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Odile Hugonot Haber, Co-Chair, Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Branch, Michigan

November 21-23 weekend protests against the Stewart Detention Center and the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) included members from the Washington DC and Triangle (NC) branches, and myself. The Sunday ritual of reading names of the disappeared, with cross-carrying marchers responding "Presente" was very moving.

SOA is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2001 it was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). They also learn how to control populations and torture people who are leftist and/or union organizers.

On Friday, November 21, I travelled on a United Auto Workers union bus to Georgia.  We stopped on Saturday at a rally at the Stewart Detention Center, which is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) as a prison for migrant workers, through an intergovernmental service agreement of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Stewart County, Georgia.

Stewart Detention Center has an extremely poor record, including abuse and death of prisoners. Men are kept there for years without conviction. This medium security prison holds 1752 -- mostly immigrants. Someone said: "The prison has more people than the town." (Lumpkin, Georgia)

We were about 1,000 people who marched to Steward Detention Center, on a nice sunny day. The country was beautiful with pine trees and oak trees, which actually made everything more eerie. Five were arrested Saturday and paid fines for passing the police line at the entrance.

On Sunday we went to Fort Benning and stood in front of the gates that lead to the School of the Americas -- and the ritual unfolded:

Someone on the stage read all names one by one of the disappeared. Persons with white crosses that each had one of these names marched in a procession. When a name was read, the person with that cross said "Presente." There were also puppets that led the march. Women dressed in black with painted white faces carried black coffins with flowers in top. Each coffin had the picture and the name of a disappeared, massacred, or killed person in Latin America. It is a solemn and very moving ceremony.

This was the 24th anniversary of this protest. Some years there were up to 25,000 people there, including many youths brought from Catholic schools. This year we were 3000 marching in the rain. Only one older woman got arrested, I believe.

Father Roy Bourgeois started this movement in 1990, working against the foreign policies of the U.S. that decimate many Latin American communities. We learned that there are now 5 million refugees in Colombia alone due to the so-called "Drug Wars."  In the last few years Father Bourgeois was canonically dismissed due to his support for the ordination of the Maryknoll Sisters.  Also, Jesuits who had participated decided not to be part of demonstrations anymore.

So over the years this demonstration grew smaller. It is followed by days of lobbying in Washington early in December.

WILPF did not have a table at the SOA demonstration. Ellen Barfield, Dick Paddock, Ruth Zalph and Peggy Misch and perhaps others were there this year.  I hope next year we can be a stronger contingent. Odile can be contacted at  734-761-7967 or odilehh@gmail.com.

PHOTO: Women in whiteface carry coffins at School of the Americas.             
Odile Hugonot Haber

Dixie Hairston, Program Coordinator, L2G and 2015 UN Practicum

Applications close December 15 for two WILPF US programs at the UN’s 59th Commission on the Status of Women March 7-15, 2015 in New York City.  Students are invited to join WILPF’s UN Practicum in Advocacy, and active members to participate in the Local2Global Program.

The Local2Global program selects members from US branches to bring WILPF perspectives into conversations with government and NGO representatives, learn the ropes, and prepare to take UN advocacy strategies and campaigns back to their local branch and beyond. Local2Global application

As part of the UN Practicum in Advocacy, students from universities across the country will contribute to the official documentation of both official and informal meetings. The Practicum will provide ample opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and exploration of career opportunities in international relations and advocacy work. UN Practicum in Advocacy application

In order to enhance the learning opportunities available via this program, we are encouraging previous Practicum participants to apply this year. We feel that the knowledge and expertise of practicum alumni will further strengthen the lasting effect this program has on participants.

UN Practicum in Advocacy Alumna application

Faculty reference (faculty ref form)

For more information please contact Dixie Hairston, Programs Coordinator for L2G and the UN Practicum at practicum-mail@wilpfus.org.

Carol Urner, co-chair WILPF National Disarm/ End Wars Issue Committee

Jackie Cabasso and Alice Slater of our committee are attending two nuclear disarmament meetings this month in Vienna on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War. This is a crucial time as we move toward nuclear disarmament and dismantling the profiteering nuclear industries. Some would consider these utopian goals, but we must keep moving toward them step by step or face extinction.

The first, on December 6-7, is the civil society NGO conference, facilitated by I-CAN.  International  Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons.   Hundreds of campaigners for nuclear abolition from all around the globe are registered to attend.

The second conference, December 8-9, is hosted by the government of Austria and is the third in a series on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War.  I80 governments joined in endorsing these conferences during the November 2014 General Assembly sessions. The nine nuclear weapons states boycotted the initial session, but India and Pakistan joined in the second meeting.  The other seven (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, North Korea and Israel) have all continued to boycott these and other attempts jumpstart negotiations. Instead all nine have continued to upgrade or expand their arsenals.

WILPF has joined in urging the United States to participate in these meetings. Your letters and petition signatures helped in this process. In November came the welcome announcement that our government will do so. This opens the way for other nuclear powers and their client states to do so as well.

WILPF Reaching Critical Will is a leader among the many organizations working for a nuclear weapons ban treaty as fruit of these conferences. At present there is no treaty that makes possession, production or use of nuclear weapons illegal, or that provides for inspection and verification of compliance. The hope is that such a treaty will help make nuclear weapons taboo, and move the nuclear weapons states into negotiation of a comprehensive abolition treaty more like the model treaty developed by IPPNW and other NGOs (including WILPF) and introduced into the United Nations in 2007 by Costa Rica and Malaysia.

WILPF will be monitoring and reporting on the Vienna meetings, and following up on progress toward nuclear weapons abolition and closing down the associated profiteering nuclear industries. Check here to access reports and statements as they are posted. Go to Resources for more information on nuclear weapons and nuclear industry profiteering

WHAT CAN WE DO?

• Inform ourselves. Read more on both I-Can and Reaching Critical Will about the Vienna conference and banning the bomb. We all have much to learn so that we can share with others
• Sign the pledge on I-Can noted in the right-hand column.
• Don’t Bank on the Bomb. Read the pamphlet co-authored by our own former WILPF secretary general, Susi Snyder. Close accounts with those banks that invest in nuclear weapons like Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
• Check out other organizations that endorse banning the bomb. Contact local affiliates. Are they aware of the national position and do they want to promote it? Organize together in your own community.
• Participate in the NPT Review Conference  (April 27 to May 22, 2015). A march, rally and one day conference will precede the NPT on April 25-26. You can also join in  Alliance for Nuclear Accountability D.C. Days, probably also for a week in April. (For questions or more information contact Carol Urner at  carol.disarm@gmail.com.)

Request from Ellen Thomas, Disarm/End Wars  co-chair:

If you are a member of our committee please send your current address and phone number as well as direct email and phone number to Ellen Thomas and/or Ariane Blondin whose email addresses are below. This will not be shared outside of our committee but is for better communication among ourselves.

If you are not a WILPF member but think you would like to join you can do so on line.  https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5372/donate_page/membership-page.

If, after becoming a member you would also like to participate in our Disarm/End Wars Issue committee contact Ellen Thomas:

Ellen Thomas, (Co-Chair, Disarm/End Wars Committee)
Ariane Blondin, (Boston Office)

PHOTO:  The US claims to provide a "security umbrella" to Europeans by stationing B-61 nuclear bombs in formerly occupied Germany and Italy and also in Belgium, Netherlands and Turkey. However the majority of Europeans believe the bombs make them less secure. Here a group of activists discard a mock bomb proclaiming "We don't want your US umbrella."

Photo courtesy of I-Can Flicker images for public use. International  Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons