NEWS

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 11:28

By Helen Jaccard
Disarm/End Wars Issues Committee of WILPF, Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project Manager

The Golden Rule peace boat will be in Japan during July and August 2020 to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I toured Japan Dec 2-21, 2017, in preparation for this historic occasion.

In 1958 a Quaker crew sailed the Golden Rule toward the Marshall Islands in an attempt to interfere with atmospheric nuclear bomb testing. When she was stopped in Hawaii, the Phoenix of Hiroshima completed the voyage. Two years later, the Phoenix captain, Dr. Earle Reynolds, was acquitted and the family returned to Hiroshima where the Phoenix was built and where Dr. Reynolds had spent three years studying the effects of radiation on children.

Now, nearly 60 years later, the Golden Rule Project is preparing to represent both boats in an historic voyage to End the Whole Nuclear Era, starting in Japan. Many people in Japan had never heard of the Golden Rule and now they are very excited about our upcoming visit!

This was an educational tour, for me and for the peace community of Japan.

More From My Trip

World War II

Helen Jaccard with Habakusha I received quite the education about World War II. I visited and cried at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki memorials, heard a Chinese woman whose mother survived 37 stab wounds and a miscarriage of her seven-month fetus during the Nanjing massacre, learned how the story of the Comfort Women is being used to destroy the sister city relationship between Osaka and San Francisco, and learned about the horrors of the napalm bombing of Japan through the eyes of a survivor at the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage. Read my detailed report.

Three Hibakusha who survived the Hiroshima nuclear bomb told me their stories during the course of my visit in Japan.

Three Sisters: Golden Rule, Phoenix of Hiroshima, and the Lucky Dragon 5

There are really three sister ships in the 1958 story, the third being Daigo Fukuryū Maru, the Lucky Dragon 5, a tuna fishing boat which was exposed to the Castle Bravo nuclear bomb fallout on March 1, 1954. Twenty-three of its crew became severely ill with radiation sickness and one died within a month. It is a sister ship because the crew are also considered “Hibakusha” (radiation survivors) and because the focus of the museum in Tokyo is about much more than the Lucky Dragon 5—it is about all of the nuclear bomb tests and their effects on the people. It is also about nuclear bombs in general, so it tells the story of the nuclear era quite well. Read the rest of this story in my report.

Golden Rule and Phoenix of Hiroshima Presentations and Meetings

I gave nine PowerPoint presentations all over Japan—in Fukushima, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Yokohama, and Ehime. We viewed the movie, The Phoenix of Hiroshima, A Voyage Interrupted, at four of the presentations. I also showed the PowerPoint presentation at meetings of a few people each. Thanks to Rachel Clark, the PowerPoint presentation is in Japanese and on the vfpgoldenruleproject.org website so that other people may download and use it.

I’m working on a script to go with the PowerPoint presentation in English so that anyone can take it, modify it, and be an ambassador to End the Whole Nuclear Era!

CodePink Osaka came to the Kyoto event! They had met my partner, Gerry Condon, at the 2015 “Peace & Planet” pre-NPT review conference, so it was really nice to meet them!

VFP Japan paved the way!

Before my tour, Mike Hanes of VFP gave presentations at many of the same venues about the No Bases campaign, work to stop the new Hanoko base in Okinawa which threatens the Okinawan dugong, and about Mike’s research and choices for an agricultural, sustainable lifestyle. This made it all the easier for Rachel and me to schedule events throughout Japan and have many excited people come!

Protest Against Hanoko Base in Okinawa

I was only able to participate in one protest. I stayed with Joe and Yukari Essertier in Nagoya and he took me to their weekly protest and the next day to the Nanjing Massacre presentation.

Meetings to Plan the 2020 Golden Rule Voyage and Visit in Japan

Thanks to Rachel’s position as a volunteer interpreter and presenter with the huge Japan Peace Boat, we were able to meet with two of the directors and discovered that the Peace Boat will be in Japan during July and August of 2020 so that some of the employees and volunteers can attend the summer Olympics! They are excited about the two peace boats doing things together during that time!

In Nagasaki, I met with two of the main activists planning the 2020 events and one of them invited me to return in 2018 for a university speaking tour—he will organize the event in Nagasaki for me. The other will propose help from the City and Prefecture of Nagasaki to help with the Golden Rule’s expenses in 2020.

Also in Nagasaki I met with the two directors of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University. They, too, will help with the 2020 Golden Rule events in Nagasaki and my speaking tour in 2018.

We met with Kazuyo Yamane at the Kyoto Museum for World Peace.

In Conclusion

The Golden Rule story and nuclear abolition presentations need to be heard all over Japan—presentations by non-Japanese are welcome and people are very open to sharing their stories about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima. They want their stories to be heard in Japan and in the rest of the world! The people of Japan will welcome the VFP Golden Rule Project with open arms in 2020.

Inset Photos:

Helen Jaccard with Shiraishi Tetsuzo, survivor of Tokyo napalm bomb raid.
Professor Takao Takahara, six of his students from the International and Peace Studies programs at Meiji Gakuin University, Masato Nakamura and Yuri Kadoya-Ogata from Veterans For Peace Japan, and my interpreter, Rosemary Soliman, went with me to The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage and the Lucky Dragon 5 museum.

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 10:04

Ellen Thomas tabling at the “Closing U.S. Military and NATO Bases in Foreign Countries” conference held in Baltimore on January 12-14, 2018. Photo: Nancy Price.

By Disarm-End Wars Committee co-chairs Robin Lloyd, Barbara Nielsen, and Ellen Thomas, and EWNE campaign organizing and capacity-building adviser Michael Ippolito

Our Disarm-End Wars Issues Committee has formed an outreach working group focusing on internal outreach to lay groundwork for connecting with other ICAN partner groups in the US, and to foster greater collaboration, toward our goal to End the Whole Nuclear Era.

Outreach Working Group

We will be focusing on internal outreach to WILPF members to encourage greater participation with national work. This internal outreach aims to lay the groundwork for a much broader general outreach campaign where we will be connecting with the 24 other US partner ICAN organizations to foster additional collaboration and coordination with those organizations and their members. We are taking these steps in 2018 to move toward our goal of #EndtheWholeNuclearEra.

Contact Michael@TeamGood.org if you would like to join the outreach working group.

From Now Until We Succeed

Sign & Share our Nuclear Ban Treaty Petition. As of the end of January 2018, our members have collected 2,400+ signatures on the paper petition and 2,100+ online signatures asking the US President and Senate to support the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty.

Good start! Keep going!!!

Our Committee is working with a newly formed organization based in Northampton, Mass. Introduced to us by Joan Ecklein (Boston branch), Vicki Elson and Timmon Wallis chair the organization. You can invite Timmon and Vicki to speak at your branch—they will be on tour this spring.

Disarm-End Wars Upcoming Events—Mark Your Calendars!

Next Disarm-End Wars Meetings @ 4:30 pm PST – 6:30 pm CST – 7:30 pm EST

February 11
February 25
Register here for the calls

Tweet Tweet Weekly WILPF Social Media Wednesdays

Every Wednesday @ 4:30 pm PST – 6:30 pm CST – 7:00 pm EST

All are Welcome!. We invite you to bring your friends, family, children, and grandchildren as this is a fun activity we do in collaboration to help build momentum for the nuclear weapons ban treaty and more. No technical knowledge is needed!

Register here for the calls

February 23: Guantanamo Solidarity

See NoForeignBases.org and worldbeyondwar.org/gitmo/

April 14-15: No Foreign Bases Conference

WILPF members are invited to help plan for this conference.

Contact our coalition member Nancy Price nancytprice39@gmail.com to help, or for more info.

April 17: Tax Day

Handout for demonstration (Pie Chart):

Good info source: National War Tax Resisters

May 14-17: UN Nuclear Disarmament High-Level Conference

UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in NYC

Focus will be the review of the progress being made by the nuclear-armed States on incremental disarmament measures to which they agreed in the Non-Proliferation Treaty conferences, but have not yet done so. More information available online.

Contact Robin Lloyd robinlloyd8@gmail.com regarding a possible action around this meeting.

May 20-23: ANA DC Days—Lobbying in Washington, DC

WILPF is a member organization of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, which has been lobbying Congress since 1987 to shut down and clean up the nuclear weapons complex. Their annual spring “DC Days” is a “must-do” experience for anyone working to #EndtheWholeNuclearEra. We encourage members to learn and participate in this outstanding event. Register here and please let Ellen Thomas et@prop1.org know if you are attending.

August 6-9: Hiroshima—Nagasaki Memorials

This is also US Section Solidarity Day #3—many branches will be organizing/participating in events.

Contact:

For further info contact the co-chairs: Robin Lloyd (robinlloyd8@gmail.com); Ellen Thomas (et@prop1.org); Barbara Nielsen (bln.sf.ca@gmail.com)

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 09:52

Robin Lloyd reports from Burlington, VT, “Hurrah! We won the right to have our F-35 ballot item put on the ballot in March! And we made the cover of the Burlington Free Press! (that’s me with the pink hat in the foreground). I’m proud of our signage: we lettered both sides of our posters, leading to this photo which tells the story in signs.”

Thank you to Robin for sharing this inspiring story.

Read the story online: F-35 Petitioners Prevail in Getting Their Version on the Burlington Ballot

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 09:40

By Program Committee Chairs Teresa Castillo (Fresno branch) and Barbara Nielsen (San Francisco branch)

Our national Program Committee’s 2018 meeting series is on the first Sunday of each month following the inaugural meeting held on Sunday, February 4. Meeting time is 4:30 pm pacific, 6:30 pm central and 7:30 pm eastern. Our plan is for these hour-long planning calls to move our program strategic plan and actions forward via our issues committees, branches, and at-large members to meet our plan goals with measurable results. (If there’s a holiday, we’ll adjust accordingly and announce).

An underlying initial goal of our program committee’s strategic plan and our new Program Chairs is to make the issues and work undertaken by our Issues Committees accessible by our members in branches and groups and by our at-large members, too. Learn more about our Program Strategic Plan by checking out this summary.

A first step toward that goal is to invite and welcome every branch to have a representative participate in our monthly Program calls so that we can exchange information and overcome the “silo” phenomenon of working in parallel but not in conjunction with each other. We can work on outreach to our at-large members for your activism in your communities, as well! Our plan moves us forward in both WILPF membership capacity-building and effective activism in our communities and beyond.

The Program Committee calls have a variety of participants besides the two chairs. They usually include the chair or co-chairs and sometimes more members of each of the national issues committees and any subcommittees that may be operative, our International Board Member when possible, and section members who are interested in the program work we are doing and who are engaged in local activism in their branches or communities. Our Section President, as an ex officio member of all national committees, also participates in our calls when possible!

As we are in capacity-building mode, another step in our information-sharing and activism expansion is our hope to have branches send representatives to join in our monthly program calls (hence our invitation here), but we hope this will be an opportunity for our branches to let us all know about branches’ local activism, too. Looking forward, it would be great for branches to consider sending representatives to our national issues committees’ meetings, but we can talk about that on our Program calls.

If you are not already on our Program Committee listserv, please contact our chairs to ask to be invited to our next meeting. We’d love to have you on our calls, so we can learn and grow in our activism together!

For further info contact the chairs: Teresa Castillo (taca_03@ymail.com); Barbara Nielsen (bln.sf.ca@gmail.com)

Yemen Has Become ‘Hell on Earth’

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 09:30

Saleh is four months old and severely malnourished. His 22-year-old mother, Nora, already has five children. Photo: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA

By Odile Hugonot Haber, co-chair of the Middle East Committee

“This place is hell on Earth” says 25-year-old Lutf Alsanani, a Sana’a resident.

15,489 air raids have been recorded from the period between March 25, 2015 and December 15, 2017. They struck farms, schools, hospitals, market places, historical buildings, and mosques. The strikes are carried out by the Saudi-led military coalition.

The Saudi-led coalition includes the US, the United Kingdom, France, and the United Arab Emirates; all sell weapons to the Saudis. The US in particular also helps to refuel planes.

The War in Yemen, a country of 28 million, is an ongoing conflict that began in 2015 between two Yemeni factions. The former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was allied to the Houthi tribal religious forces, controlling Sana’a, the capital, and this group clashed with forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbush Mansur Hadi, based in Hadden.

Then the Saudis got involved, taking sides with the Hadi faction and claiming that the Houthis were given arms by Iran. The conflict became a proxy war of sorts, between Iran and the Saudis. Iran has repeatedly denied being involved and their intervention has not been proven, but Iran’s alleged involvement allows the Saudis and their coalition to claim that their intervention is justified.

The result is that there are an estimated 18,000 people killed, and 3-4 million left homeless. Thousands are refugees.

Photo by Giles Clarke Famine threatens the lives of millions of survivors, as long as the blockade continues in Northern ports. Diseases are threatening them, with cholera developing on a large scale and already killing many people.

The whole country’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, now it is a disaster area.

Please call you Congress representative and tell them “No arms for the Saudis.”

Obama ‘s administration had offered a $110 billion weapons deal to Saudi Arabia, and now Trump claims he made another $110 billion deal with Saudi Arabia.

In June 2017 the Senate rejected an effort to block a $500 million portion of this weapons deal to Saudi Arabia; the effort failed 47-53.

Call your representatives and protest these arm deals, ask that the war in Yemen be stopped, to open the blockade to let in food and medications.

Sources for this article include:

Faisal Edroos & Ahmad Algohbary, 1,000 days of war in Yemen, 'land of blood and bombs', aljazeera.com, December 20, 2017

How-and Why-to End the War in Yemen, The Economist, November 30, 2017

Inset photo: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 09:14

Photo: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA

By Barbara Taft, co-chair, Middle East Committee

The Middle East Committee already suggests that people write or contact their representatives and senators on policy and legislation. We hope you’ll continue to write those letters, but we want to add a new opportunity for us to increase our impact and get more local supporters/members engaged in discussion on relevant issues that are often poorly covered in the press.

We want to have letter-writing parties where people gather to compose letters to the editor or opinion articles linking our issues to local situations and provide each other assistance in writing (while enjoying food and fellowship). At these regular meetings, one or two topics are chosen for letters or articles, and we can make quite an impact.

This can also be undertaken by our at-large (Jane Addams) members, either writing as individuals or in a group with friends, in areas where there isn't a WILPF branch. These groups could write at the same time that branches meet to write, and could phone in to the writing group at the branch to get ideas, help with wording, etc.

We will provide additional ideas soon, but this is something which is doable, and would give us additional actions, and additional exposure. Paying attention to what is in the newspapers (or on TV or radio) in your local areas can help. If your local news is getting it wrong, or not providing the whole picture, on our issues, this is an opportunity to fill in the facts, and perhaps turn around public opinion. If you have sample letters or have received responses to letters that have been written, please submit them to the Middle East Committee and we will post them online.

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 07:56

Jennifer and Edith Bell at the Pittsburgh Women's March

By Edith Bell, Coordinator, WILPF Pittsburgh branch

The WILPF Pittsburgh branch is working with Veterans for Peace of Western PA, the Thomas Merton Center, and other groups to stop PNC Bank, a regional bank, from financing the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Several additional organizations have endorsed our campaign.

Our Stop Banking the Bomb campaign against PNC Bank is one part of an international strategy to get the US government to listen to its people. PNC Bank has loaned $1.186 billion dollars to eight corporations who manufacture nuclear weapons. As the seventh largest bank in the US, we believe if PNC Bank “divests” of these immoral loans, they will send a powerful message to the US government and the world.

We are currently making two demands of PNC Bank. First, that it “divest” of their financial commitments to those eight corporations involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Second, that PNC adopt a corporate policy never to loan money to or in any way financially support corporations involved in the manufacture of or sale of nuclear weapons.

We had one meeting with the staff of PNC, and promises of more, but since we started monthly informational pickets in front of their headquarters, they won’t meet with us. We have held two pickets so far and plan keeping it going. In the planning stages is public closing of accounts. Other actions are also in the works.

Stop Banking the Bomb

For more information and photos see the Facebook page Stop Banking the Bomb, PNC Bank Divestment Campaign.

Pittsburgh WILPF also tabled at the 20th annual Summit Against Racism, a daylong conference with close to 1,000 participants at many workshops. See the picture below, of a participant browsing through our displays.

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 07:34

Inaugural meeting will be February 22, 2018, at 5 pm pacific, 7 pm central, 8 pm eastern.

By Barbara L Nielsen, co-chair, Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee

Thanks to everyone who participated in our umbrella human rights and our racial justice workshops at the Chicago Congress! All members for whom we have emails from the Program, Branches, AHR and BBC listservs, or from the Chicago Congress, will be receiving notice of this organizational meeting. And thanks to everyone who has been doing local and global work on these issues in our communities.

We are moving forward in 2018 with an organizational meeting of everyone for whom we have an email address already and are asking every member who may not be sure of whether we have an email address for you to let us know so we can add you to our list. Courteney Leoninen has stepped forward to work in a leadership capacity, and we are also hoping that others among our membership will get involved.

If you have interests and passions in racial justice, human rights, reproductive rights, and the intersectionalities between these issues, and you have capacity and willingness to engage in activism within WILPF-US on the national level as well as in (likely existing) community-based actions: We’d love to have you on our calls, so we can learn and grow in our activism together!

For further info contact Barbara Nielsen bln.sf.ca@gmail.com

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 07:06

By Tina Shelton, co-chair of Greater Philadelphia Branch

The Greater Philadelphia Branch joined with Weaver's Way Coop for a lively and informative session in late November 2017. Held at Weaver’s Way Mercantile, we gathered to learn more about the influence of lobbyists on our legislative process. Representative Chris Murphy, one of our newest progressive State Representatives, introduced Representative Greg Vitali from the 166^th (western suburbs of Philadelphia).

Representative Vitali is known as an environmental champion, and has been devoted to this cause since he was elected 13 terms ago. He shared highlights from his Marcellus Shale report and made the case for a ban on gifts (although he expressed doubt that would happen) and a greater transparency of money received by elected officials. He noted it took an intern many months to compile the info included in the report, and most citizens do not have the resources to do this kind of research.

Following the legislative report, Gayle Simons and Kay Lasker presented photos and stories from the tour of Dimock, PA, in the heart of Marcellus Shale country. Taken the previous year, the stories give evidence of the destruction of property and land, the harm to water and its effects on the people who are unable to drink from their own wells, and the harm to the communities being torn apart by broken promises and the chemical soup of fracking. (The van tour was made possible through a WILPF mini-grant).

Joining us that evening was Craig Stevens, who heard about the event and brought along his dirty water sample taken from his well. He explained that it is his calling to travel the States and tell the story of how fracking has ruined his community. Silenced by confidentiality agreements that are a part of financial deals the companies make with landowners, there is little left for the townspeople to do but let others spread the word of the harm being done.

The evening hosted by Weaver’s Way Environmental Committee left us wanting to learn more about protecting the Delaware River Water Basin from fracking, and eager to make our calls to the governing body.

Contact: Tina Shelton 484-557-8534 or tinades@verizon.net

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 06:54

By Marybeth Gardam, WILPF US Development Chair

To mark the recent Second Annual Women’s Marches, Ellen Feldman has graciously extended the offer to donate $12 to WILPF US for any one of our members to purchase her beautiful photo book We Who March. The book contains her artful photos of Women’s Marches across America in 2017 and quotes from marchers.

If you know a woman activist with a birthday or milestone coming up, for whom a gift like this might be appropriate, or if you would enjoy having this lovely and inspiring book to share locally with your WILPF members and other women activists, please consider ordering this book!

Don't forget to indicate you are a WILPF US member.

All the information you need to order is here.

Thank you for all you do for Peace and for WILPF.

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Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

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