The Hindu : Anti-war meeting held

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 05, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Anti-war meeting held

By Our Staff Reporter

THRISSUR MARch 3. Political leaders cutting across party lines, religious leaders, social activists and intellectuals expressed their solidarity for world peace at the `anti-war meet' held here today.

Presiding over the function organised by the Deshabhimani Thrissur unit, the critic, M N Vijayan, said that the international dimension of an impending war would mean that the whole world would turn barren.

"Keralites are organising anti-war meeting because of the fear of switching over from an unreal financially stable situation to a real poverty situation, with the instability in Gulf as a result of war. Ours is a pseudo economics. Both our food and peace of mind will be lost.''

He observed that anti-war meetings would help in making people realise that the impending war will not bring in victory but ultimate defeat. "Peace and progress are words that go in hand, war is a word that goes against those words. The actions of the U.S. show that a country had hatched a conspiracy to annihilate other countries. This will result in the creation of superiors and inferiors. Now when the word `disarmament' is used, it means that a country (U.S.) will not disarm itself, but other countries should disarm.''

Inaugurating the meeting, the Thrissur Archbishop, Mar Jacob Thumkuzhy said that it was `unethical' to possess weapons of mass destruction. "But now many countries including India have been frantically trying to possess such weapons. The highest nuclear weapons stockpile rests with the US. Hence one would be prompted to repeat to Mr Bush, `That man is you' like the God's prophet said to David, reminding him of his own sin, in Bible.''

Quoting an article in the New York Times, Mar Thumkuzhy said that there were two super powers in the world--one the U.S. and the other world opinion.

The Metropolitan of the Church of East, Mar Aprem, the Mayor, Jose Kattookkaran, social activist and freedom fighter, I M Velayudhan, the CPI Legislative party leader, K P Rajendran, MLA, Therambil Ramakrishnan, MLA, the CPI(M) district secretary, E P Jayarajan, P R Rajan, M P Parameswaran, K K Rahulan, K Aravindakshan, Francis Alapatt, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi secretary, P V Krishnan Nair and the Deepika resident editor, Alexander Sam were among those who spoke on the occasion.

A poster exhibition on war was also exhibited at the meeting venue.

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