(ANSA) - The Turin 2006 Winter Olympics has launched its campaign to make February's games a celebration of world peace as well as one of sporting excellence.
Piedmont politicians and directors of Games organizing committee TOROC were the first signatories of a declaration calling for all conflicts to halt when the Winter Olympics start on February 10.
The declaration also seeks to gather support for an Olympic-truce resolution at the United Nations General Assembly. Turin is aiming to repeat the success of last year's truce for the Athens' Summer Olympics, which the General Assembly approved with 120 votes in favour.
"The truce is a call for peace, an expression of humankind's desire to build a world based on fair competition, humanity, reconciliation and tolerance," said Games Supervisor and Culture undersecretary Mario Pescante.
"We intend to bring together all the continents, which are represented in the Olympic five rings, with a credible call for peace that cannot be exploited (for political ends) "Up to now, we have worked to resolve financial and organizational problems. As of today, the (Turin) Olympics is
finally showing its values."
Among those to sign the declaration with Pescante was Toroc President Valentino Castellani, Piedmont Governor Mercedes Bresso, Turin Provincial Government President Antonio Saitta and Turin Mayor Sergio Chiamparino.
TOROC has prepared a packed programme of events as part of its campaign for a global Olympic truce. On Sunday, people taking part in the Perugia-Assisi peace march will have the chance to add their names to the truce petition.
The campaign takes off in earnest on September 24, when over 200 mayors from cities around the world will meet in Turin to sign the declaration. A few days later leading figures of the three monotheist faiths will give their backing to the truce in Jerusalem.
Other representatives of the religions will make an appeal to armed forces to respect the truce in Sarajevo - the venue of the 1984 Winter Olympics - on October 27. That appeal will come after two days of meetings on peace, which will feature the presentation of a project to clear the Sarajevo Olympic sites of mines laid during the Bosnian civil war.
A meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners in favour of the truce is planned for the start of November.
Initiatives are also scheduled to take place at the Italian parliament in Rome and the European parliament in Strasbourg. The Olympic truce motion should be presented to the UN General Assembly by the end of the year.
"I don't recall any other Olympics working so hard for the truce as Turin is," said Pescante on Wednesday. During the games - February 10-26 - there will be a 'truce wall' at the various Turin 2006 Olympic villages, where competitors and the public can leave messages.
"We want to promote the values of fraternity with the truce," explained Castellani. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has campaigned for a 'pax olympica' to accompany every edition of the games since Barcelona 1992.
The General Assembly has consisted backed the IOC's petitions.
The origins of the Olympic truce - the Ekecheiria - date back to the ninth century BC and the times of the ancient games. King Iphitor of Elis is said to have started it, when he managed to persuade King Lykourgos of Sparta and Kleosthenes of Pisa, in the Peloponnesus, to hold a truce to enable
athletes to safely attend the Olympics.
Turin is also looking to construct a different sort of Olympic truce next year - one with Piedmont's trade unions, in order to ensure the Games run smoothly. Mayor Chiamparino is hoping the promise of long-term employment will persuade the unions to make Turin 2006 a strike-free event.
"It's necessary to think about holding two sets of negotiations with the trade unions,'' Chiamparino said. "One for a union truce during the Olympic period, and the other to manage the placement of people employed in the organization of the Olympics.
"There is a high level of professionalism, which it would be a pity to waste. The local authorities could commit themselves to finding ways to absorb these professional people into their organizations after the event."
