Activist News

Turkish C.O. on Hunger Strike
Separated from other prisoners and confined in a bedless, rodent-infested cell, Turkish conscientious objector Osman Murat Ulke began a hunger strike Oct. 15 to protest conditions in Mamak Military Prison, Ankara, where he is awaiting trial. Supporters around the world feared for his health as Turkish prison officials ordered him into solitary confinement for refusing to wear a military uniform and withheld the water, sugar and salt ordinarily provided hunger strikers. (The following day, however, officials told Osman’s lawyers that they would probably give him those basic nutrients.)

After eight days in solitary, Osman was moved back into an isolation room; the difference between solitary confinement and an isolation room is that the first is dark and two meters square, while the isolation room has a bed and a light, and there is no mouse in the room. At press time, he had been on hunger strike for nine days, demanding that, as a civilian, he either be sent to a civil prison or be allowed out of isolation while remaining out of uniform, even if he remains at Mamak.

Osman can be held for two months without trial. If he is not tried, he will be sent to a military unit, where if he again refuses to serve,as he has said he will,he will be subject to further punishment. His position, stated publicly on many occasions, is that "No coercive measure can ever make me a soldier." He became a conscientious objector, he says, "to activate the self-will of individuals against a war machine which clearly has no conscience.".

Article 155, which carries a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment, has been widely used against critics of the army and military operations. Turkey’s draft laws make no provision for conscientious objection; there are large numbers of draft evaders there, but Osman is emphatic that he is not a draft evader but a resister.

The Izmir War Resisters’ Association, of which Osman is president, is asking peace groups to send urgent faxes to the following numb312 417 04 76; the General Staff, +90 312 418 53 41; Minister of Justice, +90 312 417 39 54; Ministry of National Defense, +90 312 324 46 27; Ministry of the Interior, +90 312 318 17 95. They also ask peace groups to contact parliamentarians and press and to send messages directly to Osman in prison, at Mamak Askeri Cezaevi, Ankara, Turkey. Finally, support messages to Izmir War Resisters’ Association can be sent to Savas Karsitlari Dernegi Izmir, 1468 Sok. No. 14 , Alsancak - IZMIR; telephone 00-90-232-464 24 92; fax: 00-90-232-464 08 42; e-mail: osi@info-ist.comlink.de, or to War Resisters’ International , 5 Caledonian Road , London N1 9DX , England; tel: +44 171 278 4040; fax: +44 171 278 0444; email: warresisters@gn.apc.org.

--War Resisters International

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Happy Birthday, WRI
Although WRL has two years to go before celebrating its 75 anniversary, War Resisters International,of which WRL is an affiliate,hit the three-quarters of a century mark this year.

With sections and associates in 30 countries on five continents, North and South,Argentina to Sweden, Chad to Australia,WRI had much to celebrate. A special double issue of the London-based Peace News toasted the birthday with a reprinting of WRI’s first statement of principles (on which WRL’s is based,see page 2), adopted at its first conference in 1925; a review of WRI history, by Devi Prasad, General Secretary of WRI 1961-72, and a look at its high points from its founding in the Netherlands in 1921 to its simultaneous demonstrations in four Warsaw Pact nations in 1968 in protest against the U.S.S.R. intervention in Czechoslovakia.

"As far as I know," wrote Prasad, "[WRI] was the first pacifist international organization not only to express in words its opposition to all kinds of war, but also to inspire individuals of all persuasions,philosophical, religious and political,to translate that opposition into action. Its members acted often at the risk of imprisonment and sometimes even at the risk of death." Looking toward the future, he concluded, "I have realized that, in the process of nonviolent revolutionary change, mere resistance to militarism and injustice are not sufficient. Another element has to go with it as an integral part of our struggle. This is the creation of alternatives: Call it alternative ways of life built on values that unite human societies with each other and human society with nature.

"The two,resistance and reconstruction,must not only go side by side, but also be completely integrated. That is how I understand the WRI Declaration."

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Okinawans Vote ‘No’ on Bases
By more than 10 to one, Okinawans approved a referendum Sept. 8 calling for major reductions in the U.S. military presence in Japan’s southernmost prefecture. Voters were asked to approve or reject non-binding language that asked "Do you support streamlining U.S. bases in the prefecture?"

The referendum, the first of its kind in Japan, is part of Okinawa Governor Masahide Ota’s campaign to press Tokyo and Washington to withdraw U.S. bases by the year 2015. "Some people in the U.S. have the wrong idea that Okinawa is U.S. territory and under U.S. occupation. This must be corrected," Ota told reporters after the vote. He accused the Japanese government of being undemocratic for trying to insure security "at the Okinawa people’s expense."

In the U.S., the Foreign Bases Project commented, "People in [the United States and Japan] must intensify their activities to pressure their governments to rapidly remove the U.S. bases and troops from Okinawa and Japan. The Cold War rationale for the bases is long gone. U.S. tax dollars are better spent taking care of the needy, improving health care and restoring the environment instead of deploying troops abroad. Peace and security for the U.S. and Japan are best served by a demilitarized region, free of foreign and other military presence."

Antibase campaigning intensified after the September 1995 rape of a 12-year old girl by three U.S. soldiers who were later convicted by a Japanese court. Last April, President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister announced plans to reduce the bases on Okinawa by 20 percent while maintaining overall troop levels in Japan. Efforts to relocate U.S. troops and facilities to mainland Japan have met with opposition. Recently, the Japanese Supreme Court overruled Governor Ota’s refusal to renew leases for the bases by expropriating land owned by Okinawans opposed to the bases.

Over half of all U.S. troops based in Japan and 75 percent of the land reserved for U.S. military in Japan are on Okinawa, which encompasses well under one percent of Japan’s area. The U.S. directly ruled Okinawa from 1945,when it seized the islands from the Japanese Imperial Army in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II,until 1972, when Okinawa reverted back to Japan.

Contact: Foreign Bases Project at PO Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215; (718)788-6071; fbp@igc.org. The Okinawan Prefectural Web site on the bases can be found at http://www.okinawa.ttc.co.jp/index.html.

--John M. Miller

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East Timorese Win Nobel Peace Prize
East Timor’s Catholic Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and activist José Ramos-Horta have received this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for "their sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people." The award to Bishop Belo and Ramos-Horta (who left East Timor to plead for international support shortly before Indonesia invaded on Dec. 7, 1975) has brought global attention to the former Portuguese colony, where an estimated 200,000 people (one-third of the population) has been killed. The committee cited Belo and Horta’s work for "a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor" and their defense of the East Timorese right to self-determination.

Both recipients have worked tirelessly to inform the world of Indonesian abuses in East Timor, and each in their own way has extended olive branches to Indonesia. An angry Indonesian government reacted with shock at the award, but concentrated its criticism on Ramos-Horta by reviving oft-repeated slanders, some of which have been echoed in Western media.

Ramos-Horta, a leader of the National Council of East Timor Resistance, the umbrella group of Timorese opposing Indonesia’s occupation, in welcoming his award said, "It does not belong to me. It belongs to the people of East Timor." The sentiment was echoed by Bishop Belo.

The awarding of the prize coincided in the U.S. with revelations about campaign contributions from Indonesians to the Clinton campaign. While Republicans seized on the disclosures to criticize Clinton’s plans to sell F-16 jet fighters to Indonesia, Presidents and members of Congress from both parties have supported the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. Any direct influence foreign campaign contributions have had on U.S. policy remains to be shown. What is clear, is that by granting the prize, the Nobel committee has issued a sharp rebuke to those who continue to provide political cover and military support to the Indonesian occupiers of East Timor.

Contact: East Timor Action Network/US, PO Box 1182, White Plains, NY 10602; (914)428-7299; etan-us@igc.apc.org.

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"Mahogany Is Murder"
North Carolina rainforest activists marched 12 miles Sept. 11 to protest the importation and use of mahogany. Marching from the Lexington, NC, offices of Dan K. Moore Lumber, a leading U.S. importer, to those of Thomasville Furniture, a major user of mahogany lumber, demonstrators carred signs and banners informing the public that mahogany is an endangered species and sometimes costs the lives of indigenous South American peoples.

Most legal stands of mahogany have been depleted, so pirate loggers often invade indigenous or wildlife reserves to steal the precious wood. Those who stand in their way are shot. At least eight Amazon tribes have had people murdered at the hands of mahogany loggers.

"We’re going to stop Thomasville and other companies from using mahogany to save the Amazon, the mahogany species and the many indigenous cultures who call the rainforest home," said Rick Spencer of EarthCulture, an organizer of the protest. "People are beginning to realize luxurious furniture shouldn’t cost the lives of innocent people."

The Greensboro, NC-based Earth Culture has led demonstrations and civil disobedience actions around the country to stop all mahogany imports. Contact: Rick Spencer, EarthCulture, P.O. Box 4674, Greensboro, NC 27404; (910)854-2957.

--EarthCulture

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