Saintes, 18 June 2006

The General Meeting of ACDN (Action of Citizens for the total Disarmament of Nukes) held in Saintes on 17 June 2006, unanimously adopted the following resolution:

« Whereas

 the estimated 27 000 nuclear weapons on earth can at any moment trigger a catastrophe which would costs millions of lives and render the planet uninhabitable;

 many of these weapons, ten times more powerful on average than those that razed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, are placed on hair-trigger alert;

 even apart from this risk, nuclear weapons deprive the nations possessing them and the nations seeking to obtain them of financial, technical and human resources that would enable them to solve other major problems;

 France is helping to perpetuate this situation by ignoring Article VI of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) which obliges the nuclear states to negotiate the complete elimination of their arsenals, and by developing her own arsenal (a new nuclear submarine, the M51 missile, new nuclear warheads, etc);

 France has produced and possesses today radioactive weapons called "Depleted Uranium" weapons;

 the French population has never been consulted about these policies which make citizens potential accomplices in crimes against humanity and also probable victims, through retaliation or through fallout,

« ACDN resolves

 to put to citizens and their elected representatives the following question:

« Do you wish France to ask all the nuclear States, whether or not signatories of the NPT, to negotiate and adopt by 2010 at the latest a calendar for implementing the elimination of all nuclear arsenals under strict and effective international control, to suspend her programme for new nuclear arms up till and including 2010, and to divert these budgets to satisfying other needs - social, health, cultural, educational, environmental or humanitarian? »

 to propose the organising of a referendum on that question;

 to ask all the candidates for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections to initiate or support the organising of such a referendum within a year of being elected;

 to make their replies public;

 at the appropriate time to call on voters to NOT VOTE FOR candidates showing indifference or opposition to this referendum."

This citizens’ questionnaire is developed from the « Appeal for a referendum on nuclear, biological and chemical disarmament - complete, universal and controlled » which ACDN launched exactly ten years ago, on 18 June 1996, and which has been signed by thousands.

This campaign for a referendum has already received the support of the international « Abolition 2000 » network.

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