global call iraq

SOA/WHINSEC AS INSTRUMENT OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

2009-01-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my "Dear Friends" letter in early 2008:

In 1996 the Pentagon admitted publicly that torture manuals had been used at the SOA, which since 1946 has trained many thousands of soldiers and officers from Latin American armies ("U.S. INSTRUCTED LATINS ON EXECUTIONS, TORTURE MANUALS USED 1982- 91, PENTAGON REVEALS," Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer, September 21, 1996 http://newsmine.org/archive/coldwar-imperialism/soa/wp-soa-torture/soa-torture.htm ). Officials say that such training has not continued. However, in recent years the U.S. Army has taught, and the Bush administration has sought to justify, torture by the power of bad example -- e.g., in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Guantanamo on a U.S.-occupied part of Cuba.

Furthermore, U.S. training of cadets from Latin America logically serves the long-term goals of U.S. military policy, which in turn is naturally at the service of U.S. foreign policy. That policy is characterized by American intervention, overt or covert, in foreign countries to promote, defend, and protect U.S. corporate interests under the guise of "free-market democracy," with the accent on the first part of that expression.

In Chile that U.S. intervention took the form of opposition to Allende’s socialist program – first trying to prevent his inauguration in 1970, then applying economic warfare, and finally encouraging and supporting the extremely bloody coup in 1973 and supporting the ensuing Pinochet dictatorship. Much can be learned about this from the film, "Missing."

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke often of promoting "free-market democracy," as do present political leaders. And chiefs of the U.S. Southern Command have cited "radical populism" as a growing threat to U.S. interests in Latin America.

In order to avoid being used as instruments and servants of this U.S. imperial policy, four Latin American governments have decided not to send their troops or police to SOA/WHINSEC: Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Uruguay.

Global Call 2008

2008-02-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

THE GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE
TO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ (2008)

The Signers listed at the end of the Call are the original Signers in 2005. Since then people from over 40 countries have signed the Call.

Contact:
Joe Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, Nicaragua
mull@ibw.com.ni
blog: www.globalcalliraq1.blogspot.com

FROM:
Nobel Peace and Literature Laureates
Cindy Sheehan and other peace and human-rights activists
Religious leaders of various traditionsPrisoners of Conscience
Former government ministers
Poets, authors, journalists

(Please see end of this message for the list of original Signers and their identification.)

We, the undersigned, invite peace-makers throughout the world to participate in an international campaign of massive, nonviolent civil resistance (civil disobedience) to stop the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. These actions could be organized to include both non-violent civil resistance and legal demonstrations.

FIRST DATE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS IN 2008: March 19, the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. There will be massive demonstrations and actions in Washington, D.C., and other parts of the U.S.

We suggest that our friends in the U.S. contact UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE (see below, after list of signers) and consider joining in their actions.

For those of you in other parts of the world, we suggest that you organize protest actions or demonstrations, whether involving civil disobedience or not, on March 19. There is an urgent need for actions around the world.

THE ACTIONS

Some would participate in legal demonstrations while others would stage sit-ins, die-ins, and other nonviolent methods of blocking "business as usual" at government buildings or installations (including military bases and recruiting centers) or at corporate offices of war profiteers in the U.S., Great Britain, and other countries which are taking part in the deadly and unjust military occupation of Iraq. For these governments, "business as usual" is the business of violence, death, and exploitation. It must be blocked and stopped by responsible citizens.

Peace-makers in countries whose governments are not at war in Iraq could consider U.S. or British embassies, consulates, military bases, or appropriate corporate offices as sites for legal demonstrations and nonviolent civil resistance.

EXAMPLES OF POSSIBLE ACTIONS

A group could sit down in the entrance of a U.S. or British government installation in any country, refusing to leave when the U.S. Marines or other security agents order them to disperse. They could insist on having a meeting with the ambassador or the officer in charge of the military base, or they could wait for a clear statement from Washington, D.C., or from London of the date when all their soldiers will be withdrawn from Iraq.

If those doing civil resistance are not able to enter U.S. or British property, they could sit down on the street or sidewalk in front of the building or base, or they could lie down in a "die-in" representing the victims of the war. In any case those involved in civil resistance might be carried out of the building or away from the entrance and arrested by the police.

All of this could happen in the presence of the mass media and in conjunction with a large legal demonstration very close to the same site.

The impact of these actions on public opinion, the mass media, and governments would come from their sheer quantity and geographical diversity, on the same day, as well as from the clarity of their message and the disciplined nonviolence of the tactics.

A SUSTAINED, GROWING CAMPAIGN

The second INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be May 1, May Day, the International Day of the Worker -- an occasion for massive demonstrations all over the world where working class struggle is celebrated and kept alive. The impact of the war on the poor and working class of the world could be emphasized.

The third INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be August 6-9, 2008, the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan-- to demand an end to U.S. proliferation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction and an end to the U.S. state terrrorism in Iraq.

The fourth INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be Sept. 11, 2008, the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S.-- to commemorate and deplore that horrible act of violence (as well as the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup in Chile) and to denounce the terrorist violence which the U.S. government is inflicting on Iraq under the false pretense of the "war on terrorism."

The fifth INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be Dec. 10, 2008, International Human Rights Day.

PATH TO ACTION

The Number One message of every action would be: END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ. This emphasis must be clear if the many actions in many places are to have a profound impact on the public and governments. Local or national organizers may wish to present one or two related issues or demands, with the main focus staying on ENDING THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.

SPREADING THE WORD

We ask individuals, groups, and organizations around the globe to endorse this Call and to send it out to their mailing lists and to the media. Groups which are not committed to participating in the actions of civil resistance could simply transmit our Call.

Some persons and organizations may choose to organize legal demonstrations (without any component of civil resistance) on the days we have proposed.

Thanks for your kind consideration of this proposal.

Sincerely,

(The original Signers are from 16 countries. In some cases organizational affiliations are for personal identification purposes only.)

Gary Ashbeck
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
New York, NY; USA
Catholic priest, author, lecturer, peace activist

Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Catholic priest; Founder, School of the Americas Watch

Father Ernesto Cardenal
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; poet, sculptor, former Minister of Culture of Nicaragua

Bishop Pedro CasaldaligaSao Felix de Araguaia, BRAZIL
Retired bishop of Catholic diocese of Sao Felix
Theologian, author

Christian Base Communities
SPAIN

Patricia Clark
Nyack, NY, USA
Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Comite Oscar Romero de Madrid
Madrid, SPAIN

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Belfast, NORTHERN IRELAND
1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Co-founder of Peace People

Susan Crane
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Father John Dear, S.J.
Cerrillos, New Mexico, USA
Catholic priest, peace activist, author

Rev. Richard Deats
Nyack, NY, USA
Former Executive Secretary and Fellowship Editor, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Marie Dennis
Washington, D.C., USA
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Pax Christi International

Father Miguel d'Escoto, M.M..
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; Foreign Minister of Nicaragua 1979-1990;
Proponent of Nonviolent Evangelical Insurrection against Imperialism

Xavier Dias
editor of ADHIKAR, a monthly Hindi bulletin for communities affected by mining.
Ranchi, Jharkhand, INDIA

Dorothy Day Catholic Worker
Washington, D.C., USA

Jim and Shelley Douglass
Birmingham, Alabama; USA
Marys House Catholic Worker

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Detroit, Michigan; USA
Auxiliary Bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Pastor of urban parish, author, lecturer, peace activist

Father G. Simon Harak, S.J.
New York, New York, USA
Catholic priest; Anti-Militarism Coordinator
War Resisters League

Jennifer Harbury and Sister Dianna Ortiz
Washington, D.C., USA
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International

Hartford Catholic Worker Community
Hartford, CT, USA

Father Francois Houtart
Louvain la Neuve, BELGIUM
Catholic priest; Prof. Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain;
Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum

Jonah House Community
Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Judith Kelly
Arlington, Virginia; USA
Mid-Atlantic Regional Associate, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service;
Prisoner of Conscience in Movement Against School of the Americas

Kathy Kelly
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Voices for Creative Non-Violence

Eric LeCompte
Washington, DC, USA
SOA Watch Event Coordinator

Madrid Committee of Solidarity with Black Africa
Madrid, SPAIN

Danny Malec
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call to Action

Father Regino Martinez, S.J.
Dajabon, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Catholic priest; Coordinator of Border Solidarity

Liz McAlister
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Edel Mihm
Saarbruecken, GERMANY
Journalist

Father Uriel Molina Oliu
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest;
theologian, founder and former director of Centro Antonio Valdivieso, Managua

Father Ismael Moreno, S.J.
El Progreso, Yoro, HONDURAS
Catholic priest;
Director of the Reflection, Research, and Communication Team (ERIC)

Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest working with Christian Base Communities; writer, peace activist

Mary Novak
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call to Action

Michael OGrady, S.J.
Cambridge, Mass., USA

Adolfo Perez Esquivel
ARGENTINA
1980 Nobel Peace Laureate

Harold Pinter
London, ENGLAND
2005 Nobel Literature Laureate

Ted Schmidt
Toronto, Ont., CANADA
Editor, Catholic New Times

Ramon Sepulveda Velez
PUERTO RICO
Community Organizer

Cindy Sheehan
Berkeley, California, USA
Peace Mom mother of Army Spc. Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004
Founder of Gold Star Families for Peace
Cindy camped at George Bushs ranch in August, 2005, demanding to speak with the president.

Joanne Sheehan
Norwich, Connecticut, USA
Chair of War Resisters International
War Resisters League/New England coordinator

Father Eugene Toland, M.M.
BOLIVIA

Jose Maria Vigil
PANAMA
theologian

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen
Department of Peace and Development Research
Goteberg, SWEDEN

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director
The Shalom Center
Philadelphia, Pa., USA

The Rev. Phil Wheaton
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
Episcopal priest
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity-Zapatistas of Washington, DC

Workers Vanguard Communities
SPAIN

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Detroit, Michigan, USA
United Methodist pastor, writer
Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education

Father Francisco Xammar, S.J.Tarragona, SPAIN
Catholic priest;
International Christian Secretariate of Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America (SICSAL)

Celeste Zappala
Philadelphia, Pa., USA
Mother of Sgt Sherwood Baker, killed in action in Iraq on April 26, 2004
Member, Gold Star Families
United Methodist

END

*******************************************

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/

March 19, 2008: the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the beginning of the 6th year of war and occupation, the 6th year of senseless death and massive destruction.

United for Peace and Justice is calling for and supporting a set of activities on and around the 5th anniversary that will manifest the intensifying opposition to the war and help strengthen our movement. We invite you to work with us to ensure the success of these actions.

March 13-16, Winter Soldier Hearings:

March 19, Mass Nonviolent Direct Action in Washington, DC
March 19, Local Actions Throughout the Country

Help us make the 5th anniversary the LAST anniversary of this war! Get involved today!

UPDATE -- TOWARD ACTIONS IN MARCH 2007

2007-02-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

UPDATE -- TOWARD ACTIONS IN MARCH 2007

Feb. 23, 2007

From:
Joe Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, Nicaragua
mull@ibw.com.ni
www.globalcalliraq.blogspot.com

Dear Friends,

On this blog you will find the GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.

FIRST DATE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS IN 2007: the days leading up to March 20, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. During this time there will be massive demonstrations and actions in the U.S. and throughout the world. See, for example, Declaration of Peace at www.declarationofpeace.org
and Voices for Creative Nonviolence at http://www.vcnv.org/the-occupation-project-a-campaign-of-sustained-nonviolent-civil-disobedience-to-end-the-iraq-war

We suggest that our friends in the U.S. contact these two organizations and consider joining in their actions.

For those of you in other parts of the world, we suggest that you organize protest actions or demonstrations, whether involving civil disobedience or not,
on Thursday, March 15.

Please let me know of your organizing plans.
Please send me a report on your action on the afternoon or evening of March 15, with a picture if possible, so that I can compile the reports and send the news to the international media. In the U.S. a massive action will take place at the Pentagon on March 17, and our friends there will be very encouraged by our actions around the world and will report on them publicly.
Thus your action, even if it is a small one (e.g., a vigil or press conference), will have a significant impact as part of the Global Call actions around the world. Our goal is to have Global Call actions in at least ten countries outside the U.S.

If you are already planning an activity for some other day of the week in relation to the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, or if other groups are organizing an action for some other day besides March 15, more power to you! You may wish to consult the other organizers to see if they would welcome a non-violent civil disobedience component of the activity.

There is an urgent need for actions around the world. In the face of an international movement against the occupation, the Bush administration continues to stonewall and indeed to escalate U.S. forces in Iraq and to raise the level of military threat against Iran. Encouragingly, Great Britain and Denmark have announced cuts in the number of their forces in Iraq; the European Parliament has condemned the U.S. for abducting people in European countries and sending them to third countries for torture and interrogation; the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress is expressing itself against the occupation; and resistance is growing within the U.S. military and among the people of the U.S. and other countries.

We must help these waves to become a huge world-wide tide of resistance against the militarism of the Bush administration.

For the text of the Call in Spanish, please see: www.ConvocatoriaMundialIrak.blogspot.com

Sincerely,

Joe Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, Nicaragua
mull@ibw.com.ni

2007-01-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

NEWS RELEASE – JANUARY 12, 2007 – 9 p.m.

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST PRISONERS AT GUANTANAMO

Demonstration Held in Managua, Nicaragua to Protest Abuse of Prisoners

For pictures, please see below.

CHRISTIAN BASE COMMUNITIES
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA

Contact: Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.
(country code 505) 635-6381
Email: mull@ibw.com.ni

This week we here in Managua have joined with others in many parts of the world in commemorating the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at Guantanamo.
Today, in our demonstration involving 50 persons in front of the U.S. Embassy, we offered a “street theater” presentation of the abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo – two persons dressed in orange jumpsuits (Guantanamo prison uniform), bound by chains in a fetal position, being abused by persons representing U.S. soldiers.
We also showed 12 paintings depicting various forms of abuse and torture at Guantanamo, according to the testimony of former prisoners.
(It was inadvisable to have our activity on Jan. 11, the actual anniversary as observed by other groups throughout the world, due to the severe security measures which were in effect for the inauguration of President Daniel Ortega on Jan. 10 and which continued during Jan. 11.)

The following is our statement of solidarity:

Statement of Solidarity with the Prisoners at Guantánamo

1. In union with protests in Amsterdam, England, USA, and other parts of the world, we express our solidarity with the prisoners held by the U.S. military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, some of whom this week are completing 5 years of cruel and illegal imprisonment. We join them in demanding that they be treated with due process according to law and with respect for their rights as human beings and as prisoners. Each prisoner deserves to have the charges against him stated clearly, to have adequate legal counsel, and to have due process in court, recognizing that in U.S. jurisprudence a person is innocent until proven guilty.

2. We protest the widely known abuses and torture to which some of them have been subjected. These abuses, plus the fact that they are held in solitary confinement for inordinate lengths of time and that they do not know when, if ever, they will be brought to trial and possibly released or sentenced – constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”

3. We support the worldwide demand for an immediate end to the military occupation of Iraq.

A previous version of this Statement was signed in 2005 by the following persons, among many others, in Nicaragua:
FATHER ERNESTO CARDENAL
FATHER FERNANDO CARDENAL, S.J.
FATHER MIGUEL D´ESCOTO, M.M.
FATHER URIEL MOLINA OLIÚ
DORA MARÍA TÉLLEZ

and by
BISHOP PEDRO CASALDÁLIGA, Brazil
ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL, Argentina (Nobel Peace Prize, 1980)
ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU (Nobel Peace, Prize, 1984)

Our activity was conducted in coordination with:

WITNESS AGAINST TORTURE
International Day of Action to Shut Down Guantanamo
For more information go to www.WitnessTorture.org

For information about the GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ, please see:
www.globalcalliraq.blogspot.com

two on ground representing Guantanamo prisoners

2007-01-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

images of abuse according to ex-prisoners

2007-01-12T18:57:00.000-08:00

images of abuse according to ex-prisoners

2007-01-12T18:47:00.000-08:00

rough handling of Guantanamo prisoners

2007-01-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

two on ground representing Guantanamo prisoners

2007-01-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

two on ground representing Guantanamo prisoners

2007-01-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

demo in Managua Jan. 12 solidarity with Guantanamo prisoners

2007-01-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

Meditating on the “Our Father” in Jail

2006-12-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

Meditating on the “Our Father” in Jail
by
Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.

The following is from my journal written while I was in two county jails from late January to late April, 2004, serving a 90-day sentence for “crossing the line” onto Ft. Benning, Ga., in a November 2003 protest against the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas. The School, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), has trained thousands of Latin American soldiers, some of whom have returned to their countries to be notorious torturers, assassins, and other human-rights violators.
My “Letter from the Muscogee County Jail” was published by The Witness during my first month in jail – http://www.thewitness.org/agw/mulligan021304.html
Other jail journal entries have also been posted by The Witness.

“Our”

If the Lord’s prayer is for all people,
then God is the God of all,
who then must be brothers and sisters of one family.

God of all nations, races, and language groups.
God of drug users and pushers
and of social drinkers and liquor dealers,
of smokers and tobacco advertisers;
of petty thieves in jail,
and of corporate criminals in country clubs,
and of the victims of both.
Of those who terrorize with chemical and bacteriological weapons,
and of those who hurt and kill by polluting the atmosphere for profit,
and of their victims.
Of those who assault and batter a person for a purse,
and of armies which attack nations for their oil and investment opportunities.
Of those who defraud with a bad check,
and of the company insiders who cheat by cooking the books
and steal by selling their stock before the crash,
and of their victims.
Of those who are in jail for perjury,
and of those who lie in advertising and governmental public relations.
Of those in prison for probation violation,
and of those in the White House, State, and Defense
who violate the rules of international law.
Of those behind bars for DUI (driving under the influence),
and of those equally reckless ones, behind desks, using and threatening WMD.
Of the drunk and disorderly,
and of the sober (or careful) executives of disorderly, rogue corporations.
Of those who fail to appear in court for driving without a license
and of those who invade without a license.

Today I finished reading Joyce Milton’s Tramp -- The Life of Charlie Chaplin (DaCapo Press, 1998). Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, condemned as a serial wife killer who swindled his victims before killing them, accused the judge, jury, and spectators of hypocrisy: “As for being a mass murderer, does not the world encourage it? Is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing? Has it not blown unsuspecting women and children to pieces, and done it very scientifically? As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison.”
But he and they will be judged: “I shall see you all very soon.” (footnote 1)

“Our” Father,
of prostitutes in prison, and of their pimps on the street,
of business executives who cause unemployment,
and of politicians who allow social ruin in the maximization of profits.
Of the gun users and of the sellers of weapons,
and of those who promote violence by filling the media with it,
by exemplifying it in war, or in the home.

Bill Quigley, law professor at Loyola University of New Orleans and lead attorney in our trials, in “Yesterday My Friend Chose Prison” (4-9-03), dedicated to the anti-SOA prisoners of conscience, wrote:
“Yesterday my friend joined the people we put in the concrete and steel boxes,
mothers and children and fathers that we cannot even name,
in prison for using and selling drugs,
in prison for trying to sneak into this country,
in prison for stealing and scamming and fighting and killing,
but none were there for the massacres,
no generals, no politicians, no under-secretaries, no ambassadors.”

Who’s the criminal here? All of us stand in dire need of God’s mercy and transforming Spirit, but only some are judged “guilty” and punished by human justice.

***********************************

“Father”

Mother/Father
“Abba” -- Dad/Mom
Love, care, and mercy for all the kids, especially the most difficult and needy.
Unearned, unmerited mercy,
not dependent on our talents, moral worth, or reputation;
grace generously given,
and thus powerful to free us from our self-righteousness, which is always self-deception,
since it makes us selective in our vision and protective in our blindness.

As Love, Abba frees us from our need to rationalize our anti-social behavior
and to justify ourselves by focusing on some “works” and looking away from others.
Frees me to be myself -- a sinner called to be a saint, an egoist called to be generous --
and to let the masks, props, and titles fall,
to know myself as I am before Abba,
to repent of hurting others either on a personal or world scale,
to stand up and continue on the journey, open to the Spirit’s energy
to change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh;
to try to be caring and responsible in my personal relations
and in my social, political, and economic ones.

************

“who art in heaven”

and who are here on earth, in society,
through your Incarnation (“becoming flesh”) in Jesus of Nazareth,
who is in the prisoner, the hungry, the naked, the homeless,
crying out to us as individuals and social groups,
denying us the escape of saying “I love God”
while hurting or ignoring my neighbor and my neighbor countries.

But yes, who art in heaven --
that is, everywhere,
on earth and above, throughout the galaxies,
to be confined, tamed, named, and domesticated nowhere.
Not as the tribal god of any gender, nation, race, or class,
nor under house arrest in Washington, Jerusalem, Rome, Mecca, or any other temple.
Who does not need our children to say,
in the pledge of allegiance, that our nation is “under God,”
but who does want every nation to acknowledge
that it is under higher laws and principles, not a law unto itself,
and that its citizens should not consider nationalism their “ultimate concern,”
their Absolute, especially in time of war,
which cannot be “just” for both sides at the same time,
no matter how fervently the chaplains bless both armies,
assuring them they are doing God’s work.

Abba “in heaven” is our Supreme Authority,
whose commandment is that we love one another.
Who, as Pater and Mater, does not forbid patriotism,
but keeps it in perspective,
reminding us that our true Patria is the universal Kingdom of justice, peace, and love,
not just the land under our flag.
Who inspired an anti-imperialist statesman to say: “My country right or wrong --
may it ever be right,
but when it is wrong, let us make it right” (Carl Schurz).
For it is always my country, for which I share responsibility.

Thus the true patriot, “under God” who is in heaven,
is not the one who simply waves the flag,
prays for the troops and urges them on (from the sidelines)
as they march off to wars around the world,
and consoles their families when they return in flag-draped coffins,
but the citizen
who democratically questions the government policies which send the soldiers
to kill and to die,
who exercises the rights to freedom of speech and redress of grievances,
who organizes to pressure for change,
and who invites soldiers and civilian collaborators
to let their conscience examine what they are about to do,
to be a conscientious objector before or after induction,
if that is where their Light leads,
and to obey their conscience, which for them is the voice of Truth,
of the Commander-in-Chief of the worldwide human nation.

*******************************

“Hallowed be thy name”

May your name be held holy, revered, respected,
not tripping lightly off the tongue
of every political, civic, and church leader
who talks in public as if he/she had a special Internet link to your will.
And may your name, “Abba,” be understood correctly:
“Mom/Dad,” ever kind and merciful to all the kids,
and thus our liberator from all our pretensions.
Parent and Creator, who brought the universe,
with all its inhabitants, into being,
and so cannot but want life in all its fullness and joy
for all your universal family.

Your name is holy. You are all-holy, entirely Good.
No human construct is all-holy --
no nation or empire, no constitution, no tradition, no “sacred” book,
no human structure of organized religion or government.
When our human products fall into the common temptation
of deifying and sacralizing themselves,
then those idols which demand human sacrifice
need to be shattered, secularized, relativized, de-mystified --
that is, brought down to earth and shown to be of clay --
so that human beings may be free
to know the truth and to love Abba and all people.

Yes, in your holiness and goodness we are all called to share.
St. Paul addressed his letters to the “saints” in various communities,
invited to be a New Creation in Christ.
But Christ is the only human being who is totally holy,
totally filled with the Holy Spirit, one with Abba.
The rest of us share his life and holiness, in very limited measure.
Paul emphasized that he had not yet attained the crown
but was running toward it (Philippians 3:12-14).

**********************************

“Thy kingdom come”

May human society be transformed into a loving and just community for all peoples,
and may nature and all the universe continue to evolve into their fullness in Christ.
We are delivered into your Kingdom
when we live and build the world in a way
that demonstrates that you are indeed King,
that your principles and values hold ultimate sway in our daily living
and in our political and economic relations,
when we love one another as individuals
and as citizens of sister nations and races in the community of all peoples.
May your Spirit change our hearts and world structures
so that peace with justice will reign.

St. Matthew used “kingdom of heaven” out of reverence for your name; he meant the same as Mark and Luke did when they wrote “kingdom of God” -- not some incredible fantasy of a spiritual realm filled with disincarnate souls floating around, but this universe and this earth transformed into the garden for all which you intended at the origin.
Jesus himself proclaimed that this Kingdom is at hand, among us, not merely within, as some translations put it, as if it were a kingdom of interior consolation, warm feelings, and nice intentions in our heart and mind.
The Kingdom is larger than that: Jesus is Lord of all -- of our hearts and minds and interior values, certainly, but also Lord of the work of our hands and of the structures we create to live socially, politically, and economically.
The federal magistrate conducting the trial of those who protested against SOA/WHINSEC, after listening to our testimony and hearing of our dreams for a peaceful society, delivered his opinion that what we were describing sounded like the Kingdom of heaven but that we should know that that is not of this world. Perhaps Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven” is foremost in the judge’s mind, or perhaps he has other reasons for holding his opinion.
Yes, your honor, Jesus did say that his kingdom is “not of this world “ (in a very specific situation in his life), meaning that he would not rely on the world’s violent methods of self-defense such as armies when the police came for him: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (Jn 18:36). (footnote 2)
Similarly, before the start of his public ministry, he had rejected domination and coercion as his method for helping the Kingdom to come. In the desert he rejected political power over others, any kind of miraculous spectacle which could coerce people´s will, and the power which comes from distributing bread and other necessities (Mt 4:1-11). His sword would be the one that Paul later took up: “the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God” (Eph 6:17).

But throughout his ministry
he courageously denounced evil, corruption, and injustice
in this world
and sketched the outlines of the Kingdom
inaugurating it by his way of living and struggling
here on earth.
That is why he was jailed and executed as a trouble-maker, criminal, social critic,
but in his resurrection he conquered death
and the injustice which had condemned and crucified him;
he is proved, for those with faith, to be the innocent party in the trial,
while his executioners are shown to be guilty of judicial murder.
He is the first-born of the New Creation, of the Kingdom,
which is present in seedling
and, as he proclaimed, is coming here and now.

Yes, the Kingdom is “utopia”
in the literal sense
that in its fullness it is “nowhere” on earth, in history.
That is all too obvious
in our criminal-justice system
as well as in the increasingly unjust distribution of the world´s resources
and in the military domination and exploitation
of the world by the U.S. and other powers.
But there is some justice and peace,
and we keep struggling for more.
The seeds of the Kingdom are planted and are growing,
even if in a fragile and quiet way as the parables indicate.
The risen Christ is with us in the struggle,
keeping our hope alive,
nourishing our love and commitment,
accompanying us and strengthening us in our wavering moments,
and assuring us that his Abba’s project will not ultimately be defeated.

********************
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

“The people united will never be defeated”
has been a popular slogan of struggle in Chile and other Latin American countries.
“Nicaragua won; El Salvador will win”
was chanted in El Salvador in the 1980s,
where revolutionaries found hope in the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua.
“We shall overcome,” proclaimed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
along with those who organized, marched, and went to jail with him.
“Yes, it can be done” (“sí, se puede”) chanted César Chavez and the United Farm Workers.
“Don’t mourn, organize” was the message of Mother Jones and other labor organizers.

These encouraging messages show us how to cooperate with God
in bringing about the coming of the Kingdom and the implementation of God’s will.
It couldn’t be clearer that God’s will for the Kingdom
is to be carried out on earth,
not just among the departed souls and angels.
How? By using our God-given intelligence and freedom to solve our problems,
working together with her for a better world.
We must let God’s will be done in our lives, families, and communities
and organize so that God’s will for justice and freedom
may become a reality for all
in social, political, and economic structures.
In these structures and systems, it is people’s power, united and smart,
which makes change,
for the entrenched power of the ruling class
does not yield without a struggle.
As Dr. King said, “We know through painful experience
that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
Organized Truth-force, speaking truth to power,
non-cooperation, boycotts, marches, sit-ins,
draft resistance, tax resistance, and other forms of civil disobedience,
organizing unions, neighborhood groups, and political parties,
voting and getting out the vote, especially when the stakes are significant --
these are some of the methods of exerting power non-violently at our disposal.

God’s will
is not that women and children be beaten,
that more people be unemployed or exploited,
that millions suffer malnutrition or AIDS,
that the prisons and jails of the U.S. contain over 2 million inmates,
that the U.S. invade other countries at will.
These evils happen
because we misuse the freedom and potential God has given us.
Problems made by humans,
can be solved by humans.

In this seemingly impossible and overwhelming task, we may feel alone,
even if we organize millions to act in unison.
But we are not left to our own devices, limited energy, and propensity toward despair.
Moses and the prophets were always assured of Abba’s presence and strength
even in the face of fierce opposition.
Jesus often told his disciples: “Do not be afraid; I am with you.”
United to the Vine, we will produce much fruit.
It was not God’s will that Jesus suffer cruelly and perish ignominiously on the cross
“for our sins,”
to assuage some divine wrath,
to make a sacrifice of expiation,
to save us.
These are Old Testament images which were applied to Jesus after his death and resurrection. In retrospect, Christian theology sees that they were fulfilled in a magnificent way by Jesus.
It was God’s will that Jesus
announce the Kingdom of justice and love and inaugurate it by his work,
that he denounce hypocrisy and corruption in high places
that he be faithful to this dangerous mission
in face of the intense persecution it would unleash against him,
and that Jesus and his cause be vindicated in the resurrection.
“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want”(Mk 14:36). Jesus’ will was one with Abba’s; he was the faithful prophet and courageous liberator to the very end.

******************

“Give us this day our daily bread”

Today our jailers were 1 1/2 hours late bringing the sandwiches and cookies for lunch; since I am fasting, for me this meant only that I had to wait a while to enjoy my regular noon-time treat of milk flavored with Yoo-hoo chocolate drink.
The other inmates waited patiently, confident that their “bread for today” would come, just as breakfast had been delivered through the slot in the wall, and supper would be.
But most people in the Third World do not have this confidence that three meals, or even one, will come their way today. When they pray for their daily bread, they ask with a deadly seriousness and with a hope tempered by hunger.
Let us pray and struggle that the super-abundant resources of the world be distributed justly so that no one suffers a lack of daily bread, and that the rising numbers of obese and overly but unhealthily fed folks in the rich societies learn to take their just portion and right quality of daily nourishment.
Meeting the food needs of the world depends on forging economic systems of adequate production and just distribution. “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33).

In Christian spirituality “our daily bread” began to refer to the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, where we recognize the risen Christ “in the breaking of the bread,” as did the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35). When the community comes together as brothers and sisters to share a meal, we feel Christ’s presence in our midst and especially in the miracle of sharing. “Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Jesus is present in community: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mt 18:20).
As this spirit of sharing feeds the hungry and houses the homeless in the U.S. and throughout the world, we will recognize Christ as the Love inspiring it, just as we sense his presence in every effort for justice and peace.

“You are the body of Christ,” wrote Paul (1 Cor 12:27). But is the community the real presence? I believe so. Not only that, but the real presence in the sacrament is meant to be the Bread of Life to nourish and strengthen Christ’s presence in the people. “I was hungry and you gave me food.... Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:35,40).
Where is the risen Christ? In large part, in the community and in our work for the Kingdom. Imagine if we showed the same respect, reverence, and love to Christ’s Body in the Church, in the sick, in the imprisoned as we do to his Body on the altar and in the tabernacle! The HIV/AIDS patient or the addict or the unemployed would be the Most Blessed Sacrament, and we would really encounter Christ in our sharing with his members.
Perhaps this is why the tradition of benediction (adoring the Eucharistic bread and blessing the people with it) has waned in the post-Vatican II Church -- because we believe that Christ is present in the sacrament not so much to be adored there as to nourish and help his Body, the Church. And his presence on the altar is most meaningfully and salvifically celebrated when the altar is the table of our shared meal.
At Mass, when I say the words of Jesus -- “This is my body, which will be given (or broken) for you; this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for you” -- I am thinking not so much of the epiphany of Christ in the bread and wine at that moment but in the wonder of his giving his body to be broken within hours on the cross and his blood to be shed out of faithfulness to his prophetic mission for his people.
He knew that his body would be torn apart, and his blood spilled out, as a consequence of his liberating work, and he accepted this death penalty rather than waver from his task. This is epitomized for me by the moment of martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador: one day after delivering, in his Sunday sermon broadcast nationally, one of his strongest denouncements of his own government’s repression (“Stop the repression.... No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to God’s will”), standing at the altar at the offertory, shortly before the consecration, his body was broken and his heart burst by one bullet from an assassin in the service of the oligarchy and the U.S.-supported military.
He enacted the words of consecration in his own sacrifice of his life, and he celebrated the resurrection with his Lord Jesus. “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people,” he had said.
During the Eucharistic prayer I am also aware of and joyfully celebrating the change of the bread and wine, and I am conscious of the words Jesus used about the New Covenant. This is the interior, personal covenant: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33).
This is an extremely serious and important affirmation by Jesus: that the New Covenant is embodied in him. Let us pray that we, as members of his Body, may truly be people of this new covenant of love.

************

“And forgive us our trespasses”

Abba is love and mercy.
We simply have to accept the gift
and believe that we are forgiven.
No “works” are required on our part
except to recognize our sin, repent, and have a sincere intention to do better in the future.
The key element is to be struck by what is really sinful in my life,
not what I am “supposed” to feel sorry for according to the catechism.
Have I hurt someone by an unjust act or word?
Have I done harm to large numbers of people
by my involvement in unjust, anti-social policies
of my gender, government, corporation, church, or other group I am part of?
This latter dimension of sin is often overlooked by preachers and counselors
who focus only on the interpersonal dimension of our lives, e.g. --
Am I fulfilling my responsibilities to my family?
Do I avoid using violence at home or with my neighbors?
Do I refrain from stealing from them or from the corner grocery?
But we are also social and political beings,
members of collectives which act in our name and for us.
Is my government or corporation hurting or helping
the hungry children of the whole human family?
Is my government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,”
as Dr. King believed?
Are we stealing the oil of Iraq by assault and armed robbery?
While I may try to respect the dignity and rights of women,
does my Church violate their rights systematically
by denying equal rights to participate at all levels of ministry?
While I, with the assistance of the law, avoid blowing smoke in others’ faces,
is the corporation I work for or hold stock in
destroying bodies on a massive scale by polluting the air, water, and earth?
While I may have some friends among (or at least talk respectfully with)
unskilled laborers and members of minorities,
is my company, school, or church a vicious union-buster
and a violator of equal-opportunity laws?

The criterion for receiving communion and for considering someone a “good Catholic”
should be much more encompassing than simply whether the person
has been married in the Church or is in a second marriage.
Sexual relationships can be beautiful expressions of love and communication
or they can be hurtful and destructive.
But there are many other ways we can harm people as well,
and many of them are in the sphere of our political and economic relationships.

It is a truly liberating gift of God
when we allow our masks and lies and excuses to fall away
and our conscience is shaken by the recognition of some harm we are doing.
The next moment is also a divine gift:
when we feel sorrow, repent, and ask God and others for forgiveness,
accept that unearned mercy,
and get up and begin to live differently,
knowing that we are sinners called to be apostles.

***************

“As we forgive those who trespass against us”

When I recognize my own sinfulness, feel sorrow, ask for forgiveness, and gratefully receive that forgiveness and begin a new life, I cannot but respond positively to someone who goes through the same process and asks my forgiveness.
But the process must be complete: the aggressor must stop abusing the victim before the victim can forgive. How, then, can women in the Catholic Church forgive the all-male clergy, unless we are struggling alongside them for their full rights? How can the people of Latin America forgive us, unless we are trying to abolish SOA/WHINSEC and other instruments of violent repression, which harm them, and striving to cancel their crushing foreign debt?

*************

“And lead us not into temptation”

Perhaps the gravest temptation for people engaged in the struggle to build the Kingdom is to despair of this possibility and abandon the dream. As an antidote to this, we have the entire record of the bible, where Abba and Jesus constantly try to raise the hopes and spirits of their people, encouraging us to continue on the journey.
And throughout history a cloud of saints and martyrs, as well as “holy atheists” who often put professed Christians to shame, show that it is possible to live a life of integrity in the midst of corruption and of struggle against overwhelming odds.
We also have the support of one another in our communities where our dream is kept alive and our hope nourished. Active engagement itself, always searching for new strategies, sustains hope: those who remain faithful to the struggle find their hope being renewed, whereas those who drop out to live a strictly private life fall into a deeper and deeper cynicism and pessimism, perhaps partly to rationalize their inactivity.
Let us use our minds to develop effective strategies to produce victories, which we need along the way, even small ones: but let us see that the ultimate value of our work and struggle is intrinsic to them, not depending wholly on the outcome, so that we can say, if necessary: “We did our best; we lost this inning; but it was all worth it.”
Ultimately hope, like faith and true love, is the fruit of God’s life in us.

Another serious temptation in this line of work is self-righteousness: considering ourselves superior to the unenlightened and uncommitted masses, and some of us thinking of ourselves as a “vanguard” going further, taking more risks, bearing more crosses, and working harder than our comrades in the same movement.
The first kind of self-righteousness, based on a failure to remember our own process of conscientización (consciousness-raising), impedes our ability to communicate with the people and sometimes leads activists to label the people as their enemy. Antidote? To recognize that many people are insecure about their own future, are super-busy with their daily life and work, and are easily manipulable by the media and other opinion-formers -- but are nevertheless capable of gaining an adequate social analysis, recognizing their own and others’ true interests (as distinct from the interests of the elite), and entering into struggle. Their birth of consciousness can be assisted by us if we do our jobs sensitively, respectfully, and intelligently.
The second kind of self-righteousness, based on a spirit of egotistic competition within the ranks of our own movement, divides us and undermines our power. Antidote? To recognize our own and others’ gifts and limitations and to see ourselves as members of one body: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor 12:21).

************

“But deliver us from evil”

In Spanish we say: “libranos del mal” -- liberate us from evil. The many dimensions of this process are explored systematically in liberation theology.
From the evil of self-centeredness in our own heart,
often based on fear and self-doubt,
and from the evils of injustice
which are products of that selfishness --
Liberate us as you liberated your people from slavery in Egypt,
by calling us to struggle to free ourselves.
For freedom cannot be given or imposed,
against our flight from it,
against our desire to remain “happy slaves,”
against our conformism, passivity, laziness,
and poor self-image to which we may wish to cling.
Freedom is seized by those who respond to the call and the challenge.

**************

“For thine is the kingdom”

It is the Kingdom of God, and it will come in God’s time and manner; we are its heralds and servants, called to be steadfast in our task.

“And the power”

The energy and force for good in the universe is God’s: the gentle force of truth and love which can touch hearts and transform them by the Holy Spirit and can “bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly,” filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty (Lk 1:52-53).

“And the glory”

Let us not build kingdoms to our own glory, but to God’s, lest we become the oppressor.

“Now and forever. Amen.”

Footnotes:

1. Seeing the movie, “Monsieur Verdoux,” after my release, I found some additional interesting statements by Verdoux. He opens his pre-sentence speech by jabbing at the problem of unemployment: “The prosecutor at least admits that I have brains. I have, and for 35 years I used them honestly. After that, nobody wanted them. So I was forced to go into business for myself.”
Just before going to the guillotine, Verdoux was interviewed by a reporter. “Crime doesn’t pay, does it?”
Verdoux: “No, sir. Not in a small way.”
“What do you mean?”
“To be successful in anything, one must be well organized.”
“Give me a story with a moral to it. You, the tragic example of a life of crime.”
“I dont see how anyone can be an example in these criminal times.”
“You certainly are, robbing and murdering people.”
“That’s business.”
“Other people don’t do business that way.”
“That’s the history of many a big business. Wars, conflict, it’s all business. One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow.”
When a priest visited and said “I’ve come to ask you to make peace with God,” Verdoux replied: “I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.”

2. All biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition (Catholic Bible Press, 1993).

Jail Reflections by Joe Mulligan on Christmas

2006-12-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

JAIL REFLECTIONS ON THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS
by
Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.

Preface

The following was written in April, 2004, as I was “getting short” in the Muscogee County (Columbus, Ga.) Jail – i.e., nearing the end of my 90-day sentence for crossing the line at Ft. Benning in November, 2003.
It was obviously not written during a Christmas season. It centers on the theme of the incarnation (Christmas) in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which I was considering on those days of my retreat.

Monday, April 5, 2004

Yesterday, the first day of Holy Week, was also the first day of my eight-day retreat.

The second reading in yesterday’s liturgy (Philippians 2:6-11) puts Jesus’ life and especially the events of this week in their grand theological perspective. By “emptying himself” to become fully human, even to the point of crucifixion, Jesus is obviously the antithesis of the sinful person, understanding sin to be that self-glorification which expresses itself in pride, arrogance, and selfishness.
St. Paul presents Jesus’ example of selflessness as the model of the attitude required for living in community: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And ... he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross.”
Having this mind or attitude that was in Christ Jesus, his disciples can live together, sharing materially and spiritually in such a way that they “shine like stars in the world” (2:15) even “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.”

Sin, on the other hand, is an unfettered, selfish liberty which has no concept of connectedness and no recognition of filial or social responsibility. Paul cautioned against this distorted kind of freedom in Galatians 5:13-15: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”
Sin, at its origin in Genesis, is twofold: self-idolization (“you will not die.... You will be like God” -- 3:4-5) leading immediately to the rending of the social fabric (“Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’” -- 4:8-9). A blind, irresponsible liberty will necessarily trample upon the human rights of others.
Examples abound of such insensitivity on both the personal and collective level. As for the latter, super-nationalism, racism, male chauvinism, and human arrogance toward the environment are forms of selfishness “writ large.” With American arrogance of power, the Carter administration did not heed Archbishop Romero’s request for an end of military aid to the murderous Salvadoran army. The Reagan administration brushed off the World Court’s ruling to cease interfering by force and violence in the affairs of Sandinista Nicaragua.
And this very day, as the Marines “seal off” Fallujah and hostilities in Iraq increase in ferocity, the Bush administration manifests a more and more blatant (and seemingly self-defeating) arrogance in its occupation of a land whose recorded civilization goes back several millennia. Will top U.S. administrator Paul Bremer soon say: “We had to destroy Fallujah in order to save it?”
According to an AP article in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (April 3, 2004), Muslim clerics condemned the mutilation of the bodies of the four U.S. civilians -- but not their slayings.
“While the condemnation of the mutilation was helpful, that is only a partial answer,” declared Brig.Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of U.S. military operations in Iraq. “Murder of innocents should be condemned.” Here it is evident that truth has been a serious casualty of war. Innocents? These civilians were heavily armed, highly trained private bodyguards protecting other foreign occupiers of Iraq.
“Islam bans what was done to the bodies, but the Americans are as brutal as the youths who burned and mutilated the bodies,” said a retired school principal. “They have done so much to us and they have humiliated us so often,” he added, expressing particular outrage at U.S. soldiers barging into private homes.

The repetitious proclamation of our goal -- to create a democracy with free elections, etc. -- is sounding more hollow every day. To impose “democracy,” to force people whose political and religious culture is worlds apart from ours to accept our version of freedom -- are obvious self-contradictions. And to continue to insist that the new Iraq must follow (democratically, of course) our economic model of free-market capitalism, with doors wide open to foreign ownership of the country’s resources, is our prescription for neo-colonial plunder.
In another oil-rich country, under the banner of promoting democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the U.S. Congress, is pumping in $1 million a year to support the opposition against Venezuela’s democratically-elected president, Hugo Chavez, just as it contributed millions in the1980s to help remove the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

During this retreat I have started reading Thirty Days – On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius, by Paul Mariani (New York: Penguin Compass, 2003). In addition to providing a clear introduction to St. Ignatius and the Society of Jesus, Paul Mariani shares beautifully his experience of making a thirty-day retreat.
Reflecting on sin, he mentions many of its structural or institutional manifestations, including “the atrocities committed by soldiers trained by the U.S.’s School of the Americas” (p. 49). Among such atrocities he speaks of the killing of “the six Jesuits in 1989 in San Salvador, along with their housekeeper and her fifteen-year-old daughter. All awakened in the middle of the night by soldiers, several trained at our School of the Americas.”

Holy Thursday, April 8, 2004
9:15 a.m.

I am starting Holy Thursday by watching Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s televised testimony before the 9/11 commission. I doubt that she will reveal anything new or significant, and I can’t imagine the commission members catching her in any glaring inconsistencies -- or, if they do, making her squirm.
Whether the Bush team took sufficient precautions to prevent the disasters of 9/11 seems very difficult to resolve one way or the other. The terrorist attacks conveniently served administration purposes, but whether officials had deliberately relaxed security measures in order to allow a major terrorist attack to be carried out, as some critics have suggested, remains to be seen.
But it is extremely important to highlight the revelations by Paul O’Connor (Treasury) and Richard Clarke (former top anti-terrorism coordinator) to the effect that the Bush team immediately seized on the events of 9/11 to justify and gain popular support for an invasion of Iraq. And the idea of such an attack was not a sudden brainstorm. Officials of the Bush I administration longed to go all the way in 1991 to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime, and these same people and others kept their desire alive and advocated their plan during the Clinton years. The Project for the New American Century makes this very clear.
The Project and related geopolitical plans proposed an aggressive projection of U.S. power around the world. Purpose? To control crucial economic resources and to “open up” regions of the world to “free market” penetration by U.S. capital. Iraq was a major site of unhidden treasure.
Thus we do not have to wait for a smoking gun but rather for the public to realize, with all its implications, that officials of the incoming administration in early 2001 brought their gun to Washington and kept it aimed at Iraq as it had been for some years, ready to smoke as soon as a sufficiently horrific terrorist act (a “Pearl Harbor”) could be blamed, correctly or not, on Iraq.

It is in this world, now dominated by the American empire, that Jesus becomes incarnate today. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (Jn 1:1-3).
The Word (“logos”) is the Logic, Pattern, Blueprint of human society and of all creation, akin to Wisdom in the Old Testament. Through the Word all things came into being: gender, race, nationality, language, culture, and government as a way of ordering communal life. As Walter Wink emphasizes, all of these are good, though fallen (precisely when they raise themselves to become gods of domination), but always capable of being redeemed (Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992).
When Jesus redeems, he restores persons and things to their true selves, since he is the Plan according to which everything was created. As Thomas Merton said, “To be a saint is to be yourself”-- your true self, before you were programmed to be fearful, self-centered, dominating, and violent.
The Word is the light of all people because we exist in his likeness and pattern. In the light of the Word the true being of everything is illuminated..
St. Paul speaks of the risen Christ as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation ... in whom all things hold together”and have their true being (Col 1:15-17). Since Christ is the perfect image of God, and we are created in God’s image and likeness, we attain our true identity by being incorporated into Christ.
And yet the world, even his own, did not accept him: “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1:11).
Creation had become twisted, distorted from its divine model, and so the creature did not know its true nature. John presents Jesus’ explanation of this: “The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (3:19-21).
In a similar vein Paul explains that evil suppresses the truth: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18).
The battle between light and darkness is part of the war between good and evil. While some choose evil, others receive the Word and are transformed into what they truly are, children of God: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).

St. Ignatius of Loyola imagined this vast cosmic drama from the viewpoint of God in his meditation on the incarnation, where he asks the retreatant to see the people on the earth in all their diversity: “some are white, some black; some at peace, and some at war; some weeping, some laughing; some well, some sick; some coming into the world, some dying; etc.” (The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. -- Westminster, Md., The Newman Press, 1957, p. 50.).
The Trinity, beholding “all nations in great blindness, going down to death and descending into hell,” decides to work the redemption of the human race.
After considering what the persons on the face of the earth do, “for example, wound, kill, and go down to hell,” the retreatant then contemplates the Incarnation and begs for the grace to join in this mission of the Lord. It is not a trivial task, but rather an attempt to change history and human persons.
In his retreat journal Paul Mariani gave some striking examples of the modern “structural sin” which characterizes our conflictual world and which cries out for the prophetic and transforming power of the incarnate Jesus today: “Swiss banks collaborating with the Nazis to steal the property of Jewish victims, their lives apparently not enough. American tobacco companies creating killer cigarettes, then lying about it year after year, as the death toll from cancer mounts, my own mother among the statistics. The injustice of it all and of how we cover over these injustices. I thought of the Jews’ deep passion for justice – Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Psalmist – refusing to let these things be swept away by a kind of selective amnesia. I thought of Jesus, one more Jew from the provinces, beaten half to death, then led out to die.
“God Himself crying out against the sheer weight of the injustices against the poor, the defenseless, those who cannot afford adequate counsel. The lies, the false claims and counterclaims, legal systems opposing true justice…. Black slaves and Native Americans, long dead, whose basic human rights were abrogated time and time again” (op. cit., pp. 97-98).

The Word made flesh is “Emmanuel,” which, Matthew explains, means “God with us” (Mt 1:23). Since Jesus is the True Person, some wise men from the East, searching for truth, come to him in Bethlehem: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (2:11).
To whom did they kneel to give homage? Not to a domineering ecclesiastical chief who would have demanded that they reject their cultural and religious heritage as “pagan” or perhaps even diabolical, but to an infant in a modest dwelling. The baby Jesus did not require their total submission; the family gratefully accepted the visitors’ gifts and wished them well on their journey.
If the religions of the world could receive each other’s gifts in mutual appreciation and gratitude, the kingdom of the one God would come closer. This is not helped by Marines from a “Christian nation” attacking and calling in air strikes on a mosque, thus killing scores of Muslims, as happened yesterday in Iraq.

The holy family became refugees in Egypt to avoid the jealous wrath of King Herod, who took out his anger by killing “all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men” (2:16). Later, other jealous religious authorities and the representative of the Roman emperor would succeed in executing Jesus.
And down through the ages, kings, emperors, and presidents have beaten down with overwhelming violence most “uppity” types – whether prophets of God’s kingdom or would-be political rivals, or even simply independent leaders who refuse to genuflect at the imperial throne.
END

Additional Signers of the Global Call

2006-12-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

Signers to the Global Call to Action

There are currently over 400 signers from over 40 countries, including...

Colin Archer
Geneva, SWITZERLAND
Director of the International Peace Bureau , Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization (1910)

Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, S.D.B.
Mogofores, PORTUGAL
Apostolic Administrator Emeritus of Díli, East Timor
Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1996

Medea Benjamin
San Francisco, CA, USA
Co-Founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
New York, NY; USA
Catholic priest, author, lecturer, peace activist

Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Catholic priest; Founder, School of the Americas Watch

Father Ernesto Cardenal
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; poet, sculptor, former Minister of Culture of Nicaragua

Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga
Sao Felix de Araguaia, BRAZIL
Retired bishop of Catholic diocese of Sao Felix
Theologian, author

Ana Esther Ceceña
Mexico City, MEXICO
Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas

Professor Chen Shu Shi
TAIWAN
Department of Chinese Studies, Tamkang University
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Mirta Clara
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
One of the Relatives of the Massacre of Margarita Belen. Chaco. Argentina.1976.
Nominated for "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005"
Psychologist, researcher and militant activist for human rights

Lisa Clark
Florence, ITALY
Member of Beati i costruttori di pace

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Belfast, NORTHERN IRELAND
1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Co-founder of Peace People

Etienne De Jonghe
Brussels, BELGIUM
Secretary General of Pax Christi International

Eduardo Galeano
Montevideo, URUGUAY
Writer

Johan Galtung
Norwegian, living in Versonnex, FRANCE
dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies
Alternative Nobel Peace Prize 1987
Founder and Co-director, Transcend: A Peace and Development Network

Giulio Girardi
Rome, ITALY
Professor of philosophy (retired); philosopher and theologian of liberation

David Hartsough
San Francisco, CA, USA
Co-Founder, Nonviolent Peaceforce
Executive Director, PEACEWORKERS

Father Francois Houtart
Louvain la Neuve, BELGIUM
Catholic priest; Prof. Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain;
Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum

Kathy Kelly
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Malachy Kilbride
Washington, DC, USA
Activist with the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN)

Fr Kenneth Leech
Manchester, UK
Anglican Priest, Founder of Centrepoint (for homeless young people)

Liz McAlister
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Edel Mihm
Saarbruecken, GERMANY
Journalist

Yadollah Mohammadi
Tehran, IRAN
President, United Nations Association of Iran
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest working with Christian Base Communities; writer, peace activist

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
President International Movement for A Just World (JUST)
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Adolfo Perez Esquivel
ARGENTINA
1980 Nobel Peace Laureate

Harold Pinter
London, ENGLAND
2005 Nobel Literature Laureate

Dr. Doug Pritchard
Toronto, CANADA
Co-Director, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Rev. Carol Rose
Chicago, IL, USA
Co-Director, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Abdul Basir Sami
Kabul, AFGHANISTAN
Peace Activist
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Cindy Sheehan
Berkeley, California, USA
Peace Mom mother of Army Spc. Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004
Founder of Gold Star Families for Peace

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen
Department of Peace and Development Research
Goteberg, SWEDEN

Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr.
New York, NY, USA
Executive Director, IFCO/Pastors for Peace

Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center
Philadelphia, Pa., USA

Click here if you would like to sign the Global Call to Action.

Continue below for the full list of signers as of April 11, 2006.

Dirk Adriaensens
Brussels, BELGIUM
Brussels, Tribunal

Amirah Ahmad
Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Global Peace Mission

Xavier Albó, S.J.
La Paz, BOLIVIA
CIPCA (Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado)

Justin Alexander
Christian Peacemaker Teams

Abdullah Al-Ahsan
JUST
Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

Maria Allwine
Iraq Pledge of Resistance - Baltimore
Baltimore, MD, USA

Dr. Nancy Teresa Anzoategui
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Attorney; Honorable Advisor to Congress;
President of ROBLES DE JUSTICIA

Rob Arner
Luray, Virginia, USA
Eastern Mennonite Seminary

Darwin Aronoff
Encino, USA

Colin Archer
Geneva, SWITZERLAND
Director of the International Peace Bureau, Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization (1910)

Pedro L. Arias
Bilbao, SPAIN
Universidad de País Vasco

Emilio Arranz Beltrán
Madrid, SPAIN
Education and social activities for nonviolence

Gary Ashbeck
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House, Military Families Speak Out

Xabier Askasibar Renobales
Fe y Justicia
Bilbao, SPAIN

Mark Auer
Fr. Emmett Jarrett, TSSF
Anne P. Scheibner
New London, CT, USA
St. Francis House

Txema Auzmendi Larrarte, S.J.
San Sebastian

Bakare Najimdeen Ayoola
Islamabad, PAKISTAN
Secretary General Nigerian Students Union
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Beba C. Balve
ARGENTINA
CICSO

Oscar Barrios
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Abdul Basir Sami
Kabul, AFGHANISTAN
Peace Activist
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Sanderson Beck
Goleta, CA, USA
Philosopher, author

Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, S.D.B.
Mogofores, PORTUGAL
Apostolic Administrator Emeritus of Díli, East Timor
Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1996

Jose Ignacio Benito Climent
Valencia, SPAIN

Medea Benjamin
San Francisco, CA, USA
Co-Founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink

Rev. Norman Bent
Moravian Church
Managua, NICARAGUA

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
New York, NY; USA
Catholic priest, author, lecturer, peace activist

Rina Bertaccini
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINAco-presidenta del Consejo Mundial de la Paz

Gary Bertuccelli
Santa Clara, California, USA

Bishop Luigi Bettazzi
Bishop Emeritus of Ivrea, past President of Pax Christi
ITALY

Albino Bizzotto
Padova, ITALY
President of Beati i costruttori di pace

Dr Jonathan Blakeborough
ENGLAND
Christian Peacemaker Teams North of England Network

Darrow Boggiano
San Francisco, California, USA
Political Cooperative

Bishop Diego Bona
Saluzzo, ITALY
Pax Christi Italy

Father Bob Bossie, SCJ
Chicago, IL, USA
Cofounder of Voices in the Wilderness;
8th Day Center for Justice, Priests of the Sacred Heart

Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Catholic priest; Founder, School of the Americas Watch

Einar Braathen
Oslo, NORWAY
Attac Norway

Dean Brackley, S.J.
San Salvador, EL SALVADOR
Centro Mons. Romero, Central American University
Theologian

Beth Brockman
Durham, North Carolina, USA

Maristella Buonsante
ITALY

Ken Butigan
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Communications Coordinator, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service;
Former National Coordinator, Pledge of Resistance

Gustavo Cabrera Vega (COSTA RICA) and Ana Juanche (URUGUAY)
Peace and Justice Service in Latin America -- SERPAJ-AL
Latin American Coordinators

Sister Betty Campbell, RSM
Cd. Juárez, MEXICO
Sisters of Mercy; nurse; Tabor House

Abraham Canales
Valencia, SPAIN
Christian militant, labor unionist, Editor of www.otromundoesposible.com

Father Ernesto Cardenal
Managua
Catholic priest; poet, sculptor, former Minister of Culture of Nicaragua

Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga
Sao Felix de Araguaia, BRAZIL
Retired bishop of Catholic diocese of Sao Felix
Theologian, author

Kevin Cassidy
IRELAND
Chair, Peace People

Luz Castro
Compostela, Galiza

Ana Esther Ceceña
Mexico City, MEXICO
Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas

Juan Jaime Cesio
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Colonel
Member, Centro de Militares para la Democracia Argentina (CEMIDA);
Declared in the midst of the dictatorship that "gangs made up of military members" had usurped the government and committed "heinous crimes like kidnapping, torture, and murder of thousands of people."

Mark Chapman
Belfast, N. IRELAND
Justice not Terror Coalition

Professor Chen Shu Shi
TAIWAN
Department of Chinese Studies, Tamkang University
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Mirta Clara
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
One of the Relatives of the Massacre of Margarita Belen. Chaco. Argentina.1976.
Nominated for "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005"
Psychologist, researcher and militant activist for human rights

Gordon Clark
Washington, DC, USA
Iraq Pledge of Resistance

Lisa Clark
Florence, ITALY
Member of Beati i costruttori di pace

Patricia Clark
Nyack, NY, USA
Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

J. Stephen Cleghorn
Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania, USA
National Call for Nonviolent Resistance

Professor Kevin P Clements
Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
Director, The Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies,
The University of Queensland

Michael Clifton
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Lauren Cogswell
Atlanta, GA, USA
President, Martin Luther King Campaign for Economic Justice

Elizabeth Fuller Collins
Athens, Ohio, USA
Ohio University

Andres Thomas Conteris
Washington, DC, USA
Program Director for Latin America and the Caribbean
Nonviolence International

Judith Coode
Washington, D.C. USA
Pax Christi USA

Erin Cox
Charleston, West Virginia, USA

Susan Crane
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Nora Curioso
Old Lyme, Connecticut, USA
Southeastern Connecticut Peace and Justice Network

Graciela Dáscola
ARGENTINA
Copresidente de la APDH La Rioja

Father John Dear, S.J.
Cerrillos, New Mexico, USA
Catholic priest, peace activist, author

Rev. Richard Deats
Nyack, NY, USA
Former Executive Secretary and Fellowship Editor, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Maria Martha Delgado
Montevideo, URUGUAY
Uruguayan defender of human rights

Marie Dennis
Washington, D.C., USA
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Pax Christi International

Etienne De Jonghe
Brussels, BELGIUM
Secretary General of Pax Christi International

Merwyn De Mello
New York, NY, USA
Maryknoll Lay Missioners

Father Miguel d'Escoto, M.M.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; Foreign Minister of Nicaragua 1979-1990;
Proponent of Nonviolent Evangelical Insurrection against Imperialism

Mary P. Dewey, OP
Adrian, Mich., USA

Xavier Dias
editor of ADHIKAR, a monthly Hindi bulletin for communities affected by mining.
Ranchi, Jharkhand, INDIA

Herbert Docena
Manila, PHILIPPINES
foreign policy analyst with Focus on the Global South, a policy research center

Sem. Michael Dorn, M.M.
Chicago, Illinois, USA

Jim and Shelley Douglass
Birmingham, Alabama; USA
Mary´s House Catholic Worker

Allwyn D'Silva
Mumbai, INDIA
Documentaion Research and Training Centre

John F. Eden IV
Statesboro Zen Group
Jesup, GA, USA

Jana El Horr
Beirut, LEBANON

Leif Erlingsson
Tullinge, SWEDEN

Paulo Esperança
Porto, PORTUGAL
Organizing Commission of Portuguese Hearing of the World Tribunal on Iraq

Adolfo Perez Esquivel
ARGENTINA
1980 Nobel Peace Laureate

Prof. Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi
Selangor, MALAYSIA
Uniiversity Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam

Stuart Filar
Columbia, SC, USA

Erin Flory
Tuscon, Arizona, USA

Jane Ford
Detroit, Mich., USA
President, Henry Ford Medical Group Union Facilties, Registered Nurse Unit, United Autoworkers Union, Local 600

Miriam Ford
Bronx, NY, USA
Kairos NYC

Giovanni Franzoni
Rome, ITALY
St. Paul Base Community

Eduardo Galeano
Montevideo, URUGUAY
Writer

Jeanne Gallo
Gloucester, Massachussets, USA

Johan Galtung
Norwegian, living in Versonnex, FRANCE
dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies
Alternative Nobel Peace Prize 1987
Founder and Co-director, Transcend: A Peace and Development Network

Marc Gambino
Hasbrouck Heights, NY, USA

Alejandro Olmos Gaona
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Historian, writer
Member of the Paraguayan Academy of History, of the Research Institute of Santiago, Chile, of the Argentine Society of Historians, and of the Center for Economic Studies
Mariano Fragueiro.

Gerardo González García
Santiago, Chile

Lawrence H. Geller
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Veterans for Peace

Jan-David Gelles
Lima, PERU
Universidad Católica

John Gilbert
Florence, ITALY
U.S. Citizens Against War

Jack Gilroy
Binghamton, NY, USA
Author of two award-winning novels about young men who refuse to train to kill; Prisoner of Conscience (action at SOA), member of Veterans for Peace

Giulio Girardi
Rome, ITALY
Professor of philosophy (retired); philosopher and theologian of liberation

Carolina Gonzalez
Montreal, CANADA

Roberto Benavides Gonzàlez
Monterrey Nuevo Leon, Mexico

Rui Manuel Gracio das Neves, OP
PORTUGAL
Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and sociologist

John Gray
John Gray's SeaCanoe
Phuket, THAILAND

Marvin Grilliot Mahlik
Kansas City, Kansas, USA

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Detroit, Michigan; USA
Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Pastor of urban parish, author, lecturer, peace activist

Rory Halpin, S.J.
Dublin, IRELAND
Sli Eile - Jesuit Outreach to Young Adults

Else Hammerich
Copenhagen, DENMARK
Founder, Danish Centre for Conflict Resolution

Clare Hanrahan
Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Author, Jailed for Justice: A Woman's Guide to Federal Prison

Father G. Simon Harak, S.J.
New York, New York, USA
Catholic priest; Anti-Militarism Coordinator
War Resisters League

Jennifer Harbury and Sister Dianna Ortiz
Washington, D.C., USA
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International

David Hartsough
San Francisco, CA, USA
Executive Director, PEACEWORKERS

Eduardo A. Hidalgo
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Permanent Assembly for the Human Rights of Bahia Blanca

Father Peter Hinde, O.Carm.
Cd. Juarez, MEXICO
Tabor House;
Border Peace Presence, El Paso, TX, USA

Paul A. Hoskins
Fulcrum Public Relations and Marketing
London, United Kingdom

Father Francois Houtart
Louvain la Neuve, BELGIUM
Catholic priest; Prof. Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain;
Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum

Guillermo Hurtado
Copiapo, Chile
Universidad de Atacama

Halim Husin
Malacca, MALAYSIA
Abd Halim Kptan & Co.

Vicki Impoco
Satellite Beach, Florida, USA
Brevard Patriots for Peace

Tengku Iskandar
Assistant Secretary General (JUST);
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Dr. Nooraini Mohamed Ismail
Selangor, MALAYSIA
Uniiversity Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam

Father Benjamin Jimenez, S.J.
Cleveland, OH, USA
Associate pastor at St. Augustine church
Prisoner of Conscience in Movement Against School of the Americas

Wilfrido Jiménez
Bogotá, COLOMBIA

Jørgen Johansen
Coventry, UNITED KINGDOM
Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Coventry University

Christine Mary Johnson
Birri de Heredia, Costa Rica
Democrats Abroad of Costa Rica

Dale Leonard Johnson
Birri de Heredia, Costa Rica
Democrats Abroad of Costa Rica

Kelcey Johnson O'Donnell
Birri de Heredia, Costa Rica

Alejandro Kacero
ARGENTINA
Movimiento Sanmartiniano

The Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan
New Milford, Ct., USA
Parish Priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut and long-time member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship

Judith Kelly
Arlington, Virginia; USA
Mid-Atlantic Regional Associate, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service;
Prisoner of Conscience in Movement Against School of the Americas

Kathy Kelly
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Betty Kennedy
Toronto, CANADA

Malachy Kilbride
Washington, DC, USA
Activist with the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN)

Stephen V. Kobasa
New Haven, CT, USA
Trident Resistance Network

Hideyuki Koyama, S.J.
Tokyo, JAPAN

Alfredo Kuba
Mountain View, California, USA
Silicon Valley in Defense of Animals

Brenda Lacayo
Panama, PANAMA

Rev. Deborah Elandus Lake
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Sankofa Way Spiritual Services

Nicole Lang
AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland
Avon, Ohio, USA

Eñaut Ayala Larrañaga
Bilbao, Euskadi

Michael Latsch
Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker

Eric LeCompte
Washington, DC, USA
SOA Watch Event Coordinator

Fr Kenneth Leech
Manchester, UK
Anglican Priest, Founder of Centrepoint (for homeless young people)

Jerimarie Liesegang, PhD
Hartford, CT, USA
Queer Activist
Director, Ct TransAdvocacy Coalition

Cybele Locke
New London, Connecticut, USA
Connecticut College

Mark Longhurst
Cambridge, MA, USA
Harvard Divinity School

Fernando Bernabe Lopez
Murcia, SPAIN

Prof. Dr. Salvador Maria Lozada
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Retired judge and professor of law; president of the Argentine Institute for Economic Development;
honorary president, International Association of Constitutional Law

Nancy MacBride
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Belfast, NORTHERN IRELAND
1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Co-founder of Peace People

Rajesh Makwana
London, England
Share the World's Resources

Danny Malec
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call Iraq

Sister Arnold Maria Noel, SSpS
Quezon City, PHILIPPINES

Amy Rebecca Marsico
Canfield, OH, USA

Patricia Martinez
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Father Regino Martínez, S.J.
Dajabón, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Catholic priest; Coordinator of Border Solidarity

William F. Marx
Pax Christi Western NY
Buffalo, NY, USA

Liz McAlister
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Brendan McManus SJ
Sli Eile
Dublin, Ireland

Carlos Mejía Godoy
Musician
Managua, NICARAGUA

Lidia Menapace
Bolzano, ITALY
nonviolent activist

Javier Esquembre Menor
Alicante, SPAIN
Caritas

Dr. Wan Rohana Ahmad Merican
Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
SAL College

Susana Merino
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Editor of the weekly bulletin of ATTAC Internacional "El Grano de Arena"

Mohammed Mesbahi
London, England
Share the World's Resources

Father Thomas Michel, S.J.
Secretary for Interreligious Dialogue
Rome, ITALY

Edel Mihm
Saarbruecken, GERMANY
Journalist

Mary M. Miner
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Sister of Mercy

Juan Minghetti
ARGENTINA
Universidad de Madres de Plaza de Mayo

Yadollah Mohammadi
Tehran, IRAN
President, United Nations Association of Iran
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Father Uriel Molina Oliú
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest;
theologian, founder and former director of Centro Antonio Valdivieso

Daniel E. Moore
Newton Falls, Ohio, USA
A.C.E. Network Mission

Father Donald Moore, S.J.
Jerusalem, ISRAEL
Pontifical Biblical Institute

Father Ismael Moreno, S.J.
El Progreso, Yoro, HONDURAS
Catholic priest;
Director of the Reflection, Research, and Communication Team (ERIC)

Markley Morris
San Francisco, CA, USA
filmmaker and graphic artist

Hans Peter Mortier
Meckenheim, GERMANY
Information Bureau of Peace Work

Rob Mulford
Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

The Rev. James A. Mulligan
New Milford, Ct., USA
Episcopal Priest of the Diocese of Connecticut

Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest working with Christian Base Communities; writer, peace activist

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
President International Movement for A Just World (JUST);
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Tim Nafziger
London, UK
Christian Peacemaker Teams

Fr. Albert Nambiaparambil
Kerala, INDIA
Secretary General WFIRC Upasana, Thodupuzha
Member, International Movement for A Just World (JUST)

Dr. Julio C. Llanan Nogueira
Rosario, ARGENTINA
Fundacion Futuro Solidario

James M. Nordlund
Kansas Chapter of the National Action Network
Topeka, Kansas, USA

Mary Novak
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call Iraq

Gianni Novelli
Rome, ITALY
Director of the Cipax-Italian Interfaith Peace Center

Efia Nwangaza
Greenville, South Carolina, USA
African American Institute for Policy Studies

Matthew Ochalek
Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
9/11 Peace Initiative of Erie

Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher
ENGLAND
Vice-President British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
University of Sussex

Frank O'Gorman
West Hartford, Connecticut, USA
People of Faith Connecticut

Michael O´Grady, S.J.
Cambridge, Mass., USA

Father Mario Oliveira
Porto, PORTUGAL
Journalist, Editor of FRATERNIZAR

Hilary Opperman
Green Party
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA

Dori Vílchez Ortiz
Granada, SPAIN

Mohamed Osman
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Joseba Ossa
Arroa-Zestoa, BASUE COUNTRY
Bidea Helburu

C. René Padilla
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Protestant pastor, writer, editor, lecturer

Dra. Lucía F. Padilla
Capital Federal, ARGENTINA
Lawyer

Ruth Padilla DeBorst
Latin American Theological Fraternity
San Salvador, EL SALVADOR

Dr. Katherine R. Parisi
USA
Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace

Jean Pauline
Oakland, California, USA
San Francisco Neighbor to Neighbor

John Peck
Higganum, Connecticut, USA

Carlos D. Perez
Montevideo, URUGUAY
Defender of Human Rights
Coordinator of the Solidarity Network for Human Rights (REDH)

Gilberto Z. Perez
Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA
Nipponzan Myohoji Bainbridge Island Sanga

Allie Perry
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice

Josephine Perry-Folino
Berkeley, California, USA
Into the Fire Productions

Peter Phippen
Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA

Harold Pinter
London, ENGLAND
2005 Nobel Literature Laureate

Dr. Doug Pritchard
Toronto, CANADA
Co-Director, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Adolfo Puricelli
Toronto, CANADA

Fray Antonio Puigjané
Franciscan Capuchin, recognized by Amnesty International as prisoner of conscience in 1985
ARGENTINA

Dr. Jorge Rachid
Buenos Aires Institute of Strategic Planning
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

V Raghuram
San Mateo, California, USA

Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
Nanuet, NY, USA
Fellowship of Reconciliation

Graciela Ramirez
ARGENTINA
Resumen Latinoamericano en Cuba

Maria Cristina Reartes
ARGENTINA

Prof. Luis Alberto Recalde
Partido Intransigente Distrito Formosa
ARGENTINA

Sr. Claire Regan
Bronx, NY, USA
Office of Justice & Peace, Sisters of Charity of New York

Rush Rehm
California, USA

Mayka Castellano Reis
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Fr. Kenneth Ryan-King
Panama Episcopal Church
Almirante, PANAMA

Sister Rosario Valdeavellano Roca Rey
Roma, ITALY
Peruvian, Religious of the Sacred Heart
Commission for Justice, Peace, and the Wholeness of Creation

Theo Roncken
Cochabamba, BOLIVIA
Acción Andina - Bolivia

Rev. Carol Rose
Chicago, IL, USA
Co-Director, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Bert Sacks
Seattle, Washington, USA
The Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq (INOC)

Anna Samson
Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Stop the War Coalition Sydney

Prof. Juan Carlos Sánchez
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Mario José Sanchez Gonzalez
San Salvador, EL SALVADOR
Team member of Builders of Paz (ECOPAZ)

Antony Schofield
Manchester, ENGLAND

Ted Schmidt
Toronto, Ont., CANADA
Editor, Catholic New Times

Erik Schnabel
San Francisco, California, USA

Werner Schuren
Winsen, GERMANY
Projekt Soziallotse

Ramón Sepulveda Velez
PUERTO RICO
Community Organizer

Cindy Sheehan
Berkeley, California, USA
Peace Mom mother of Army Spc. Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004
Founder of Gold Star Families for Peace

Joanne Sheehan
Norwich, Connecticut, USA
Chair of War Resisters´ International
War Resisters League/New England coordinator

Tony Sinkfield
Atlanta, GA USA
Vice President, Martin Luther King Campaign for Economic Justice

Bob Smith
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Brandywine Peace Community

Rev. Amy Stapleton
Methodist Federation of Social Action
Washington, DC, USA

John K. Stoner
Every Church A Peace Church
Akron, PA, USA

Marjorie Swann Edwin
Oakland, California, USA
Activist in the nonviolence movement for 69 years

Matthew Taylor
Berkeley, California, USA
Uuniversity of California Berkeley

Gail Thomas
Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Fourth Estate Radio

Janet C. Tillotson
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

Father Eugene Toland, M.M.
Bolivia

Lee Traupel
411 Autos - Automobile Information
Los Angeles, California, USA

Andrew Troutman
Richmond, Virginia, USA

Fabiana Tuñez
Casa del Encuentro, Feminist Socio-cultural space
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Father David Ungerleider, S.J.
Playas de Tijuana, B.C., MEXICO
Vice President, The Iberoamericana University

John Ventola
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Arizona Christian Peacemakers

Kym Ventola
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Arizona Christian Peacemakers

Ethan Veseley-Flad
Nyack, NY, USA
Editor, Fellowship Magazine

Evandro Vieira Ouriques
Center of Studies on Communication and Consciousness/UFRJ-Brasil
Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL

José María Vigil
Teólogo
PANAMA

Juano Villafañe
ARGENTINA
Centro Cultural de la Cooperación "Floreal Gorini"

Judith Villamayor
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen
Department of Peace and Development Research
Goteberg, SWEDEN

Ellyse Adele Vitiello
New York, USA
Morningside Friends

Begoña Vitoriano
Madrid, SPAIN

Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr.
New York, NY, USA
Executive Director, IFCO/Pastors for Peace

Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center
Philadelphia, Pa., USA

Rev. Phil Wheaton
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
Episcopal priest
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity-Zapatistas of Washington, DC

Doug E. Wight
Northampton, MA, USA
President, The Creative Earth Spirit Foundation

Workers´ Vanguard Communities
SPAIN

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Detroit, Michigan, USA
United Methodist pastor, writer
Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education

Father Francisco Xammar, S.J.
Tarragona, San Sebastian
Catholic priest;
International Christian Secretariate of Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America

Ms. Rohana Yusuf
Secretary General (JUST);
Selangor, MALAYSIA

Celeste Zappala
Philadelphia, Pa., USA
Mother of Sgt Sherwood Baker, killed in action in Iraq on April 26, 2004
Member, Gold Star Families
United Methodist

Emilio Zaragoza Lara
Ajacuba, Hidalgo, MEXICO

Father Arnaldo Zenteno, S.J.
Christian Base Communities
Managua, NICARAGUA

John T. Zettner
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, USA

Sue Zimmerman
Allegany, NY, USA

2006-12-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

THE NEW (2007) GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCETO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
December 26, 2006

PREFACE

One year ago we issued a GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE (civil disobedience) TO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.
Below you will find the new (2007) edition of the Call. The only substantive changes in the text have to do with the dates for action during the coming year.
The Signers listed at the end of the Call are the original Signers. During the past year people from over 40 countries have signed the Call, including most recently Archbishop Luis Alberto Luna Tobar, OCD, archbishop emeritus of Cuenca, Ecuador, as well as other human-rights leaders in Ecuador.
For the complete list, please see entry entitled "Additional Signers of Global Call."

Contact: Joe Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, Nicaragua
mull@ibw.com.ni
blog: www.globalcalliraq.blogspot.com

FROM:

Nobel Peace and Literature Laureates
Cindy Sheehan and other peace and human-rights activists
Religious leaders of various traditions
Prisoners of Conscience
Former government ministers
Poets, authors, journalists
(Please see end of this message for the list of original Signers and their identification.)

We, the undersigned, invite peace-makers throughout the world to participate in an international campaign of massive, nonviolent civil resistance (civil disobedience) to stop the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. These actions could be organized to include both non-violent civil resistance and legal demonstrations.

The killing of tens of thousands of civilians, the wounding of 100,000 or more people, the torture and murder of prisoners in U.S. custody -- these and other realities of the occupation are evidence of the massive state terrorism being perpetrated against the people of Iraq. At the same time, we mourn the deaths of thousands of soldiers of the coalition forces, while we denounce the lies (weapons of mass destruction, ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda) proclaimed in an effort to justify the invasion.

FIRST DATE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS: March 16-19, leading up to March 20, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. On this day there will be massive demonstrations and actions in the U.S. and throughout the world. See, for example, www.declarationofpeace.org and Voices for Creative Nonviolence: http://www.vcnv.org/the-occupation-project-a-campaign-of-sustained-nonviolent-civil-disobedience-to-end-the-iraq-war

The subsequent Global Call days of action are specified below.

THE ACTIONS

Some would participate in legal demonstrations while others would stage sit-ins, die-ins, and other nonviolent methods of blocking "business as usual" at government buildings or installations (including military bases and recruiting centers) or at corporate offices of war profiteers in the U.S., Great Britain, and other countries which are taking part in the deadly and unjust military occupation of Iraq. For these governments, "business as usual" is the business of violence, death, and exploitation. It must be blocked and stopped by responsible citizens.

Peace-makers in countries whose governments are not at war in Iraq could consider U.S. or British embassies, consulates, military bases, or appropriate corporate offices as sites for legal demonstrations and nonviolent civil resistance.

EXAMPLES OF POSSIBLE ACTIONS

A group could sit down in the entrance of a U.S. or British government installation in any country, refusing to leave when the U.S. Marines or other security agents order them to disperse. They could insist on having a meeting with the ambassador or the officer in charge of the military base, or they could wait for a clear statement from Washington, D.C., or from London of the date when all their soldiers will be withdrawn from Iraq.
If those doing civil resistance are not able to enter U.S. or British property, they could sit down on the street or sidewalk in front of the building or base, or they could lie down in a "die-in" representing the victims of the war. In any case those involved in civil resistance might be carried out of the building or away from the entrance and arrested by the police.
We invite people to think of other creative forms of civil resistance and to share these ideas with us so that we can pass them along to others.(For instance, people in the U.S. might consider the local offices of their U.S. Senators and Representatives among the potential sites for non-violent action.)

All of this could happen in the presence of the mass media and in conjunction with a large legal demonstration very close to the same site.The impact of these actions on public opinion, the mass media, and governments would come from their sheer quantity and geographical diversity , on the same day, as well as from the clarity of their message and the disciplined nonviolence of the tactics. As this invitation spreads through the internet and other media, we expect that hundreds of actions could be held in scores of countries around the world, all with the same purpose--to demand an end to the military occupation of Iraq.

A SUSTAINED, GROWING CAMPAIGN

The second INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be May 1, May Day, the International Day of the Worker -- an occasion for massive demonstrations all over the world where working class struggle is celebrated and kept alive. The impact of the war on the poor and working class of the world could be emphasized.

The third INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be August 6-9, 2007, the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan-- to demand an end to U.S. proliferation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction and an end to the U.S. state terrrorism in Iraq.

The fourth INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be Sept. 11, 2007, the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S.-- to commemorate and deplore that horrible act of violence (as well as the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup in Chile) and to denounce the terrorist violence which the U.S. government is inflicting on Iraq under the false pretense of the "war on terrorism."

The fifth INTERNATIONAL DAY OF NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ will be Dec. 10, 2007, International Human Rights Day.

PATH TO ACTION

If you are interested in discussing this proposal with us, please contact: mull@ibw.com.ni (It is possible that by making this initial contact you may be putting yourself in some legal jeopardy.)
If you express interest in implementing this proposal, we could put you in touch with others from your country, region, or city who have also expressed interest to explore possibilities for collaboration. The rest is up to you! We can also help with international publicity, as explained below.

The Number One message of every action would be: END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ. This emphasis must be clear if the many actions in many places are to have a profound impact on the public and governments. Local or national organizers may wish to present one or two related issues or demands, with the main focus staying on ENDING THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.

SPREADING THE WORD

We ask individuals, groups, and organizations around the globe to endorse this Call and to send it out to their mailing lists and to the media. Groups which are not committed to participating in the actions of civil resistance could simply transmit our Call.

Some persons and organizations may choose to organize legal demonstrations (without any component of civil resistance) on the days we have proposed. We would request that they inform us of the legal demonstration they are planning, and that they inform their local media. We will also inform international media about the actions planned.

As for those who are planning civil resistance in their locality, if you are proposing this publicly prior to your action, please inform your local or national media and please let us know so that we can inform the international media.
If you are not making this public before your action, please inform us as soon as the action takes place so that we can report it as one of many actions in various parts of the world. We will do our best to publicize your action internationally as one of the Global Call actions occurring simultaneously in various parts of the world.

Thanks for your kind consideration of this proposal.

Sincerely,

(The original Signers are from 16 countries. In some cases organizational affiliations are for personal identification purposes only.)

Gary Ashbeck
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
New York, NY; USA
Catholic priest, author, lecturer, peace activist

Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Catholic priest; Founder, School of the Americas Watch

Father Ernesto Cardenal
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; poet, sculptor, former Minister of Culture of Nicaragua

Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga
Sao Felix de Araguaia, BRAZIL
Retired bishop of Catholic diocese of Sao Felix
Theologian, author

Christian Base Communities
SPAIN

Patricia Clark
Nyack, NY, USA
Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Comite Oscar Romero de Madrid
Madrid, SPAIN

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Belfast, NORTHERN IRELAND
1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Co-founder of Peace People

Susan Crane
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Father John Dear, S.J.
Cerrillos, New Mexico, USA
Catholic priest, peace activist, author

Rev. Richard Deats
Nyack, NY, USA
Former Executive Secretary and Fellowship Editor, Fellowship of Reconciliation

Marie Dennis
Washington, D.C., USA
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Pax Christi International

Father Miguel d'Escoto, M.M.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest; Foreign Minister of Nicaragua 1979-1990;Proponent of Nonviolent Evangelical Insurrection against Imperialism

Xavier Dias
editor of ADHIKAR, a monthly Hindi bulletin for communities affected by mining.
Ranchi, Jharkhand, INDIA

Dorothy Day Catholic Worker
Washington, D.C., USA

Jim and Shelley Douglass
Birmingham, Alabama; USA
Mary's House Catholic Worker

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Detroit, Michigan; USA
Auxiliary Bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Pastor of urban parish, author, lecturer, peace activist

Father G. Simon Harak, S.J.
New York, New York, USA
Catholic priest; Anti-Militarism Coordinator, War Resisters League

Jennifer Harbury and Sister Dianna Ortiz
Washington, D.C., USA
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International

Hartford Catholic Worker Community
Hartford, CT, USA

Father Francois Houtart
Louvain la Neuve, BELGIUM
Catholic priest; Prof. Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain;Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum

Jonah House Community
Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Judith Kelly
Arlington, Virginia; USA
Mid-Atlantic Regional Associate, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service;Prisoner of Conscience in Movement Against School of the Americas

Kathy Kelly
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Voices for Creative Non-Violence

Eric LeCompte
Washington, DC, USA
SOA Watch Event Coordinator

Madrid Committee of Solidarity with Black Africa
Madrid, SPAIN

Danny Malec
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call to Action

Father Regino Martinez, S.J.
Dajabon, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Catholic priest; Coordinator of Border Solidarity

Liz McAlister
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Jonah House

Edel Mihm
Saarbruecken, GERMANY
Journalist

Father Uriel Molina Oliu
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest;theologian, founder and former director of Centro Antonio Valdivieso, Managua

Father Ismael Moreno, S.J.
El Progreso, Yoro, HONDURAS
Catholic priest;Director of the Reflection, Research, and Communication Team (ERIC)

Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.
Managua, NICARAGUA
Catholic priest working with Christian Base Communities; writer, peace activist

Mary Novak
Voluntown, Connecticut, USA
Global Call to Action

Michael OGrady, S.J.
Cambridge, Mass., USA

Adolfo Perez Esquivel
ARGENTINA
1980 Nobel Peace Laureate

Harold Pinter
London, ENGLAND
2005 Nobel Literature Laureate

Ted Schmidt
Toronto, Ont., CANADA
Editor, Catholic New Times

Ramon Sepulveda Velez
PUERTO RICO
Community Organizer

Cindy Sheehan
Berkeley, California, USA
Peace Mom, mother of Army Spc. Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004
Founder of Gold Star Families for Peace
Cindy camped at George Bush's ranch in August, 2005, demanding to speak with the president.

Joanne Sheehan
Norwich, Connecticut, USA
Chair of War Resisters InternationalWar Resisters League/New England coordinator

Father Eugene Toland, M.M.
BOLIVIA

Jose Maria Vigil
PANAMA
theologian

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen
Department of Peace and Development Research
Goteberg, SWEDEN

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director, The Shalom Center
Philadelphia, Pa., USA

The Rev. Phil Wheaton
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
Episcopal priest
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity-Zapatistas of Washington, DC

Workers Vanguard Communities
SPAIN

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Detroit, Michigan, USA
United Methodist pastor, writer
Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education

Father Francisco Xammar, S.J.
Tarragona, SPAIN
Catholic priest;International Christian Secretariate of Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America (SICSAL)

Celeste Zappala
Philadelphia, Pa., USA
Mother of Sgt Sherwood Baker, killed in action in Iraq on April 26, 2004j
Member, Gold Star Families
United Methodist

END