A Message from GSI President Jonathan Granoff

We sit before a moment of extraordinary change. Now, more than ever, we must work together to build bridges between peoples and countries, and affect the promise of change that this moment holds. We know all too well how interdependent we are on each other; this historical moment has illuminated for us just how intertwined our economic security is with that of our neighbors’. Our stability depends on our capacity to cooperatively to save our shared economies and our shared planet. Nuclear weapons are walls; we need bridges. Our work, and the work of our allies in governments and in global civil society to keep the focus on abolition and a common security framework is ever more important. Your support of our efforts is much needed. Our adversaries are actively strategizing on how to perpetuate the nuclear weapons status quo. The new US President will be challenged to obtain incremental progress such as support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in exchange for new warheads or increased funding for simulated testing. Without coherent, sophisticated and strategic organizing, the goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons could be obscured. GSI is such a coherent voice for nuclear weapons abolition. As Senator Cranston, GSI’s visionary founder, often said, “Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization.” With your help, we can amplify this voice at the highest levels of national governments, in parliaments, at the United Nations and at important civil society fora. Just recently, our supporters enabled us to undertake the following extraordinary accoplishments: an exceptional conference at the UN with the East West Institute, where the Secretary-General laid out an unprecedentedly ambitious proposal for nuclear abolition; The Nobel Laureate Summit– to which I am a Senior Adviser– adopted a strong statement on human rights at the recent meeting in Paris, which includes crisp and focused language on nuclear disarmament. We brought high-level diplomats and experts together to discuss strategies for a nuclear weapons convention; Our parliamentary program, PNND, joined the Government of Costa Rica in organizing a day-long diplomatic round table on a nuclear weapons convention in Geneva; the IPU now has significantly strong links with our PNND network; I chaired, for the second year in a row, a plenary session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union summit at the UN; We helped to organize the 2008 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Ministerial Meeting- a Message of Hope and Peace, with participation of Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas; also arranged high-level consultation with senior diplomats and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs; Chaired plenary sessions and served as summation speaker at the prestigious Point of Peace Summit in Norway, where speakers included Nobel Peace Laureates Kim Dae-Jung, former President of South Korea; Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Rajendra Pahcauri. (Watch the video that was made here, which we helped craft and provided the introduction for). Other participants include Jan Egeland, former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs; Kjell Magne Bondevik, Former Prime Minister of Norway and others; Helped create working groups on nuclear weapons and space weapons within the World Academy of Art and Science, and addressed plenary of World Academy General Assembly in Hyderabad, India; Several suggestions that we offered in my intervention in Iran have entered into the substantive negotiations that are taking place internationally now; we have since joined a coalition led by Ambassador Bill Luers, Dr. Trita Parsi, Ambassador Tom Pickering and other luminaries; PNND sponsored a seminar in the European Parliament, along with the Nobel Laureate Organization the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, on Rebuilding Trust: US Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the Renewed Arms Race. We brought a key member of the Russian Duma, MP Sergei Kolesnikov, to speak. These initiatives and others are reported on in our recent newsletters. Video of the GSI leaders presentations at the Yale Divinity School, in New Delhi and elsewhere is available here. The Global Security Institute is making a critical difference, and we need your help. As our political accomplishes mount, our responsibility grows. Your support will ensure that we can continue these important activities in 2009 and beyond. Please consider making a donation to GSI today by donating safely and securely here on our website. From all of us at the Global Security Institute, I wish you all a happy, safe and peaceful new year. http://www.gsinstitute.org/gsi/newsletter/index.html