WILPF Joins San Francisco Rally for Peace in Ukraine

Betty Traynor; Deetje Boller. Photo credit: Leon Kunstenaar

by Sandy Thacker
WILPF East Bay Branch

October 2022 

The Peace in Ukraine Coalition of the Bay Area held spirited rallies outside the offices of California Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco on Thursday, September 15. 

After the rally at Senator Padilla's office, there was a march through San Francisco's Financial District to Senator Feinstein's office, where three members of the Senator's staff joined the group to support their messages calling for Peace in Ukraine. Senator Padilla's aide met with the demonstrators and accepted the Coalition letter to the Senator, which includes a list of Coalition members and the article "Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine" by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies.

Betty Traynor and Deetje Boller (photos above, photographer Leon Kunstenaar, Indybay) – two longtime members of our San Francisco Branch – not only attended the event, but also spoke at the rally. This is Betty’s impassioned message for peace, on behalf of WILPF San Francisco and East Bay branches: 

“I am speaking for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – WILPF, the oldest women’s peace organization in the world started in 1915 during WWI, and specifically our local branches here in S.F. and the East Bay.

We are very happy to be here IN COALITION with so many other peace and justice groups throughout the country to end yet another war. The situation in Ukraine and beyond shows us that, once again, WAR cannot and will never be a solution for peace and stability. In these times, the most sensible thing we can do is to build international solidarity as we are doing today – to come together and channel all our individual voices into one collective, loud and decisive voice that calls for an end to militarization and war-mongering.  

This war is intolerable as are all wars. We deplore the impact of militarism that degrades the environment in numerous ways as we are seeing in Ukraine and threatens massive nuclear contamination of a country, impacts that affect women and children and the elderly disproportionally.”

We in WILPF US recognize that NATO expansion, begun in the late 1990s, is contributing to the crisis today. We SUPPORT in Coalition with Peace in Ukraine:

• The call for a ceasefire
• Peace negotiations and stopping escalatory actions by the United States
• A freeze on all weapons transfers 
• We say to our Senators Padilla and Feinstein: Your constituents have needs that will be better served by spending the billions of dollars currently going into the pockets of weapons manufacturers on health care, housing and combating global warming
• Do not risk nuclear war
• Diplomacy NOW!