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Dear Friends As a member of Chichester Stop the War Coalition I have recently return from the United States where I participated in a walk for 'Healing and Peace' with family members of the vicitims of September 11th who are calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan and the prevention of the war on terror migrating further into other countries. Prior to the beginning of the military action in Afghanistan these family members had issued statements calling for peaceful non-voilent solutions to the atrocities of September 11th that took the lives of their loved ones. Their testomies can be summerised as 'Our Grief is Not a Cry For War' and it was this banner that we walked behind from Washington DC to New York City. These family members, who I befriended while in America, showed great strenght and determination in issuing these statements at a period when the America media wasn't interested in solutions other than those of military might. These people stood up for what they believed in and while I was in America their message was incredably well recieved, tens of thousands of people responded in appause and agreement to this message and this movement. It is therefore my intention to communicate their message as I expericence it to further sow the seeds of hope and forgiveness that they where spreading and continue to spread. There is a strong and ever increasing peaceful resisitance to the war on terror in America and it is my feeling that such a message needs to be further communicated along with the testomies of the family members of victims of Sept.11th. I am therefore offering to come and speak at any oppertunity that might arise so that people can hear the side of the story the American and British press are failing to portray, that of the victims who want peace. If at any time you feel as though it might be beneficial for me to speak at a meeting or event then please feel able and free to contact me. A number of family members of victims are leaving today on a delegation to Afghanistan to participate in a victims to victims exchange, visiting and spending time with those who have lost loved ones as a result of the war in Afghanistan, one of the participants was on the walk. I was the only non American to participate on the walk in it's entirety so therefore feel obliged to communicate this message further, it's a message of great hope and a message I feel should be heard world wide. Additional testomies and coverage of the walk can be found at www.vitw.org Subseqent to being in America I participated in a continuing delegation to Iraq which served as both a sanctions breaking delegation and a peace mission to bring back the stories of those already affected by US/UK bombing and those at risk from further bombings in the extention on the war on terror. If any military actions is about to occur in Iraq then I shall return there in solidarity with the people of Iraq and to witness the attacts and there effects to provide a 'real' perspective of the effects of the warfare on ordinary people. Again, please feel free to contact me, I feel as though the experience I had meeting and living with the family members were ones of great postivity and hope. In peace, Matt Barr.
28/11/01, letter to The Guardian. A minority of correspondents to the letters page have been critical of The Guardians pro-peace columnists on the grounds that the US has had military success in Afghanistan. I would like to ask these armchair generals how much death is acceptable in order to avenge the 3,500 American dead? Civilian bombing deaths in Afghanistan are already in the hundreds and these numbers are being added too by the killing of innocent UN and Redcross aid workers. Is this OK as long as the volume of victims is less than that suffered by the Americans? What happens when the number killed by the Americans exceeds their own casualties? Will this be OK as long as the victims aren't western and aren't white? When Kabul fell a Channel 4 cameraman focused on the body of a Taliban soldier, he had been striped below the waist, genitally mutilated and killed are these the sort of practices, along with the extra judicial killing of those responsible for September 11th that the pro-war lobby want to support. Does all this killing make us more secure? Those responsible for September 11th were Saudi disidendents how is it that in response Afghan civilians have suddenly become expendable? Gavin Lewis
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30/11/01, letter to The Guardian I wonder does Christopher Hitchen only mix with some 'White Middle-Class Elite' because his criticisms of leftist and ethnic minority anti-war movements bears no resemblance to the actual debates going in these communities. As a mixed race Briton, in regular conversation with other non-white Briton's, be they of Chinese, Caribbean, African or Asian origin, I find an immediate awareness that this war and its conduct are based on racist double standards - that certain lives are calculated to be worth more than others and that the killing of only certain civilians count as crimes. Even leaving the Muslim community to one side, those of us with friends and families in other parts of the world know full well that the definition of terrorism is dependent on racial and nationalistic qualifications. Victims of US financed death squads in El Salvador, terrorist actions in Nicaragua, the US invasion of Grenada, the workers bombed Sudan and in a Chinese embassy all don't count. Keith Flett's letter which juxtaposes the coverage of the New York air crash with that of the Algerian flood disaster acknowledges this inequity and makes more sense in one paragraph than Christopher Hitchen's does in a whole page. Mr Hitchen's should get out more. Gavin Lewis | ||||||||
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