Keynote at NGO Forum of Helsinki + 50

​Helsinki University Speech.  Bruce Knotts, President and CEO of the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security.



I want to talk about three things  Peace, Climate Change, and Nuclear Weapons.  There are many wars going on now.  I want to focus on the civil war in Sudan, the Israeli war against Gaza, and the Russian war against Ukraine.  I don’t want to talk about how these wars got started, because that will just lead to an augment.  In fact, in a previous meeting one woman started arguing that NATO caused the war with the Ukraine.  I reminded her that I didn’t want to argue about how wars got started.  Rather I wanted to talk about how to end wars.  I said that wars need weapons and money.  If you can stop the money and the weapons, you can stop the war. 

The civil war in Sudan is one between two Sudanese military groups.  One is financed and supported by the United Arab Emirates and the other by Egypt.  If these two nations stopped supporting the military forces in Sudan, the war would end.  I mentioned I lived and worked in Sudan.  I say the beautiful Presidential Palace built by the British colonialists, there was a beautiful Catholic Cathedral and many beautiful Mosques and many beautiful homes, in which many I enjoyed wonderful hospitality.  All these are gone.  There is nothing left in Sudan.  Just sand.  

The Israeli war in Gaza would stop the moment the United States stops sending weapons and money to Isreal.   

What keeps Russia able to fight a long and protracted war? The answer is Oil which they sell for vast amounts of money to India and China. 

The world is burning up due to climate change.  We must stop using fossil fuels.  If Russia stopped its oil supplies, it would help remove climate change heat and it would stop the war with Ukraine.  All nations, need to stop using fossil fuels.

So if we stop the wars and we solve climate change, we have one more problem to solve.  Even if we solve all our problems, if we continue to have nuclear weapons, our entire planet could be destroyed even if we solve all the other problems.  We must abolish nuclear weapons.   


- Bruce Knotts, President and CEO of the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security.


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