Yurii Sheliazhenko: A Voice for Peace in Ukraine
Greetings and peace from Kyiv. I will start with a story of tyranny and courage. When the Helsinki Final Act was concluded, ten human rights defenders created Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1976 and were immediately arrested and repressed. And yet, even from Gulag, from a Soviet concentration camp, they managed to write an open letter to signatories of Helsinki Accords, advocating nuclear disarmament and release of prisoners of conscience to comply fully with the Helsinki commitments. The letter said: "The war of ideologies gives rise to a senseless arms race, so the disarmament of hearts and souls is necessary". I am here today to say the same, that disarmament in international relations starts from the disarmament of hearts, that could have miraculous power: millions on streets in Europe protesting against nuclear sharing. The will of the people ended the cold war; hundreds of thousands of conscientious objectors refusing to fight imperialist wars in Vietnam and in Afganistan...