Unarmed Costa Rica calls for disarmament
November 20th, 2008 | by admin |Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of the unarmed state of Costa Rica, has called for a global reduction of military spending.
“The perverse logic that leads a poor nation to spend excessive sums on its armies, and not on its people, is exactly the antithesis of human security, and a serious threat to international security,” said Arias in an address before the UN Security Council, over which Costa Rica presides this month.
Although Costa Rica has no military, “it is not a naive nation,” stressed Arias, a 1987 Novel Peace Prize laureate.
“We have not come here for the abolition of all armies. We have not even come to urge the drastic reduction of world military spending, which has reached 3.3 billion dollars a day.”
He suggested that “a gradual reduction is not only possible, but also imperative, particularly for developing nations.”
Sanchez also urged the world body to adopt a treaty regulating arm exports, saying “The destructive power of the 640 million small arms and light weapons that exist in the world, 74 percent in the hands of civilians, has proven to be more lethal than nuclear weapons, and is one of the primary threats to national and international security. “
