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Time to plan for Keep Space for Peace week

Posted August 30th, 2007 by admin

October 4 to 13, 2007

ks4p

WILPF is again co-sponsoring Keep Space for Peace Week internationally with Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Read the WILPF 2006 report prepared for the UN Space Agencies in Vienna to see what WILPF and Global Network affiliates did last year for KS4P week. This is the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which seeks to ensure the peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind. This year let's do even more, and show the UN and the wider world that citizens want to free the heavens from weapons and war!

Explore Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space for information on U.S military master plans for full spectrum domination, resistance to U.S. missile defense bases in Europe, extensive files on weapons and nuclear power in space, and much more. Explore Reaching Critical Will for information on the antidote: Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. Explore below for Global Network and WILPF resources on Keep Space for Peace Week.

GLOBAL NETWORK RESOURCES FOR KS4P WEEK

Resources for your 2007 events are now available from Global Network. You will find speakers, entertainers and posters for public education. View the poster and flier, that can now be ordered from Global Network. View a variety of videos that can be used for information and to stimulate discussion on space militarization. Scroll down for many other resources you can order, download or view on line. A Space for Peace, produced by WILPFer MacGregor Eddy for both WILPF and Global Network, is available for $5.00, is deliberately not copy righted, and can be reproduced cheaply for wider distribution.

WILPF RESOURCES ON UNITED NATIONS SPACE TREATIES: EMPHASIZE THE POSITIVE:

Emphasize the positive: We must remember, as we educate our communities on U.S. aggressive and hubristic space militarization programs, that we do not want to spread hopelessness and despair. There is hope in the gradual strengthening of international space law. WILPF Reaching Critical Will has extensive information on UN space treaties and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.

This is the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which sought to ensure the peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind. (See the UNCOPUOS Brochure on 50th anniversary events.) There are now eight key treaties monitored by UNCOPUOS which regulate what can be done in outer space. Many in the U.S. Administration and the Pentagon seek to escape the current restrictions of international space law, while governments of most other countries are trying to strengthen the international treaties governing space (see Negotiations on a PAROS Treaty.)

International space law, accompanied by monitoring, inspection and utilization of national and international court systems, is necessary if we are to save space for peace. WILPF believes we also need international treaties regulating exploitation of solar system resources by governments or private corporations, and to ensure maximum benefits to the environment and for all humankind .Unfortunately the U.S. has obstructed treaty negotiations at the United Nations on space issues, and especially since 2001. The world's best hope lies in changing U.S. space militarization policies, and in the U.S. WILPF Section they have a great deal of work to do.

WILPF RESOURCES ON SPACE MILITARIZATION AND THE MIL-CORP CONNEXION

Keep Space for Peace Week is traditionally a time to press for conversion or dismantlement of corporations profiteering on space militarization, and of military bases involved in "missile defense" and Space Command programs. It is also a time when we educate on the dangers of weapons in space now promoted by the U.S.Pentagon, the Administration and aerospace corporations.

Learn about and locate space militarization contractors in your own country using Reaching Critical Will's newly updated fact sheets on aerospace and other corporations promoting and profiting from space militarization. These include both members of the Dirty Dozen (which also profit from the nuclear weapons, waste management and nuclear power industries), and 23 additional corporations promoting and profiting from the space industry. Download and utilize the power point prepared by Loring Wirbel and Wilpf member MacGregor Eddy on The New Military-Industrial Space Complex.

These "star wars" profiteers include Siemens (Germany), Mitsubishi (Japan) BAE and Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman- TRW, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Alliant. The most diversified of these giant corporations, Bechtel, builds much of the infrastructure on the U.S. missile defense and cyberspace spy bases around the world. If none of these corporations have facilities in your country you can search for subcontractors using Google local.

KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE EVENTS AT "STAR WARS" AND "CYBERSPACE SPY" BASES

Note on the Global Network list that events are also listed at Menwith Hill, England (Oct 13 Demonstration at NSA Spy Base, Yorkshire 12:00-4:00 pm). Contact WILPF member Lindis Percy percy@starbeck.eclipse.co.uk. WILPF members in Australia and India will also find events already listed. Go to the Global Network speakers list to find addtional contacts in Australia, France, Canada and Britain. Regina Hagen on that list is a German WILPF member who has in the past organized demonstrations at the U.S. cyberspace spy base in Darmstadt..

U.S. WILPF and Global Network are co-sponsoring events at Space Command and Strategic Command bases this year at Offutt AFB (new home of the Strategic Command) near Omaha, Nebraska, and Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc, California. Read about the Annual Omaha Peace Conference October 6, where Bruce Gagnon will speak and WILPF members will facilitate a workshop on aerospace star wars profiteers. October 9-11 in Omaha is the 2007 Strategic Space and Defense Conference where aerospace corporations show their wares, networking and strategizing with U.S. military brass.

Commitment to non-violence: For those participating in citizens inspections or non-violent direct action at military bases or space industry corporations, or for any reason anticipating tension at a vigil or demonstration, U.S. WILPFer Linda Richards has prepared a non-violent training guide that can be adapted for your own needs. Go to www.atomicvigil.net and click on "Star Wars Satyagraha."

REPORTING

Report plans for events as soon as possible to Global Network and/or to the WILPF Peace and Security Disarmament Working Group at carol.disarm@gmail.com (queries are also welcome). We will also ask for follow-up reports for a possible printed publication of Keep Space for Peace events around the world.

The United Nations sponsors UN World Space Week every year from October 4 to 10. This year we are invited to submit reports to the UN World Space Week Publication. We'll have more informaiton on the process for reporting to this publication in October, after the events have occurred.

Last year, for the first time, we submitted 2006 Keep Space for Peace Week reports from WILPF and Global Network to UN agencies monitoring existing space treaties and to the Organization (WASA) that manages World Space Work for the United Nations. The week is sponsored in part by the aerospace corporations like Lockheed Martin and Alliant Tech Systems, and we fear the week is too much used to excite young people about space exploration, and thus draw them into careers now almost inevitably tied to space militarization. We hope to bring other dimensions to the reporting, including Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, and the need for international laws to regulate exploitation of solar system resources by private corporations.

MORE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION ON WILPF AND GLOBAL NETWORK COOPERATION

Resources and ideas are also available from the strategy session of the annual Global Network conference in Darmstadt in March 2007. Eight WILPF members from Britain, Norway, Germany and the US attended, including Linda Richards and Carol Urner from the US WILPF DISARM committee and Mary Beth Sullivan from Global Network. Read the report of Bruce Gagnon on the Darmstadt conference. Scroll down for photos of the meetings and demonstrations. The WILPF report is also available. Read a Stars and Stripes account of the GN demonstration at US August-Euler Air field in Darmstadt, including interviews of WILPF members Linda Richards and Helen John, British WILPF activist.

Additional resources are available in the report of the WILPF side event on War in Space or Life on Earth: the Choice is Ours, presented at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, May 3, 2007. Norwegian WILPF sponsored and organized the event, Edel Haven Beukes moderated and Bruce Gagnon and Carol Urner presented.