NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2008
DISARM UPDATE
FOCUS ISSUE: Preparing for 2009
in Congress and at the United Nations
NOVEMBER CALENDAR
November 4: VOTE!
November 5: Nuclear weapons test with the launch of a Minutemann III from Vandenberg Air Force Base with Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands as target. The U.S. conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests there between 1946 and 1958, leaving Bikini and Rongalap uninhabitable and the their former inhabitants subject to high incidences of cancer and birth defects. Strat com and Offutt air force base in Omaha are very much involved. Read details here.
In August DISARM! team member MacGregor Eddy was arrested by a large group of military officers, backed by armed military vehicles, at Vandenberg Air Force Base after witnessing the previous nuclear weapons test launch. She was on public property and did not commit civil disobedience -- but she did lecture the soldiers arresting her on their violations of national and international law. In the end she was never charged or given a court date, but believes she would have won the case if she had been.
November 10, 11, 12: Hand delivery in Congress of the WILPF PAROS petition to the 64 Senators (or their staff) from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin. Wyoming. Learn more about Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space from Reaching Critical Will, and join in WILPF's determined efforts to change U.S. foolish and dangerous current space militarization policies.
November 19 to 24: WILPF International Board Meeting in Geneva will consider many disarmament and war peace issues. Download the Agenda and Meeting documents. Carol Urner, co-chair of DISARM! Dismantle the War Economy Committee -- and also co-convener of the International Peace and Security Working Group -- is scheduled to attend and will report back on matters relevant to our own disarmament work.
DECEMBER CALENDAR
December 1 to 5: Meetings of States party to the Biological Weapons Convention in Geneva. Emphasis will be on bio-safety in biological research labs.
December 10: UN Human Rights Day and the 60th anniverary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights! We hope every Branch and member will do something in honor of this day. Universal Human Rights are impossible without disarmament, and disarmament is impossible without human rights.
December 11: Birthday of WILPF member Eleanor Roosevelt who successfully facilitated creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. She called it a Magna Carta for all humankind. UN Human Rights treaties codify the Universal Declaration into international law.
Sadly, the United States, long proud of its contributions to human rights, now lags behind many other nations in both ratification and compliance with human rights treaties growing out of the Universal Declaration. The U.S. is now the only nation in the world (other than Somalia which currently has no government) that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is one of only six which has not ratified CEDAW, the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. The U.S. has also failed to ratify the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which codifies the last ten articles of the Universal Declaration. These ar the ones ensuring economic justice, and rights of all to adequate housing, education, health care jobs etc.
