Milan Rai sentenced to 28 days jail for the Foreign Office protest

Last October, in the run-up to the assault on Fallujah, Milan Rai sprayed anti-war slogans on the Foreign Office building in Whitehall, calling on the Government not to deploy British troops to the Fallujah region as part of the US operation. He also poured fake blood on the building.

Mil was subsequently found guilty of criminal damage by Bow Street Magistrates Court, and ordered to pay over £2,000 compensation to the Foreign Office.

He has refused to pay this compensation, arguing that what he did was a morally and legally justified response to the impending assault on Fallujah. At Hastings Magistrates Court on 16 November he was sentenced to 28 days jail.

Letters of support and cards can be sent to :

Milan Rai
HMP Lewes
Brighton Road, Lewes
East Sussex, BN7 1EA

Dave Rolstone writes : "I know from experience how welcome such correspondence is so lets flood his cell with colour."

Stories from Fallujah

Eye Witness Accounts from Iraq, and two films.

Caught in the Crossfire

Occupation Dreamland

BEPJ presents an evening of Stories from Iraq based around the unique opportunity of hosting a speaker directly from Iraq. Because conditions in Iraq have become so dangerous for reporters the BBC and the mainstream media are not covering the true extent of the catastrophe unfolding there.

This is a rare opportunity to hear the first hand account of an Iraqi humanitarian aid worker from Fallujah and the besieged cities of Anbar province and to ask her questions.

During the evening we will be showing two Films:

Caught in the Crossfire: Shot from November 2004 to April 2005 inside the city of Fallujah, this film details the conditions experienced by civilians as they endured the violent clashes and consequences of Operation Phantom Fury and became refugees outside the eyes and care of the international community. Due to military operations in Iraq, civilians in combat areas continue to live in horrific conditions with little or no aid.

Occupation Dreamland: Is a gritty and important film that gives us an important taste of what is going on in Iraq from the USA military viewpoint. The solders of the 82nd Airborne have been at the tip of the spear since the start of combat operations. Understanding their experiences and the difficulties they encounter helps us all to a better understanding of the war and why we aren’t winning it. This film gives a vital glimpse into the last days of Fallujah.

For further information phone 01559 370991 or 01994 419678

Download A4 poster to print out and display

Free entrance but Contributions to cover refreshments & expenses welcome.
For directions and further information phone 01559 370991

Peace Studies Course

Free ten week accredited course in PEACE STUDIES.

Begins 7.30pm Thursday 20th October. Red Dragon Hall, Drefach Felindre

Download Poster in PDF Format (250Kb)

Further Details from David Morgan, Community Learning Officer on 01239 712312

Basra, Iraq: They love us, really ....

Images which don't go through British Government (BBC), Murdoch and US media censors are available on the web at http://crisispictures.org/

Images from Basra taken before the current crisis can be viewed here

Middle East Pictures including Iraq are available here.

The waste of life goes on

As well as the thousands of Iraqi civialians who have been killed in the Bush/Blair war, let us not forget the cost in British lives. This page on the MOD website reports the death of Major Matthew Bacon, the latest British soldier victim.

George Galloway v Peter Hitchens

Click to download the 1hr 50m debate in MP3 format (20Mb)

15th September 2005. George Galloway took part in a head to head debate in New York, broadcast live by Democracy Now

George Galloway v the US Senate

Click here to watch the video

17th May 2005. The Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow George Galloway has again refuted claims that he benefited from oil trades, or allocations, with Iraq. He told US senators who accused him of profiting from Iraq oil dealings their claims were the "mother of all smokescreens". Full testimony 47 Minutes

You can listen to the whole 45 minute session by downloading this 5.5Mb MP3 file or view the video here. The video can also be viewed at the Information Clearning House website

George Galloway:  Email address:  gallowayg@parliament.uk

Photos of the 19th March London Demo by Harry Rogers - Click Here

Harry's Wild West Wales website also contains a wealth of other Peace and Justice material

Professor Thomas Nagy

from the School of Business and Public Management at George Washington University spoke at a BEPJ meeting on 29th March 2004 at Newcastle Emlyn Secondary School. Also speaking was Adam Price MP, Medi Al-Radhi and Joss Garman.

MP3's of the speeches are now downloadable here

Ashes to Ashes

Why has the mainstream media ignored The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) ?

"Even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors unleashed in Iraq." - Author Arundathi Roy at the World Tribunal on Iraq, Istanbul, 2005.

Read more...

Robin Cook 1946 - 2005 - As a tribute Robin Cook MP, who died suddenly at the age of 59, here is the full text of his Ministerial resignation speech before the Parliametary vote on the Iraq War in the House of Commons, which won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.

This speech can also be heard here.

This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches.

I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.

None of those 20 years were more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more enjoyable, Mr Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you.

It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press interview.

On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has been given before this statement.

I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support.

Backing Blair

The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour party in my lifetime.

I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him.

I applaud the heroic efforts that the prime minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution.

I do not think that anybody could have done better than the foreign secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council.

But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed. Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

French intransigence?

France has been at the receiving end of bucket loads of commentary in recent days.

It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.

We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac.

The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.

To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse.

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.

'Heavy price'

History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower.

Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules.

Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate.

Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo.

It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.

It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement.

Public doubts

The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to respond to an urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis.

Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq.

The threshold for war should always be high.

None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands.

I am confident that British servicemen and women will acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope that they all come back.

I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad and avert war, but it is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops.

It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk.

Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections of not having an alternative strategy.

For four years as foreign secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment.

Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes.

Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war.

Threat questioned

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days.

We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?

Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?

Israeli breaches

Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months.

I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted.

Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.

I welcome the strong personal commitment that the prime minister has given to middle east peace, but Britain's positive role in the middle east does not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the rest.

Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our partners in Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime change in Iraq.

That explains why any evidence that inspections may be showing progress is greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but with consternation: it reduces the case for war.

Presidential differences

What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.

The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people.

On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain.

They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.

Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies.

From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war.

It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.

Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.

I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.

Impeach Australian Prime Minister John Howard Campaign

www.petitiononline.com/warcrim1/petition.html

To: International Criminal Court

We, the undersigned, call for the indictment and prosecution of John Winston Howard (currently Australian Prime Minister) for acts of terrorism and war crimes.

We believe that under Australia's Criminal Code Act 1995, and under the articles of the International Criminal Court, there is a prima facie case for the prosecution of Howard for complicity in illegal attacks upon and mass murder of civilian populations of Afghanistan and Iraq, between 2001 and 2005.

These prosecutions should include the following crimes, committed by the accused in their official capacities:

Complicity in the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Baghdad, Basra, Khormal, Babel, Nassariya, Najaf, Karbala and Anbar, in March 2003, through aerial bombardment, including cluster bombs, assisted by Australian 'imagery specialists'

Complicity in the S.A.S. backed murder of ten Sabri tribespeople (mostly teenagers) in Afghanistan, 16 May 2002

Complicity in the massacre of between one thousand and three thousand prisoners, after US operation 'Anaconda' operation at Shah-i-Kot, Afghanistan, March 2002

Complicity in the maintenance of an international network of torture, from Pakistan to Iraq to Egypt to Guantanamo Bay (US-occupied Cuba) Complicity in the criminal two attacks on the civilian population of Falluja, in April and November 2004 - where between one thousand and two thousand people were murdered in attacks which included the use of napalm, and the blockading of Falluja Hospital

We reject utterly the claim that any of these crimes could be carried out under any 'democratic mandate' from Australian citizens.

We urge responsible prosecution authorities such as the Australian DPP, and the International Criminal Court to take immediate action.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
Sign Here

Free Film Show

A Letter to the Prime Minister

Please download or print the poster and distribute it. click here (250Kb PDF)

Read more about the film at www.alettertotheprimeminister.co.uk.

Blair finds ample room in George Bush's other pocket

As the European Union warned Iran against resuming its nuclear program, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that Britain would support American moves to invoke United Nations Security Council countermeasures "if Iran breaches its obligations and undertakings.
www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/international/europe/13iran.html

Is Blair working out on an exit strategy?

Tony Blair has hurt himself in the gym. If ill health is to be the excuse he gives for an early exit - hopefully within 12 months of this month's General Election victory, this will be a useful fact to cite from his growing "Health Dossier"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/4564403.stm

Friday June 3rd BEPJ Meeting : Buddhist Peace Proposal Explained

At the BEPJ meeting on June 3rd Gwyneth Lorimer, peace group member and a practicing Buddhist, will give a short summary of the 2005 "Peace Proposal" submitted to the United Nations by the lay Buddhist Leader, Daisaku Ikeda.

Daisaku Ikeda is the President of Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist organization dedicated to the establishment of world peace throu education, culture and world wide dialogue. He makes an annual submission to the UN explaining the Buddhist philosophy of peace and with practical proposals for actions to achieve this.

Saturday 4th June : Invitation to Attend the Launch of the Welsh Peace Project

Organised by Cynefin y Werin

Full details here www.cynefinywerin.org.uk

The aim of the project is to:

• Promote opportunities for non-violent direct action training and the initiation of affinity groups for activists and others rooted in Wales
• Disseminate information about the project and about non-violence in action
• Promote the philosophy of non-violence, including providing information about on-going actions to the media
• Provide a point at which those returning from non-violent service can reflect and share their experience
• Network within Wales and internationally with other relevant groups

Free Film Show

Saturday 9th April 2005, Red Dragon Hall, Drefach Felindre, 7.00pm

Coconut Revolution

The modern-day story of a native peoples' seemingly impossible victory over Western Colonial power. An island rose up in arms against giant mining corporation Rio Tinto Zinc - and won! The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) began the fight with bows and arrows and sticks and stones. Against a heavily armed adversary they still managed to retain control of most of their island. How were BRA troops able to drive around the island without any source of petrol or diesel and create new electricity networks with apparently no equipment? Watch this David and Goliath story of the 21st century to find out. (50 mins)

Pacific Women exploring nonviolence.

"With nonviolence you get more" states an activist in this film which shows women from Bougainville, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste meeting to exchange experiences and deepen their skills in nonviolent conflict resolution. All are survivors of violent conflict and all are convinced that a sustainable peace can only be built by nonviolent action. The women in the film talk about their experiences, how they have managed to survive, their actions for peace, and their ideas about justice and nonviolence. A film to provide much food for thought and discussion! (25 mins)

Please download or print the poster and distribute it. click here (450Kb PDF)

Impeach Blair website. You can download the report "A Case to Answer" and the Legal opinion on the possibility of impeacement in British law.

Poor planning, air strikes by coalition forces and a "climate of violence" have led to more than 100,000 extra deaths in Iraq, scientists claim.

A study published by the Lancet says the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion. Unofficial estimates of civilian deaths had varied from 10,000 to over 37,000. The Lancet admits the research is based on a small sample - under 1,000 homes - but says the findings are "convincing".

Download Lancet research paper here (263Kb PDF)

To download a poster in Acrobat format, click here (70Kb PDF)