140,000 reasons to protest in Egypt (and the U.S.)
On February 22, Egypt Independent leaked a shipping document and memo that revealed the Jamestown, PA-based tear gas manufacturer CSI plans to send a massive amount of canisters — 140,000 for around $2.5 million — to the Egyptian police. On Monday, Patrick Ventrell, deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, which signed off on the “direct commercial sale” as it’s known, fumbled for words at a press conference:
“Well, clearly, we continue, as I said at the very top of this, that — continue to work on human rights training in all aspects of our training with Egyptian security forces. And clearly they’re going through a complicated democratic transition. And the importance of professionalism, of institutionalizing best practices in the use of crowd control, of allowing the free expression of democratic principles but in the context of providing safety and security for Egyptians — this is something that continues to be worked on.”
Meanwhile, Egyptian activists, who are livid that police repression of dissent continues and is so clearly supported by the U.S., have not taken this lying down. They have been preparing to demonstrate at the local importer of these canisters in Cairo, called “al-Gundi Imports,” on an Arabic language Facebook page, and have called for Cairo subways and buses to be free for a week, saying: “We are calling for civil disobedience — not to pay for the metro and buses… They’re taking that money and bringing tools to repress us. They bring bird shot, and tear gas, poison gas even.”
As Magda Boutros, Criminal Justice Director at the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, explains: “Tear gas is being used extensively, on a nearly daily basis, by the Egyptian police against anti-government protesters as well as groups fighting for labor rights. This is part of the persistence of the security forces in using unlawful lethal force with total impunity, whether by using teargas, firearms or systematic torture upon arrest. In only two weeks, following 25 January 2013, more than 50 citizens were killed at the hands of the police. Shipments like the one coming in April should be stopped.”
This echoes calls by activists like Mohammed who writes that: “This gas has a killing effect for us. Please help us STOP getting gas into our cities.” A campaign driven by the War Resisters League is attempting to do just that by calling for people in the U.S. and globally to sign a petition to Secretary of State John Kerry that demands CSI’s export license be revoked and accountability for the U.S. government’s ongoing support for state repression in Egypt and elsewhere.
Sign the petition here: http://goo.gl/5zFWq
- Ali Issa
A version of this article originally appeared in Waging Nonviolence.
WRI Pays War Taxes Under Protest
On January 17, War Resisters’ International (WRI) paid taxes that have been withheld for five years.
Since 2007, WRI had been withholding a proportion of its taxes as a form of protest against Britain’s military policies — the high level of military spending, the cooperation with criminal programs such as the “rendition” of suspects, spurious rationales for military intervention, and the development and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and drones for long-distance assassination.
“At a time of crisis,” said WRI chairperson Howard Clark, “most people detest tax evasion and want to defend public spending to meet social needs. We too. We have not evaded taxes, but openly withheld them as a public protest against government lies and disregard for international norms in its participation in military intervention.”
The pacifist WRI believes that war is a crime against humanity and is determined not to support any kind of war. Every year, around 10% of the UK’s tax goes to fund war and preparations for war. “As an organisation employing pacifists and working for the right to conscientious objection to militarism, the WRI Executive Committee has tried to grant our employees the option to object to war taxes,” explained Howard Clark.
WRI have been threatened with legal action various times. Had it not forfeited the taxes, WRI’s office computers, printers, and other equipment would have been confiscated, making it impossible to continue working. For this reason, the taxes were paid in full under protest.
DoJ Condones Targeted Killings
In early February, a leaked Department of Justice white paper claimed the authority for the executive branch to execute its own citizens without due process. The now-infamous summary of more detailed Office of Legal Council (OLC) memos explicitly justifies the use of targeted killings of individuals merely accused of terrorism or abetting terrorism.
Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald explained that this power, the most extreme any ruler can assume, is particularly insidious because 1) the process occurs entirely in the executive branch, without any of the “checks and balances” that U.S. government is so famous for and 2) the definition of those aiding terrorism is exceedingly and dangerously broad.
Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that “the parallels to the Bush administration torture memos are chilling. Those were unchecked legal justifications drawn up to justify torture; these are unchecked justifications drawn up to justify extrajudicial killing.”
Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees have asked the president 14 times to release the OLC memos that lay out the rationale for extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens. As of February, while members of both committees have been allowed to view the memos, the general public remains in the dark with only a single leaked white paper as evidence of how and why the U.S. government is killing U.S. citizens in order to protect U.S. citizens.
Jeremy Mott, Advisor, Critic and Resister (1945-2012)
I just learned that Jeremy Mott, long time WRL member, draft resister and prophetic pacifist, passed away last September. I worked through the shock by notifying others who, like me, didn’t know. Now I pull out his letters — his iconic post card missives, about 40 of them, and, centering myself, begin to write. So much could be said of his life, from his Quakerism to his passion for trains. Pacifist resistance was just one aspect.
In the early 90s in North Jersey, Jeremy was a mentor to our burgeoning WRL local. He could seem painfully shy, but when he spoke in public, his convictions were razor sharp, his words deliberate and detailed. You felt the weight of his convictions. For us young pacifists looking for a glimpse of nonviolent revolution, Jeremy’s life was an inspiration. A devout Friend, he kept us informed of Quaker politics, but when we were lucky, he told us of his life in draft resistance.
And Jeremy, it turned out, was a felon for peace. His story is remarkable.
During the Vietnam War, he left Harvard in order to fight the draft. A birthright Quaker, he had been given official conscientious objector (CO) status, and performed his alternative service in Chicago. That was amid the fray of the summer of 1967; as the national movement against conscription became “the resistance,” Jeremy publicly burned his draft card and reexamined his alternative service as to whether it was was cooperation with the war system. Knowing full well the consequences, he took the stance of complete resistance, renouncing his CO status, and faced federal conviction and prison time.
Emerging from prison life after 16 months, this unrepentant war resister went right back to the resistance working for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, editing the Draft Counselor’s Newsletter for up to some 5000 draft counselors nationwide.
From accounts I hear from those who were his colleagues during that time, the Jeremy we knew in the 1990’s was remarkably like the younger Jeremy in the 1960s and ‘70s. Even then he was fascinated by trains, naturally reclusive, absorbing books and facts at alarming rates, consumed by unrelenting attention to detail. It was these qualities, combined with fierce pacifist convictions, that made him formidable. Those who knew him in the 1960s estimate his work on the Draft Counselor’s Newsletter kept hundreds of resisters out of jail. His brilliant mind, obsessed with minutiae — the same mind that memorized a defunct train schedule for mere history — rapidly learned the draft law and regulations. The information he assembled helped beat the draft boards at their own game, catching them in every error, often leading to mistrials.
In the early 1990s, the elder Jeremy we knew continued his pacifist life. Fiercely supporting our youthful WRL chapter, he shared with us his experience and insights, urging us to beware our own warlike spirit, and our distortions of history to fit our arguments. He could be a difficult and invaluable mentor, passing on wisdom for a lifetime of nonviolence.
Tonight, looking over his many handwritten missives, in his precise and almost chiseled hand, I feel so much what a loss we’ve suffered. Organizers and writers all over the world received these letters, postcards that passed on information, advised and critiqued the movement from within, sharing flashes of brilliant insight. It strikes me tonight what a treasure it will be to gather these scattered missives into a Jeremy Mott archive, so that along with his published writings and life, this prophetic and deliberate work lives on.
- Sachio Ko-Yin
Dannia Southerland, 1950- 2013
Dannia Southerland, 62, passed away on February 9, 2013 in Durham, NC. Dannia, who went by Sunshine at the time, was on the WRL/Southeast staff from 1978 until 1984.
A strong woman with a strong presence, Sunshine had a great smile and ability to raise important issues and challenge us all. Mab Segrest wrote about Dannia in her book Memoir of a Race Traitor. Mab wrote of Dannia’s early activism organizing the first Gay Pride march in North Carolina in 1980 and that “the women’s peace movement and War Resisters League helped expand my understanding.”
“My friend and mentor was Dannia Southerland, six foot tall with thick red hair, easy to spot in a demonstration. Raised in the Marine southcoast town of Jacksonville, Dannia had been active in the G.I. Resistance arm of the antiwar movement with her then-husband. She had just come out when she took the job in the Durham office of the War Resisters League. Dannia introduced the [southern feminist journal] Feminary women to the work of Barbara Deming, who had participated in some of the major nonviolent campaigns of the civil rights and antiwar movements.”
Dannia and Mab continued to work together including co-facilitating antiracist trainings in North Carolina. Mandy Carter, who had worked with WRL West, first met Sunshine at the Durham Bus Depot in early 1982 when Mandy took a bus from San Francisco to Durham for an interview to work at WRL Southeast. “I have so many vivid memories of Dannia,” said Mandy. “Her daughter Tara came to all our WRL/Southeast meetings. Dannia was very involved in the Women’s Pentagon Action and the Women’s Walk from North Carolina to the Seneca Women’s Encampment for Peace and Justice. She was very active in Durham’s lesbian feminist movement. When I came on staff it was the first time two out lesbians were staff on WRL/Southeast. We remained friends until her death from stomach cancer.”
Dannia got her BA in History and Women’s Studies in 1988 and went on to get her Masters and PhD in Social Work, all at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dannia described her interests as “investigating issues of access and quality of care for vulnerable, under-served populations involved with the public sector mental health system.”
Dannia’s activism began with Vietnam and while she was involved in many aspects of social justice work, her work came full circle. Because of her research in health and clinical services at Duke University, Dannia was contacted by the U.S.-based group Children of Vietnam. On their blog they describe her introduction to the group: “Southerland laughs as she reflects on her first meeting with a board member from Children of Vietnam: ‘I went for coffee in Chapel Hill,’ Southerland says, ‘and wound up in Vietnam 30 days later.’” Dannia was one of the architects of the Hope System of Care which improved the quality of care provided children and youth affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam. In recognition of her work she was named an “Agent Orange Champion”. Upon her death the Dr. Dannia Southerland Memorial Fund was established. Donations may be made to: Children of Vietnam, Dr. Dannia Southerland Memorial Fund, 817 West End Blvd., Winston-Salem NC 27101-2406.
Dannia is survived by her partner Frayda Glanzberg of Durham, her mother Mary and her daugher Tara and two grandchildren.
The obituary in The News and Observer ended with “Of her many passions in life, Dannia firmly believed in two things: that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities, and that chardonnay should always be aged in oak barrels.”
—Joanne Sheehan
Sterling College Divests from Fossil Fuels
Sterling College, a small liberal arts college in Vermont, has become the third college in the U.S. to divest its endowment of fossil fuel companies. The specific companies targeted were identified by the climate change campaign 350.org, which is spearheading a nationwide initiative to get U.S. institutions of higher learning to divest from fossil fuels.
Sterling President Matthew Derr was quoted as saying “Sterling College is an incubator for those who care about Vermont, care about the natural world in which we all live, and who want to promote healthy and just food systems, and as such, it makes no sense for us to invest in companies that are wreaking havoc on our climate.
“Our legacy and our focus on food, water, health, energy, and governance through conservation, education, and sustainable agricultural practices absolutely compels us to take this action. We hope that we inspire other colleges and universities to take this important next step toward divestment in fossil fuels because higher education is an important bully pulpit...”
Sterling joins Hampshire College in Massachusetts and Unity College in Maine in publicly divesting from fossil fuels. Campaigns are also ramping up at larger universities around the country, which control substantially more funds than small liberal arts colleges. In late February the student senates of both University of California Berkeley and University of California Santa Barbara passed resolutions in support of fossil fuel divestment. Similar resolutions have passed at both Tufts and Harvard Universities.
