August 2004. Over a decade of economic and military warfare against the people of Iraq. Over a year of occupation of Iraq. The Apartheid Wall being built in Palestine. People cut off from their lands, livelihoods and each other. Economic devastation in Iraq and Palestine. Health care and education destroyed in each land. Resource wars over oil, water and land.

The times cry for change. The times cry for peacemakers and justice-seekers. The times cry for action. It is high time that we respond to the call to act. The times cry for us to act as if the lives of the peoples of Iraq and Palestine truly matter.

It is time to challenge our comfortable lives in the United States. To challenge our country’s acts of war and oppression. To resist the machinery of war enveloping our country. To choose the path of nonviolence over continual destruction.

We therefore initiate this campaign of Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation as we demand that our country end its actions of economic and military warfare that result, for so many, in Life Under Occupation.

Our demands include:

• Respect for all worker rights and human rights in Iraq and Palestine.
• An end to the occupations in Iraq and Palestine.
• Self-determination for the peoples of Iraq and Palestine, not a puppet “sovereignty.”
• A dismantling of all walls that separate and tear lives asunder.
• Reconstruction of Iraq and Palestine that benefits and is directed by the people of Iraq and Palestine rather than by the dictates of corporations or foreign countries.
• Reparations to families of Iraqis killed as a result of the US-driven economic and military warfare since 1990.
• Clean up of all cluster-bombs, landmines, depleted uranium and other unexploded weapons, as well as a prohibition on any future use of such weapons.
• Redirect our country’s resources away from war and to uses which affirm life, including universal health care, education, economic development and a justly reformed criminal injustice system.

We are initiating this campaign on August 6th : the anniversary of both Hiroshima and the start of economic sanctions against the people of Iraq. We initiate this campaign of Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation on the anniversary of our country’s use of weapons of mass destruction against the innocents of the world.

We call for coordinated actions around the United States during two key periods of this campaign. We encourage participants to build towards coordinated acts of Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation during the months of November 2004 and March 2005, in the run up to the joint terror war games of the US and UK.

November 2nd is election day. November 11th is Armistice Day. We call for coordinated actions running from November 2nd through November 11th.

Given the pronouncements—or lack thereof—from George Bush and John Kerry, we do not believe that this presidential election will have either a significant or substantive impact upon our country’s foreign policy—especially in Iraq, Palestine and the Middle East. Indeed, Kerry voted for the war on Iraq; supports the continued occupation of Iraq; has no plan to end either the occupation of Iraq or Palestine; advocates moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; and is silent on the Apartheid Wall. Kerry advocates the doctrine of pre-emptive war.

Thus, after all the voting is done on November 2, it will be incumbent upon us to recommit ourselves to nonviolent resistance to our country’s policies of war-making and occupation. We choose to act in the days from November 2nd through November 11th as a time of concentrated and coordinated recommitment to resistance. We choose to reclaim the original significance of Armistice Day—when at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the guns became quiet and the world’s citizens celebrated the end of the first World War—and prayed that the guns would be silent forevermore. We choose to act on Armistice Day to declare that the current world war into which our country is leading the world must be resisted by all nonviolent means available.

We call for a second round of coordinated actions from March 19th to April 15th in the days leading up to the joint terror exercises of the US and UK. The exercises are to happen in April 2005, involving thousands of troops and police, testing their capacity to respond to “toerrorist” actions. It will be a transatlantic affair.

Our country is using the “war on terror” to create a never-ending war on human rights. We call for resistance to the terror which our country inflicts upon the world in the guise of this so-called “war on terror.” We echo the refrain that the only fear we have to fear is fear itself—a fear which is being created and manipulated by our country to justify the initiation and expansion of a third World War, a war currently focused in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, but with the very real prospect of expanding to engulf all of the Middle East and beyond.

While we are calling for coordinated actions in November and March, it is critical that acts of Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation occur throughout the coming year and beyond. We envision these acts emerging from within the particular context in which particular communities of people live and act. As we reach out to and engage in dialogue with communities of students, of resistance, of faith, and other social justice grounded communities, we suggest the following conceptual framework in which acts of Solidarity, Resistance and Liberation might occur.

Solidarity. We envision acts of solidarity with the peoples of Iraq and Palestine. Such acts are to be visible symbolic representations of Life Under Occupation and of our own complicity with the occupations. Given our position in the United States, we recognize that acts of solidarity will not replicate the actual conditions that the peoples of Iraq and Palestine endure. However, we do believe that such visual acts of solidarity will serve as a powerful witness and a call to change our country’s policies of war-making and occupation.

Acts of Solidarity include, but are not limited to, the following types of action:

• Fasts from food, electricity, oil.
• Physical encampments.
• Photo displays and art displays of Life Under Occupation.
• Teach-ins and dialogue.
• Sister schools programs.
• Referendum campaigns on campuses, in churches and in communities to challenge the occupations.
  Fasting during Ramadan.
• Occupation of a portion of campus with requisite check-points for travel into and out from the area.

Resistance. We envision acts of resistance to our country’s war-making and occupation policies. Resistance involves using our lives to muck up the machinery of death. Resistance requires the interposition of our bodies, our comfort, our lives between the machinery of war and those whose lives are being disrupted and destroyed in the occupations.

We remember Mario Savio, of the Free Speech movement, and recognize, as he did, that “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Acts of Resistance include, but are not limited to, the following types of action:

• War tax resistance through refusing to pay your federal phone tax, living below the taxable income level, and otherwise refusing to pay war taxes.
• Resistance to the Selective Service System, including support for those refusing to register and assisting those of draft age to prepare Conscientious Objector files.
• GI resistance – and active support for those GI’s engaged in resistance.
• Demonstrations against corporations and war profiteers, including military contractors and those engaged in reconstruction work who do not employ Iraqi citizens, pay a livable wage and respect worker rights.
• Demonstrations against the militarization of our college campuses and high schools as embodied in ROTC / JROTC programs; presence of military recruiters; and research for the military.
• Refuse to accept racist and biased media. Challenge the editors with letters and direct action to end use of racist and monolithic coverage of Iraq / Palestine, Muslims and Arabs.
• Resist the two party state. Demand answers to issue-based questions. Organize initiatives to open up the political dialogue / debate to third parties, including initiatives to allow fusion candidacies.

Liberation. We envision acts of Liberation which move us toward a country which affirms the common good. Such acts affirm that a justice-filled world is indeed possible—modeling what such a world might look like and sowing the seeds.

Acts of Liberation include, but are not limited to, the following types of action:

• Divestment campaigns to force local government, campuses, and other entities cease investing in military contractors, contractors doing business with Israel, and contractors engaged in Iraq reconstruction efforts who do not respect human rights, worker rights, employ Iraqis or pay a living age.
• Demand that companies performing work in Iraq respect human rights and worker rights, pay a livable wage and employ Iraqi citizens.
• Create a peace studies program at the local college or school district.
• Re-occupy and reclaim ROTC buildings and recruitment centers.
• Demand that our government use its resources to advance basic human rights, universal health care, education and other social needs both in the US and in other countries.
• Take back media outlets which promote war-making and occupation through acts of civil disobedience.
• Take back corporate headquarters which promote war-making and occupation through acts of civil disobedience.

Voices in the Wilderness is eager to assist and coordinate with you and your community as we engage in this campaign of Life Under Occupation. Please contact us and we will provide you with sample flyers and press releases; photo displays; speakers and delegates who have traveled to Iraq; information on military and reconstruction contractors in your area; and networking with others in your area.

Voices in the Wilderness was formed in 1996 when social justice activists gathered to take action to oppose and resist the economic sanctions which the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom (via the UN) imposed against the people of Iraq. Since 1996, Voices sponsored over 70 delegations of activists who traveled to Iraq and brought medicine and humanitarian supplies to Iraq despite the economic sanctions—and without a license from the US government to do so. Voices is charged by the government with violating US sanctions law and is currently facing a $20,000 fine for actions taken in 1998. The government took action against Voices in 2002 during the run-up to the official start of the invasion of Iraq. Voices is committed to continuing to resist the 14 year war which the United States has waged against the people of Iraq—whose form now takes the form of the on-going occupation.