World Peace March begins 10/11/2009 Thousands of activists will march over three months to demand an end to war.

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence began Oct. 2 in New Zealand with symbolic acts all over the world.

Organizers say for 98 days, the march will cross 90 countries and 100 cities on five continents. The march, which ends on Jan. 2 in the Aconcagua snow peak in Argentina, covers 160,000 kilometers.

Participants will cross various climate zones and seasons, from hot summers in the tropical regions and deserts to a Siberian winter. A permanent group of 100 participants will do the complete route.

The participants are scheduled to meet with political leaders, organizations, and civil society to demand the dismantling of nuclear arsenals, the immediate withdrawal of troops from occupied countries, and the progressive disarmament of conventional weaponry as well as the signing of nonaggression pacts, and the renounce to war to resolve conflicts.

Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, US linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador and artists like Juanes, several Nobel Peace Prize winners, along with the World Without Wars group, part of the Humanist movement, will participate in the march.

Students, human rights advocates, artists and other citizens launched an inauguration of the march in Lima, Peru, on Oct. 2 in the Pueblo Libre district.

“The greatest demand of this march is the dismantling of nuclear arms and the general end of wars and the reduction of conventional arms because they are completely disproportionate,” said Madeleine John, a Peruvian and a member of World Without Wars.

When he signed on with the initiative, Galeano said that while three children die every minute from a curable disease, US$3 million is spent per minute on the military industry.

“While we see rampant poverty and so much money is spent on weapons to kill others, the chant at the march is: No more violence and no more war between ourselves!,” said John. —Latinamerica Press.