WILPF Says NO to NATO

WILPF US and its DISARM/End Wars Committee are supporters of the NO to NATO campaign led by the Global Women United Against NATO group. This group is making a video collage of photos of women holding “NO TO NATO” or “NO NATO” signs. It will release the video at their counter-summit in The Hague on June 21 and 22–just ahead of the official NATO summit in the same location on June 24 and 25. All WILPF members are asked to take a photo of themselves holding a NO to NATO sign (homemade signs are okay) for the video. Please send your photo to Ulla Klötzer ullaklotzer@yahoo.com before May 15. Include your name, city, country, and photo location in your email. See this article for more details.

Twenty five years before the photo above, DISARM co-chair Ellen Thomas protests the use of depleted uranium by NATO and the US during the Kosovo/Bosnia debacle. Thomas maintained an 18-year vigil north of the White House in Lafayette Park. She received WILPF US’s Vision-Power-Unstoppable Award at the organization’s 110th Anniversary celebration on April 28.
Photo by Ellen Thomas.

NO WAR With Iran

The DISARM Committee is part of a new coalition working against war and militarism. The coalition, run by Defuse Nuclear War, is strategizing and coordinating against any future large-scale military action against Iran by the US and/or Israel. This webpage describes the purpose and strategies of this campaign. We will keep WILPFers informed about how to talk to their representatives about this issue and any coordinated grassroots actions planned.

Nuri Ronaghy’s Tour to Iran

Alongside this effort to avoid a war with Iran, a group of WILPF members are working to assist women in Iran in starting a WILPF section. Nuri Ronaghy and four other WILPF members toured Iran last October (hear about their experience in this video!). Now, Nuri is planning another tour for later this year. Participants will visit several cities in Iran to meet women working in business and academia and members of Iran’s Parliament. To learn more about this tour, write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org, and we will forward your email to the tour organizers.

80th Anniversary of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Start Planning Actions!

This August will mark 80 years since the US military dropped nuclear bombs on and destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some WILPF US branches hold special events on August 6 or 9 each year to commemorate these awful attacks that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. The number of hibakusha (survivors of these bombs) is dwindling, as many of them are over 90. To honor them and bring the public’s attention to the approximately 13,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of nine countries that must be dismantled, we encourage all WILPF US members to take action. 

DISARM is part of a national 80th-anniversary planning committee with other peace organizations. We will provide toolkits, templates of letters to your congress members, social media messages, and other resources you can use in early August as part of a concerted effort to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Sign the Petition Calling for a New Treaty to Outlaw War!

The DISARM/End Wars Committee supports Project Enduring Peace (PEP), which a group of WILPF members in San Diego is organizing. They have created a 17-minute video that shares facts proving war is not inevitable. Once this long-held false belief is debunked, humanity can move rapidly forward to create a global, enforceable peace treaty and begin dismantling the war machine. 

After watching the video, sign this petition calling upon leaders of all nations, diplomats, and global influencers to acknowledge that war is a form of social insanity that we can no longer tolerate. We urge them to unite and commit to an international agreement—through a treaty or other enforceable formal statement or statements—to end the devastation of international warfare and establish a global framework for an enduring peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Join the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

We welcome new members to the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee! We meet by Zoom on the second and last Sundays of each month at 4:30 p.m. PT/6:30 p.m. CT/7:30 p.m. ET. To receive the Zoom link and request to join the DISARM listserv, write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org.