SECURITY

GUNA calls for intensified efforts to reduce arms
Secretary General for the Ghana United Nations Association (GUNA), Mr Chris Pardie has raised concerns about the continues proliferation of arms in the country despite attempts to curtail the spread of arms in wrongful hands.

Date Created : 10/27/2017 9:34:44 AM : Story Author : Ghanadistricts.com

According to him, previous literature has affirmed that the cause of war had been the escalating buildups of armaments in the among people.

Mr Pardie who was speaking at this year’s Disarmament Week Celebration at the Manadela Park in Ashaiman, Thursday, noted that one of the earliest successful achievement in disarmament was obtained through the Washinton Naval Treaty which was signed by Governments of the UK, United States of America (USA), France, Japan, France and Italy which prevented the continued construction of capital ships and limited ships of other classifications to under 10,000 tons displacement.

He added that a temporal mixed commission on Armament was set up by the League of Nations to explore more about the possibilities for disarmament which brought forth proposals including abolishing chemical warfare and strategic bombing to the limitation of more conventional weapons.

However, a number of attempts at exploring possibilities for the reduction of arms and army size was met with difficulties. Despite this, a lot of people and groups pressed home the need for this to be achieved, adding that even at one point in time, US President John F. Kennedy in 1961 announced at the UN General assembly the US “intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race – to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved”. This, he spearheaded and called for global general and complete disarmament, offering a rough outline for how this could be accomplished.

GUNA is therefore in great support and conviction that “general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan and a test – a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act”.

GUNA therefore called on all relevant institutions and organisations to help in the fight at completely eliminating reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons to offer the world a safer place.

Ghanadistricts.com