Women De-Militarize the Zone Organizes a Historic March for Peace in Korea

On October 30, 2000 the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed, recognizing the significance of women’s “equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.”

WomenCrossDMZ at the UN Conference on Status of Women, March 11th 2015.

Fifteen years later, PDF grantee Women De-Militarize the Zone models women’s leadership in peacemaking.

Women De-Militarize the Zone plans on crossing the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. “It’s hard to imagine any more physical symbol of the insanity of dividing human beings,” states the co-chair and feminist activist Gloria Steinem. Indeed, the DMZ is highly militarized and has been dividing Korean families for roughly 6o years.

Thirty international women peacemakers will be walking on May 24, 2015. Counting two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the women’s delegation will hold an international peace symposium in Pyongyang and Seoul where they hope to engage in a dialogue with Korean women. “Women ‘s leadership is urgently needed to break the impasse, revive diplomacy, and put squarely into the security discourse the experiences of those most directly impacted by military violence,” states Christine Ahn, the coordinator of the march.

The Korean conflict started in 1950, when North Korea, supported by the USSR and China invaded South Korea. Even though a ceasefire agreement was signed in 1953, no peace treaty has ever followed. Sixty years later, North and South Korea are still at war.

While people struggle to survive an economic crisis in North Korea, governments in the region deprive their population of developmental investments in order to increase militarization. Instead of investing in health care or education, Korean officials pay for weapons. Demilitarization is a crucial issue in the region.

Women De-Militarize the Zone after the UN Conference on Status of Women

While organizing the walk, Women De-Militarize the Zone faced a huge challenge: getting the authorization from both North and South Korea, as well as the United Nations. The UN offered its support to facilitate the walk if North and South Korea were to authorize the walk. Permission was granted just last week.  “We believe that the political will must exist to pressure political leaders towards breaking that impasse, and this march could provide a huge catalyzing force.”

“In addition to organizing the march, we would very much like to build a grassroots movement of women dedicated to seeing peace on the Korean peninsula,” says our grantee. The action of Women De-Militarize the Zone is not going to stop after May 24^th. Members are planning to organize educational workshops that inform and mobilize women for international peace-making.

What’s in a Peace Talk?

Grantees from Women on the Rise Telling HerStory and Veteran’s Education Project

At a Peace Talk this fall, one of our grantee speakers wanted to know what our criteria was for a successful event.  Would it be the number attending?  Donations to PDF as a result?

No, we told him.  It is not the number of attendees, because at PDF’s Peace and Justice Center in Amherst, we can’t hold hundreds of people.  If there are 15 to 20 gathered in our living room, that is a perfect size for a discussion.

No, it is not the donations PDF would receive, we continued.  We don’t use the Peace Talks to buttonhole people into giving.  Our donors are loyal, and we dare say they would give to PDF’s work even if there wasn’t a Peace Talk on the event schedule.

But a Peace Talk is an opportunity to publicize the work of our grantees and engage our audience in the ongoing work of organizing.  That is how we measure success.

Anyone who comes to a Peace Talk can hear directly from our grantees about the challenging and inspiring work they do.  It is also an opportunity to network with others working for progressive social change, be they grantees, donors or students from the local colleges.  Not a Peace Talk ends before we hear folks exchanging ideas and email addresses.  And the grantees say they couldn’t do that—get out of their daily routine and the silos that build up around them—without someone from PDF inviting them to a Peace Talk.

Grantees also say, and we never have to ask them to do so, that they couldn’t do what they do without PDF’s early support.  “You supported us when we didn’t know if we could stay working or close,” said Anne Richmond from Gardening the Community.  “You kept us going.”

“You were our very first grant,” said Josie Shagwert of Fuerza Laboral.  “That was a huge vote of confidence in us.”

At Peace Talks we talk about victories and losses, the 99 percent and the one percent, the stories we know and the ones nobody writes about.  We talk about how to move forward and how to keep going.  As Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action and the Media said at our last Peace Talk, “I have to remind myself that the partial wins are still wins.”  We need to keep reminding ourselves of that too, as we define success.

“Each of us takes the piece of the work that we can do,” says Jaclyn.  For PDF, it is providing the space for organizing.

Will They Listen Today?

The laws today are more complex than when the Peace Development Fund began funding lobbying by grassroots organizations in 1988. Nonetheless, public foundations like PDF may support public charities which engage in lobbying—another strategy to use in movement building. Last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court ruling added even more money and influence buying into politics. Yet people—not corporations “who are people too”–have the right to say what they want to say. Especially in the upcoming election year, we need to be sure that all voices are heard. As the Occupy Movement shows us, speech can, and should, trump money.

from PeaceDevelopments, Spring 1988

 “7000 Letters – Swinging the Vote”

Last summer, Senator Alan Dixon of Illinois received 7,000 letters from Chicago voters in the space of seven weeks, demanding that he vote “no” on Contra aid. When asked if those letters could influence a man who had voted “yes” three times before, his aide said: “This is not a poll. This is the very thoughtful input of 7,000 people who have taken the time and used their personal feelings to express it in writing to their Senator. Their feelings are something he has to listen to… they will have a major effect on his vote.” In fact, Senator Dixon did listen – he voted “no” to Contra aid in the February ’88 count.

In a time when many citizens feel powerless to influence policy, it is heartening to realize that our elected representatives do listen – and not just when they are up for re-election. True, public opinion alone rarely changes policy; we only need to look at the massive public support for the Freeze, or the ERA, or an end to the war in Nicaragua. But when people get truly motivated to do something to make their opinion felt – take to the streets or to their telephones, write letters to editors – they can have influence in Washington.

Lobbying is one of several kinds of action, and at the right time it can be very effective. The Peace Development Fund has an educational and charitable tax status that allows us to use a small portion of our revenues to support lobbying activities. Many peace groups we have funded include lobbying as part of their work, but increasingly, groups are being organized for lobbying purposes only. They research, strategize, and respond to legislative issues, and sometimes help to draft legislation. Often providing a direct and vital link between Washington and the grassroots lobbying groups keep in regular contact with legislators while building the strong local base needed to put through key legislation. Some groups spring up around immediate, single issues, calling for urgent, widespread action; others are organized to respond consistently to issues that arise in the context of a more distant goal.

This fall, PDF and the Pacific Peace Fund (PPF) rallied to the call for funds by Countdown ’87 – a massive, nationwide campaign to defeat Contra aid organized by a coalition of groups working for peace in Central America. In the space of a few months, Countdown ’87 successfully mobilized tens of thousands of citizens across the country to contact their congress people. Neighbor to Neighbor, a previous PDF grantee working together with Countdown ’87, targeted twelve members of Congress and six senators, all of whom were considered swing-votes (Illinois’ Senator Dixon being one of them). Using its “Tupperware” approach to politics, it organized 117 house parties in Chicago alone for “the majority who think Contra aid is wrong but aren’t doing anything about it.”

PDF and PPF also support the less dramatic efforts of organizations designed to apply continual, persistent pressure for the long term. Two examples are the 20/20 Vision Project [editor’s note: now a project of EarthAction] and the Peace Missions. “20/20” combines education with action through its postcard campaign. With $20 a year and a commitment of 20 minutes a month, you can receive each month a brightly colored postcard giving all the information you needed to write a letter or make a call to your congressperson; you can also get involved on the research and strategizing level. “20/20” now has projects in several states and has been endorsed by national organizations. Using a different strategy, the Peace Missions provide training and logistical support for weekly lobbying trips to Washington. Originating in Rhode Island, the Peace Missions concept has spread to nine states over a period of three years and, with a new organizer’s manual put out by the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy in Washington, is eagerly seeking new chapters.

In another kind of linking, the San Francisco Freeze found itself with an excess of resources and all its representatives were voting right on the issues. So this fall, they raised money in Northern California to defeat Contra aid in two swing-vote districts in Nevada and Michigan, sending their funds through Countdown ’87. They plan to adopt other “sister districts” as need arises.

“But does all this really make a difference?” we so often ask, as we reach once again for a pencil to sign a petition, lick the stamp for a letter to Congress, or pick up the phone for a call to Washington.

The answer is definitely YES, however it may seem otherwise. People in the peace movement get discouraged – they see, for example that all their efforts to stop the arms race have barely been able to stop the building of new weapons. They forget how long it all takes. Historically, legislative efforts that succeed in bringing about significant change are the last stage in a long process. Before then, there has to be a real turn-around in public opinion through education and consciousness-raising and committed action of many kinds. When the public comes to accept the alternative policy, lobbying is very effective, even crucial, for changing policy.

And the effects of lobbying go beyond making a difference for one vote or another. Besides providing opportunities for people to learn about particular issues, putting together a lobbying campaign can also help build and strengthen grassroots organizations. As people get more active in the political process, they gain a better understanding of how it works and what its limits are, becoming more effective agents of change. Furthermore, as people become more involved, their senators and representatives in turn are forced to become accountable to them – or face serious threat of removal from office. As Senator Dixon’s aide said, “Their feelings are something he has to listen to… they will have a major effect on his vote.”

PDF grantee Center for Artistic Revolution

Time for Another Great March?

The Occupy Wall Street movement spreading across the country reminds us of other movements when ordinary people—like the “diverse bunch” who organized to create a non-violent focus for positive change—embarked on the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament from California to Washington, DC. In 1986, the Peace Development Fund supported the marchers who, despite loose organization and trying circumstances, stood up to say “enough” to war and make their voices heard. The Great Peace March nearly fell apart as it moved from the west coast eastward, and there are certainly a few lessons to learn from this by Occupy Wall Street. But like Occupy Wall Street, the Great Peace March gathered momentum. Now Occupy Wall Street is changing the terms of the public debate, from despair that the financial world is stacked against Main Street to active concern about local jobs, education and the environment. Just as the Great Peace March entered people’s collective consciousness as they marched forward, Occupy Wall Street has the potential to mobilize thousands demanding jobs for all and civil rights. Perhaps it’s time for another great march.

from Peace Developments, Fall 1986

“The Great Peace March”

“Sure, we’re a diverse bunch,” says Larry Heiss, camp doctor for the Great Peace March. “We’ve got kids and septuagenarians, professional people and counter-culture youth, straight and gay, the angry and the serene, the ministers and agnostics, politically left and politically right, people form 50 states and eleven countries. But we’ve got one important thing in common: we are all committed to global nuclear disarmament.

As one of the core group that has been on the 3,200-mile peace walk across the U.S.A. since its start, Larry has seen the whole panorama: from the shaky send-off in Los Angeles on the first of March, through the breakdown of the original ProPeace organization two weeks later, leaving 1,200 walkers stranded on the edge of the Mojave Desert; through a determined but wrenching struggled to reorganized, raise money, and keep going; across deserts and mountains and plains to Omaha at an incredible 20 to 25 miles a day in order to catch up to the original schedule.

Together they’ve walked, despite blisters and sunburn, through desert sizzle and mountain frost, through hail and thunderstorms, through the fallout area downwind of the Nevada Nuclear test Site at the time of the Mighty Oaks test, past some of the nuclear facilities and military installations that bristle across our West. There was a high moment of celebration as they crossed the Continental Divide, with jokes that from now on it would “all be downhill.”

The marchers had faced staggering problems in their forming their new organization. All their equipment, including support vehicles, had been repossessed. They wouldn’t be allowed to march without at least portable toilets (which the Peace Development Fund was instrumental in getting for them). Everything has to be started again from scratch, and by a group with no experience.

But there were people like a man and his daughter from Sydney, Australia, who had raised money in their community in order to get to Los Angeles and join the march. As Phyllis Rodin, another marcher, said, “no way could we tell people like that ‘It’s folded. It’s over. Go home.’”

“We were halted in our tracks for three weeks in Barstow, California,” related Phyllis. “But it was an important three weeks. We moved from a green, helpless group of strangers, into a cohesive, fired-up determined community.”

In order to get the march back on the road, the marchers began to scavenge and resuscitate ancient junkyard trucks. Soldiers (in civilian clothes) from nearby military bases turned up to help with that thankless job. In gratitude for the outpouring of help from Barstow, the marchers painted the town’s church inferiors.

A newly-formed advance team had to start contacting peace groups and town officials in the areas ahead, to arrange for camp sites, permits, water, waste disposal, peace rallies, and speaking engagements. It helped when town officials learned that the marchers were cleaning up the roadsides as they walked.

Omaha seemed like a turning point. There, they were back on schedule and could slow their pace to a mere 15 miles a day. There they were halfway to their final goal, Washington, DC.

“We don’t feel we’ll be stranded again,” Larry says with confidence in spite or reporting that their income at present is less than their outgo.” We know now that nothing can stop us from getting to Washington. We know the support is out there, and we’re confident the money will come in when people realize we need it.”

Expenses are $7 a day per marcher – $4,000 a day total – for food, insurance, payments on the support vehicles, campsite permits, publicity, gas. The high cost of marching has sometimes meant turning down people who would like to join in. In spite of that, the number had grown from 500 to 650 by Omaha, with hopes that as the new fundraising canvas bring in additional support, the group can also expand. By the time the group gets to New York City, in mid-October, the march almost certainly will be considerably larger. And optimism runs high when they talk about arriving in Washington, DC for a mid-November final rally.

Within the march there are, of course, differences of opinion. “Peace begins with ourselves,” as Larry Heiss says, “and it’s not always an easy lesson.”

But despite the occasional friction, there’s a lot of camaraderie, creativity, energy, and humor. Musicians, comics, and clowns have teamed up within the marching community to keep spirits high.

There is also support, both moral and financial, from “outside.” The marchers are visited by national celebrities, such as Pete Seeger, Holly Near, Hill Street’s Betty Thomas, and Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado. There are rallies and house parties, and marchers-for-a-day who join them in every city.

It’s an adventure for everyone, perhaps especially for the 40 children on the march, some of whom have become experienced speakers already. From one-year-old Alexa to 8-year-old Franklin Folsom, everyone counts.

“Something is very different about this march,” to quote marcher Tom Atlee. “I don’t’ know why so many cars honk and give us a peace sign; why so many mothers cry as we pass; why fundamentalist veterans stop by the road to bless us; why old women with American flags hanging over their doors thank us for marching for them. Maybe it’s because 95 percent of Americans really want peace, and that desire is beginning to ache inside. If they had a way to be peaceful AND patriotic AND honestly hopeful, they’d grab it in an instant …

“Hope grows here like moss on a pine. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m witnessing a metaphorical dawn; that the darkness is giving way; that in the next year, perhaps in the next few months or days, I will see the edge of the sun and know that we, as a planet, have made it.”

Primed to Explode

In 2002, the Peace Development Fund launched the Cross Border Initiative, working with groups seeking justice and peace amid the exploitation of land, water and people along the U.S./Mexico border. The situation has not improved. Considering the El Paso/ Juárez border today, the ensuing drug wars, and ultimately the fence that the U.S. government built, the border has become a lightning rod for violence. Explains author, Charles Bowden, about his book, Murder City, “There are 400 foreign, mainly American, factories in Juárez, they pay at best seventy-five dollars a week, the cost of living in Juárez is about ninety per cent of what it would be on the U.S. side of the border. In addition to this obvious point—that the factories play slave wages and have a turnover on average of one hundred to two hundred per cent a year—the city has now had at least two generations of kids raised pretty much on their own as their parents work five and a half days a week in the factories. It was primed to explode.”

from Peace Developments, Spring 2002

“Supporting Cross-Border Alliances”

This winter in El Paso, Texas, the Peace Development Fund took a bold and new step in our work to support alliance building across the U.S. – Mexico border. On December 5-7, PDF hosted a weekend-long training in Strategic Communications, in Spanish, for more than 30 people from nine organizations: four based in Mexico and five from the United States. The training was designed and provided by the Mexico City-based organization Incide, which, like all organizations invited to the training, is also a PDF grantee.

Incide – whose name translates to “Incite” – is driven by the idea that communication has the power to create deep transformation in our everyday cultures. Incide trainers work with grassroots organizations to share communication and strategic thinking tools, in order to enable people to exercise what Incide believes is a fundamental right to communicate and be heard. This workshop was facilitated by trainer Cecilia Sanchez with the support of Gabriela Sanchez.

For PDF, underlying the content of this workshop was a deeper intention to foster relationship building and an exchange of strategies between a diverse group of organizations along the border and in Mexico. “This workshop brought us together,” PDF board member Teresa Juarez commented at the close of the training. “These workshops are not only about content and techniques – the most important part of this is the human connection.”

Participants shared a common experience of economic globalization’s negative impact on communities of Mexicans and Mexican immigrants to the United States. “We need to democratize the global economy,” explained training participant Gustavo Lozano. “I have witnessed how international economic treaties benefit multinational corporations, not workers. The treaties have facilitated the exchange of goods and services, not people. Mexicans have been demonized in the process.”

The fundamental problems brought on by economic globalization have now been compounded by the political climate of the War on Terrorism – the loss of civil liberties for immigrants, an increase in the militarization of the border, and the favorable political climate for future trade policies (such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas and Plan Puebla Panama) that will affect communities throughout the hemisphere. Now is clearly a critical time to provide resources that strengthen the organizing of Mexican and Mexican immigrant communities who are working to ensure their means of survival.

During the training, participants divided into strategy groups that allowed for an in-depth look at pressing issues. One focused on the government’s refusal to investigate a pattern of brutal murders against an estimated 250 young women over the past eight years in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua (the sprawling city that mirrors El Paso on the Mexican side of the border). Another group brought together organizations to share experiences and strategies surrounding the militarization affecting Mexican immigrants in the U.S. border region and indigenous communities in southeast Mexico.

“The feedback we have received from this training has shown us that bringing these organizations together is an invaluable form of peer-to-peer technical assistance,” explained Reverend John Vaughn, executive director of PDF. “By creating a space for community organizations to interact with each other, PDF works to encourage movement building. This is where organizations work together – across borders and beyond specific issue areas – toward a common vision of justice and peace.”