A MOVE to associate Tavistock Town Council with an international peace movement was last week thrown out during a meeting in the town. Tavistock Peace Action Group had written to Cllr Caroline Keane, mayor of Tavistock, to see if she would sign up for the Mayors for Peace group, which is urging nuclear states to abolish their weapons. In a letter to Cllr Keane, Geri Laithwaite, of TPAG, said the group had recently commemorated the ?atrocities which took place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 61 years ago?. She said it was the mayor of Hiroshima who, in 1982, made a proposal to the UN to instigate a programme to promote the solidarity of cities to work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. Cllr Keane told last week?s meeting of the town?s finance committee she had signed a declaration of support for the movement as an individual, but asked the council to support the campaign. She said: ?I know this is a difficult area but this town actually has more Japanese exchange students than any other town in the country. ?It?s a great shame to get to the year 2006 and find ourselves in this situation with Iraq and still be having to resort to arms ? by this day and age we should have found another way.? Cllr Keane said she had experienced war first-hand when she lived in Zimbabwe and was ?very anxious? regarding the situation of ongoing conflicts. Cllr Iain Andrews said nuclear power had been misused in the past and he believed totally in peace. ?I would love to be associated with a council that gives this it?s full backing,? he said. Cllr David Farrant said: ?I have no qualms about our mayor associating herself with this, but I take issue with the wording of this letter, saying it was an atrocity to drop the bomb. ?At the time it was done to shorten the war and it saved many lives ? it was a catastrophe, not an atrocity.? Cllr Philip Sanders agreed and said the use of pejorative terms was not helpful. He was concerned if the council backed the movement, it would be expressing a political view. A proposal that Cllr Keane sign the declaration on behalf of the council was defeated by eight votes. The decision was due to be ratified by the full council on Tuesday evening.
