More than 500 people congregated in the centre of the city to celebrate the beginning of the World March for Peace and Non-violence. An enormous float for peace, community groups and 106 dissemination stands completed the festive atmosphere. Celebrities such as Maximiliano Guerra, Jorge Marrale, Juan Leyrado, Miguel Cantilo and Raúl Porchetto attended the celebration.

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Pressenza, Buenos Aires, 2009-10-02

Buenos Aires celebrated World Day of Non-violence and the beginning of the World March for Peace in the city centre. The celebration, organized by World Without Wars, began at 10 a.m. with the erection of stands along Avenida Corrientes, and finished at the Colegio de Abogados with an act of recognition of the social organizations and personalities who have worked unstintingly for Peace.

According to the organizers, around 500 people distributed amongst 106 dissemination stands, each one representing a country through which the Base Team of the World March will travel, attended the inauguration. In addition, groups from Senegal, Paraguay, Lebanon, Uruguay, and Ecuador amongst others demonstrated, through their artistic representations, their commitment to peace and non-violence.

A huge, hand-built float representing the planet Earth moved along Avenida Corrientes accompanied by the hundreds of marchers, many of whom wore the traditional costume of their countries and ethnic groups, singing and chanting in favor of peace.

At 4.30 p.m. the concluding act began at the Colegio Publico de Abogados, where the sculpture of a crane, made from a canon shell by the master goldsmith Juan Carlos Pollarols, was presented on behalf of the organization World Without Wars to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the Madres de Paco, Lidia Ortiz de Bury, the Abuela de las Armas, Julia Villafañe (who made a flag for peace), the disarmament association Alfredo Marcenac and Martiniano Molina, a well known chef, for his Education for Peace project.

The cranes were presented by the actors Jorge Marrale and Juan Leyrado and the musicians Miguel Cantilo and Raúl Porchetto. Maximiliano Guerra, the internationally celebrated dancer and UNESCO Peace Ambassador, commented: "This is a marvelous initiative, and I wish we could repeat it every year in different parts of the world to counteract the idea that everything has to be decided by war, and to remind us that we are united by the World March for Peace and, above all, by non-violence, because there is so much violence in general".

During the act Guillermo Sullings, spokesperson of the Humanist Movement in Argentina and organizer of the World March in this country declared: "Two lives could be saved by every bullet made: the life of the person the bullet will kill, and the life of a child who could be saved from starvation by the resources used to manufacture it". Sullings also claimed that the most important thing was to reform the United Nations Organization since "the five members of the Security Council - United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China - are the biggest arms manufacturers in the world".

The celebration ended with a song composed especially for the World March for Peace and Non-violence sung by Victorio Menghi and accompanied by all those present.

Meanwhile, the organizers of the activity reported that members of the City of Buenos Aires crowd-control police (UCEP) had tried to dismantle the stands and the stage erected in the Plaza de la Republica, alleging that they were "illegally" occupying a public place. "We can not count on the support of the Government of the City, but all the same the occasion has surpassed all our expectations. We are sure that the milestones ahead, such as the arrival of the Base Team on the 29th of December and the closing rally of the World March on the 2nd of January in Mendoza will be extremely impressive", Sullings added.

(Translation provided by James Williamson)

Pressenza IPA