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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
September 17, 2005
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| July 30, 2005 |
The Youth Who Moved the Nation of Costa Rica – Mr. Roberto Zamora |
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| Roberto Zamora, lawyer and peace activist from Costa Rica. |
Imagine changing the course of your country’s history? That is exactly what Mr. Roberto Zamora, a 24 year old law student, accomplished when he sued the government of Costa Rica for unconstitutionally supporting the war in Iraq. The Costa Rican constitution, like Japan’s, renounces the maintenance of armed forces, and its “Neutrality Statement” forbids the government to support any armed conflict. When the government of Costa Rica joined US President Bush’s “coalition of the willing” on the Iraq war, Mr. Zamora challenged his government in a lawsuit. He won the case and the government of Costa Rica was forced to demand that Costa Rica’s name to be removed from the list of the countries which support the war in Iraq. |
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| Roberto (second from left) and Ms. Fumiko Amano, Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor, surrounded by participants. |
Mr. Zamora joined the 49th Peace Boat voyage in New York after attending the GPPAC conference (Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict) at the United Nations headquarters. Mr. Zamora was a facilitator for a GPPAC workshop, which focused on peace constitutions and peace charters as mechanisms for confidence-building. Onboard Peace Boat, Mr. Zamora presented a series of lectures, including one describing his court case against the Costa Rican. He outlined Costa Rica’s history, showing a country with a history of peaceful decisions. The country’s first president was a teacher, not a military man, who helped shape Costa Rica’s history in order to achieve a peace constitution, the last one of which was written in 1949. With the new constitution, the monetary funds that were used to maintain the former army were transferred towards educational use. |
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| Chatting with Spanish-speaking participants. |
Mr. Zamora’s second lecture compared Japan’s constitution to Costa Rica’s. Using the example of his court case, he explained how he was able to sue the Costa Rican government in a mere year and half and win his case. In Japan, however, at least three people have tried to sue the government of Japan for sending its Self Defense Forces to Iraq, and their cases have been refused. This refusal is “unconstitutional” according to the preamble of Japan’s constitution, which trusts justice as the way to achieve universal peace. |
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| Press Conference held in Costa Rica with Mr. Yoshioka of Peace Boat and Ms. Almontaser, guest educator from New York. |
In his final lecture, Mr. Zamora appeared in a joint discussion with photojournalist Mr. Naomi Toyoda, under the banner, “If you chance yourself, you can change the world”. Not only did he give exceptional academic lectures, but his philosophical ideas of world peace were inspirational. “There are no great people, only great actions,” he stated as he encouraged Peace Boat participants to become peace activists by starting with the smallest action, such as a smile. He emphasized the importance of learning from mistakes “because that is the only way for us to learn and grow and truly realize how human we are”. |
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