Mutirao Workshop number 51 on 22 FEBRUARY 2006

World Council of Churches General Assembly
Porto Alegre

Arms and Poverty: Changing the Global Balance

Rev. Hansulrich Gerber, Coordinator of the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) stressed that hunger might be one of the greatest forms of violence, if not the greatest, in the world today. In the meantime, military spending, especially in the USA and most other nations, has been rising in recent years.

More than $1 trillion per year is now devoted to military spending. Meanwhile, in most discussions on addressing global poverty, there has been little mention of military spending.

Dr. Elizabeth Tapia, Executive Committee member of the Global Priorities Campaign, an international inter-religious campaign to change budget priorities, spoke of conditions in The Philippines affecting children and women and others amongst the poor, in contrast to the massive spending in that nation on the military as well as on debt relief. Florella Hazely of the Peace to the City Network spoke of military spending in West Africa both with regard to the wars there in past years and especially on small arms.

Arnold Kohen, International Coordinator of the Global Priorities Campaign, spoke of the need to build an effective effort to re-orient priorities. The fact that misplaced priorities exist has been evident for quite some time. More than drawing attention to this imbalance, mechanisms must be developed to address it in practical and sustainable ways. The challenge is what can really be done about this. Global Priorities is assembling a broad range of voices to alter the international debate toward achieving historic change.

In the literature Global Priorities distributed, one of the group’s prominent endorsers, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration Lawrence Korb, has said that 15 percent of the annual budget of the Pentagon can be eliminated without harming US defense capabilities. His statements are supported by high-ranking retired military officers in the United States.

The far-reaching consequences of the invasion of Iraq and the crisis in the Middle East have deepened the concern of many throughout the world over rising tensions and even violence between religions. The current focus of Global Priorities is on the contrast between spending on military purposes and the urgent need to increase spending on child survival by $5 billion per year, which would save the lives of six million children. This approach, as urged by international organizations such as UNICEF, is intended in part to foster a constructive platform upon which Muslims, Christians, Jews and others in both the international religious community and secular civil society can agree and collaborate. But beyond the question of child survival, far more can be done as the Global Priorities Campaign gathers force, with the emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals only a first step. It is vital that all friends of the DOV and WCC be part of this process.

Mutirao Workshop on Global Priorities: Military spending versus human needs

World Council of Churches General Assembly

Porto Alegre

22 February 2006
Arnold Kohen
International Coordinator, Global Priorities Campaign

In this Mutirao on Global Priorities, I feel compelled to begin through a narrative paying homage to a great Brazilian and world citizen, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello. Sergio was a man of extraordinary grace and courage who almost certainly would have become Secretary General of the United Nations one day. Over his long career with United Nations agencies, Sergio was involved in many of the most difficult issues of our times, on refugees, humanitarian affairs, human rights, armed conflict and military intervention. I was privileged to know Sergio when he was United Nations Special Representative in Timor Leste from 1999-2002 and later, when he was United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights.

In Timor Leste, Sergio was political overseer of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces who played a vital role in the transition to independence after 24 years of armed conflict and a ruthless campaign by militia forces that left most of the territory a charred ruin. In Timor Leste and other places he served, Sergio developed a keen understanding of the need for the sort of military action that saves lives, the kind of defense spending that makes people secure, whether in the South or the North.

But throughout his career, de Mello also worked to address many threats to human security that cannot be alleviated by military means. In the months before he died in August 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello emphasized the need to address world poverty and the desperation it breeds as a matter of urgency.

It is to that historic challenge that the Global Priorities Campaign is dedicated.

When he died, it was pointed out that in his various missions among refugees and other humanitarian efforts, Sergio often had one hand tied behind his back because of lack of funds. The human suffering he tried so hard to alleviate with insufficient resources illustrate the consequences of misplaced international priorities.

The situation has hardly improved since his death. In September 2005 at the World Summit in New York, the lack of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – aimed at cutting by fifty percent those living in conditions of extreme poverty by 2015 – represents an urgent call to action for concerned people everywhere. If this lack of progress is not reversed, the consequences of inaction will be tragic for millions of children and other vulnerable people whose health, hope, dignity, and survival depend on immediate changes in global priorities.

The critical question is how can this situation be changed over the long term? Global Priorities answers by drawing attention to the enormous imbalance between global military spending, which has reached 1 trillion US dollars annually, and the relatively modest expenditures needed to attack lethal poverty. More than drawing attention to this imbalance, mechanisms must be developed to address it in practical and sustainable ways.

In the literature Global Priorities is distributing here, one of our prominent endorsers, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration Lawrence Korb, has said that 15 percent of the annual budget of the Pentagon can be eliminated without harming US defense capabilities. His statements are supported by high-ranking retired military officers in the United States.

To cite a more global example, there are still 27,000 nuclear warheads in existence, and the United States is hardly the only nation that should be called to account. Similarly, when one examines conventional military spending, as the office of the Decade to Overcome Violence has done, it is clear that numerous nations around the world need to change their priorities in favor of meeting urgent social needs. All nations must do their part, all must be accountable. A serious international debate on all of these issues is long overdue. There is an equally pressing need to change the terms of debate on what constitutes human security.

The far-reaching consequences of the invasion of Iraq and the crisis in the Middle East and Islamic world have deepened the concern of many throughout the world over rising confrontation between religions. The focus of Global Priorities on the contrast between spending on military purposes and the urgent need to increase spending on child survival by $5 billion per year, which would save the lives of six million children, as urged by international organizations such as UNICEF, is intended in part to foster a constructive platform on which Muslims, Christians, Jews and others in both the international religious community and secular civil society can agree and collaborate. But beyond the question of child survival, far more can be done as the Global Priorities Campaign gathers force, with the Millennium Development Goals only a first step.

The fact that misplaced priorities exist has been evident for quite some time. The challenge is what can really be done about it.
Global Priorities is assembling a broad range of voices to alter the international debate toward achieving historic change. We welcome your thoughts and active participation as we move forward.