JustPeace#13

Hot News

• Congratulating Helen Clark for her strong anti-war position at a post-Cabinet press conference on 31 March, Keith Locke said that ”The Greens are very pleased that the Prime Minister is not giving ground to the pro-war lobby.” Read
  
  Keith’s release
  
  .
• For news from the frontline in Iraq without gonzo pro-invader hype check out the latest links on the
  
  Peace Movement Aotearoa website
  
  .
• Total Netheads who want access to darn near everything on the Web about the war, from mass media sites to blogs from Baghdad, are advised to go to the
  
  Lewis and Clark College portal
  
  site.

Hot Action

• HEAR Nicky Hager speak on ‘The War, the Bush Administration and the Future of the US-NZ Relationship’ in NAPIER on Sunday, April 13, at
  
  2 p.m., at the Clive Square Hall. Admission by gold coin donation.
• Former British naval Commander Robert Green will be interviewed by Kim Hill on Radio NZ this Saturday morning at 9.30am for 25 mins. He will speak about new nuclear dangers, depleted uranium weapons and his conversion to a peace and anti-nuclear campaigner.
• ECONOMIC ACTION to protest the war is sweeping the world. Here is a short report from Belgium on what is happening there. The
  
  For Mother Earth website
  
  has links to other economic action campaigns.

  Ghent/Brussels, Wednesday 2nd April 2003 – In Ghent and Brussels, an Esso and a Texaco petrol station were closed down by peace campaigners. Similar actions were organised in The Netherlands. The organisers of the action are calling for a boycott of a number of US companies who are related to the war against Iraq. ExxonMobil (known as Esso in Europe) and Chevron-Texaco are known to support the war against Iraq as it has the second largest reserves of oil in the world. Both companies supported the election campaign of George W. Bush with US$ 2,000,000.

  These latest actions were organised by For Mother Earth and Attac Flanders, as well as French speaking and Arabic peace organisations. The action involved dialogue with the workers in the petrol stations, as well as spreading information to customers who were turned away from the pumps. The peace campaigners state they do not target the people working in US multinationals and have contacts with trade unions to discuss the developments as the boycott movement opposing the war grows.

  Also today, in the Netherlands, there were plans to close three Esso petrol stations with symbolic blockades. Around the world, a growing number of critical consumers are refusing to buy products such as McDonalds, and restaurants are removing Coca-Cola and Pepsi from their menus. In Ghent the owner of ‘Minor Swing’, a music bar, could convince 22 other colleagues to scrap all US products from the menu. They have all posted signs at their windows.

  The anti-war boycott movement becomes increasingly a strong statement against the unilateral politics of the Bush administration, also shown in their opposition to the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto protocol,
  
  and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Hot Analysis

• DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS are once again being used in Iraq. These Weapons of Lasting Destruction are a crime against humanity. To keep up-to-date with the situation and get information for lobbying and letter writing check out
  
  http://www.pandoraproject.org
  
  and subscribe to the DU INFO BULLETIN. A summary of contents from the latest issue, No 68, is below.
  1. BBC DU Resources Site DU News
  2. Editorial: Depleted Uranium
  3. Grave Concerns Over Iraq War
  4. Iraq: DU Warheads May Cause Disaster – Warns Expert
  5. US to use depleted uranium
  6. The Pentagon’s fiery crucibles of war
  7. Depleted uranium munitions pose untold dangers to eco system
  8. “Details”
  9. War or not, Iraq’s environment a casualty
  10. Veteran News – The War Against Ourselves – Rally in Middle Tennessee March 24, 2003
  11. US Government Presentation On DU
• Alongside DU weapons, cluster bombs are again being dropped, cluster bombs have long been condemned as they release dozens or hundreds of ‘bomblets’ many of which fail to explode immediately and then cause severe risk to civilians (especially children) and soldiers post conflict. Several thousand Kuwaiti’s have died since the Gulf War as a result of these kind of weapons being used. Landmine Action and other organistaions have condemned their use. See
  
  
  British use of cluster bombs condemned
  
  
  and
  
  Landmine Action
  
  .
• ANTIWAR PAGE SET UP. The Transnational Institute has set up an
  
  antiwar page
  
  to collate analysis and commentary from its fellows. Excellent recent articles include:

  
  Shock and Awe: The New U.S. Method of Reasoning
  
  
  By Saul Landau
  
  The US doesn’t stop at manufacturing reasons for the war, but goes on with manufacturing news.

  
  The Stalemate in Iraq and the Global Peace Movement
  
  
  By Walden Bello
  
  Washington may no longer be so brash when confronted with military stalemate. For forces opposing the war, now is the time to press on with the demand for unilateral withdrawal of the US and UK from Iraq.

  
  The Naked Emperor
  
  
  By Achin Vanaik
  
  The sheer brazenness of US behaviour has forced upon the international public’s consciousness the recognition as never before that the US is an emperor without clothes; that this war is being fought for imperial purposes, no matter what are Washington’s official explanations

  
  Talking Points and Next Steps. As War Begins
  
  
  By Phyllis Bennis and John Cavanagh
  
  It isn’t the first time the U.S. has launched an unjustified illegal war. But it is the first time such a war has been justified through a “doctrine” of preemptive war that abandons all understandings that war, with all its horrors, can be used only as the last possible resort when a nation’s security and survival are threatened.

• You may already have seen the article by Arundhati Roy in
  
  The Guardian
  
  –
  
  
  Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates
  
  
  .

  “How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilisation.”

• In New Zealand as well as overseas the ‘war on terror’ is being used as a cover for operations and law changes that have nothing to do with fighting terror. The latest Bill in this vein to be discussed in the New Zealand parliament is the Counter-Terrorism Bill. Keith spoke on the First reading of the Bill on Tuesday

  ” It is a fraudulent bill because although it is called the Counter-Terrorism Bill, much of the bill has nothing to do with terrorism or counter-terrorism. I am referring to the many amendments to the Crimes Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, and the Summary Proceedings Act, which have nothing to do with terrorism and are sneaked into the bill because the Government knows that if a counter-terrorism label is put on amendments members will be more reluctant to oppose them.” Read
  
  Keith’s full speech
  
  .

  The Bill was passed 110-9 and will go to Select Committee. Submissions will soon be called for.

JustPeace is produced by Christine Dann, Tim Hannah and Keith Locke, MP

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