Disarmament and abolition of war itself has been a major goal of WILPF since its inception 92 years ago. Over the decades we have been involved in many anti-war and anti-weapons campaigns, as well as in building the institutions of peace and international law.
The current committee has evolved from the six year DISARM! Dismantle the War Economy Campaign in 1999-2005. We continue to emphasize our EYE on Congress, the MIl-Corp ConneXion Manual and ABOLITION (of nuclear weapons, all weapons and war itself) developed during that Campaign. During the 2006-2009 cycle we are adding an emphasis on making the U.S. Budget compatible with the goals of the U.S. disarmament and human rights treaties. In the DISARM UPDATE we encourage WILPF members and Branches to submit material and action reports on the full range of issues relevant to disarmament goals.
The current DISARM committee Leadership Team consists of the following members:
Ellen Barfield (Baltimore Branch) is co-chair of the committee from 2001 until September 2007. She still represents us on the Nuclear Weapons Working Group in Washington D.C. She is also often able to attend meetings of Reaching Critical WIll and Abolition 2000 in New York. She is on the National Boards of Veterans for Peace, War Resisters League and School of the Americas Watch and helps keep us informed of their events and projects. Ellen is also a former WILPF Board member.
Pat Birnie (Tucson Branch) of Raging Grannies fame is one of the original Campaign members. She is facilitator of the Mil-Corp ConneXion project and has been primarily responsible for pulling together the Mil-Corp Manual, now available in its 2006 hard cover edition. Copies have been sent to all Branches and most pages are available on the web, although most recent updates have not yet been made there. Pat is particularly concerned about military toxics and produced our national and international WILPF statements on Depleted Uranium.
MacGregor Eddy (Monterey County Branch) is a registered nurse and a determined activist and organizer at Vandenberg Air Force Base. She is our lead person for Space issues in the ABOLITION project. She produced our WILPF-Global Network video A Space for Peace that was distributed to all Branches and can be freely reproduced and used for local TV, etc. With Loring Wirbel she has also produced two power points on the Space Command and on roel of the aerospace corporations in space militarization. These are both available for Branch use. She is on the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Advisory Board, and is our liaison to that group (of which WILPF is a member).
Claire Gosselin (Boston Branch) now serves as one of three co-chairs of the DISARM team. She is the very able coordinator of Boston's active DISARM committee, which is working with members of the Roxbury Africa-American community to stop the Boston University BIo-weapons top security research lab. She frequently writes the reports of our meetings and events. She is also Branch co-chair and works as a librarian. She was one of the five U.S. Section delegates to the 2007 WILPF international Congress in Bolivia.
Yoshiko Ikuta (Cleveland) was the original chair of the DISARM Campaign nine years ago. She is now our liaison with the Save the Water Campaign. Yoshiko also has a special concern for Pacific Rim issues. She helps the committee contact Marshall Islanders who still suffer results of previous nuclear weapons tests and now also have their lands confiscated for missile defense testing. In addition she is our best liaison with the Japanese WILPF section. Yoshiko is also a former WILPF Board member.
Elizabeth Leonard (Swarthmore-Delco Group, PA) Joined our DISARM leadership team in late 2007, but has belonged to WILPF for forty years and was long active in Boston Branch on disarmament and peace and justice issues. There, as co-chair for five years, one of her main endeavors was to create connections with the various Peace and Justice Groups in Boston (UJP, Code Pink, the Raging Grannies and Stop the Wars.) Back in Philadelphia now, creative alliances are still her passion. -She particulary wants to help DISARM participate actively in the WILPF initiated Peace Table Project.
Yvonne Logan (St Louis, Missouri) is a past President and one of the original members of the DISARM team. She helps Val Mullen with EYE on Congress follow-up. She has a special concern for women's budget and economic conversion issues. She is currently chair of the St. Louis Branch, and has done much to bring major peace and justice organizations there under one roof, and working in close cooperation with one another.
Val Mullen (Vermont) sends out EYE on Congress Alerts to subscribing Branches and individuals. These are also available on the WILPF web site.
Linda Richards (Ashland Oregon Branch) is now one of the three co-chairs of the DISARM leadership team. A child of a Vietnam Veteran, Linda walked across the country with the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986. She has been educating the public about nuclearism (the addiction to nuclear superiority despite the consequences) for over 20 years. She believes that indigenous voices are essential to the success of nuclear abolition. In March 2007 she attended the international Global Network conference in Darmstadt for WILPF, and her picture and an interview were featured in the European edition of Stars and Stripes. Linda won highest honors as a graduate student at the University of Oregon in Ashland, and is no working on her PhD at Oreogn State University in Corvallis. She will be researching the letters of the Paulings, both of whom were WILPF members. Linus Pauling, an Oregonian, won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ellen Thomas (Washington D.C. Branch) Ellen joined our Leadership Team in November of 2007. Ellen is a long time campaigner for abolition of nuclear weapons. For eighteen years she was one of a group maintaining a 24 hour vigil calling for abolition of nuclear weapons. The vigil, located just across from the White House, still continues with Ellen's support. Now, however, she spends much of her time managing two active list serves on nuclear weapons: one that gives daily links to news stories on nuclear issues, and the other doing the same for radiation issues. For the past decade she has been the most active promoter of Proposition One, originally (1992) an initiative of D.C. voters calling for abolition of nuclear weapons and transfer of funding to projects in human rights and human welfare. Ellen helped draft the legislation which D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton now introduces in each session of Congress which seeks to make these goals national policy (currently H R 1826).
Carol Reilley Urner (Portland Oregon and Los Angeles Branches) has served as a DISARM co-chair since June 2002. She is primarily responsible for the ABOLITION project, but assists with Mil Corp and EYE on Congress as needed. She also manages the DISARM UPDATE web site and serves for WILPF on Bite the Bullet, Peace Economy Project, No Foreign Bases and UFPJ Nuclear Weapons Abolition committees. She is a former U.S. WILPF Board member. Carol was one of the five U.S. Section delegates to the 2007 WILPF Congress in Bolivia and also a delegate to the 2004 WILPF Congress in Sweden. She has also facilitated or participated as a panelist in WILPF side events at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (2006), the Sixth Review Conference of the Bioweapons Treaty (2006), and both the 2005 Review Conference and the 2004 Prep com for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.
