This image was drawn by Opland, the pseudonym of Rob Wout, one of Holland’s most popular political cartoonists in the second-half of the twentieth century.
"The foundation for world peace is building an economy where every community is self-reliant in basic needs such as food, water and energy."
—Judy Wicks, founder of BALLE, and author of Good Morning, Beautiful Business
SIR! NO SIR! THE G.I. REVOLT
The suppressed story of the GI movement to end the War in Vietnam"We truly believed what would stop that war was when soldiers stopped fighting it."
Sir! No Sir! 12 Minute Trailer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDk6Qal2DCI
During the Vietnam War, the Pentagon documented 550,000 "incidents of desertion.
"This feature-length documentary focuses on the efforts by troops in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to oppose the war effort by peaceful demonstration and subversion. It speaks mainly to veterans, but serves as a ready reminder to civilians that soldiers may oppose war as stridently as any civilian, and at greater personal peril."
Sir No Sir (2005) Documentary (49:27)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPJgeg6hpA
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is the oldest women’s peace organisation in the world.
One hundred years after the first woman, Bertha von Suttner, received the Nobel Peace Prize (1905), one thousand women from 150 countries were nominated for the award. Their lives and work are a guide to action for peace world-wide. more on our site
The SUPER LONG knitted Peace Scarf ran between the Women’s Peace Camp at Aldermaston and Burghfield (the other Nuclear Weapons Establishment site) in Berkshire. The 7 miles span was connected on Nagasaki Day, Aug. 9, 2014 more
April 20, 2020: Western Massachusetts peace activists call on their representatives to publicly support ending murderous sanctions, stop war blockades, and divert military spending to Medicare for all and extending humanitarian aid in this time of the pandemic.
Given the Covid-19 era social distancing requirements, the demonstration took place with participants distanced and wearing masks, as well as in cars with signs. more
A banner at the recent International Feminist Peace Congress in Ghana.
(H. Patricia Hynes)
September 25, 2018
“The days when one could claim that the situation of women had nothing to do with matters of national and international security are, frankly, over.” —Valerie M. Hudson
"On the eve of World War II, the iconic writer Virginia Woolf responded to a male attorney’s question about how to prevent war. The key, she replied, is that women must be educated and able to earn a living. Only then, once they were not dependent on fathers and brothers, could women possess “disinterested influence” to exert against war. The man’s question, she continued, is “how to prevent war.” Ours is, as she put it in “Three Guineas,” “Why fight?”
Peace and the security of nations are powerfully linked with the equality of women, though it is the rare male power broker—whether a diplomat or military liaison—who acknowledges this. I traveled to Ghana recently to participate in the International Feminist Peace Congress, organized by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). My interviews—with Western women prior to the congress and with African women and a few men during their sessions on feminist peace in Africa—reinforced the mounting conviction that the fate of nations is tied to the status of women."
Read full article
From CODEPINK: "Join us in reaching out to the Iranian people with an apology for our president’s unscrupulous behavior and a pledge to try to reverse this decision. We will publicize this “Apology to the Iranian People” via social media and publications inside Iran." (click on image)
Download 2018 Call to Action, July 11-12 in Brussels, Belgium
see more
Read the latest from Korea -- North and South -- with moving video of finale of North Korean concert in the South... but also: "US-led War Games: The greatest obstacle to peace"
From PyeongChang to Lasting Peace
February 16, 2018, Zoom in Korea (see more below) By Hyun Lee
"Last week, an official letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposing an inter-Korean summit was delivered to South Korean president Moon Jae-in. If realized, it would be the third inter-Korean summit in the history of the divided Korean Peninsula.
"Perhaps the most moving moment in the opening days of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics was when Kim Yong-nam, the president of the Presidium of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, quietly wiped his tears as North and South Korean singers sang in unison at a concert celebrating the winter games. South Korean k-pop star SeoHyun held hands with North Korean singers as images of tearful North-South family reunions played in the backdrop of the finale of the North Korean Samjiyeon Orchestra’s historic performance in Seoul on February 11. As the concert came to a close, they sang, “Be well, let us meet again. Go safely, let us meet again,” and waved their hands as the audience waved back and Kim silently wept.
Read full report and watch video
Zoom in Korea: "an online resource that progressive minded individuals and groups interested in Korean issues as well as other U.S.-based media can access for timely updates on major news stories related to Korea, particularly exploring topics of the fight for democracy in South Korea as well as peace and reunification on the Korean Peninsula."
VANCOUVER — As sixteen delegates representing peace movements from all over the world, we have traveled from Asia, Pacific, Europe, and North America to convene the Vancouver Women’s Forum on Peace and Security on the Korean Peninsula, an event held in solidarity with Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy to promote a peaceful resolution to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Sanctions and isolation have failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and instead severely harm the North Korean civilian population. A Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons will only be achieved through genuine engagement, constructive dialogue, and mutual cooperation. We issue the following recommendations to the Foreign Ministers participating in the January 16 Summit on Security and Stability in the Korean Peninsula:
Working for peace on the Korean Peninsula
Women Cross DMZ - "In May 2015, on the 70th anniversary of Korea’s division into two separate states by cold war powers, thirty international women peacemakers ... walked with thousands of Korean women, north and south, to call for an end to the Korean War, reunification of families and women’s leadership in the peace process." .. Aug. 2017: See our comment here
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When All the World’s a War... And All the Men and Women Merely Soldiers
From TomDispatch.com, Posted by Rebecca Gordon at 7:39am, August 15, 2017.
"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been fighting a “war on terror.” Real soldiers have been deployed to distant lands; real cluster bombs and white phosphorus have been used; real cruise missiles have been launched; the first MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, has been dropped; and real cities have been reduced to rubble. In revenge for the deaths of 2,977 civilians that day, real people -- in the millions -- have died and millions more have become refugees. But is the war on terror actually a war at all -- or is it only a metaphor?"...
read article here
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Credit: ICAN: International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons
July 7, 2017: "After a decade-long effort by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and 72 years after their invention, today states at the United Nations formally adopted a treaty which categorically prohibits nuclear weapons." more
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Marines’ ‘Always Faithful’ Motto Doesn’t Apply to Fellow Females
June 5, 2017 article appearing in TruthDig by Traprock Center for Peace and Justice director Pazricia (Pat) Hynes
Graphic: SIPRI. The share of world military expenditure of the 15 states with the highest expenditure in 2015.
"U.S. military spending has been at permanent wartime levels since the 2001 terror attacks, despite the significant drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq under President Obama. ... U.S. military spending in 2015 remains at 190 percent of what it was before 9/11..." -- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46561.htm
Our work for peace at home and abroad is needed more than ever. We must join together with communities in struggle and grow a culture of peace and love.
There are many lessons to be learned, and we cannot afford to live in anger and fear. Don’t mourn, organize. -- CODEPINK, November 10, 2016
Obama visits Hiroshima while modernizing US nuclear arsenals
"As US President Barack Obama (makes an) historic visit to Hiroshima, the place where one nuclear detonation caused over 140,000 casualties, the United States is embarking on a massive nuclear weapons modernization programme of 1 trillion USD – ensuring that the US will be nuclear-armed for decades to come." [more...]
Gender and disarmament
an excellent brief research paper with notes and resources, from Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom:
"The negative impacts on our society of patriarchy and male privilege are perhaps nowhere more pervasive and pernicious than in the field of weapons, war, and militarism. By consequence, much of the discussion on disarmament perpetuates the highly problematic gender constructions of men who are violent and powerful and women that are vulnerable and need to be protected. Gender perspectives in disarmament, peace, and security must be about exposing and challenging this state of affairs, not about including more women in the existing systems of structural inequalities and violent masculinities." read full posting
Women's Int'l League for Peace and Freedom 2015 Conference, April 27-29: Uniting a Global Movement of Women’s Power to Stop War
"100 years after over 1300 of WILPF’s founding women first came together in The Hague in protest of World War I, we still live in a world where women’s voices and experiences are excluded, bringing continued violence and war. We know now what we knew then, that only when we analyse conflict from a gender perspective, integrating disarmament, human rights, the environment, social justice, and the women, peace and security agenda holistically will we be able to eradicate the root causes of conflict." more
Militarism and Ebola
Prof. Susan Sered writes:
Why Can't US Help Solve Ebola Outbreak without 'Waging War' and 'Sending Troops'? Published on September 17, 2014 by Common Dreams
"What does it say about our nation when we think of our military as the only governmental agency capable of responding to any sort of crisis?"
"As women of the No to War, No to NATO international action network we join in wholehearted condemnation of NATO as an aggressive, expansionist, nuclear armed military alliance. Its creation fostered decades of Cold War, its continued existence has perpetuated armed conflicts and wars, and its intention is clearly to assure long-term worldwide control by the USA and its allies in the interests of global corporate capital."...
Read the women's statement here
August is the anniversary of the first use of atomic power as a weapon. Nuclear weapons still exist as a threat, and nuclear power as a dangerous reality. Read a commentary by H. Patricia Hynes of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in western Massachusetts: My Turn: Terror unleashed.
Hear the presentation and Q & A with Phyllis Bennis, author, activist, and fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, taped in W. Mass. Aug. 13, 2014.
Phyllis Bennis reports: Stay up to date on events in the Middle East with Phyllis Bennis' free newsletter (delivered 1-2x a month). And follow her New Internationalism project at the Institute for Policy Studies. The project "works primarily on Middle East and United Nations issues. In the Middle East, the key focus areas are the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In both arenas the project focuses on education and activism aiming to change the failed and failing U.S. policies, and retooling those policies to meet the goals of peace with justice. The project also works to challenge U.S. domination of the UN, and to help democratize and empower the global organization."
In an interview with Amy Goodman and Aaron Maté on Democracy Now! on July 15th, Amira Hass gives important background and analysis that is not covered by US 'mainstream' media.
Amy Goodman asks: "Amira Hass, can you talk about this latest development, the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, Israel accepting it, Hamas is weighing it?
AMIRA HASS: Yeah, it’s exactly because Hamas feels that this was a proposal boiled up with Israel without any consultation with Hamas. And this is something that’s forced on them and also reported through the media and not through negotiations or prior negotiations. Everybody knows that the leadership of Egypt right now is an enemy of Hamas, an enemy of the Muslim Brothers. And they feel humiliated, and they feel that it is not meant to bring progress and change for the Palestinians in Gaza, but to further marginalize them as a movement, as a political movement."...
Read full interview here
For valuable background information on The U.S.-Israel Special Relationship, see a 3 p. 112kb pdf download of a 4 part series of programs prepared by Maria Gilardin of TUC Radio, here. Or see the TUC website under newest programs (scroll down).
Part 3 of the series features: Alison Weir, president of the Council for the National Interest, created by ambassadors and former Congressmen in 1989, and executive director of If Americans Knew. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ That’s a nonprofit organization she founded when she came to the conclusion that if Americans knew the history and present reality of Palestine under Israeli occupation US foreign policy in the middle east, they would no longer be so one-sidedly supportive of Israel. She writes and speaks widely on Israel-Palestine, and has given talks at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, and Georgetown. -- Maria Gilardin, TUC Radio
The Global Drones Watch site provides useful information about drones, and encourages people to become active in efforts to stop killer drones overseas and stop domestic drones from violating our privacy and safety.This site is run by CODEPINK Women for Peace and CODEPINK is coordinating a coalition of organizations, academics, and activists working to stop drone warfare.
Drones fly, children die
CODE PINK's Medea Benjamin: U.S. government claims drone victims are mostly militants, but about half of identified victims thus far are civilians and children. See 5.5 min. video here. Check out photos bit.ly/1h5pQwx and archived footage anytime of their Nov. 16-17, 2013 'drone summit': Drones Around the World: Proliferation and Resistance: bit.ly/18TrIQZ
"As countries commemorate the centenary of the First World War, 50.50 is publishing a series of articles written by women around the world to mark the hundredth year of The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Writers will invoke highlights in women's campaigning history and shape up future feminist strategies to outlaw war and root out its causes." -- openDemocracy 50.50
In Japan and around the world, the 68th anniversary of the first use of atomic power against human beings will be remembered.
Hiroshima on August 6th, Nagasaki on August 9th - a call to end the atomic age. more
See also: The Bomb Decides over Death and Future Life
Interview with Mrs. Kiyomi Iguro and Mr. Toyoichi Ihara, Nagasaki City Council member, survivors of the Atomic bomb. Read the interview.
And Women and the Bomb
We translated this important statement from the original French in November 2012, but the position taken is still of importance in a period of open warfare, as in 2013.
Posted by WILPF International on January 28, 2013
Cynthia Enloe, Research Professor at Clark University writes:
In her Sept. 2012 article: 5 Issues this Election Should Be About, and One to Drop, Sarah van Gelder writes in YES! magazine on how U.S. military spending and focus should be changed:
"The bill for two massive wars, Bush-era tax cuts, and the economic bailouts of the big banks is coming due. How will we pay for it while our economy is still struggling?
Many empires have fallen after overextending their military forces and spending down their resources. The United States, too, runs that risk. By reinventing our military to defend the United States, rather than to project force abroad, and by putting veterans to work doing jobs that are needed here at home, we could rebuild our country and our economy, and rein in spending.
Save $252 billion a year by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, cutting back on U.S. military bases around the world, and ending wasteful and obsolete programs.
Here’s a place to start. A report by the Institute for Policy Studies shows we could save $252 billion a year without risking our national security by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, cutting back on the hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world, and eliminating wasteful and obsolete programs.
While politicians have traditionally been loath to cut military spending because they are concerned about losing military jobs, it’s important to remember that every dollar spent on the military results in fewer jobs than one spent elsewhere. When combined with educational programs to retrain military personnel for work in other sectors, channeling military money into other parts of the economy means more, not fewer, jobs."
(The Institute for Policy Studies study mentioned is: America Is Not Broke, by Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh. Contributors include Phyllis Bennis, Chuck Collins, John Feffer, Miriam Pemberton, Daphne Wysham., November 21, 2011)
An international network of peace activists will take a stand against warfare in outer space. Click on the graphic for more information. See also the website of one member: Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the oldest women’s peace organization in the world. Reaching Critical Will works for nuclear disarmament, the reduction of global military spending, and the demilitarization of politics and economics in order to achieve human security and social, economic, and environmental justice.
SI alla PACE NO alla NATO: Women in Black demonstrate in Verona, Italy
More information on opposition to NATO including many links about actions in Chicago, May 2012.
Women in Black say No to Nato
Report and more photos: Profit war no more! (A Memorial weekend photo essay) pictures by Mabel Leon.
"The policies being utilized in this crisis are harmful to the people, especially women: scarcity of resources; loss of rights; excess load of cares and concerns… while wars and militarization are supported and the war economy is maintained and linked to finances. International domination is reinforced through NATO, traffic in weapons and control of information. This crisis is developing like a psychological war that is gripping the civil population.
Women in Black of Madrid against War denounce:
Our admiration, solidarity and support to the women who:
* Actively resist the loss of all that has been won up until now.
* Believe that the root of violence is in the power structure, among which militarism is one of the major players, and denounce these policies.
* Realize that fear is the fruit of unemployment, poverty and insecurity… and is conquered through friendship, mutual support and solidarity. Know that women’s resistance to war and destruction is the struggle for life and survival.
* In war situations, by their attitude and position transform indignation into nonviolent resistance; despair into public acts of civil disobedience, and sadness and impotence into solidarity among
This 24th day of May we affirm our confidence in dialogue, justice and nonviolence as a path to understanding among peoples."
Translation: Trisha Novak, USA
womeninblack international mailing list:
listas.nodo50.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/womeninblack
For the INTERACTIVE WiB e-list, go to
groups.yahoo.com/group/interactiveWiB
Fukushima first anniversary: demonstration at Gronau uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication plant URENCO, Germany (Dutch border), 11 March 2012
photo: wloe e.V. Translation, 11 March 2012 press release on demonstrations.
Background press release.
Ten-year Impact Study on Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security in Peacekeeping
"New York, United Nations, 8 February 2011 – Greater action is needed by United Nations peacekeeping missions – working with local women, national authorities and UN Member States – to increase the limited participation of women in peace negotiations, national security institutions and governance in post-conflict situations, says a UN study launched today.
The impact study – conducted a decade after the adoption of landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, the first to address the specific impacts of conflict on women and call for women's engagement in peace processes – reports a mixed record on the overall contribution of UN peacekeeping to the implementation of the resolution."... more Also full report as pdf download
• UrGently Fierce Feminism In Perilous Times: The Feminist Peace Network is dedicated to building an enduring peace, which must include ending violence towards women and children. Check the link list of "friends" on the opening page.
• The PeaceWomen Project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom "promotes the role of women in preventing conflict, and the equal and full participation of women in all efforts to create and maintain international peace and security. PeaceWomen facilitates monitoring of the UN system, information sharing and the enabling of meaningful dialogue for positive impact on women’s lives in conflict and post-conflict environments."
• Women's International League for Peace and Freedom: the oldest women's peace group -- 90 years of international action for peace
• Reaching Critical Will Another project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, focuses on nuclear disarmament
• CODEPINK is a women initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement that seeks positive social change through proactive, creative protest and non-violent direct action.
• MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that works in partnership with women's community-based groups in conflict areas worldwide."
Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence.
WomenWarPeace.org: UNIFEM's website project with much information
Women Living Under Muslim Laws: an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam.
Women's groups active for peace in Israel/Palestine
Women in Black international reports and actions
Israeli peace activist and writer Gila Svirsky reports from Jerusalem
War on Lebanon: „We want only one thing: Peace“ German 'free-lance' journalist Karin Leukefeld left Bonn this month and was able to reach Beirut, where she sent this report, published in German in “Neues Deutschland” on 10 August 2006 (original at link):
http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=95201&IDC=2
We thank her for her courage and continuing coverage of the region.
Ideological Arsonists, or War starts in our Minds
By Maria Mies, Cologne, Germany
On International Women’s Day 2006
It’s not enough for women to say: “That’s enough!”
