WLOE E-Newsletter March 4, 2003
International Women's
Day; DAWN's call to resist the war against Iraq; Articles on the Bush &
co. war plans
Women and Life
on Earth is an international, multi-lingual project on women and peace, globalization
and ecology. Our website is being woven at www.wloe.org If
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- INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S
DAY, MARCH 8: Encircling the White House for Peace
On International
Women’s Day, thousands of women and men from all walks of life will converge
on Washington, DC for a women-led rally and march to encircle the White House
for peace. For information on this and a series of women’s peace events March
3 – 9., see the Women’s
Vigil Website or the Code
Pink Website.”
- DAWN's Call to Resist
the War against Iraq
(DEVELOPMENT
ALTERNATIVES WITH WOMEN FOR A NEW ERA is a network of women scholars and activists
from the economic South who engage in feminist research and analysis of the
global environment and are committed to working for economic justice, gender
justice and democracy. See
their website at: http://www.dawn.org.fj/
DAWN pays tribute
to the millions of people who have gone out into the streets to demonstrate
their stand for peace, most recently those who turned out on 15 and 16 February
2003 in over 600 cities worldwide, including Adelaide, Amsterdam, Melbourne,
Sydney, Berlin, London, Rome, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Lahore and
20 other Pakistan cities, Manila, New York, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro,
San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Suva, and Warsaw. DAWN
shares the understanding that any war against Iraq is not about weapons of
mass destruction or any of the other stated rationales, but about imperial
greed and the abuse of human rights and power.
DAWN calls upon
all women and men
** in all war-mongering
countries to continue holding their representatives fully accountable, including
through campaigns pledging not to vote for individual politicians and political
parties that have sought to justify and support unilateralism and preemptive
attack instead of genuine multilateralism and the rule of law; and
** worldwide, to
insist on the disarmament of all States and a total ban on arms sales.
** To resist patriarchal
intolerance and all types of reactionary backlash against citizens rights,
especially women's reproductive and sexual rights, as these are linked to
militarism and fundamentalism.
We want a world
where equity, equality, diversity and genuine peace reign.
DAWN condemns all
leaders and governments that brutalize citizens, violate human rights, disregard
international law, and use violence and destructive weapons as a currency
of power. This condemnation extends to the Iraqi Government and Saddam Hussein,
and even more so to the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia
and others in the so-called Coalition of the Willing, who aided and abetted
Saddam in the past and now propose to ignore majority public opinion to launch
an unjustifiable war against the Iraqi people. We say "No to war,
even as a last resort!"
- NEW ARTICLES ON THE BUSH
& CO. WAR PLANS – AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO OPPOSE THEM
So Bush Wants Civil
Disobedience? By
Naomi Klein, AlterNet
,March 3, 2003
“… During the Vietnam
War, thousands of young Americans decided to break with their leaders when
their draft cards arrived. And it was this willingness to go beyond protest
and into active disobedience that slowly eroded the domestic viability of
the war. What will
today's conscientious objectors and military deserters look like? Well, all
week in Italy, activists have been blocking dozens of trains carrying U.S.
weapons and personnel on their way to a military base near Pisa, while Italian
dockworkers are refusing to load arms shipments. Last weekend, two U.S. military
bases were blockaded in Germany, as was the U.S. consulate in Montreal, and
the air base at RAF Fairford in Gloucester, England. This coming Saturday,
thousands of Irish activists are expected to show up at Shannon airport, which,
despite Irish claims of neutrality, is being used by the U.S. military to
refuel its planes en route to Iraq…”
Read full story
at: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15293
Naomi Klein
is the author of "No Logo and Fences and Windows." Her column appears
in Globe and Mail.
Personal Voices:
Time For a New Anti-War Message By
Karin Rosman, AlterNet,
March 3, 2003
…”My biggest problem
with the peace movement's pro-inspections message is that it accepts the Bush
administration's version of events – that UN inspections are about preventing
terrorism by an evil dictator. Saddam's weapons were never the real issue
behind Bush's drive to war… The
peace movement needs not only to paint a vision of a better world, it needs
to propose a strategy for achieving it…Because
hope is something you do, not something you have, the American people have
to be involved in building it. How? By campaigning to make our country independent
of Mideast oil while creating millions of jobs in the new clean energy economy…”
Read full text at:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15285
Karin Rosman
is an educational consultant in El Cerrito, California.
- WHAT WE CAN DO
We have received several requests to send e-mails to UN Security Council offices,
urging them to vote NO on any second resolution or approval of an attack on
Iraq. The simplest of these is the following, so let’s:
Flood The U.N. Offices With NO WAR eMails
Simply copy and paste -- NO WAR -- VETO USA / UK into the subject line, and
in the email body itself.
Next: Simply copy and paste these email addresses into your BCC:
france-presse@un.int, rusun@un.int, uk@un.int, chinamission_un@fmprc.gov.cn,
bulgaria@un.int, info@cameroonmission.org, guinea@un.int, mexico@un.int, syria@un.int,
ang-un@angolamissionun.org, chile@un.int, Pakistan@un.int, spain@spainun.org,
contact@germany-un.org
Please do this daily -- It will only take you one minute. And pass it on.
A member of Women in Black UK wants to work with others on Depleted Uranium.
This is her email address if anyone would like to make contact.lila.patel@ntlworld.com
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