NEWS

by Nancy Price
Earth Democracy Issue Committee

September 2023

A massive march and rally to #ENDFOSSILFUELS will be held in New York City to spur President Biden to take action.

Sunday, September 17
Gather at 56th Street and Broadway between 12 and 1 pm. The march will be from approximately 1:00-4:30 pm.

All the information you need is here.

• For travel and logistics, FAQs, and to endorse as an organization, go to www.endfossilfuels.us.
• For a long list of hubs go to www.endfossilfuels.us/getinvolved. A hub is 10 or more people, and can be based on location, interest, or identity: for example, faith hub, youth hub, profession, specific school, college or universty, workplace, congregation, neighborhood. Find the hub that interests you, join an existing hub and get in touch with hub captain.
• If you cannot go to New York, work with your branch and community groups to plan an event.        
• Order different Earth Democracy banners at wilpfus.org/story/support-materials and make your own signs.

Climate Marches Past and Present

The last march of this scale was held on Sunday, September 21, 2014, when 350,000 people assembled in New York City for the People’s Climate March. This was just before the UN Climate Summit of World Leaders on September 23 and before the UN Conference of Parties Climate Summit held in Paris the following year (2015), where 196 countries agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. Read other commitments of the Paris Agreement, a binding international treaty, here.

We are seeing the effects of not reaching this goal: devastating fires and extreme weather events, droughts, melting glaciers and ice caps, food shortages and malnutrition, migration and conflict. All of these and so much more will continue and increase if we do not act.

America is the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. The #EndFossilFuels March comes a few days before the September 20 United Nations Climate Ambition Summit organized by the General Secretary. Secretary Guterres is unequivocal about the goals of this Summit (see below). The UN has announced that the Summit is an opportunity for “First Movers and Doers” – from government, business, finance, local authorities and civil society – to tell us how they are responding to the Secretary-General's call to “accelerate” climate action.

What President Biden Can Do

President Biden is in an unparalleled position to lead the world toward cleaner, less polluting energy options and eliminate the dependence on dangerous fossil fuels. If Pres. Biden takes action, he will protect our health, boost our economy, and tackle the climate crisis head-on.

#EndFossilFuels, organizational and individual endorsers, and march participants call on Pres. Biden to:

1. Stop Federal approval for new fossil fuel projects and REPEAL permits for “climate bombs” like the ConocoPhillips massive, decades-long oil drilling Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope and the 300 mile natural gas Mountain Valley Pipeline running north to south through Western Virginia.
2. Phase out fossil fuel drilling on our public lands and waters.
3. Declare a climate emergency to halt fossil fuel exports and investments abroad, and turbocharge the build-out of more just resilient distributed energy (like rooftop and community solar).
4. Provide a just transition to a renewable energy future that generates millions of jobs while supporting workers’ and community rights, job security, and employment equity.
    

September 20 Climate Ambition Summit

Secretary General Guterres is holding a Climate Ambition Summit at the United Nations to challenge world leaders to commit to an “Acceleration Agenda” in advance of COP28.

Secretary General Guterres has said: “It’s time to move the needle!” He has also said this will be a “no-nonsense summit. No exceptions. No compromises. There will be no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”

“Nothing less than tangible and credible climate action would do,” Guterres adds, and dispensing with diplomatic niceties, he made it clear that the price of entry for every nation was “non-negotiable credible, serious and new climate action and nature-based solutions that will move the needle forward and respond to the urgency of the climate crisis.”

The UN chief said the event would be convened alongside a General Assembly opening-week summit already in the calendar, designed to accelerate action at the halfway point towards the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) scheduled to be implemented by 2030.

The design and outcomes of the Summit will be delivered on three distinct but interrelated acceleration tracks – ambition, credibility and implementation. Outcomes of the Climate Ambition Summit and the Sustainable Development Goals meetings will be reported in the October eNews.

by Tura Campanella Cook
MEPJAC Co-Chair

September 2023

“… As people of conscience and loving communities, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their call for equal and full rights. Inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, we want to declare our own communities “Apartheid-Free.” Let’s build an Apartheid-Free world, starting with our own communities: our faith congregations, cities, campuses, and workplaces. We need to educate ourselves and others about racist laws and state systems at home and abroad, and we want to ensure that our communities do not contribute to the maintenance of Apartheid regimes…” 

— from https://apartheid-free.org/

WILPF-US has pledged to be an Apartheid-Free Community. You are invited as a WLPF member, or representing your branch or other local group if you have pledged, to gather prior to the national conference of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) in Houston, TX. The gathering for Apartheid-Free Communities is October 26-27, and the USCPR conference is October 27-29.

Thank you for committing to the Apartheid-Free Communities initiative! We will benefit greatly from being together in physical space to share success stories, get advice, and give input on resources being created. The organizers, led by the American Friends Service Committee, are convening this gathering on October 26 beginning at 4 pm to leave time for people traveling from other states/cities. It will continue on October 27 for the first half of the day. Here is the proposed agenda. Sign up for the gathering here.

You may contact Rev. Chad Collins at chadcollins@fosna.org if you are in need of financial assistance for travel costs and also if your organization can provide a donation toward others in need. Please sign up by September 4 so AFSC can know how much funding is available and what the financial needs are from those who wish to attend.

In addition, registration is available here for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights conference on October 27 - 29 immediately following the gathering for Apartheid-Free Communities.

For more background and information, see the MEPJAC eNews articles published in May [Join Us in Supporting the Apartheid-Free Communities Pledge] and July [Lobby Your Communities to Take the Apartheid-Free Pledge]. 
 
 

Guantanamo is a province of Cuba and the capital city of that province. Half a million people are attempting to go about their daily lives in spite of the occupied territory in their midst. Photo credit: LVR.

by Leni Villagomez Reeves
Co-chair, Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issue Committee

September 2023

The name Guantanamo brings up only one image for most people in this country – the United States “military prison/detention center” torture facility within the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. It is still there, of course.

On June 26, 2023, on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the UN “special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism,” Irish attorney and law professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, released her report on the US prison located within the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

The report said, “I observed that after two decades of custody, the suffering of those detained is profound, and it’s ongoing. Every single detainee I met with lives with the unrelenting harms that follow from systematic practices of rendition, torture and arbitrary detention.” It also stated that the 30 men still held there are subject “to ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law.”
   
When the Bush administration set up this torture facility, the claim was that the area was sovereign territory of Cuba and hence outside US constitutional jurisdiction and protections, and outside the purview of US courts. That’s an interesting claim. The US government states that it has a lease without termination date on this property, and that Cuba cannot choose to end this lease. The legality of both positions are dubious. The original lease was for a naval base and coaling station, not a prison, and expressly excludes the use of the land for any other purpose. So the establishment of a prison was and is a violation of the lease. Beyond that, legal agreements must be voluntarily entered into by both parties. That isn’t the case with this lease.

In 1898, the US intervened at the point when Cuban forces had, for all practical purposes, defeated Spain and won the independence of the island. The Cuban liberation forces were not permitted by the US to send representatives to the Paris treaty talks or even to participate in the Spanish surrender ceremonies. The US imposed a military dictatorship on Cuba which was withdrawn only after Cuba accepted – not freely or voluntarily but under duress, effectively at gunpoint – the Platt Amendment in 1903 establishing a permanent right for the US to intervene as desired and requiring Cuba to lease land for “coaling or naval stations.”

In 1934, this amendment was repealed and replaced with a new treaty that allowed the naval base to be retained by the US indefinitely. The signatory for Cuba was Fulgencio Batista in his first period of power after his first military coup. Under international law, these agreements are illegal, imposed by the threat of force and benefitting one side only; the US payment for the lease is just over $4,000 annually.  

If it’s sovereign territory of Cuba, well, the nation of Cuba has been demanding its return for over 60 years. (They don’t cash those $4,000/yr checks, either.)

Pastors for Peace Caravan Visits Guantanamo

At Mirador La Gobernadora, overlooking Guantanamo Bay, a Cuban guide shows photos of the US Naval Base/Prison that controls the entrance to the bay. Photo credit: LVR.

Guantanamo is much more than a naval base containing a torture prison. It’s a province of Cuba, with a capital city of the same name. It’s a port and a bay that Cubans cannot use, with fishing areas and shipping channels that are closed as well as the occupied land itself. It’s a US-Cuba frontier; a border within the island.

Photo: At Mirador La Gobernadora, overlooking Guantanamo Bay, a Cuban guide shows photos of the US Naval Base/Prison that controls the entrance to the bay. Photo credit: LVR.

For the United States, though, it provides the opportunity to carry out provocations such as recently sending a nuclear submarine to an area that is part of the Latin American and Caribbean nuclear-weapon-free zone, according to the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which was renewed in 2014 with the 33 nations of the region signing the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. The submarine’s presence – like the prison’s presence, like the torture carried out there and the detention without charge or trial – these are all violations of international law.

The US has occupied 117 square kilometers of Cuba for 121 years, against the will of the Cuban people and as a symbol of US colonial control of Cuba that began in 1898. The area has no strategic importance for the US. It’s there to be a provocation and an indication of US power. The US is there to emphasize that we are able to do whatever we want, legal or not.  

We on the Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba visited Guantanamo – the province, not the naval base – in the same month as the US nuclear submarine was sent. It was a brief visit, with a cultural event, a chance to see the bay from an overlook, and the unusual opportunity to visit the Brigada de la Frontera. Many of the Cubans doing their national service in this brigade are students of international affairs. Cuba doesn’t want any hotheads on the frontlines.

There are no Cuban workers in Guantanamo; the US contracts civilian workers from Jamaica and the Philippines at rates below the US minimum wage. And the overt low-level US provocations such as shooting at Cubans from the base no longer occur. The presence of the prison and base are sufficient provocation in themselves. It’s as if an armed invader broke into your house, then demanded at gunpoint that you sign a “lease” giving them your spare bedroom for $4/month. Now you are hearing screams and blood is running out from under the door of the bedroom… 

We weren’t there long enough to see or learn much, but one thing is absolutely clear. Guantanamo is part of Cuba. The US has no right to be there.

By Dianne Blais and Jane Doyle
WILPF US Gathering Committee

September 2023

It was neither a dark nor stormy night on August 16th, and again on the 17th, although many of us were hoping for cooler temperatures, when more than 90 WILPF members from all over the United States, plus two members from the WILPF International Secretariat, gathered on Zoom.   

Reasons for the gathering included: 

• To learn more about our US Section and the many volunteers and staff who have been carrying on the traditions of our 108 year old organization dedicated to peace and freedom;
• To acknowledge how far we still have to go, at home and abroad, and introduce the variety of approaches by our members that are being directed at addressing these issues;
• A third reason was to acknowledge that we miss face-to-face gatherings.

The snapshots of faces on a Zoom screen are often a poor substitute for sitting or standing near each other and really getting acquainted. To simulate those conversational experiences a bit, each evening began with breakout rooms of two or three people where we introduced ourselves and shared personal information such as what had brought us to WILPF.
 
All members had gotten five(!) eAlerts about the “Gathering.” The first three eAlerts spoke in generalities about the plans for the two evenings – that after breakout rooms, WILPF US National Board members, international contacts, and staff would speak the first night, and select branches and committees would speak on the second night.

The eAlerts sent out early on August 16 and August 17 listed each speaker in the order they would speak.

In breakout room conversations, and in brief presentations by the speakers, much was shared about the variety of ways within WILPF to act on our values and make a difference. It’s hoped that many will feel inspired to join an issue committee, or to suggest an activity to their branch, or even to run for national office.

The chat board, an integral part of Zoom, was heavily used both evenings. Many of the posts were words of praise and thank you to individual speakers, serving as visual applause. Knowing that there was no time for questions and answers, several participants left their contact information in the chat. Also posted were brief statements containing specific information such as film and book titles, clarifications of points from a presentation, or links to websites.
   
Special thanks go to Ellen Schwartz and Ellen Thomas for taking responsibility for all the technical facets of the event. The Gathering, as designed, was new for all of us and they worked long and patiently to answer questions and to put often changing pieces into place.

We hope that an edited version of the meetings will be ready soon. Meanwhile, if you would like to hear any of the Gathering again (except the breakout rooms) or have any questions please contact Secretary@wilpfus.org.

The Gathering Committee was Dianne Blais, Jane Doyle, and Phillip Cole