The Peace Boat will arrive in the port of Manta in order to carry out cultural exchange programs with citizens of the region of Manabí and to conduct a conference on peace constitutions such as those that have been adopted in Japan, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Co-organized by The Peace Boat and the NO Bases Coalition, and thanks to the support of The Eloy Alfaro de Montecristi Civic Center, the Universidad Laica (Secular University) “Eloy Alfaro” in Manabi, and the Tohalli Movement, the International Conference on Peace Constitutions for the Abolition of Nuclear Arms and Foreign Military Bases will focus on the concrete functions and results of peace constitutions, particularly with regards to the abolition of nuclear arms and foreign military bases.

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution and article 416 of the Ecuadorean constitution will especially be discussed and analyzed.

The conference is free and open to the public and includes cultural presentations, cultural exchange events, and a festival for peace.

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution renounces war as a way of solving international conflicts as well as the maintenance of armed forces. For over 60 years, this article has led to Japan’s peaceful development, assuring its neighbors in Asia that attacks committed during the second World War will not be repeated, hindering the development of the arms race in the Asian region, and preventing the loss of young Japanese lives on the battle field.

Article 416 of Ecuador’s new constitution, adopted in 2008, promotes peacefully solving conflicts and rejects the use or the threat of the use of force. It also promotes universal disarmament and condemns the development of weapons of mass destruction and the imposition of bases or facilities with military purposes of a given state within the territory of another.

Along with 400 other passengers, the 10 survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that are participating in the “Peace Boat Hibakusha Project 2009 for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons” will visit approximately 20 ports around the world over a period of three months in order to share testimonies of their experiences in each of the ports that they visit, and to call for nuclear disarmament and the creation of global stability that does not depend on the use of force.

Since its creation in 2008, the Hibakusha Project has helped to generate a growing world-wide impetus for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Since the air base in Manta, Ecuador was handed over for the United States’ military use in 1999 as part of Plan Colombia, various Ecuadorean human rights organizations and peace movements have denounced the illegality of the agreement, its attack on national sovereignty, and the harmful consequences for the local population.

Such consequences include claims made by peasants regarding terrain that was taken for the expansion of the base without corresponding compensation, denial of access to the port to local fishermen who have used the port for centuries, an increase in prostitution in the region, and a dramatic reduction in the number of fishing boats.

For 10 years, organizations and thousands of Ecuadorean citizens have actively and unwaveringly fought for closure of the base – an effort that culminated in the government’s decision not only to not renew permission for the contract that expires in November of this year, but also to include a clause in the new Ecuadorean constitution that prohibits the presence of foreign military bases and facilities in Ecuadorean territory.

For more information, visit www.peaceboat.org

*(Translation provided by Jaimie Boyd Guevara)*