing the poster below -- and all the Tlatelolco 50 posters on flickr.

"nuclear ... NO ahora, no nunca"
Poster by Nancy Camargo (Mexico) commemorating
the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
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PS - added February 16, 2017: Preparatory meetings for the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, commence today. Here is a picture of the president of the conference:

Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica, President
Preparatory meetings for the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding
instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination

PS - added April 17, 2017: The first session of the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, has taken place, and preparations are under way for the next session beginning June 15 in New York City. The support of the Treaty of Tlatelolco countries has been vital!

Thank you #ANTIGUAandBARBUDA.
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Thank you #ARGENTINA.
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Thank you #BAHAMAS.
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Thank you #BARBADOS.
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Thank you #BELIZE.
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Thank you #BOLIVIA.
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Thank you #BRAZIL.
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Thank you #CHILE.
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Thank you #COLOMBIA.
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Thank you #COSTARICA.
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Thank you #CUBA.
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Thank you #DOMINICA.
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Thank you #DOMINICANREPUBLIC.
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Thank you #ECUADOR.
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Thank you #ELSALVADOR.
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Thank you #GRENADA.
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Thank you #GUATEMALA.
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Thank you #GUYANA.
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Thank you #HONDURAS.
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Thank you #JAMAICA.
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Thank you #MEXICO.
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Thank you #PANAMA.
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Thank you #PARAGUAY.
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Thank you #PERU.
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Thank you #SAINTKITTSandNEVIS.
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Thank you #SAINTLUCIA.
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Thank you #SAINTVINCENTandtheGRENADINES.
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Thank you #SURINAME.
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Thank you #TRINIDADandTOBAGO.
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Thank you #URUGUAY.
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Thank you #VENEZUELA.
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(See even more memes of nuclear ban supporters.)

A new day is dawning . . . .(See: Who would possibly vote "NO" to banning nuclear weapons??? )


Please share this post . . . . 

IN BERKELEY: Declaring Sanctuary, Changing Hearts and Minds

We are a Lutheran congregation declaring our commitment to help people facing deportation to dangerous situations . . . so of course we gathered around the waters of promise . . . .

Supporters from over a dozen area congregations and organizations gathered
around Pastor Jeff Johnson of University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley
poured the waters of promise as part of the ceremony in which ULC declared
Sanctuary for undocumented persons facing deportation.

Today, University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley stood shoulder to shoulder with these congregations and organizations to declare Sanctuary for undocumented persons facing deportation:

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity / East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition (EBIIC)
Dominican Sisters of San Rafael and Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose
Kehilla Community Synagogue
Hope Lutheran Church of El Sobrante
All Soul’s Episcopal Church
Newman Holy Spirit Catholic Church Non-Violent Peacemakers Group
Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy
Lake Merritt United Methodist Church
Pittsburgh-Antioch Community Church
Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County
Episcopal Diocese of California
Oakland Catholic Worker
Primera Iglesia Presbiteriana Hispana

Over the last two years, the Sanctuary Movement has had 16 Sanctuary cases, winning relief from deportation for 13 people in 9 cities throughout the country, building a growing network of over 350 congregations in 30 states.

The focus of the day was the danger many people face if they are forced to return to the places they came from. We heard testimony from and about immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala giving specific examples of the threats to their lives that caused them to come here.

At today's event, the emphasis was on faith, conscience, and humanity: we are committed to helping these people simply because they need it. I couldn't help remembering that there is also another reason to help: US complicity in creating the violence in chaos in so many parts of Latin America. (See links to related posts below)

Two weeks ago the City of Berkeley affirmed its support of Sanctuary for undocumented persons facing deportation. Berkeley city councilman Kriss Worthington spoke at today's event and told those present that the movement is not just providing assistance to specific individuals, but also educating people everywhere about the need for Sanctuary, and changing hearts and minds.

More information on Sanctuary at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley for undocumented persons facing deportation is at ulcberkeley.org/sanctuary.



Related posts

It will take me multiple posts to spell out everything that I feel needs to be said about the Ayotzinapa 43.  People in the US need to work to change their own attitude about Mexico, and about the culpability or all of us here in the US in the wrongs that are being done down there. The Ayotzinapa 43 were persecuted for saying "the future can be different." It's time for us to take up their cry.

(See Ayotzinapa43: US People Need an Attitude Adjustment )





I dedicated Indigenous Peoples Day 2015 to making some progress towards writing about the perspective of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

How do you observe Indigenous Peoples Day?

(See Reflections on Indigenous Peoples Day 2015)






Perhaps, like me, you will read a sentence like, "In 2001, many people came to her neighbourhood looking for a new home, fleeing from the Naya River where the paramilitaries had massacred and displaced the Afro-Colombian communities," and wonder what it refers to.

(See COLOMBIA: Where did the violence come from?)




The second half of the 20th century saw massive human rights violations in countries throughout Central America and South America, committed principally by governments and government-sanctioned paramilitaries. The United States government encouraged and enabled this through arms shipments, training, and other forms of support.

(See How Is the US Implicated in Argentina's "Years of Lead"?)

WELCOME MAT USA: Come in! Come in! (Get out! Get out!)

Ester Hernandez, Sun Raid
Un-naturally harvested
SUN*RAID
RAISINS
Guaranteed Deportation
Mextecos, Zapotecos, Triques, Purepechas
by-product of NAFTA

Saturday is the anniversary of Cesar Chavez' death in 1993, and it seems like an opportune time to lift up the work of artist Ester Hernandez.  I first saw her poster Sun Raid at the "Fires Will Burn" exhibition at DePaul University in Chicago.

Sun Raid is a searing reminder that people in the US have always been happy to welcome immigrants to help make their businesses profitable and make sure they had cheap stuff and cheap labor . . . . but how dare they expect to be treated like people!

(For a book-length treatment of this subject, see Juan Gonzalez's Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America.)

We are living in a year in which we are seeing Donald Trump get away with demonizing immigrants. Maybe we need to take advantage of this moment and turn the phenomenon on its head. Who, after all, are the immigrants? Who is "entitled" to be here? What can it possibly mean anymore to say that certain people are tolerated and others are "illegals"?

I've heard people say that the problem is that Trump is a master at using the media to get attention, and the rest of us need to get with the times. Okay, here's my contribution:

Eva Longoria on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."
Maybe when Eva Longoria says it, people will remember???
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A few weeks ago, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, super-celebrity Eva Longoria repeated the expression familiar to many of us: "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." Maybe when she says it, people will remember???

More on "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us" here.


Related posts

It will take me multiple posts to spell out everything that I feel needs to be said about the Ayotzinapa 43.  People in the US need to work to change their own attitude about Mexico, and about the culpability or all of us here in the US in the wrongs that are being done down there. The Ayotzinapa 43 were persecuted for saying "the future can be different." It's time for us to take up their cry.

(See Ayotzinapa43: US People Need an Attitude Adjustment )





El Buen Pastor by Luis Jiménez depicts Ezekiel Hernandez -- a shepherd who was shot by U.S. marines in the area around the US-Mexico border as he was tending his sheep. The artist has said, "having [marines] patrolling the border in the 'war on drugs' is 'an accident waiting to happen.'"

(See Holy Week 2016 and "El Buen Pastor")












Part of what I loved about Du Hai was the way it used large pieces of fabric to convey the sensation of being in a boat among billowing waves, and the multiple uses to which they put the fabric - sea, clouds, sail, and more. Even a newcomer to modern dance, such as myself, could grasp what was going on.

(See Wanna Fix the U.S.A? Welcome an Immigrant Today! )

Holy Week 2016 and "El Buen Pastor"

Luis Jiménez, El Buen Pastor (1999)

This image seized my attention even before I moved to California.

I saw it in the "Fires Will Burn" exhibition at DePaul University in Chicago.

It jolted me into thinking, "What is happening in the rest of the Americas is not as far away as we like to pretend."

Now that I live in California -- and need only look out my back window to see palms like the ones in the picture -- the truth of that insight is only more obvious.

El Buen Pastor by Luis Jiménez depicts Ezekiel Hernandez -- a shepherd who was shot by U.S. marines in the area around the US-Mexico border as he was tending his sheep. The artist has said, "having [marines] patrolling the border in the 'war on drugs' is 'an accident waiting to happen.'" (See "Courting Dialogue, Not Controversy")

" . . . not as far away as we like to pretend . . . . "

Food for thought as we enter Holy Week 2016.


Related Posts

Palestine 30 CE - were Jews a "community of color?" And what was Empire doing to keep the community within "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" bounds? And what happened to people who looked like the "wrong" type?

(See Was the Crucifixion a "signature strike"?)








We will only deal successfully with the crimes being committed using drones when we understand them as part of the much larger war against communities of color . . . .

(See Drone Gaze, Drone Injury: The War on Communities of Color )













"You may not understand every word, you may feel uncomfortable, you may have to spend time later trying to figure it out or to humble yourself now and ask for help; you may have to work at it. But in the long run . . . a Spanish speaker is what you are . . . because that's the community you're a part of!"

(See Don't speak Spanish? "Sure you do . . . .")



It will take me multiple posts to spell out everything that I feel needs to be said about the Ayotzinapa 43.  People in the US need to work to change their own attitude about Mexico, and about the culpability or all of us here in the US in the wrongs that are being done down there. The Ayotzinapa 43 were persecuted for saying "the future can be different." It's time for us to take up their cry.

(See Ayotzinapa43: US People Need an Attitude Adjustment )





In a composition suggestive of a yin-yang symbol, a woman in a burka (but wearing audacious red glitter platform heels) is surrounded by genie-ish tableaus of the many male obsessions/pastimes that some of us rail about frequently -- sexualized pop singers, professional sports -- as well as some that we probably should rail about more (such as patriarchy in religion and political violence).

(See VIOLENCE: " . . . and the women must live with the consequences . . . " )