Peace activists in Oklahoma don’t often expect to find themselves in the middle of an international story, much less one involving war crimes, global diplomacy, and a GI suspected of leaking a record number of classified documents. But that’s what happened when Oklahoma native Bradley Manning was arrested on suspicion of leaking the “Collateral Murder” video and thousands of other documents to WikiLeaks.
When the Manning story broke, the Oklahoma Center for Conscience (OCC), which was founded in 2004 and joined the WRL network as a state affiliate this past summer, sprang into action. The group announced a vigil and march from its office to the nearby state capitol. Press inquiries came from U.S. news outlets, including the Washington Post, and from journalists in Canada, France, and Japan. That night and since, OCC has facilitated news reporting that shows that Oklahomans have diverse views on the WikiLeaks matter, including support for Manning, regardless of his guilt or innocence, and the prosecution of war crimes that the leaks exposed.
“While conservatives who support any and all U.S. wars definitively outnumber us [peace activists] in Oklahoma, there is an active peace community here in Oklahoma City, in Tulsa, and a few other towns,” says James Branum, a founding member of OCC. “Our numbers may be small, but we are active and as visible as we can be with the corporate media we have to deal with, and the current domination of conservative opinion.”
OCC was founded and is directed by representatives from local churches and faith groups, veteran organizations, and independent concerned citizens. The fiscal sponsor, Joy Mennonite Church, also provides a small office. OCC publishes The Peace Post, a newsletter that is available by email and in print, three times a year.
Branum, an attorney who specializes in military law, serves as the supervising attorney for one of OCC’s primary projects—the Oklahoma GI Rights Hotline—and another co-founder and current executive director, Rena Guay, represents OCC/Oklahoma GI Rights Hotline on the national board of the GI Rights Network. Local hotline volunteers provide basic information to servicemembers about discharges, harassment complaints, and other issues. They sometimes also provide transportation and other assistance to AWOL GIs voluntarily turning themselves in at Fort Sill in Lawton, OK. Because many of the GIs who come to Branum for legal help can’t afford to pay much, if anything, OCC helps with a fund to ensure they can obtain those services.
Counter-recruitment is another area of OCC’s work, though it has been difficult to establish an ongoing program in public high schools. The activity is highly controversial, which deters school administrators and potential counter-recruitment volunteers from getting involved. Nevertheless, several successful outreach events have occurred, and OCC isn’t giving up. A recent trip to the Comanche Career Day event was well received (the state of Oklahoma has the largest number of Native Americans in the country) and prompted OCC to initiate a project to create literature and other resources to address the unique needs and culture of these youth.
Along with the Oklahoma City Peace House, OCC holds a monthly “No More for War” vigil on a busy corner during rush hour. Huge “Honk for Peace” signs get plenty of affirmative responses, again demonstrating that public desire for an end to our wars can be found in “red” Oklahoma.
In addition to all this, OCC occasionally hosts programs of speakers and films that help educate the public about issues of war and conscience. It has shown films about nuclear arms control, post-traumatic stress disorder, the life of the late Sargent Shriver (who established the Peace Corps), and the Oklahoma premiere of Robert Greenwald’s film Rethink Afghanistan. Last June, thanks to OCC’s coordination, the People’s Journey, a peace-themed cross-country trek by two U.S. vets and an Iraqi journalist, stopped in Oklahoma and set up a Skype conversation between the audience and a health worker in Afghanistan.
