Adopted on May 11, 2013 by the

WAND Inc., and WAND Education Fund and their National Boards of Directors, respectively

Recent news reports regarding chemical weapons use in Syria are deeply concerning.  Women's Action for New Directions (WAND) strongly condemns any use of chemical weapons.

Conflicting reports about the evidentiary details of chemical weapons use in Syria require careful investigation and verification.  WAND urges the United States to lead and support the United Nations (UN) multilateral action to investigate, verify and then engage international diplomatic pressure against those responsible.

WAND opposes U.S. military action in Syria for these reasons:

• Investigation and verification of what happened (where and when), who did it, and whether the releases of materials were intentional or inadvertent, must not be precluded because of precipitous military steps;

• Opportunity to gain crucial support from Russia and China for multilateral diplomacy would likely be derailed by U.S. military action;

• Bombing strikes would release the very deadly toxins we seek to contain;

• Military action in Syria could escalate Middle East conflict and possibly worsen an already grave security crisis in the region; and

• The United States cannot afford another war after a decade of continuous war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WAND insists that multilateral action through the UN offers the best path for investigation and verification of whether chemical weapons were used in Syria.  If verified, WAND urges UN action to mobilize effective international diplomatic pressure against those responsible.

CALLING WOMEN TO WORK FOR PEACE: JULIA WARD HOWE

Excerpt from a speech by Dorothy May Emerson

(Given in various locations, 2003-04)

 The violence and loss of life caused by the Civil War raised the consciousness of American women about the realities of armed conflict.  When other wars broke out in Europe soon thereafter, women began to take action.

One of the first of these peace activists was Julia Ward Howe.  In her autobiography, Reminiscences, she reveals the origins of her idea for Mother’s Peace Day.  Distressed by reports of the carnage of the Franco-Prussian war, she writes:

 I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest.  It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have seen settled without bloodshed. 

 The question forced itself upon me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?'  I had never thought of this before.  The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed.[1]   

Her appeal to women of the world was translated into five European languages, widely distributed, and led to her extensive correspondence with women leaders in a number of countries.  In 1872 she traveled to England hoping to hold a Women’s Peace Congress there.

She tried to speak at the English Peace Society, but was refused because women never had spoken at their meetings before.  The Rev. William Henry Channing was in London at the time and suggested her as a speaker at a public banquet of the Unitarian Association.  Encouraged by the positive response to her speech about peace work, she decided to hire a hall, the Freemasons' Tavern, advertised the meeting, and held it on a Sunday afternoon.  Attendance was good and she continued to give speeches in that venue for the next five or six weeks.

Although her organizing efforts did not lead to a major international gathering, she was successful in inspiring local gatherings of women in at least eight states and several European cities.  Local meetings seemed to be more realistic at that time because few women had the means or freedom to travel long distances.  In her autobiography, she reflects on the experience:

I had desired to institute a festival which should be observed as mothers' day, and which should be devoted to the advocacy of peace doctrines.  I chose for this the second day of June, this being a time when flowers are abundant, and when the weather usually allows of open-air meetings.  I had some success in carrying out this plan.  In Boston I held the Mothers' Day meeting for quite a number of years.  The day was also observed in other places, once or twice in Constantinople, and often places nearer home.  My heart was gladdened, this last year [1898], by learning from a friend that a peace association in Philadelphia still celebrates Mothers' Day.

I was very sorry to give up this special work, but in my prosecution of it I could not help seeing that many steps were to be taken before one could hope to effect any efficient combination among women.  The time for this was at hand, but had not yet arrived.[2] 

Her goals were at least partially accomplished.  Future international congresses would look back to her work as the beginning of the women’s peace movement.

This video highlights some of what these incredible women had to share. Cynda Collins Arsensault joined the dialogue from Colorado via Skype to share her passion. Sayre Sheldon hosted the dialogue in her home as well as sharing with us from her vast experience as an activist, author, and WAND member. The complete Sayre Sheldon interview will be posted soon!

Or watch on YouTube at: WAND's Women, Peace, and Security Dialogues

We are pleased to present this highlights video on WAND's work with Women, Peace, and Security. More to come!

Or, to view on YouTube: FemSalon: Women & Peace - Highlights

On March 7, 2013 WAND Public Policy Director Tanya Henderson and WAND Development Officer Mahua Heath attended a seminal Women & Peace Salon at the home of Abigail Disney in New York. The event was organized by Feminist.com in partnership with Peace is Loud as part of their FemSalon series.

This event was attended by such pioneers as Abigail Disney, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, WILPF Secretary General Madeleine Rees, World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonsvanda, AWID Executive Director Lydia Alpizar Duran and Afghan Parliamentarian Shinkai Kharokhail as well as others.

With a panel including Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, WILPF Secretary General Madeleine Rees,World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonsvanda, and AWID Executive Director Lydia Alpizar Duran topics including the Women, Peace, and Security agenda came to the fore.

Stay tuned as Women, Peace, and Security news and outreach continue across the U.S.!

Boston is not just a city. It’s an idea. It’s one of those cities where you only have to say its name, not its state. People know.

People who no longer live here say they hail from Boston.

You went to school here? Have family here? Know someone who knows someone here. You claim you know Boston.

Everyone wants to know Boston. It’s that kind of place.

The Boston Marathon is on Patriots’ Day, the day Paul Revere rode to warn the townspeople, thus setting off a firestorm that helped create a nation.

We celebrate that day with a race that is more than twice as far as Revere rode, and for some it is as symbolic. They run because they have overcome life’s hardships, for someone else, to prove they can, because they are in a wheelchair, aged, or injured. It’s a day for victory for everyone who crosses the line, for those who just try, and for those who cheer them on.

On that day, flags fly from all over the world because runners from all over come for this important event.

The image of all those flags is now burned in memory with smoke and ash and blood.

It moves us to tears, wrenching sorrow, and aching grief. But more than that, it moves us to keep going --  for those who ran back after crossing the line to help others; for the man who gave his medal to someone who was stopped from finishing; for those who ran toward the blast instinctively to help.

Boston reels and the world mourns.

As a women’s organization dedicated to advancing peace and nonviolence , our hearts go out to all of those in pain and heartache. Our collective strength will stand tall. Every bomb blast everywhere is a bomb blast in your neighborhood, and we all must care for each other.

Peace,

Susan, Nan, Sharon, Kathy, Tanya, Maureen, Emily, Kimberly, Mahua, Franck, Jessie, Adzi, Sara, and Sandy

In the unusual out-of-step budget dance that is happening this year, both the House and Senate passed their own budget blueprints, or “resolutions,” in March. The House and Senate budget resolutions are already very different from each other, guaranteeing controversies and challenges in the appropriations process. And now that the President’s budget blueprint, or “request”, has finally come late to the party, it will add significantly to the debate. The President’s request provides programmatic details for each agency that are not described in the House and Senate budget resolutions.  Administration officials will explain to Congress their program requests and plans in Congressional hearings, and then Congress will begin the process of appropriating funds based on both the respective House and Senate budget resolutions and the Administration’s budget request – let the rumba begin.  WAND especially recommends National Priorities Project’s side by side analysis of these different budget approaches.

WAND believes that budgets are not just a set of numbers, but a fundamental reflection of our nation’s values, hopes and priorities.  While there are some things we like in the Administration’s budget request, overall there are many out of whack priorities that do not reflect our nation’s best values or our aspirations for a safe, secure and prosperous future.

But let’s start with some positive things:

• We value education – it’s vital for our future – so we are glad that the President’s budget moves toward a goal of universal pre-kindergarten education and expands mandatory funding for Pell grants.
• We know that jobs are key to moving our economy forward and infrastructure improvements are needed, so we are glad to see proposals for $166 billion in infrastructure repairs and other job creation over the next decade.
• We wish that there was more money, but we are glad to see commitment in the State Department budget to support the Women, Peace and Security agenda including implementation of the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. (See more on WAND’s work on Women, Peace and Security.)

There’s one area where we recommend more fiscal discipline:

• Overall Pentagon spending including the Department of Defense, war spending, nuclear weapons and other defense related activities total $640.5 billion in this request – an increase over the FY 2013 enacted level.
• The Department of Defense base budget is a slight decrease at $526.6 billion ($900 million or about two tenths of a percent less than what Congress approved for FY 2013 before sequestration), but it pushes forward costly, unnecessary weapons systems, many of which are “under -performing”, to put it charitably, including troubled aircraft like the V-22 Osprey and the F-35, and then of course missile defense and the platforms for a full land-air-sea nuclear triad.  Are these the strategic choices that best meet Secretary of Defense Hagel’s recently stated goal to “fundamentally reshape the defense enterprise to better reflect 21^st Century realities?”
• The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) or war spending for now gets an $88.5 billion “placeholder” funding amount. This really means something like, “We have no idea how much we’re really going to spend, but let’s throw out a number that we can probably come under so we’ll look like we’re saving something, and besides if there’s a little extra in there maybe we can redefine and shift some things from the Department of Defense Budget to this little slush fund.  After all it will be especially hard to track since the Pentagon can’t even figure out how to conduct an audit.”
• Nuclear weapons related spending – including cleanup of nuclear weapons production facilities, nonproliferation programs, and nuclear terrorism prevention programs, in addition to production and maintenance of nuclear warheads – will take $18 billion this year.  And there’s an increase in the amount we’ll spend on nuclear weapons activities like the production and maintenance of nuclear weapons, but a decrease in nuclear nonproliferation programs to address nuclear weapons terrorism prevention programs.  It seems that expanding our nuclear weapons complex with over-budget, delayed and unnecessary nuclear weapons production, care and feeding facilities is more important than keeping terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons materials. See the Nukes of Hazard blog for more on nuclear weapons and security spending.

If we made some smarter choices in Pentagon spending, cost savings could help us avoid harsh cuts in other areas from community block grants for domestic violence shelters, funds for nutrition programs for infants and pregnant women, clean water programs, food safety inspections and a whole host of other programs that invest in our future and create jobs.  One particularly bad idea that we think should be avoided, for example is changing cost-of-living adjustments using an inflation measure known as "chained CPI" to “raise” $230 billion over 10 years by reducing benefits over time. We recommend finding that $230 billion in wasteful, outdated and non-strategic Pentagon spending instead.

Stay tuned for many more updates about how the debate and budget process plays out and how you can play a role calling for a budget priorities that reflect your values.

Courtesy of Andy Phelan in Congressman Johnson's Office; Pictured left to right: Helen Fredrick, former DeKalb County Commissioner Gale Walldorff, Congressman Hank Johnson (sporting a patriotic apron that was a gift from Gale Walldorff and the crew and handmade by Gale's sister, Barbara Fleischman), Carol Tveit, Bobbie Paul, and Lisa Scarpelli

Thank you to Georgia WAND for providing this great report on their recent trip to see Congressman Hank Johnson! Read more about all of their work at www.gawand.org.

On Thursday, April 4, Georgia WAND and constituents from Georgia’s fourth Congressional District met with Congressman Hank Johnson. In attendance were Georgia WAND member and former DeKalb County Commissioner, Gale Walldorff, Georgia WAND board members, Helen Frederick and Carol Tveit, and Georgia WAND staff Bobbie Paul and Lisa Scarpelli. In the meeting, we discussed:

• Overall concerns regarding Nuclear Weapons Spending
• The Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act, originally introduced in 2012 by Representative Ed Markeyof Massachusetts’ fifth district, which would cut nuclear weapons spending by more than $100 billion over the next ten years. Rep. Markey will be reintroducing the SANE Act.
• The Usage of Drones
• New Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and the process of making the choice to go to war

Congressowoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX) and Jamille Bigio at the roundtable

On March 13^th 2013, WAND hosted a Roundtable dialogue on the U.S. National Action Plan on women, peace, and security (U.S. NAP). The discussion was held in conjunction with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09); Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX); and Congressman Mike Honda (CA-17); and co-sponsored by the U.S. Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace, and Security. The program involved an in-depth exchange between key government and civil society stakeholders and Members of Congress and congressional staff on the implementation of the U.S. NAP in the United States’ diplomatic, development, and defense related work in conflict-affected environments. The National Action Plan represents a government wide effort to strengthen the role of women in peace-building and conflict prevention processes, protect women and girls from gender-based violence, and ensure women and girls have equitable access to humanitarian assistance during crises and disasters

Roundtable panelists included: Abigail Disney, award winning filmmaker and creator of the PBS Women, War, and Peace film series; the Honorable Shinkai Karokhail, Afghan women rights advocate and Member of the Afghan Parliament; Robert S. Kravinsky, U.S. Department of Defense; Carol Koppell, USAID Senior Coordinator for Gender and Equality and Women’s Empowerment; Jamille Bigio, U.S. Department of State; and Sanam Anderlini, member of the U.S. Civil Society Working Group on women, peace and security ( U.S. CSWG) and co-founder International Civil Society Action Network. WAND’s executive director, Susan Shaer offered welcoming words to the panel and participants, and Public Policy Director, Tanya Henderson, moderated the Roundtable Discussion.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), longtime champion of the women, peace, and security agenda, participated in the hour and half long dialogue and stated; “The panelists here today are working diligently to provide women with peace and security around the world. Both men and women are integral components in this process. In pursuing these efforts, it is essential that we, as Members of Congress, utilize our roles to promote women’s leadership and ending conflicts through peaceful negotiation.” Representative Johnson’s full press release can be read here .

Following the panel discussion, Ms. Shinkai Karokhail spoke extensively with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who is this year planning to introduce the Women, Peace and Security Act, encouraging and supporting the implementation of the U.S. NAP. Ms. Karokhail  emphasized the necessity of women’s empowered participation in Afghanistan’s security forces, specifically on matters of intelligence gathering and  noted the importance of Congresswoman Schakowsky’s role on the House Select Intelligence Committee in ensuring the protection of Afghan women’s rights following the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2014.

The treaty standardizes regulations for the export of conventional weapons and prohibits the sale of arms if there is a risk that the weapons could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including genocide, crimes against humanity and acts of gender-based violence, violence against children, or human trafficking. The final ATT text requires exporting member states to assess the risk that the weapons being transferred could be used for the commission of such violations and is the first treaty to recognize the link between gender-based violence and the international arms trade.

The treaty’s focus on the prevention of gender-based violence was supported by a historic number of states – over 101 delegations – and was directly related to the strong mobilized efforts of international civil society actors. The ATT also requires states not to authorize any transfers of arms that risk undermining peace and security. The treaty will open for signature on 3 June 2013.

While the treaty is not perfect, it is a significant step in the right direction to control an inflated and dangerous industry.  Peter Woolcott, the Australian ambassador to the UN, said, “We owe it to those millions – often the most vulnerable in society – whose lives have been overshadowed by the irresponsible and illicit international trade in arms.”