[E-rundbrief] Info 1863 - Healthcare Instead of Militarization

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief Info 1863 - International Peace Bureau / IPB and 
supporters: Petition: Invest in Healthcare Instead of Militarization.

Bad Ischl, 1.4.2020

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Invest in Healthcare Instead of Militarization

We, the signatories, call on the world leaders meeting at the General 
Assembly of the United Nations*, to dramatically reduce military 
spending in favor of healthcare and all social and environmental needs.

*Signatures will be brought to the United Nations General Assembly on 
the 1st day of the next session opening on September 15th 2020

Health Care Stress
Together with the International Peace Bureau, the world’s oldest peace 
organization and Nobel Prize winner, we are witnessing the 
consequences of irresponsible political decisions that have led to 
dramatic under-investment in healthcare. All over the world, health 
systems are reaching the limits of their strength and heroic 
front-line staff are under massive pressure. The coronavirus emergency 
shows the weakened state our societies find themselves in: a world 
driven by financialization, shareholder value, and austerity has 
weakened our ability to defend the common good and placed human life 
in danger on a global scale.

Employees fearful of job and income loss are tempted to go to work 
sick. The elderly are vulnerable and need help. The virus hits the 
weakest hardest. Privatization, austerity measures, and the neoliberal 
system have brought local, regional and national health services to 
the brink of collapse.
We can already draw lessons for the future – healthcare is a human 
right for young and old, for all people in all parts of the world. 
Healthcare must never be slashed or subordinated in the pursuit of 
profit through privatization.

Time for a global social contract
The ILO reports on the labor market consequences with a potential loss 
of 25 million jobs, more than during the 2008 financial crisis. 
Working poverty is expected to increase significantly, up to an 
additional 35 million individuals.

We support the efforts of the trade union movement globally and 
locally, in their call for a new social contract. We support their 
call for economic measures and resources to protect jobs, incomes, 
public services, and welfare.

Prioritize Disarmament
The world spends US$1.8 trillion on military expenditure every year 
and is scheduled to spend 1 trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons in 
the next 20 years.

Militarization is the wrong path for the world to take; it fuels 
tensions and raises the potential for war and conflict. It aggravates 
already heightened nuclear tensions.

World leaders must put disarmament and peace at the center of policy 
making and develop a new agenda for disarmament that includes banning 
nuclear weapons. We reiterate our call for governments to sign up to 
the TPNW treaty.

Disarmament is a major key to the great transformation of our 
economies, to ensure that human beings and not profit are most valued; 
economies in which ecological challenges will be solved and global 
social justice will be pursued.

With disarmament, the implementation of the SDGs, a global social 
contract, and a new global green peace deal, we can address challenges 
such as the coronavirus pandemic.

We are calling the world leaders, meeting at the United Nations 
General Assembly in September 2020, to act for a culture of peace. A 
peaceful path means that we need a global strategy, a global social 
contract, and global cooperation to ensure planet-wide support for 
people. This will be the human solidarity of the 21st century – for 
and with the people.

http://www.ipb.org/news/petition-invest-in-healthcare-instead-of-militarization/

-- 

     Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, 4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at