Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
The International Organizing Committee and the National Organizing Committee present their greetings through Bulletin No. 1 on the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases to be held on 5-9 March 2007 in Quito and Manta (Ecuador). In this bulletin you will find information on the Conference, as well as on other processes and campaigns that work in the belief that Another World is Possible!!!. We hope to see you soon in Ecuador in the International Conference.
Content:
1. International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases
Continental Watch for Peace
2. Tokyo Consultation, 24 -29 November 2006
3. Social Summit for Peoples’ Integration, Cochabamba - Bolivia 6-9 December 2006
4. World Social Forum-Nairoby 20-25, 2007
5. Former Irak detainees present demand against Rumsfeld
International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases
Ecuador will be the venue of the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases that will be held on 5-9 March, 2007. The International and Ecuadorean Organizing Committees for the Inaugural Conference of the Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases have seen how foreign military bases and other forms of military presence are used to secure the interests of a few at the cost of democracy, justice, sovereignty and self determination. But these bases and their destructive impacts are meeting with strong grassroots opposition, in Vieques, Korea, Okinawa, United Kingdom, Guam, the United States itself, and many other countries.
Over the past two years, movements for peace and justice have been building an international network that works for the abolition of foreign military bases around the world. The next step in consolidating this Network is the International Conference for the Abolition of All Foreign Military Bases. We hope that this will be the biggest gathering of anti-bases activists to date where the political, social, environmental and economic impacts of foreign military bases and the grassroots movements that oppose them will be highlighted, as well as construct the network, its strategies, structure and action plans. The main objectives of the Conference are:
· Analyze the role of Foreign Military Bases and other forms of military presence in the strategy of global domination and its impacts on the population and the environment.
· Highlight, share experiences, and solidarity with resistance struggles against foreign military bases in the world.
· Reach consensus on objectives, action plans, coordination, communication and decision-making mechanisms for a global network for the abolition of all foreign military bases and other forms of military presence.
· Establish global struggles and action plans that strengthen local and national struggles and the coordination among them.
The conference takes place over five days. From 5-7 March the Conference will consist of panels, presentations and workshops and to formally establish the anti-base network. On March 8, International Women’s Day, there will be a caravan from Quito to the port city of Manta, led by Ecuadorean women’s groups also opposed to military bases. On March 9 in Manta there will be a joint action by international and Ecuadorean participants, with a focus on the US military base in Manta.
On-line registration for the conference is available, at http://www.no-bases.net. For more information, please contact nobases yahoo.com
Organizers: Asociación Cristiana de Jovenes (ACJ-YMCA Ecuador), Fundación Regional de Derechos Humanos (Ecuador), Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ-E) (Ecuador), Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Ecuador), Movimiento Tohallí (Ecuador), Paulina Ponce Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos (Ecuador), Grupo de Objetores de Conciencia (Ecuador), ALTERCOM (Ecuador), Clínica de Derechos Humanos – PUCE (Ecuador), American Friends Service Committee, US Peace Council (US), Nonviolence International (US), American Friends Service Committee (US), Gathering for Peace (Filipinas), Centro Memorial Martin Luther King Jr (Cuba), Campaign for Demilitarisation of Americas (Latin America), Focus on the Global South (Thailand, Philippines, India), Fellowship of Reconciliation (US), LALIT (Diego Garcia / Mauritius), Transnational Institute (Netherlands), Asian Peace Alliance – Japan, Japan Peace Committee (Japan), For Mother Earth (Belgium), Pakistan Peace Coalition (Pakistan), Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK), World Peace Council
Continental Watch for Peace
From the 17 - 19 November, 2006, several non-violent direct actions were held in the American continent, organized by the Continental Movement of Christians for Peace. 22,000 people of different parts of the United States met at Fort Benning in Georgia to demand drastic changes in the American foreign policy and to demand the closing of the military training center where the Latin American armies are trained.
In Ecuador, the Colombo-Ecuadorian Bi-national Meeting was held in which the permanent work of the faith and the communitarian work of the Christians for peace and against all forms of militarism in Latin America was shown. In Manta, delegations of urban and rural communities, farmers, fisherfolk, members of the Coalition Ecuador no Bases and the Ecuador YMCA came together, in a meeting against violence and repression. In Colombia, thousands of women in Barrancabermeja were congregated to claim a stop of war and to denounce the increasing militarization of the region.
The watch in Argentina denounced all forms of militarism and they shared testimonies from Paraguay, Haiti and Palestine, and of the Mothers of de Plaza de Mayo. Human rights organizations marched in Chile against the training of the army at the School of the Americas. In El Salvador a protest of the Popular Social Block Front was held at the US Embassy, demanding the closure of the School of the Americans.
http://www.cristianosporlapaz.info
Tokyo Consultation, 24-29 November 2006
In Asia and the Pacific where the people’s anti-base movements has rich history, we face a new and enormous challenge as the United States is reorganizing the area on the basis of its “Global Posture Review” into the major hub of the United States’ regional and global military operations with a view to control the so-called “Arc of Instability” extending from Korea through Japan and Southeast Asia to Central and West Asia. This scheme takes various forms: construction of a huge military base complex in South Korea (Pyongtaek) under the slogan of “strategic flexibility,” new bases in Okinawa and Guam, the strengthening of functions of bases in Okinawa and mainland Japan in the name of “alliance for the future, frequent joint military exercises with Asian countries, and free military entry into the Philippines under the Visiting Force Agreement. Time demands the urgent necessity to hold a platform for the people in anti-base movement in Asia and the Pacific region come together and have consultation to fight against the circumstance. It will also be part of the regional preparation towards the International Conference in Ecuador.
The objectives of the Tokyo Consultation are:
1. Share information, situationers and strategies within Asia and the Pacific;
2. To gain a clear understanding of US Strategy and the implications of military bases/ military presence in Asia and the Pacific and the imperatives of building a strong grassroots peoples’ movement for peace and justice. It is important to have a clear insight into the realignment of bases/forces in the region and to emphasize the concept of global “demilitarization” as an important guide post or principle if we are to build a strong anti-bases campaign;
3. To provide a venue to prepare for the Ecuador conference and come up with proposals and strategies;
4. To provide an occasion to gather data, stories and visuals for the production of resource and information materials on Asia & Pacific situation with specific focus on people’s struggles and social movements which could be effective tools for media work, general campaign work, lobbying, conference deliberations and the public actions;
5. To prepare a regional situationer and general basis of cooperation and unity. Included is an endeavor to produce a resource material on No Bases Asia and the Pacific (in booklet form and a PowerPoint material) which will eventually be reproduced as Asia-Pacific material for the Ecuador Conference and will be in at least four languages (English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish)
The consultation is convened by the Japanese Ad Hoc Committee for Asia-Pacific People’s Anti-Military Bases Movements Consultation in Tokio and the No Bases Network for the International Conference in Ecuador.
Social Summit for Peoples’ Integration, Cochabamba 6-9 December 2006
The Ecuador No Bases Coalition will participate in the Social Summit for Peoples’ Integration to be held in Cochabamba - Bolivia from the 6th to the 9th of December, in the panel “Foreign Military Bases and Strategies of Domination in Latin America”. There will be presentations related to the control of the region, the Comalapa Base and the Plan Puebla Panama, the Manta Base and the Colombia Plan, the Border Triple and the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases will be exposed. This will be preparatory for the Conference. This Panel is organized jointly with the Campaign for the Demilitarization of Americans (CADA) and SERPAJ Latin America. The No Bases Coalition will contact will contact diverse social movements, like the Continental Social Alliance, the campaigns against “free trade”, the foreign debt and the militarization, in order to position the struggle against the military bases and the joint exercises directed by the South Command.
The Social Summit, that will be held parallel to the Meeting of the South American Community of Nations, tries to accentuate the development of an “offensive agenda”, based on the formulation of integration alternatives as the passage towards the unification of the struggles against neoliberalism. The Social Summit will synthesize the reflections, debates and proposals developed from the struggle against the ALCA and the WTO. A fundamental subject will be integration, understanding that only establishing alliances and integrating the Latin America nations will it be possible to stop neoliberalism and to build a true democracy with sovereignty and social equality. The following subjects will be discussed in the Summit: natural resources, water, biodiversity, social agenda, indigenous democracy and militarization, energy and towns.
http://www.integracionsolidaria.org
World Social Forum– Nairobi 20-25 January 2007
Members of the International No Bases Network will participate in the World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi - Kenya on 20-25 January of 2007. They will organize a global panel on Military bases in the African Continent, as well as a workshop to fortify the International Network.
The WSF is committed to facilitate an open space for the struggles of the social movements. The self-managed events will be held, which will allow to create and strengthen the processes of resistance to globalization and war. According to the organizers, the WSF will be an opportunity to defy imperialism in the same language that they understand: the cultural force. In this sense, culture will be used as a means of resistance, considered as a logical answer to the economic and political inequalities that plague the world.
Former Iraq detainees present demand against Rumsfeld
Twelve former detainees from Iraq held by US forces presented on November 14 before the German Federal Office of the Public Prosecutor a joint penal demand against former US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The plaintiffs accuse Rumsfeld and several US military High Commands in Iraq of violation of human rights and military crimes. Today the lawyer who will represent their interests was made public, named Wolfgang Kaleck.
The denounced facts had as scenes the Iraqian jail of Abu Ghraib and the US base of Guantánamo (Cuba), where the plaintiffs remained for a long time. It is the second demand that appears in Germany against Rumsfeld and other US High Commands. The first demand, which was presented by a human rights organization, was denied by the Office of the Public Prosecutor in February of 2005.
Kaleck augured more success to this second penal initiative against the the US politician because “Rumsfeld, when leaving the Government, does not maintain legal protection”, because he loses the immunity that he held because of his position as US Executive. Rumsfeld resigned to his position as Secretary of Defense last week, after the defeat of the republicans in the recent legislative elections in the US. He was replaced by the ex- director of the CIA, Robert Gates.
Original article in El Mostrador
Bulletin by No Bases Coalition - Ecuador & International Organizing Committee for the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases
For more information: nobases yahoo.com
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