May - June 2000 Newsletter:

Volunteer Help Needed!

The Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice lives on the help of volunteers. And we can always use more!
Here are some needs we recognize at this point in our history:

Proof Reader: For years, Tobi Hanna-Davies has used her sharp eyes and understanding of good form to proof read our Newsletter before it is finalized. With her retirement, we need another good proof reader who will help us in the last days before our bi-monthly Newsletter goes to press.

Monthly Calendar Editor: Every month we prepare a calendar of coming events to send to The Observer to congregations, and to other news venues. It�s another task that Tobi has handled. But it is one a faithful volunteer could do, relieving our staff of an important job.

Grant Writer: We are eager to get more help in writing grant proposals. Have you experience to give?

Envelope Stamper: Here�s one you could do at home! We need our return address, and sometimes other information stamped onto envelopes for various mailings.

ICPJ Sales Days At Farmers� Market

To provide an ICPJ face to the public, and to sell some of the peace and justice items we have gathered from years at the Art Fair and Alternative Holiday Fairs, we are planning a sales table for some Saturday�s at the Ann Arbor Farmers� Market. Our volunteer sales coordinator, Lynn Meadows, will be in charge, but we need others who would enjoy being friendly and informative helpers at the table. May 20 and 27, and June 3 and 10 are the Saturday�s being considered. Call the office (663-1870) or Lynn ( ) to offer your services. It�s a great way to meet people and make them aware ICPJ is here.

    With the help of Origami specialist Betty Baird and others, a Peace Crane Origami Party is planned for May . Betty is an excellent teacher, so newcomers to Origami are as welcome as experienced hands. Everyone is welcome! The more people who come, the greater the fun and benefit. 7:30pm at ICPJ Office.
    Our hope is both to train more people in making these lovely peace symbols, and to get strings of colorful peace cranes ready to be offered for sale at our summer Art Fair booth. They will not only be a bright witness to our message of Peace, but can be a meaningful and profitable sale item to help support ICPJ. RSVP 663-1870

1 Thanks to Brown Chapel AME for generous hospitality!

2 Children enjoyed stories and cooperative musical chairs.

3 The following members were confirmed for service on our Steering Committee. The Committee meets on the second Tuesday of each month ( 11 to 1) to plan and supervise the overall work of the Council and its various task groups. Members will welcome your suggestions and concerns. All meetings of the Committee are open and visitors are welcome.

Officers for 2000

• Mary Anne Perrone '01- (Pres.) St. Thomas Catholic Church
• Deacon Richard Garland '02- (VP) Second Baptist Church, A2
• Rev. William Ingraham '02 - (Sec.)
• Church of the Good Shepherd,UCC
• Nancy Hultquist �03* (Treas.) Peace & Justice Community
• George Papadapoulos (Co-Treas)

• Ala Fa'ik �03 Islamic Center of Ann Arbor
• Rev. LaVerne Gill �03 Webster United Church of Christ
• Rev. Alfred E. Johnson �03 Bethel AME Church
• Rev. Stephen Miller �03 Memorial Christian Church
• Adam Ruiz �03 St. Francis Catholic Church
• Jan Wright �03 Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
• Derek Yip-Hoi �03 St. Mary Student Parish
• Shirley Brown '02 Brown Chapel AME Church
• Rebecca Kanner '02 Beth Israel Congregation
• Farouq Shafie '02 Moslem Arab-American Palestinian Community
• Amy Rosenberg �01 Jewish Community
• Rev. Julianne Smeck '01 St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Ypsilanti
• Jeff Surfus �00 1st Unitarian-Universalist

The Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice has a long history of working for peace and justice on a variety of fronts. Our supporters, volunteers and staff think that is important! But it also costs money. As ICPJ sets out to find a new Director, it has been a major concern. We have enjoyed the services of a Director who has been able and willing to invest far more than the contracted 20 hours a week--and to do it for what is barely above the Living Wage level for Ann Arbor. With today�s job market, offering a $10,000 salary for 20 hours of work a week (it honestly requires more than 30 hours a week) has severe limitations!

Household and Congregational Support

Last year 349 households contributed over $27,000 to our general budget and task force programs. (Our Newsletter reaches 2030 homes.) 34 religious congregations provided over 14,860. The third major source of our funds is the program and events sponsored by our five task forces.

The Budget for 2000

Our Steering Committee seeks to be open and fully accountable about our finances. Our operating budget has been adopted as follows for this year:

Income Expectations:

 

Congregational support of General Budget	$14,500
Individual and Family Donors to General Budget	28,400
Business Benefit Days	500
Sales	3,500
Task Force Program/Events	34,000
General ICPJ Events	2,500
Fiduciary Services	1,000
Miscellaneous	100
Total Income Expectation....	$84,500

Expenses Anticipated:

 

Office Supplies	$1,300
Office Equipment/Maintenance	1,700
Postage	5,500
Printing	2.000
Telephone/Fax	1,100
Sales	2.000
Task Force Program/Events	25,000
General ICPJ Events	1,200
Rent	3,400
Staff Salaries, FICA, Health, etc.	41,000
Travel & Training	200
Miscellaneous	100
Total Expenses Anticipated...	$84,500

Increasing ICPJ�s Support

Our Steering Committee has recognized a need to significantly increase support for ICPJ. A small task force led by Kim Groome and Vickie Wellman has begun plans for approaching individual and family supporters. Another is working on congregational support.

• If you would be willing to work on either of these groups, please call the office (663-1870).
• If you have not been supporting ICPJ, do you count it important enough to begin now?
• If you believe ICPJ and have been a supporter, does its deserve more of your own support.
• Can you be a voice in your congregation, advocating for its increased support to ICPJ?

For this crucial year, and for the years ahead, ICPJ needs to grow a larger support basis!

Seeing the Rest of the World
--by Miller Tinkerhess, ICPJ Volunteer

Recently, my family and I went to Nicaragua for two weeks. It wasn�t exactly a vacation that we were going for. We wanted to see what life is like there. I expected to see it a lot poorer than the United States, but besides that, I had no idea what it would be like. Nicaragua, Honduras and Haiti are the three poorest countries in the western hemisphere.

Two weeks wasn�t a long time to get to understand what most people life like. We also did not stay with a family there, we stayed in the Quaker House in Managua. But from what I did see, life for most people is very different from what life in the United States is like. There is little electricity in most homes. Probably just one lightbulb, and maybe a TV. There were some wood stoves for cooking.

Be being poor, thought, the people in Nicaragua are able to live very simply. I wish that people here could learn to live without destroying the world, and there may be something to learn from people in Nicaragua. If I were poor and lived in Nicaragua, I can imagine wanting a big house and a car and a computer, though.

We also went to Honduras for a few days, which was a lot like Nicaragua except that the roads didn�t have loads of potholes everywhere. People told us that this was because of the US military bases in Honduras. They needed good roads to get the Contras over to Nicaragua during the war.

When I returned to the United states, I felt like I was coming back to the richest, most wasteful place on the planet. I had seen the rest of the world in Nicaragua, and I realized that the United States is the exception to the world.

Volunteers Needed For Rebuilding In Nicaragua and Honduras

Church World Service, our CROP Hunger Walk partner, is recruiting teams of volunteers to help central American communities rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. They hope to find 400-500 volunteer teams to work side-by-side with residents in reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. Volunteers travel at their own expense. For information or to volunteer, call 1-888-283-6113, or call our Michigan CWS office at 1-888-297-2767.

Coffee With Soul

Indigenous people in the Mexican state of Chiapas have formed a coffee cooperative whose products are now available in Ann Arbor. Their coffee is shade-grown, pesticide-free, and on its way to an organic label. According to tasters the quality is excellent.

Ann Arbor�s Dr. Jerry Walden and Julie Tiplady, making trips to Chiapas to offer medical services, have become acquainted with the project and with the suffering of the indigenous peoples at the hand of the Mexican government. Coffee is one of their few sources of income, but the traditional "coyote" middlemen have taken advantage of the growers for their own profit. 1500 growers have formed the cooperative to better serve their own needs.

Walden and Tiplady are eager to get people here to try the product and help the people of Chiapas. They are also seeking further partners to sell or seek other outlets for the coffee. Currently the coffee, with a striking Mayan face on the label, is available at Food and Drug Mart (Stadium & Packard), White Market (William near State), People Food Coop (Fourth Ave.), and Shaman Drum Bookstore (State St.), as well as at the Walden home. For more information about the coffee or the growers, contact Tiplady and Walden at 973-2345 or by email at <jswalden@umich.edu>.

Global Village or Global Pillage?
How people around the world are challenging corporate globalization

Ed Asner narrates this inspiring new video (26 min.) featuring:

• Consumer advocate Ralph Nader
• Anti-sweatshop activist Charles Kernaghan
• AFL-CIO economist Thea Lee
• Human Rights advocate Loretta Ross
• Anti-apartheid leader Dennis Brutus


Abby Schlaff and Eric Lormand, two of the leaders of our local Latin America work who were part of the April 16 protest in DC, and Claire Lussier, just back from a week in jail in DC for her nonviolent protest, explain how the World Bank/IMF, sweatshops, environmental devastation, etc., are intimately connected with the US Army School of the Americas

Tueday, May 9, 7:30 pm
First Baptist Church, Memorial Lounge
512 E. Huron St. (enter on Washington)

Jim Kalafus & Ann Ellingson at the Michigan Union steps on Day 13 of our "Close it Down FAST", part of the nationwide fast to close the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). Fasters and supporters passed out 250 leaflets/day on the atrocities committed by SOA grads. Over 14 days, that's 3500! At least 4 dozen people wrote to Senator Levin to close the SOA, in response to our evening Film & Lecture Series. (An aide told us just 30-50 postcards make a Senator take an issue more seriously.)

PLEASE JOIN THE LETTERS TO LEVIN CAMPAIGN: The Honorable Carl Levin, US Senate, Washington DC 20510. Write to Senator Spencer Abraham at the same address if you can do more, and ask your loved ones outside of MI to write to their Senators. THANK YOU!
 

A Faster's Reflections

I was one of the people who drank only juice and water for all 14 days of the Close it Down FAST. It was much easier than I had thought it would be. I have fasted before, though never for this long, and every time, I realized how little I know about being hungry. There is all the difference in the world between being chronically malnourished, constantly hungry, knowing that you will be for a very long time; and giving up food for two weeks, knowing that when the two weeks are up, you can eat anything you want.

The other thing I learned, the lesson that I really want to pass on, is how powerful we all are. I have a tendency to compulsive eating, to start looking for something to eat whenever things go wrong. For two weeks I didn't eat anything, just because I had made a decision that I was going to do the fast. It made me realize how much I can do if I put my mind to it. I do not mean to imply that I can close the School of the Americas by myself. But if we, all of us, commit our collective minds, our community, to abolishing nuclear weapons and the death penalty; to halting environmental destruction; to closing the School of the Americas and ending the arms trade; to overthrowing structural violence and injustice in all its forms, we can do it. It is a long struggle, and we may not even be ready to think about how long of a struggle it is. Because it is so long, we need to start soon, like today. Two places to start are in collective actions: protests, letter-writing campaigns, educational outreach, and in our personal lives: the things we buy, the foods we eat, the ways we interact with the people we know.

Training Manuals: In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the SOA. These manuals advocated interrogation techniques such as torture, execution and blackmail; as well as spying on and infiltrating human rights and youth groups, and viewing anyone who supports "union organizing and recruiting" or who "sympathizes with demonstrations or strikes" as a "target to be neutralized."

So-called "free trade" pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) accelerate the global "race to the bottom," causing workers wages to fall and "export processing zones" --sweatshops--to multiply.

Mexico: SOA "Muscle" Used to Enforce NAFTA & Destroy Unions Hours after NAFTA went into effect, Mexican indigenous workers and Union organizers rose up to say NO! The Mexican military responded swiftly and forcefully to squash their voices. Shortly thereafter, Mexico became the largest client at the SOA. Since this time, at least 13 high-level officers, who are SOA graduates, have been implicated in human rights abuses and murders in the States of Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca.

Colombia: Over the past decade more than 1/3 of all unionists assassinated in the world were Colombians The Colombian government accepts Decree No. 180, which labels all unionists as "terrorists." More than 10,000 Colombian soldiers have been trained at the SOA, with chilling results--the chainsaw massacre of 107 villagers, the massacre of 43 mostly children, the mutilation and dismemberment of at least 40, all with SOA grad leadership.

"Economic oppression and military repression are flip sides of the same coin. The economic rape of the poor that accompanies globalization could not stand without the repressive military apparatus that brutalizes people who rise up to resist. Training at the SOA provides the military muscle for corporate interests to wage an ongoing war against the poor. Those who oppose the globalization of greed and those who work to end US training of repressive foreign armies are joined in one effort." -SOA Watch

Plan to come with us to Fort Benning, Georgia, November 18-19, 2000, for the Nonviolent Demonstration to Close the SOA. And please write to your Senators.

Arab Americans Welcome Congressman�s Report Iraq
--Press Release by Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
 

Washington, DC, Apr. 24 - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the nation�s largest grassroots Arab-American organization, applauds US Rep. Tony Hall (D-OH) and joins him in calling for a major effort to ease the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Rep. Hall toured hospitals, schools, clinics and water-treatment facilities in Iraq from April 16-20. He is the first Member of Congress to visit Iraq since the war ended in 1990.

At a Capitol Hill press conference today, Rep. Hall called for urgent steps to ease the humanitarian crisis he said he "saw with my own eyes" Rep. Hall said that "Iraq�s people are suffering terribly, and it was heartbreaking to see their pain firsthand. I left Iraq convinced that a great deal more could be done to address its people�s humanitarian needs, and I am determined to do all I can to persuade the US government to take those steps." Rep. Hall said that in many instances the UN Committee which oversees all imports to Iraq blocks major shipments of urgently needed supplies because of concern over a few items. He suggested the use of a "line-item" system which would allow the bulk of any given shipment to proceed to Iraq. He said that "if the UN Steering Committee�s top priority is humanitarian, as I believe it should be, there would be a way to quickly resolve many of the causes of Iraq�s difficulties."

Rep. Hall also called for a major scientific study of the causes of the increased incidence of cancers, especially leukemia, in Iraq since the Gulf War, saying "I hope our government will support a scientific study by the World Health Organization of the effects of depleted uranium and other potential pollutants on Iraqi civilians, who are suffering very high rates of leukemia."

ADC President Hala Maksoud said, "We applaud the courageous journey and admirable moral position taken by Congressman Hall. Reaching out to the Iraqi people and acknowledging and working to alleviate their plight is the yeast for a future of understanding between the American and Iraqi peoples. Such courageous moral leadership will constitute the grounds on which reconciliation can be built."

Note: On April, Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) and 25 members of Congress, with the backing of the American Public Health Association, sent a letter to Secretary of State Albright asking to meet with her to discuss modifying the US sanctions policy on Iraq.
 

--A note from Jim Sweeton of the Middle East Task Force, written from Amman, Jordan as his party was enroute to Iraq, April 25, 2000

Greetings from Amman, Jordan, and a local "internet cafe." We are all waiting in Amman (since our arrival at 3:30 am Amman time on Monday; this is EDT+7) for our Iraqi visas. Once we get them (hopefully tomorrow) we will make the eight-hour trip to Baghdad by car.

Our plan is to visit hospitals and schools, and certain government agencies, and mostly listen to the Iraqis we contact. I am told that we won't see much damage from the US bombing, since the Iraqi government either fixes things rapidly (like bridges) or doesn't allow foreigners to see the damage unless it is "constructive" like the women's shelter in Baghdad. We will be staying in hotels and eating in restaurants, and generally trying to do as much as we can in the week that we will be on Iraqi soil. We return to Jordan on Wednesday, 3 May, for a 3:30am return flight, Thursday, 4 May.

Our party consists of Bill Thomson, a fellow ICPJ'er, Henry Herskowitz, and me from Ann Arbor; two people from Denver, and two men from New York. The New Yorkers are from a Sufi congregation that raised $30,000 for charitable work in Iraq. We will be meeting up with several people who are already in Baghdad. These two people are officials from LIFE for Relief and Development, the Southfield, MI, organization that is sponsoring our trip. LIFE is one of 12 organizations world-wide that are permitted by the Iraqi government to bring in medical and educational supplies, and the only organization in the US with this approval. Already in Iraq are two trucks bearing goods from LIFE. One contains pharmacuticals (or however it is spelled...); the other is full of pencils!

Yesterday we visited Mount Nebo, the overlook where Moses reputedly viewed Canaan (modern Palestine), the land of milk and honey that he was never to visit. It was quite impressive, and a short drive to the Dead Sea. Henry, a new friend and fellow traveller, took a dip in the thick, clear, lifeless waters, and only then believed what I told him about being able to sit in the water...

My only mishap this trip was in dropping my camera, giving it an excuse to malfunction. I reluctantly purchased a lesser camera in Amman, so that I could continue to document the trip. The new camera is much lighter and smaller, and so potentially less droppable.

We will be back in Michigan late in the afternoon of 4 May. I am already looking forward to that.

As salamu aleichem!

--Jim

Last night around midnight, three houses belonging to Palestinian families were demolished in an area of the Issawiyeh village that falls with Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank. The buildings belonged to the families of Mohammad Dirbas, Omar Dari and Yousef Muheisen. According to LAW:

Mohammad Dirbas, 51, an unemployed father of 6, stated that he built the 26m2 building a week ago, on his 4-dunum plot, for agricultural purposes. Yesterday, 17 April 2000, he was notified by the Israeli Planning Council that he had 4 hours to demolish the building himself. Dirbas appointed a lawyer who managed to delay the demolition for just one day and secure agreement for a meeting to take place between the lawyer and representatives from the Planning council. Dirbas left at midnight; when he returned this morning the demolition had already been carried out.

Omar Dari, 44, the sole supporter of a family of 12, stated that he had built a 25m2 building for agricultural purposes. This too was demolished in the early hours of this morning.

27 year-old Yousef Muheisen, the supporter of a family of 5, stated that he had received a demolition notification 2 weeks ago on the 16 m2 construction that he had built in preparation for building a house to shelter his family. Today the construction was turned to rubble.

The demolitions occurred in an especially sensitive area, just north of Jerusalem, where is massive Israeli construction and land expropriation in order (1) to close off any corridor between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, thus effectively dividing the West Bank in two and contributing to its cantonization; and (2) to continue constructing contiguous Israeli settlements that both "secure" the northern periphery of the city and separate the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem from the wider Palestinian society of the West Bank. As has been true since Oslo and before, the demolitions represent Israel's attempt to decide the outcomes of the negotiations through unilateral acts "on the ground." The demolitions come as the Palestinians demand control of areas closer to Jerusalem in the framework of the upcoming third withdrawal.

As usual, it is the ordinary people who suffer from being played as pawns in power games. All Mohammad Dirbas, Omar Dari, Yousef Muheisen and their families wanted was to build a home on their own property -- a basic human right. The demolition of their homes is especially worrying since it represents a resurgence of demolitions after several months of "quiet." It certainly raises concerns about Israel's intentions as it tries to restart a "stalled" peace process. More than anything, house demolitions expose the gap between the political peace process and all the rhetoric that it generates and the daily war against the Palestinians on the ground.

Ed. Note: Amnesty International reported last December that Israel has made about 16,700 Palestinians homeless by destroying at least 2,650 houses since 1987.

Make Your Voice Heard NOW On Iraq Sanctions
 

Detroit�s Bishop Thomas Gumbleton will be testifying the first week of May before a Congressional hearing on US policy toward Iraq. He will be delivering a letter signed by many Michigan residents which reads in part:

"We represent a growing number of people and organizations throughout our home state of Michigan and across this country who are appalled by the State Department�s continued defense of a policy that has contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children. We represent relitgious, labor, human rights, environmental, governmental, anti-hunger, peace and civic organizations which have been moved by the unjust suffering of the Iraqi people and are calling all people of conscience to speak out against the current economic sanctions. We come from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, but we stand united in our belief that it is wrong to ask innocent children to pay the price for disagreements between nations. We ask you today, "Why does the State Department cling to tightly to a policy that has failed to bring about any democratic changes in Saddam Hussein�s regime while strangling the economy and starving the people of Iraq?"

There is mounting concern concerning the sanctions policy. NOW is a good time to let your voice be heard at the White House, the State Department and the Congress
 

 
Household Average Average Percent

Income Share Of Share of After-Tax After-Tax Change in

Group by All Income All Income Income(est.) Income(est.) After-Tax

Quintile 1977 1999 1977 1999 Income(est.)

Lowest Quintile 5.7% 4.2% $10,.000 $8,800 -12.0%

Second Quintile 11.5% 9.7% $22,100 $20,000 -9.5%

Third Quintile 16.4% 14.7% $32,400 $31,400 -3.1%

Fourth Quintile 22.8% 21.3% $42,600 $45.100 +5.9%

Highest Quintile 44.2% 50.4% $74,000 $102.300 +38.2%

Source: Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, cited by David Cay Johnston, "Gap Between the Rich and Poor Substantially Wider," New York Times, September 5, 1999, 14.

Make A Difference! Organize an OFFERING OF LETTERS at your Congregation or School
 

Post or pass out some information such as that printed above. Larger print, single sheet versions are available at the ICPJ office. Provide addresses, paper, envelopes. Ask your people to write Senators and/or Representatives to urge support of the the Hunger Relief Act. To help you, we have a detailed Offering of Letters Kit and an accompanying video at the ICPJ Office. Come check it out!

Get it on your calendar! Make sure the date is reserved on the calendar of your congregation, school or group!

Washtenaw County CROP Hunger Walk 2000
Sunday, October 8, 2000
St. Francis Catholic Church

In 1999 we raised over $65,000. It is making a difference. But hunger needs continue to crop up. Can we do as well or even better for our 26th Walk? Dare we do less?

Does your group want to know the facts on hunger in the US and around the world? And about what can be done? We�ve got great help for you! Our ICPJ Library now includes:

A Program To End Hunger, The new annual report from Bread for the World. Chapter titles include: "World Hunger Can Be Ended", "Ending Hunger in the United States", "What Developed Countries and International Agencies Can do", What Developing Countries Can Do", "Transforming the Politics of Hunger", and "What You Can Do". It�s a wealth of basic information. We also have the informative annual reports from the past two years.

City Council Adopts Resolution Supporting Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

The Sunflower - symbol of the international nuclear weapons abolition movement.

Thanks to the efforts of Peace & Environmental Coalition for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (PECANW), Ann Arbor�s city council voted on April 2, 2000 to approve the following resolution:
 

WHEREAS the cold war between the US and the former Soviet Union ended 10 years ago and the Russian people are now considered our friends; and

WHEREAS there are still 24,000 nuclear weapons, thousands of which are on hair trigger alert, posing a threat of total destruction to life on the planet regardless of whether people live in New York, Washington, DC or Ann Arbor, Michigan; and

WHEREAS since the development of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States has spent $5.8 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons programs, an amount equal to the national debt; burdening future generations of An Arborites with cold war costs; and

WHEREAS merely maintaining nuclear arsenals places humanity at risk through dangers to the environment and through continued misuse of resources better spent on other pressing needs such as education children, curing diseases, feeding hungry people, sheltering the homeless, cleaning up pollution, sustaining our environment, and repairing and maintaining infrastructure; and

WHEREAS the existence of nuclear weapons encourages other nations to develop their own weapons of mass destruction, either nuclear or biological and there is the likelihood that terrorists or criminals may obtain such weapons; and

WHEREAS citizens of the US have a responsibility to lead the world in addressing this unresolved problem of nuclear weapon stockpiles now while waiting for our national leaders to handle these matters without pressure from local citizens only ensures that the nuclear weapons regime will continue unimpeded; and

WHEREAS groups of local citizens are already working together here in the Ann Arbor are having formed the Peace and Environmental Coalition for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons to promote the elimination of all these weapons; therefore be it

RESOLVED that Ann Arbor City Council urges that the United States embrace a policy to abolish nuclear weapons and work with other governments for a treaty to that end; and be it further

RESOLVED that Ann Arbor City Council shall officially communicate this resolution to the members of Michigan�s congressional delegation who represent Ann Arbor and to President Clinton; and be it further

RESOLVED that Ann Arbor City Council encourages citizens to work within their organizations and groups for the adoption of similar statements supporting the abolition of nuclear weapons; and be it further

RESOLVED that Ann Arbor City Council will work to encourage other municipalities and townships to adopt and communicate similar resolutions to their national representatives.

Comment on Third World Debt
by Noam Chomsky

In a recent forum, Chomsky was asked:

"What do you say to the argument that the countries who borrowed from the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (WB/IMF) have no right to ask for debt forgiveness (nor should anyone ask on their behalf) and should be held responsible for their debts like you or anyone else would? And to what extent is the first world responsible for the debt crisis? I guess in a nutshell I would like to

better understand where the culpability of my own gov't lies (US), and where that stops and the culpability of third world govts starts."

The simplest answer to the argument that countries who borrowed from the WB/IMF have no right to ask for debt forgiveness is that the presupposition is false, so the argument is vacuous. E.g., the "country" of Indonesia didn't borrow; it's US-backed rulers did. The debt, which is huge, is held by about 200 people (probably less), the dictator's family and their cronies. So those people have no right to ask for debt forgiveness -- and in fact, don't have to. Their wealth (much of it in Western banks) probably suffices to cover the debt, and more.

Of course, this response assumes the capitalist principle. According to this principle, if I borrow money from you, use it to buy a Mercedes and a mansion, and send most of the money to a bank in Zurich, and then you come and ask me to repay the loan, I'm not supposed to be able to say: "Sorry, I don't want to pay you back, take it from the folks in the downtown slums." And you're not supposed to say: "I got the high yields from this risky investment, but now that the borrower doesn't want to pay it back, the risk should be transferred to other folks in my country through socialization of the debt......

It would suffice to largely eliminate the debt. Of course, that principle is unacceptable to the rich and powerful, who prefer the operative "capitalist" principle of socializing risk and cost. So the risk is shifted to northern taxpayers (via the IMF) and the costs are transferred to poor peasants in Indonesia, who never borrowed the money.

The argument that "their country" borrowed the money so that they are responsible surpasses cynicism, and need not be considered. In fact, it doesn't even stand up under international law. When the US conquered Cuba in 1898 to prevent it from liberating itself from Spain (what is called "the liberation of Cuba from Spanish rule"), it cancelled Cuba's debt to Spain on the reasonable grounds that the debt had been forced on the people of Cuba without their consent. That doctrine, called "odious debt," was later upheld in international arbitration, with US initiative.

The current US executive-director at the IMF, international economist Karen Lissakers, pointed out in a book a few years ago that if this principle were applied to third world debt, it would mostly disappear. But that would mean that the capitalist principle would have to be observed: borrowers have the responsibility, lenders take the risk. And that plainly won't do, when the concentration of power makes it possible to socialize cost and risk.

On first-world responsibility for the debt crisis, it is huge -- and in this case, the responsibility extends to citizens, insofar as their countries make possible some degree of participation in policy formation, and they do. The current debt crisis can be traced back to policies of the IMF and World Bank encouraging lending/borrowing to recycle petrodollars in the 1970s. Their very confident recommendations that this was just great for all concerned continued up to the moment of the Mexican default in 1982, when the system threatened to crash, and the same institutions stepped in to socialize cost and debt. Another factor was the sharp rise in interest rates in the US under the late-Carter/Reaganite policies of a form of "structural adjustment" here, undertaken with no concern, of course, for the fact that this would impose a crushing burden on third world debtors, as it did. Another factor, of course, is Western support for the murderers, gangsters, and robbers who borrowed the money for themselves and, naturally, don't want to pay it back, when they can get the burden shifted to the poor by the same institutions that created the debt in the first place.

First world responsibility is enormous, so much so that if honesty were conceivable, those who supported folks like Suharto in Indonesia, drove the lending-borrowing craze (then bailing out the banks), and sharply increased interest rates as part of the further shift of power to the rich and privileged in the US (and that's not all), should be paying the debt themselves.

The culpability of third world governments -- say, Suharto in Indonesia -- is enormous, but remember that these governments are western clients, outposts virtually, whose task is to open their countries to foreign plunder, repress the population (by huge massacres if necessary), and enrich themselves if they feel like it (that's not a responsibility, just an incidental benefit accorded them). Suharto was "our kind of guy," as the Clinton administration put it, as long as he fulfilled this role. Much the same hold for other third world governments. Those that try to follow another course typically get smashed. E.g., Nicaragua has one of the highest debts in the world. The Sandinistas were doubtless corrupt, though not by preferred US standards, but that's not the reason for the debt: rather, the fact that the US waged a brutal and murderous war to get them back into line.

Note again that culpability of our governments (and their institutions, like the WB/IMF) are also our culpability, to the extent that we have the capacity to influence policy, and don't.

Noam Chomsky

The IMF & World Bank As Instruments of National Destruction

Portions of an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa by Jared Israel (4-16-00). More of the text is available at the ICPJ office or at <JaredI@aol.com>

Chossudovsky: When an IMF mission goes into a country and requires the destruction of social and economic institutions as a condition for lending money - this is very similar to the physical destruction caused by NATO bombing. The IMF will order the closing down of hospitals, schools and factories. That's of course more cost effective than bombing those hospitals, schools and factories, as they did in Yugoslavia, but the ultimate result is very similar: the destruction of the country.

The IMF has what is called the MAI - the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. It's the ultimate investment treaty. Signing leads to the economic destruction of the targeted country. Well, really, war is simply the MAI of last resort.

And there's a good deal of coordination between the IMF and NATO. You saw it in Kosovo. The IMF and the World Bank had set up a postwar economic plan including free market reforms well before the onset of bombing. They work together. If a country refuses IMF intervention, NATO steps in, or NATO and various covert agencies, and they create the proper conditions for IMF programs to be imposed.

Israel: Very sharp point.

Chossudovsky: The countries that accept the IMF, like Bulgaria and Romania, they may not get bombed but they are destroyed with the pen. In Bulgaria the IMF implemented the most drastic reforms, IMF medicine, which decimated social conditions - pensions slashed, factories closed, dumping of cheap finished goods, elimination of free medical care and transportation services and so on.

And it's not just NATO. We see that in Central Asia and the Caucuses. Hand in hand with the imposition of IMF and World Bank reforms and privatization program we have not only NATO but also CIA covert intelligence operations the institutions of war and economic management interface with one another at a global level.

So right now various countries are being softened up with regional conflicts that are financed overtly and covertly by the Western elite. The KLA is just one example of an externally financed insurgency. You see these manipulated conflicts especially wherever there are strategic pipelines, and they are linked to the drug trade and the CIA, covertly, then openly linked to NATO and official US foreign policy, and finally to the IMF, the World Bank and regional banks and private investors. Links in a chain.

Let's categorize these global institutions: you've got the United Nations system and peace keeping; they play a role and they are interfacing with NATO as well. Then you've got the IMF and the World Bank, and the regional development banks like the ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and so on. In Europe it's the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. These are the main arms.

Sometimes war creates the conditions, and then the economic institutions come in and pick up the pieces. Or conversely the IMF itself does the destabilizing, as they did in Indonesia. They insisted on cutting off transfer payments to the various states in the federation. Now that fractures a country like Indonesia which has 2,000 islands with a system of local governments. It is the geography of the bloody place. So they leave these islands to their own devices. Do you see what that accomplishes?

Israel: T hey insisted on cutting money that was suppose to subsidize the local governments?

Chossudovsky: Yes, for example for education and so on. By doing this - and incidentally they did it in Brazil as well - they destabilize the country because in order to have a country there must be fiscal coherence, a system of fiscal transfers. So in a place like Indonesia, each of these islands becomes a small state. And of course now the idea of going it alone becomes far more attractive to the many different ethnic groups. Of course they [that is, the planners] are fully aware of this - they have made it happen time and again. It took place in Yugoslavia; it took place in Brazil; it took place in the former Soviet Union where the regions are left to their own devices because Moscow doesn't transfer any money. Potentially it could happen in the United States as well. It is guaranteed to produce a situation of conflict, internal strife.

Israel: And you're saying this is part and parcel of a plan for Empire?

Chossudovsky: I am saying this is recolonization. Countries are transformed into territories, colonies essentially.

Israel: What distinguishes the two?

Chossudovsky: A country has a government. It has institutions. It has a budget. It has economic borders. It has customs. A territory has only a nominal government, controlled by the IMF. No schools and hospitals, as those have been closed down on orders of the World Bank. No borders because the WTO has ordered free trade. No industry or agriculture because these have been destabilized as the result of interest rates of 60% per anum and that is also the IMF program.

Israel: And this is imposed by the IMF?

Chossudovsky: They put a ceiling on credit. Do you see? So people can't get bank loans; it drives interest sky high and that kills the economy. Then they open it up to free trade. So the local capitalist enterprises have to borrow at 60% from the local banks and then they have to compete with commodities from the United States or Europe where interest rates are 6 or 7%. These reforms are essentially aimed at destroying local capitalism.

Israel: So how do we fight this?

Chossudovsky: Not with a single-issue movement. We can't focus solely on the Bretton Woods institutions, or the WTO, or environmental issues or genetic engineering; we have to look at the totality of relations. When we look at the totality we see the link to the use of force.

Beneath this economic system lie the undercover features of the capitalist order: the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus and the links to organized crime including the use of narcotics to finance conflicts aimed at opening nations to Western control.

Break the Chains of Debt --"Stellar " Event
 

"We have achieved remarkable success beyond our wildest dreams... Even the folks at the World Bank and IMF are using our language.... They are quoting the same statistics that we quote, but what they mean and what we mean are two different things. "

- Njoki Njehu, Director, 50 Years is Enough

"We broke open the secret of debt.... We use debt in the North to subjugate countries in the South... to impose our economic policies on them..... We (Jubilee 2000) tap into the massive good will in people. The ideology that we're all greedy, selfish, and want to make a quick buck and ignore everybody else around us is actually not true."

- Ann Pettifor, Co-founder of Jubilee 2000 Britain

"There is a massive transfer of wealth coming from the South to the North. Africa transferred $2.5 billion to rich governments and institutions like the World Bank and IMF in 1999, beyond what Africa received in grants and aid.... The suffering visited on people around the world in the name of debt servicing is being done in your name and my name, in the name of the taxpayer."

- Njoki Njehu Director, 50 Years is Enough

"One million children have died in the poorest countries since January 1, 2000 because their governments are still spending scarce resources on paying foreign creditors instead of investing in basic health and primary education. One million children." - Jubilee 2000 News 3/2000

"In Nicaragua, structural adjustment programs required by World Bank & IMF in 1990 led to an increase in poverty so that now:

- the unemployment rate is more than 60%

- more than 80% of the people cannot meet two of the basic human needs (access to medical care, education, housing, food, clothing)

- 40% cannot read

By the end of 1999, the external debt of Nicaragua was $6.5 billion, $1300 per person, one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world. If Nicaragua did not have to pay debt service and the government would agree to invest the savings in the Nicaraguan people, allowing churches and civil groups to work in this area, and allowing respectable people from outside Nicaragua to monitor the process, in one year, we could:

- build 20,000 homes for people with income less than $200 a month

- build three 500 bed hospitals

- build health centers in rural & marginalized areas

- build 10 schools for 2000 students

- build 5 appropriate technology training centers

- build 5 agriculture training centers

- lay pipe for potable water to serve 3000 families

- increase nationwide public school teachers' salaries (now less than $50/month)

- increase nationwide health centers' and hospital personnel salaries

- and provide loans to small and medium sized farmers that would reactivate our economy.

- Gustavo Parajon, MD, pastor, director of hhealth care arm of Nicaraguan Baptist Convention

"The World Bank and IMF have asked Indonesia to service its debt through large-scale land clearing and extraction of timber for export. 80 million people have been displaced from their lands.... Logging fuels 80% of the US plywood industry.... There were more emissions last year from forest fires in Indonesia than from industrial and automobile sources in Western Europe. 80% of forest fires were started by those clearing land for palm oil plantations.... We are seeing the devastation of biodiversity that took a million years to accumulate."

-Lisa Curran, U-M interdisciplinary faculty in School of Natural Resources & Environment, Biology, and International Institute

"It is insane that under rules governing the global economy today you can take action against a company for pirating a Madonna tape, but not against a company for employing children, or using forced labor, or violating a worker's fundamental rights, or poisoning the environment. While we work for debt relief, we should also be fighting for new international institutions whose mission must include worker rights and higher standards for everyone."

- Mike Schippani, United Auto Workers Research Dept.

"When people have information they will do the right thing.... Help the public understand that it is in our best interest to help our brothers and sisters around the world, then we will be able to move forward on this issue." - Lynn Rivers, Congresswoman

"Contact members of Congress.... Educate them about why debt relief is important. It becomes their issue when voters contact them."

- Cynthia Phillips, Asst. Director, Office of Government Liaison of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops

[Transcribed and compiled by Barbara Wykes, Racial & Economic Justice Task Force member. For audio and video tapes of the conference, call Barb Pott, <BPott@csswashtenaw.org>.]

Living Wage Progress!
Jim Mogensen, Racial & Economic Justice Task Force

Thanks to all who called or wrote their City Councilmembers and the Mayor, the City Council voted unanimously on March 6 to increase the lowest paid City employees' pay to a "satisfactory above poverty level baseline wage".

Although the Mayor's veto of the Living Wage Ordinance was still not overridden at the following meeting--which means that a "satisfactory above poverty level baseline wage" will still not be required for workers on private contracts with the City--the door was left open for compromise.

Please call your Council members and the Mayor by May 8, and encourage them to reconsider the ordinance in an amended form. With an ordinance adopted, private sector workers on contracts paid with our City tax dollars would also get a "satisfactory above poverty level baseline wage".

"Since the late 1970s income inequality has increased in Michigan. The average income of the poorest fifth of families fell by $4210 between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s, from $13,460 to $9260."

- Michigan League for Human Services

"According to a December 1998 study by Jobs With Justice and the National Priorities Project, 74% of the US job sectors with the most growth FAIL TO PAY A LIVABLE WAGE. And 46% of the US job areas with the most growth DO NOT PAY EVEN HALF OF A LIVABLE WAGE!"

- Peace & National Priorities Ctr. of Oakland County

- Breakfast - for Clergy & Congregation Representatives

• Second Reading of proposed By-laws
• Plans for Community Land Trust consultation
• Assessment of housing needs & resources

Formal Chartering Meeting & Elections
Thurs., June 15, evening
Proposed date -- Please call for date & location

Dr. King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
Lessons for Today's Faith Communities
presented by Rev. Thom Saffold
Thurs., May 11, 1-3 pm
Northside Presbyterian Church
1679 Broadway, Ann Arbor

Dr. King's letter from the Birmingham Jail stands in the great tradition of God's demand for justice, especially for "the poor, the widow and the alien", and Judaism's and Christianity's concern for the inviolable integrity of human rights. Rev. Saffold will share the story behind its writing, describe the 1963 Civil Rights actions in Birmingham, Alabama, and examine Dr. King's theology of justice and nonviolent direct action contained in his letter.

The program will introduce religious leaders to the Congregations On the Right Side campaign (CORS), whose name comes from one of Dr. King's most important speeches, preached exactly a year before his assassination. In it, he challenges churches and synagogues to be "on the right side of world revolution," to undergo "a radical revolution of values" and to oppose what he called "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism."

A special sale of Bibles, pastoral aid books and software will benefit the CORS campaign.

If tens of thousands are protesting in Seattle and Washington, maybe we, too, need to learn more about 3rd World Debt and The Challenge of Global Economics

Here are some insightful videos available for you, your class, or your church--available at our ICPJ Library. Call (734) 663-1870 to reserve and check them out at the office, 730 Tappan at Hill.

Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. After 5 years of IMF and World Bank programs, Nicaragua has been reduced to one of the poorest countries of the world. Deadly Embrace traces the history of US involvement in the region, focusing on the current economic attack of the IMF, World Bank and US agencies. 30 min. 1999.

Banking On Life and Debt. Cricitcs have called the policies of the World Bank and IMF "a war on the poor." The terms dictated by the World Bank and IMF have left over 90% of the world�s population living in indebted countries. Travel to Ghana, Brazil, and the Philippines to see the real-life horrors. 30 min.. 1995.

Proclaim Jubilee: Break the Chains of Debt. The story of a family in Tanzania and the impact of their nation�s debt on their lives. 9 min. Bread for the World, 1999.

Global Village or Global Pillage. Ed Asner narrates as consumer advocates, labor movement leaders, environmentalists, and economists tell why and how people around the world are challenging corporate globalization in the name of the world�s Lilliputians. 25 min. 1999.

Restoring Streets To Live In

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?.....
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.....
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your need in parched places,
and make your bones strong.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach;
the restorer of streets to live in.

Isaiah 58