A few weeks ago, I returned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see once again the effect of atomic bombing. It was a profound experience to speak to some of the survivors and see the museum displays of the horror and suffering. It is a visit I recommend to every politician, certainly those legislators who do not understand the calamitous results from the use of even one such bomb.

That we still -- ten years after the end of the Cold War -- have 35,000 nuclear weapons, 5,000 of them on hair-trigger alert, is an indictment of the political systems of the major countries.

Why can we not get rid of what the former president of the World Court called "the ultimate evil?"

Nuclear weapons have been called militarily useless by generals, a transgression of humanitarian law by jurists, and morally bankrupt by spiritual leaders. The nuclear powers have spent $8 trillion on developing and maintaining nuclear weapons, money that is stolen from the poor, sick and homeless of the world. Public opinion polls in many countries show that people support the abolition of nuclear weapons under a global, verifiable regime.

But nuclear weapons are retained. The nuclear retentionists, the arms merchants, the war profiteers have their way in the corridors of power.

It is time for those who understand that nuclear weapons and humankind cannot coexist to wake up. Because those who have nuclear weapons will not give them up, the world is staring into an abyss of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The United States pursues modernization of its nuclear arsenals and dominance, to be backed up by destabilizing missile defences. India plans the deployment of nuclear weapons in air, land, and sea. NATO's Strategic Concept maintains that its nuclear weapons are "essential," has retained an option to use them first, and used military force in the Balkans without U.N. Security Council consent. NATO's policies and actions along with domestic political and economic pressures have convinced Russia to mirror NATO's nuclear posture. The Comprehensive Test Ban is nowhere near entering into force. The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is paralyzed. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons into more countries, is in jeopardy.

The NPT stalemate, crucial as it is to the hopes for a viable non-proliferation regime in the 21st century, is itself part of a larger world struggle today. Nuclear weapons, like the Kosovo war, are about the rule of law. How will international law be imposed in the years ahead: by the militarily powerful determining what the law will be, or by a collective world effort reposing the seat of law in the United Nations system?

Already, only a decade after the end of the Cold War, the hopes for a cooperative global security system have been dashed on the rocks of power. The trust, engendered during the early post-Cold War years, is now shattered. New arms races are underway.

While the world community has not lost many opportunities to move towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, a bridge to a nuclear weapon-free world can still -- and must -- be built. The worldwide movement to eliminate nuclear weapons -- seen in the work of informed citizen organizations, respected authorities and like-minded governments -- is gaining strength.

A center-piece of this movement is the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), the grouping of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden, now gathering support in the international community. NAC has called on the Nuclear Weapons States to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for eliminating their nuclear arsenals.

Here is the center-piece of NAC's new resolution at the U.N. General Assembly this fall:

"Calls upon the Nuclear Weapons States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT."

The Middle Powers Initiative (MPI), a carefully focused campaign established by a network of international citizen organizations, is dedicated to the goals set out in the NAC resolution. MPI, as a non-governmental organization, helps to mobilize influential "middle power" governments to build the political will to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. The programs of MPI include consultations with governments, seminars, publications and liaison with other citizen organizations.

MPI's Revised Briefing Book, translated into Japanese, German and Finnish so far, is being distributed around the world to key governments, parliamentarians, opinion-formers, media and NGOs. MPI has sent international delegations to the governments of Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands to build support for the New Agenda Coalition.

MPI has also organized a Strategy Consultation for representatives of governments and NGOs at the Rockefeller Foundation, New York; it is preparing a special Forum at the United Nations and developing a network of parliamentarians around the world working on nuclear disarmament.

MPI believes that the effective work of respected middle power States can influence the government of the United States to move forward on nuclear disarmament. It is the U.S. that holds the key to the future of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. is the Western leader, the linchpin of NATO, by far the strongest military power in the world. In arms weapons negotiations, the Americans deal from a position of strength. If the U.S. decides to live up to its commitment to Article VI of the NPT, there is hope that the non-proliferation regime will hold. If the U.S. is determined to hold its nuclear weapons well into the 21st century, there will be a break-out by other nations. The status quo cannot hold. Either there will be comprehensive negotiations leading to a global, verifiable ban on nuclear weapons or we will witness their spread into more countries.

U.S. leadership is critical.

Within the United States, there are important organizations and numerous activists trying to influence the national viewpoint. The State of the World Forum, the Henry L. Stimson Center, the Center for Defense Information, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, and the Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy are among the prestigious, non-partisan research centres warning that the uncertainties of the world can only be adequately dealt with if the nuclear powers commit themselves in earnest to the dedicated pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons.

The prestigious National Academy of Sciences has called for the United States and Russia to reduce their arsenals to "a few hundred each" and has advised the Administration that the potential benefits of a global ban on nuclear weapons "warrant serious efforts to identify and promote the conditions that would make this work."

MPI joins with these important organizations in advancing serious work for the curtailment, reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons.

Why is the work of these progressive bodies not being debated across the land? Why is there such public silence on the paramount issue of our time? Why does the media continue to ignore the peril threatening humanity?

Those of us who know what is going on must raise our voices. We must stop whispering. We must do more to counter the brazen trumpeting of destruction by nuclear proponents who diminish logic, language and law in their determination to hold onto the past.

The struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons will be long and difficult: it is not for the faint-hearted. The opposition of those who, through ignorance, ideology, or greed, want to keep the status quo, will be vigorous, and perhaps ugly. But it cannot be denied that the historic momentum to contain, and then abolish, nuclear weapons is growing. We dare not lose our courage, our determination, our hope.