WRL News

Nigerian Activist Seeks Collaboration

By Jenessa Stark

Chidi Nwosu, president of Nigeria’s Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF) recently made his first diplomatic visit to the United States as a guest of the National Endowment for Democracy. He met with former WRL Chair and Africa World Press author Matt Meyer on January 15 to explore how the two organizations can collaborate on nonviolent civil disobedience training in the future.

He specifically wanted to meet with WRL representatives to discuss the political situation in his home country and brainstorm about ways to connect with nonviolent organizations within the United States and abroad.

The two discussed the Nigerian people’s dissatisfaction with their government, which feigns democracy but is deep in corruption and dictatorship. Nwosu expressed HRJPF’s desire for electoral reform as a way to give new hope to a country that has lost faith in the electoral system.

“Civil disobedience is required to enforce transparency and to hold government accountable,” Nwosu said. “[Right now] the people only think political parties exist to capture power.”

Meyer suggested HRJPF get involved with War Resisters’ International and mentioned the 2010 WRI meeting in India as a great opportunity to learn more techniques for nonviolent direct action.

According to its mission statement, HRJPF is dedicated to “the protection of human rights, dispensation of justice, cultivation of the culture of tolerance, and enthronement of peace in the world.” The HRJPF also asserts that nonviolence should be viewed as a human right. The organization was formed in 2003 as a response to Nigeria’s disenchantment with the democratic process after the country’s return to civil rule in 1999 was marred by human rights abuses and military dictatorship.

For more information about the organization, email hrjpfoundation@yahoo.com.

On January 15, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, in front of the Las Vegas Federal Courthouse, a weekly vigil featured signs decrying Israel’s brutal violence in Gaza. WRL’s Jim Haber holds a sign denouncing torture.

Syracuse Activists Join Thousands at SOA Watch

Nearly 30 area students and activists traveled more than 2,300 miles roundtrip from Syracuse to Fort Benning, Ga. to take part in the Nov. 21–23 vigil sponsored by SOA Watch. Some 20,000 people attended the event, which took place mostly at the main gate of Fort Benning, site of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (a.k.a. WHINSEC, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). SOA/WHINSEC is an “anti-insurgency” training school for Latin American soldiers.

The 2008 vigil culminated on Sunday, November 23, with a liturgical procession commemorating the thousands of named
victims of SOA soldiers. Each year a handful—or several handfuls—of SOA Watch activists risk arrest by taking their protest onto the military base itself.

The annual event attracts thousands of people of conscience from all over the country and throughout the Western Hemisphere.

WRL ’s field organizer Matt Smucker and WRL New England staff were on hand to staff the WRL literature table, along with Asheville, N.C., WRL member Coleman Smith. Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer and Joanne Sheehan facilitated nonviolence trainings November 21.

The new Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns by War Resisters’ International is a series of resources for successful nonviolent actions and campaigns. It includes sections on developing strategic campaigns, preparing for effective actions, exercises in working in nonviolence (including group dynamics and gender), and stories and strategies showing the use of nonviolent organizing tools in specific settings and describing global campaigns. These resources are also available at wri-irg.org. Order from WRL at $10 (plus postage); 10 or more $8 each.

WRI Website Revamped

On November 26, 2008, War Resisters’ International launched its new website thanks to a grant by the Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust.

Part of the new website is the Conscientious Objection Information System (COBIS), which will bring together information on conscientious objection and conscientious objectors in an easily accessible way.

The COBIS system combines several elements of War Resisters’ International’s work on conscientious objection:
WRI's CO-alert system in cases of imprisoned conscientious objectors;

• a conscientious objector and activist database;

• the CO-update e-newsletter; and

• the world survey on conscientious objection and recruitment.

The system will also include a permanent Prisoners for Peace list, which will strengthen WRI’s support for imprisoned conscientious objectors and peace activists.

The new website also integrates the wiki used to develop WRI ’s Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns into the rest of the site structure. Wiki articles will now appear with other articles and news items.

See the new site at www.wri-irg.org.