Lord Michael Bates is now two months into his "Walk for Truce"
Michael has just surpassed the 700mile mark on his "Walk for Truce" and now finds himself in Tirana, Albania. You can find his current update below:
It has been quite a big week on the campaign:
I am currently in Tirana, Albania—732 miles and just over two months into the ‘Walk for Truce’ www.walkfortruce.org
There was a major breakthrough yesterday when Gary Streeter asked a great question of the prime minister at Question Time about the Olympic Truce—the responses in the past from the government have all been fairly non-committal but this response from the guy at the top said:
“ The whole House will want to congratulate Lord Bates on his great feat. We will promote a fresh resolution at the UN calling for the continued observance of the Olympic truce for the 2012 games. We wish to make the most of that historic opportunity, [and] we are considering other international initiatives to promote the spirit of the truce".
To have the prime minister of the UK who will propose the Truce Resolution to the United Nations General Assembly describe the truce as a ‘historic opportunity’ is way better than I was ever able to achieve at Westminster and is a tribute to some patient behind the scenes negotiations with Downing Street by Gary.
Meanwhile in Albania we have had an amazing week on the truce: being received by the president, given lunch by the prime minister, meeting the foreign minister, defence minister, being received and recognised in parliament by the Speaker. The reason for the positive reception in Albania was twofold: first and foremost a wonderful trusted interlocutor with the Albanian government and friend of mine Anthony Cordle who flew in from London with Michael Green to help set up the meetings and secondly a speculative front page splash in ‘Panorama’ the most read national daily newspaper claiming that I was in Albania to try and broker a ‘truce’ between the Socialist Party who are currently boycotting parliament and disputing the election results of May and the ruling Democratic Party led coalition. I hadn’t spoken to the newspaper but it created a bit of a media storm which included an appearance on Albania’s most popular programme a late night Jonathan Ross/Graham Norton style chat show which I appeared on with pop stars and dancers to talk about the truce. (found one of the interviews on the web: http://www.balkanweb.com/videoAlbum/popup.php?vIDCategoria=47&IDVideo=11172&va_id_video=11172 )
The result of this incredible week of meetings has been that the Albanian government are close to announcing that they will become the first government to implement the Olympic Truce for London 2012, or, indeed, ever in the modern Olympic Games with a humanitarian initiative in Afghanistan and/or Kosova.
Another quite incredible response was an early morning walk this morning up to a mountain top church of St Anthony which was joined by MPs’ from both the Socialist and Democratic parties and the Mayor-elect of Tirana whose result is that the centre of the political gridlock in the country—Michael Green even arranged for everyone to wear ‘Walk for Truce’ t-shirts (see pics on Flikr on the web-site). It was a very significant time of pilgrimage which I found quite inspirational and I think everyone who took part found it a time of coming together and healing.
I have now received an invitation to go to Kosova with the British ambassador to Albania over the weekend to see if we can meet with the president there and generate further interest in the Olympic Truce. I plan to return to Tirana next Tuesday to recommence the walk towards Shkoda, Montenegro.
We had been working to Sarajevo as the launch point for the campaign on July 20th, but it seems to have broken earlier and although I am a week behind schedule at this point it was worth taking the time in Tirana and hopefully.
Otherwise I am in good health having recovered from a bad bout of sunburn ten days ago and I am within budget.
We have a wonderful support group who meet at Westminster under the chairmanship of Gary every couple of weeks and they really beginning to put some structure into the campaign. There is a long way to go but I am greatly encouraged by what has happened this past week and also the sure knowledge that had I not embarked upon the ‘crazy walk’ then in all probability it wouldn’t have.
Thank you for your encouragement and support and do point people to the petition and the web-site at www.walkfortruce.org.
Michael