WILPF United States Section
Welcome to the website of WILPF, US Section
Join In Protesting U.S. Launch of a Minuteman III Nuclear Missile
JOIN IN PROTESTING LAUNCH OF A MINUTEMAN III NUCLEAR MISSILE
Click here to send a letter of protest to President Obama
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| WILPF Lifetime Member MacGregor Eddy of the Watsonville, CA Branch and others protest at Vandenburg Air Force Base |
WHEN: The launch is scheduled for June 29 at some time after midnight. The protest vigil will begin just before midnight on June 28 and continue until after the launch occurs. Most participants will be coming by Green Tortoise bus originating in San Francisco at 4 pm on Sunday, June 28 and returning by 8 am on Monday, June 29.
WHERE: At the front gate of Vandenberg Air Force Base: at the intersection of Highway 1 and the Casamila-Lompoc Road ( six miles north of Lompoc on Highway 1 in Santa Barbara County, California.)
The base is a key component of the U.S.SPACE COMMAND and is home to U.S. missile defense interceptors. It is the major launch site for both interceptor tests and military satellites. This will be the first nuclear missile test since the election of President Obama.
WHY: WILPF believes the test launch of a nuclear weapon sends a dangerously contradictory message to the world. This is true even though it will carry only dummy nuclear warheads. President Obama has promised that the United States will now lead the way toward abolition of nuclear weapons. Continued testing of nuclear missiles is totally inconsistent with such leadership and endangers us all.
US WILPF Letter to US Senate Urging Immediate Ratification of CEDAW
Click here to view and download a pdf version of this letter.
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), U.S. Section, calls upon the U.S. Senate to immediately ratify the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the CEDAW Convention, the historic international bill of rights for women’s human rights. As an international non-governmental organization with UN consultative status, WILPF was a vital part of the decades-long process culminating in the adoption of the CEDAW Convention. In 1974, WILPF formally instructed its sections in various countries to engage their governments in the crafting of an international human rights convention which would “bring together the various aspects of women’s rights to form international law,” because we understood that “only through the intensive participation of women can best possible development in each country . . . and world peace [be] achieved.”
The CEDAW Convention was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 18, 1979 and signed, on behalf of the United States, by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Yet, thirty years later, this powerful treaty has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. The US is the only country to sign but not ratify the Convention.
US WILPF Signs Letter Opposing Budget Request for Aid to Israel
TO: Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
The undersigned organizations are writing to urge you to oppose the President’s FY2010 budget request for $2.775 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Israel, an increase of $225 million in military aid compared to FY2009. At this time of acute economic crisis, as well as from a political, legal, security, and moral standpoint, our country should not continue to provide Israel with this blank check.
Israel consistently misuses U.S. weapons purchased through FMF to commit grave human rights abuses against Palestinians and systematic violations of international law in its illegal 42-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. Some of those violations are documented every year in the State Department's own human rights reports; far more are documented by the United Nations and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Letter to Congress: Afghan Women Desperately Need Our Help
Click here to view and download a pdf version of this letter
May 20, 2009
Dear Senator/Representative:
Afghan women desperately need our help. As you consider the FY09 supplemental funding bill, aid for critically needed educational, occupational and health programs for Afghan women and girls must be included.
We urge you to include funding in the supplemental funding bill that will go directly to Afghan women-led non-profit organizations providing programs for Afghan women and girls, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Women's Affairs.
Single Payer Health Insurance Is Coming!
Single Payer is coming....
by Mary Zepernick
As songwriter Leonard Cohen sings in his ironic rumbling voice, "Democracy is coming, to the U.S.A.!."
Indeed, people from California to Maine and in between, weary of waiting for gifts bestowed from on high, are increasingly claiming their right to make decisions about what does and does not go on in their communities - from stopping harms to creating new institutions. And what these activists, many of them speaking up and stepping out for the first time, are most dramatically encountering is the power of government and corporate complicity - giving rich political meaning to the term codependency.
May 2009: Statement on US Involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Statement on US Involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Click here to view and download a pdf version of this statement
Click here to read the letter to Congress urging aid be given to Afghan women
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section, opposes military action to resolve the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Specifically, we cannot support the sending of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into the country and the use of drone aircraft there and in Pakistan. We call for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO military forces.
It should be self evident that the use of violent force by another country cannot lead to the elimination of violence and armed conflict within Afghanistan. The very people the U.S. claims must be protected from Taliban insurgents are actually endangered by the presence of U.S and NATO troops. According to figures provided by the United Nations, at least 2100 Afghan civilians died in conflict related deaths in 2008. Of these, at least 1000 were killed by Taliban or other insurgents, who often target communities where U.S. military forces have had a presence. At least 800 civilians were killed in 2008 by Afghan government forces or by occupying U.S. and NATO forces, and of these at least 445 were killed by air strikes. Afghan women’s organizations, such as the Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women, and women’s organizations involved in in-country initiatives, such as Madre and the Global Fund for Women, have consistently stated that the occupying U.S. military presence increases the level of violence in Afghan communities resulting in more civilian deaths and abductions and more dangerous conditions for women seeking to participate in public life, peace building, and civilian governance.
Articles on Water from Peace & Freedom Magazine: Recent Years
Click on the links below to view and download pdf versions of articles related to water that have appeared in WILPF's Peace and Freedom Magazine in recent years.
Open Letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton re Support of International Criminal Court
April 16, 2009
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW Room 7226
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Madam Secretary:
We write to urge that the current review of United States policy on the International Criminal Court [ICC] be completed quickly, and that it lead to three results: US participation in the Court’s meetings to complete its formation; extensive and thorough US cooperation with and support to the Court in its prosecutions and trials; and action to declare emphatically that US relations with the Court are in an entirely new era. The historic ICC arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir makes these steps especially urgent. The United States is now in the odd and unsustainable position of strongly endorsing the most important action that the ICC has ever taken while evading any commitment to support or participate in it as an institution.
United States Budget: Moving Towards a Gender Perspective
April, 2009
By Jane Midgley
The United States is in the midst of a crippling recession brought on by unbridled capitalism, which has left millions losing houses, jobs, and economic assets such as the value of retirement savings. This crisis enabled the Obama administration to move swiftly to introduce more progressive economic and budget policies on several fronts. The federal government has increased its share of the national economy in recent decades to 16%, so government spending is essential to any solution to the economic downturn.
Read the WILPF Blog
The WILPF blog is an interactive space for discussion of world events and how we're transforming the world to a culture of peace and justice.
Local Branch Activities
May, 2009: Spotlight on Santa Cruz, CA.
Developing WILPF’s Legislative Priorities at the Local Level
By Jan Harwood
Rescue Democracy, Curb Corporations committee:
Six Santa Cruz WILPF members attended a Democracy School training conducted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in May, 2008 and formed the branch's Corporation vs Democracy Committee the next month. After study and discussion, the group focused on two activities.
The first was to work with the existing Light-Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) and Californians Against the Spray groups in Santa Cruz, to develop an ordinance that will prevent any government entity or corporation from spraying any toxic substance in Santa Cruz without the express permission of the people of Santa Cruz. The ordinance is in its final editing and will be presented to the Santa Cruz City Council after further community organizing for support.
The second activity was to develop a schedule of events to educate the public about the undue power of corporations over our lives, our health, our education and our government, with the goal of training people to take action to restore democracy. The series is called “Restore Democracy: Curb Corporate Power.” To date, there have been five events in this series: Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, speaking about the bail-out of Wall Street; the CELDF trainers holding a public meeting on the spray ordinance; and David Dilworth of Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment (HOPE) explaining how to revoke the charters of corporations which do public harm. In December showed the film Are Corporations People? and Jim Mosher of Felton Flow described how their community fought and won back their water rights against a mega-corporation.
The series continued with a public talk and trainng earlier this month featuring David Cobb / Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap of Democracy Unlimited Humboldt County (DUHC). The goal of the training was the formation of issue coalitions to develop actions in the Bay Area to assert the peoples’ rights against corporate power. We expect to continue with educational events, skill training and community actions."
The Applicability of THE CHILD SOLDIER PROTOCOL in the United States
What is the Child Soldier Protocol?
The Child Soldier Protocol, formally known as the U.N. Convention of the Rights of the Child's Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (CRC OPAC), seeks to protect children (anyone under 18) from the harmful impact of exposure and participation in armed conflict. In January 2003, the Senate unanimously ratified the Child Soldier Protocol and the U.S. became legally bound by the protocol's international standards on children. See below for key provisions of the Protocol.
Why is it relevant?
The Child Soldier Protocol - according to the U.S. government's first report on its compliance with the Protocol - requires no implementing legislation, which means that by ratifying, the U.S. is now legally obligated to put all of its provisions into action.* Treaties, such as the Child Soldier Protocol, once ratified by Congress are "the supreme law of the land,"* and as the Protocol does not require further legislation to be in effect it currently binds all branches of government on the federal and state level.
US WILPF Priorities for Obama Administration
January 19, 2009
Dear President-Elect Obama:
We of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, United States Section (WILPF US), appreciate many of the priorities you expressed during your election campaign. A considerable number of them are our priorities as well, and we will certainly work to build support for each of those in our communities across this nation.
WILPF Middle East statement on Gaza - January 2, 2009
We, the members of the Women's International League for Peace Freedom, are horrified at Israel's bombing of Gaza.
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We join with millions around the world in protests and call for an immediate cease fire.
We are profoundly distressed, knowing that the continuous bombardment will lead to further civilian deaths and suffering, and this massive escalation of violence could spiral out of control and engulf the whole region in war.
The massive air attack is a crime against humanity as it comes on top of the two-year inhumane siege that Israel has imposed on the one and a half million people living in Gaza, the world's largest prison.
White Privilege Training Offered by Building the Beloved Community Issue Committee
Are you ready to be a part of the change?
Racism is a fierce, ever present, challenging force; one that has structured the thinking and actions of individuals and institutions since the beginning of U.S. history. To understand racism and effectively begin dismantling it requires an equally fierce, consistent and committed effort. Please join us as we embark on this most crucial journey and begin to realize our vision of a racially just society.
