On
June 26-27, 1945, the United Nations was created as 51 nations
signed the U.N. Charter in San Francisco. In 2005, on those same
dates, at various locations including New York, San Francisco,
and Santa Cruz, an organization now consisting of 191 sovereign
members, will mark its 60th anniversary.
The
Santa Cruz celebration will take place at the Chaminade
Conference Center under the aegis of the Center for War/Peace
Studies (CW/PS), a research and education “think tank”
associated with the United Nations as an NGO (non-governmental
organization). The CW/PS, founded in 1961, has made studies
since then on arms control and disarmament, the Panama Canal,
the Vietnam War, the Middle East, the Law of the Sea, the Iraq
War, weapons in space, human rights, and global pollution. The
CW/PS has an eminent Board of Sponsors, which was recently
joined by Walter Cronkite.
The Santa Cruz conference will begin informally on Sunday, June
26, in the afternoon at Chaminade. Participants will have dinner
at 6:30 p.m., followed by opening presentations of a few invited
speakers. These will be continued after breakfast the following
morning. After lunch and a walk in the spectacularly beautiful
Chaminade forest garden, with its private redwood grove and
sweeping views of Monterey Bay and the Pacific Coast,
participants will engage in a wrap-up of the conference
proceedings, including especially two matters:
(1)The “revitalizing” draft resolution for the U.N.
General Assembly
(2)The draft “Sense of the U.S. Congress Resolution on
Supporting and Strengthening the United Nations.”
The
cost for full individual participation in the conference,
including the opening Sunday night dinner, Sunday night lodging,
Monday breakfast and luncheon, and all conference expenses,
including recreation, will be $300 per person, payable to the CW/PS.
(Invited speakers will be guests of the CW/PS.)
Those who wish to participate only in the Monday sessions,
including lunch, may do so at a suggested minimum of $35, but no
genuinely interested world citizen will be turned away.
Further information may be obtained from the CW/PS website: www.cwps.org.
