The Seville Statement on Violence: A Progress Report
Abstract
Journal of Peace Research, vol. 26, no. 2, 1989, pp. 113-121 Focus On The Seville Statement on Violence: A Progress Report* DAVID ADAMS Wesleyan University (CT) 1. The Message of the Statement Although the central struggle in the develop- ing world movement to abolish war is politi- cal, there is a related psychological struggle that also plays an essential part. Psychol- ogists may have a vested interest when they emphasize the importance of psychological factors, but major political figures have ack- nowledged them as well. For example, within weeks after his historic meeting with Ronald Reagan in Washington and the sign- ing of the breakthrough treaty to abolish intermediate range missiles, Mikhail Gorba- chev included the following comments in an address to the International Forum for a Nuclear-Free World in Moscow: When disarmament is discussed a common thesis is that man is violent by nature and that war is a mani- festation of human instinct. Is war the perpetual concomitant of human existence then? If we accept this view, we shall have to reconcile ourselves with continuous development and accumulation of ever more sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. Such thinking is unacceptable. It is reminiscent of times when