Dear Members,

I’ve been hearing from a number of branches about plans for commemorating International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament on Thursday, May 24. This day began in Europe in the early 1980s, when hundreds of thousands of women organized against nuclear weapons and the arms race, and offers a perfect opportunity for raising awareness about WILPF’s agenda for structural change and vision of human security. Kudos to those who have chosen to observe this rather obscure holiday with local vigils and events, and I hope that in the years to come it will have greater recognition and be a catalyst for coordinated WILPF action around the world.

But the purpose of this communication is to share important information about our organization!

I am thrilled to announce that Ria Kulenovic has joined our National team as Director of Operations. Ria is originally from Sarajevo and was attending college there during the siege; she moved to the U.S. obtaining refugee status in 1995. She has worked with the International Rescue Committee in several different capacities and most recently she served as the executive director of the Center for Balkan Development. Ria has served on the Boards of Directors and the Executive Committees of Refugee Women’s Network and Women's Refugee Commission. Ria comes highly recommended for her attention to detail, ability to grow organizations and interpersonal communications. You can see her professional profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ria-kulenovic/6/565/180. Ria has managed budgets ranging from 300K to 2M and is expert at negotiating the accounting rules governing 501c3 and c4 corporations; she has recently completed requirements for a masters degree in Public Administration with a emphasis on non-profit organizations, at Suffolk University's Sawyer School of Management.

The Director of Operations is responsible for managing WILPF’s membership database, financial transactions, internship program, and organizational infrastructure. Ria can be reached at rkulenovic@wilpf.org or by calling 617-266-0999.

Other News of Importance to WILPF Members:

The WILPF National Board will be holding a meeting via conference call at 5 p.m. EDT on Sunday July 22. Decision items on the agenda for that meeting include: continuance of the Local2Global program for seasoned WILPF members; continuance of the Practicum in Advocacy at the United Nations program for college women; and at least one (but possibly more) proposed changes to WILPF’s By-Laws (check www.wilpf.org/bylaws for details). Meetings of the National Board are open to all WILPF members. If you would like to participate, please email dialogue@wilpf.org for dial in information; if you are unable to participate in the call itself but would like to weigh in on any of the agenda items, please send your comments to dialogue@wilpf.org no later than July 15 so that they can be shared with all board members prior to the meeting.

The survey collecting data for possible re-invention of our WILPF Triennial National Congress will close on June 30. If you haven’t already responded, please take a few moments to do so now by visiting https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WILPF_NCPS   or by filling out the paper version on p. 24 of the spring 2012 issue of Peace and Freedom. Your ideas and thoughts are essential to inform the National Board’s decision-making process. In addition, if you believe that WILPF Congresses serve an important function in connecting our members and deepening our shared learnings, are adept at negotiating change and an organizer at heart, consider volunteering as Chair of the National Congress Committee (NCC). The Chair of the NCC does not serve on the National Board and has a term of service that will extend until six months after the next National Congress. If interested, you can write directly to the nominations@wilpf.org or down load a full job description and application at http://wilpf.org/JoinCommittee.

Deep appreciation to all those members and branches who supported our spring call to GROW WILPF by reaching out their families and friends with warm invitations to join WILPF. We hope that all the opportunities for involvement offered here will strengthen your engagement and help strengthen WILPF as a national and international organization.

Sincerely,

Laura Roskos
President, U.S. Section

P.S.  Don’t forget to use WILPF’s Facebook page to communicate with other WILPF members and share your activism with the world!

Join End Wars/DISARM! in May for a Nuclear Free Future, Demilitarization of the

Heavens, and an End to Wars!

by Carol Urner

Peace / San Francisco?Creative Commons Attribution License, photo by Σταρος

• Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, Eliminating Nuclear Power
• Keeping Space for Peace
• Ending and Preventing War

Contact nffchairs@wilpf.org to find out how you can do more to work towards total disarmament and peace. (Note: END WARS/DISARM also works on Dismantling the War Economy. Look for updates in the next Enews.)

Download WILPF fact sheet on Middle East Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction here.

READ MORE TO FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN DO: Abolishing Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power; Keep Space for Peace; END Wars!

Help Build a NATO-Free Future: Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice

by Joan Ecklein

Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice in Chicago:

May 18-19, 2012  

While NATO meets in Chicago, peace & justice activists will gather at the Counter-Summit for Peace & Economic Justice to map an alternative path towards a world free of war, want, & occupations. In plenary sessions and 28 workshops, we will share analysis, conduct trainings, and feature campaigns to bring the troops home, to move the money from the Pentagon to meet real human needs and to create a more peaceful, just and secure world. With leading and grassroots activists from across the US and around the world, the counter-summit will provide rare and critically important opportunities to learn from one another, to network and to build more integrated peace, economic and social justice movements. 

WILPF has organized the following workshop: Close NATO Military Bases: NATO Missiles, Nuclear Weapons and Military Bases -Obstacles to Peace and Disarmament. The speakers are Bruce Gagnon, Jacki Cabasso and Irene Eckert (German WILPF member, activist against military bases.) WILPF members Libby Frank and Beth Adams are participants in other workshops.  
 

The Counter Summit is sponsored by Network for a NATO Free Future, a coalition of peace, faith, labor, economic and racial justice, and immigrant rights groups and will be held at People’s Church, 941 W Lawrence, Chicago, IL. To register or for more information, please visit: www.natofreefuture.org or email: info@natofreefuture.com.

For Earth Democracy—Let's Rally for Fair Trade

Have you heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade agreement”- the NAFTA of the Pacific? Not, unless you’ve followed Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.  But New Zealanders are saying “NO” to this NAFTA of the Pacific that is meant to isolate China and is hailed as a “landmark, 21st century trade agreement, setting a new standard for global trade and incorporating next-generation issues."

Yet, it is the same old agenda. This is why we’ve created the Earth Democracy Issue group to present a new agenda for people, our communities and nature. In the next eNews, we’ll outline the creative and exciting directions this work can take us.

The TPP continues corporate globalization and trade policies that benefit the 1% and the TPP “free trade agreement” (Trans-Pacific FTA) could quickly: offshore millions of American jobs, undermine food safety, further deregulate Wall Street, end Buy Local and Buy America policies, impact access to lower-cost medicine, decrease environmental protections, and more.

As the case in all “free” trade agreements, corporations of every signatory country can lodge an investor complaint against the U.S. for any local, state or national law considered to harm their investor right to profit at the expense of jobs, human rights and social, economic and environmental justice. If the corporation wins the claim, either the U.S. government pays a huge multi-million fine with tax-payer $$ or strikes the law passed by our elected representatives.

Take a look at maps showing where foreign TPP corporations are located in the U.S. that could challenge our sovereignty and laws passed by our elected representatives. Read more...

WILPF International Initiative: Ending Discrimination and Reinforcing Women's Peace

and Security in the MENA Region

This spring, WILPF International, in collaboration with other strategic partners, will be holding a series of national consultations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (May 2012) and a conference in Geneva (June 2012) to advance women's rights and women's participation regarding all matters relating to peace and security. Results from national consultations in Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia will then shape WILPF’s two day international conference in Geneva during the 20th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), and will also be used to develop a long term capacity building program for organizations working to end discrimination against women and to ensure women’s full involvement in the prevention of conflict and promotion of peace and security.

The background which led WILPF to organize the MENA advocacy project resulted from a growing awareness that the extremely militarised and non-consultative leadership style  against which ordinary citizens revolted against through popular uprisings internationally labeled ‘the Arab  Spring’, relied heavily on the exclusion and subordination of women – including from all  discourses on peace and security. WILPF recognized that while women have been key actors in the popular uprisings, the historical patterns of patriarchal exclusion found in earlier regimes were being  re-shaped, and even worsened, by the newly emerging  political  parties  and  male  leaders. Although women played vital roles in street- level mobilization to end oppressive regimes, women’s activism was not translating into increased public participation in reform processes—as was strikingly clear in the Tunisian and Egyptian elections. Read more...

Statement of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom -

United States Section - On Iran and Support for a Weapons of Mass

Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East

Endorse WILPF's Statement on Iran here.

We in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section (WILPF US) are dismayed by current drumbeats for war and calls for increased sanctions on Iran. This is reminiscent of build up to the Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq in 2003. Fear of nuclear weapons development is again given as the rationale. This time there are major differences and alternatives that could move us toward the global abolition of nuclear weapons. The way will not be easy but is infinitely preferable to the dangerous war that will inevitably be the result of current policies. It is time to lift the sanctions and to stop the war talk. We need to open the way to future peace and stability in the Middle East. We urge women and men committed to a world of peace, human rights and security for all to participate significantly in coming negotiations.

The Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMD FZ) is a positive alternative to war and military actions for which United Nations (UN) member states have been working through the UN since 1980. At the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference all 187 nations party to that treaty, including the United States, agreed unanimously to hold a high-level conference among the Middle Eastern states to establish a WMD Free Zone. This year, for the first time, it is possible to begin the negotiations on the proposed WMD Free Zone treaty. Helsinki was chosen as the site for this high-level conference (the “2012 Helsinki Conference”) in which all Middle Eastern States are invited to participate. The goal is to ban nuclear, chemical and biological weapons use, production, stationing, stockpiling or transport in the Middle East.

Read the full statement here (PDF).

Read the full statement here (webpage).

Endorse WILPF's Statement on Iran here.