AUT: FW: Women in Black Silent Vigil for Peace

["bob brown" <vacirca@xxxxxxxxx>]

"solidarity means sharing the same risks" - Che
( la solidarita significa correre gli stessi rischi)

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From: Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: A place for marxist-feminists to hang out <M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Women in Black Silent Vigil for Peace
Date: Thu, Dec 16, 1999, 9:32 AM


>
> WOMEN IN BLACK SILENT VIGIL FOR PEACE, TOLERANCE, AND JUSTICE AT THE NEW YORK
> PUBLIC LIBRARY, 41 STREET & 5th AVENUE, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22, 5:30-6:30. COME
> JOIN US.
>
> Dear friends,
>
> Attached is information concerning action taken in Belgrade on Human Rights
> Day, December 10th, and the ongoing political trials in Serbia.
>
> In solidarity,
> Women in Black
>
> Announcement for the occasion of December 10th, International human rights day
>
> We are organizing a protest on the occasion of the 51st anniversary of the
> adoption of the Universal declaration on human rights by the UN. We live in
> a country where all human rights are being violated every day. With no
> intention to make any hierarchy among human rights violations, we decided
> to warn, on that day, about crimes committed against the kidnapped and
> missing persons in the whole world, and about the rising political
> repression in Serbia.
>
> The eighth meeting of the International network of Women's Solidarity
> Against War took place in Ulcinj, Montenegro, from the 7th to the 10th of
> October 1999, organized by the Women in black from Belgrade. The meeting
> was attended by 260 activists of the women's and peace movements from the
> whole world. According to the politics of our network, we agreed to make
> visible our bitterness over the missing and kidnapped persons all over the
> world, together, in silence and mourning, on various places on the planet,
> on December 10th, the International human rights day.
>
> Our sisters in peace from Latin America will ask for the truth about the
> missing persons during the military dictatorships: in Guatemala 30,000
> people, in Chile 3000, in Argentina 30,000. As they are, we are also
> encouraged by the fact that crime turns out to be punishable after all. We
> will join the requests to hand in all the participants of military
> dictatorships in Latin America and elsewhere. This is of great importance
> to us, for it gives hope that the Balkan dictators will also be prosecuted
> in national and international courts.
>
> Our sisters in peace from Africa and Asia will ask for the truth about the
> missing persons and crimes in Rwanda, Palestine, Algeria, Kurdistan, and
> Chechnya.
>
> Our sisters in peace from Europe will denounce every involvement of their
> states and governments with such crimes, as well as the politics of
> indifference and silence upon the crimes over the missing and kidnapped,
> anywhere in the world.
>
> On that day we will, as we have done so many times since wars broke out in
> ex- Yugoslavia, denounce the crimes committed over the tens of thousands of
> missing persons all over ex-Yugoslavia. People have been disappearing both
> in war zones and out of them, during military actions but also during
> so-called military peace, and in low intensity wars that are constantly
> being led by the Balkan regimes. During the destruction of Vukovar,
> executed by the Yugoslav national army, thousands of people, mostly of
> Croatian nationality, disappeared. State authorities of FRY and Croatia did
> "everything they could," actually nothing, about it. The silence and
> cooperation of the two states went on during the Croatian army's operation
> "Blister" (May 95) and "Storm" (August 95), when again thousands of people,
> mostly of Serbian nationality, disappeared.
>
> The innocent citizens of Muslim ethnicity were and still are disappearing
> in Serbia. In October 1992 in Sjeverin, 17 persons were kidnapped, and in
> 1993 in Strpci, 20 persons. The same thing happened, and is still
> happening, to the citizens of Serbian nationality, just for disagreeing
> with the politics of the regime.
>
> Thirty thousand people of all nationalities disappeared during the war in
> Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most of them are Muslims. The army of Republika
> Srpska banished 40,000 people from Srebrenica. About ten mass graves have
> been found there, and women from Srebrenica are still in search for 10,000
> of their relatives.
>
> During the war in Kosovo, since the end of February 1998, several thousands
> of people have been kidnapped or have disappeared. During the NATO military
> intervention, the missing persons were mostly of Albanian nationality. The
> ones who committed those crimes are the military, police and paramilitary
> forces from Serbia. Since the arrival of KFOR troops, the victims have
> mostly been of nonalbanian nationality, and the ones committing these
> crimes are the armed formations of KLA and others.
>
> The victims of these crimes against humanity are not only the ones who have
> been terrorized and tortured, killed or missing, but also all those whose
> dignity has been violated, which is the major part of the population of
> this country.
>
> Therefore, on that day we will express solidarity with all the victims of
> political repression in Serbia, with those in prison, as with those against
> whom we are still witnessing the set-up trials, no matter what their
> nationality may be.
>
> The protest will take place on Friday, December 10th 1999, on Republic
> square, from 15:30 until 16:30.
>
> Center for cultural decontamination
> Group 484
> Yugoslav comittee of lawyers for human rights
> Women in black
>


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