NEW YORK - Eminent female writers, artists, lawmakers and social
activists in the United States are reaching out to women leaders across
the world in an attempt to forge a global alliance against the U.S.-led
war in Iraq.
A U.S.-based women's group has launched a global campaign to gather
100,000 signatures by March 8, International Women's Day, when they will
be delivered to the White House and U.S. embassies around the world.
"We are unleashing a global chorus of women's voices shouting, 'Enough!"
said Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a
California-based rights advocacy group that has spearheaded the global
women's campaign, called "Women Say No to War".
"The administration is trying to get away with it (the war), but we
won't let that happen," Jodie Evans of CODEPINK told IPS. "This campaign
is amazing. This is bringing thousands of women together from across the
borders -- this is creating something that we can't even see."
Describing the initial response to the group's call for signatures as
"overwhelming", Benjamin says that more than 200 high-profile women from
various walks of life endorsed the campaign even before it was formally
launched earlier this month.
The signatories include popular film stars like Susan Sarandon, the
playwright Eve Ensler and comedian Margaret Cho, and award-winning
authors such as Alice Walkers, Anne Lamott, Maxine Hong Kingston and
Barbara Ehrenreich.
"We, the women of the United States, Iraq, and women worldwide, have had
enough of the senseless war in Iraq and cruel attack on civilians
worldwide," reads the call. "We have buried too many of our loved ones.
We have seen too many lives crippled forever...."
"This is not the world we want for ourselves or for our children," it
says. "With fire in our bellies and love in our hearts, we women are
rising up -- across borders -- to unite and demand an end to the
bloodshed and destruction."
Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed fighting in Iraq, and whose
subsequent vigil near U.S. President George W. Bush's Texas ranch to
demand -- unsuccessfully -- a face-to-face meeting garnered widespread
media attention, was one of the first signatories to the campaign.
"The pain that this war has caused for people all over the world is
unimaginable," she said in a statement. "I have met women who are ready
to stand together to make our leaders end this madness."
Urging a shift in the U.S. strategy in Iraq "from a military model to a
conflict resolution model", the organisers say they want to see a
withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq, with full representation of
women in the peacemaking process in that country.
"Iraqi women are devastated now. It will take us decades of struggle to
regain a peaceful and civilised life," said Yanar Mohammed, a signatory
to the campaign and president of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in
Iraq.
"The U.S. occupation has planted the seeds of ethno-sectarian division,
preparing Iraq for a civil war, and has blessed religious supremacy over
and against human and women's rights," she added in a statement.
Since the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.-led coalition forces, tens of
thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children,
have lost their lives. Despite criticism from influential human rights
groups, such as the Britain-based Amnesty International and U.S.-based
Human Rights Watch, the U.S. military continues to shrug off its
responsibility to keep a record of civilian casualties, critics note.
However, an independent survey conducted by the British medical journal,
the Lancet, last year concluded that the war has claimed at least
100,000 civilian lives in Iraq.
Some humanitarian groups that are closely working with the U.S.
government have now started asking the Pentagon to compensate the
families of civilian victims of the U.S. aerial bombing in Iraq.
"We have a responsibility to help the victims and their loved ones,"
said Sarah Holewinsky, director of the Washington-based Campaign for
Innocent Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a group founded by Maria
Rouzicka, who was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq while helping
civilian victims of war in that country.
But despite the administration's refusal to commit to a schedule for
withdrawal, a majority of the U.S. public has turned against the war,
and many former U.S. army generals and previously pro-war lawmakers are
loudly demanding a concrete exit strategy.
Recent opinion polls also show a continuous decline in the popularity of
Pres. Bush, who has sought to bolster his image as a "wartime
president".
Meanwhile, the global women's campaign against the war is growing every
day. By Monday, a week after the campaign's launch, the number of
signatures on its website had already hit 21,326.
(Copyright 2006 IPS - Inter Press Service)
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