WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE "UNITE FOR PEACE"

WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE URGE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO
"UNITE FOR PEACE"

NEW YORK - March 28 - International women’s organizations,
including MADRE, Women of Color Resource Center, Center for
Women’s Global Leadership, and the International Women’s
Human Rights Law Clinic, today joined other women’s
organizations worldwide as they called on the member states
of the United Nations General Assembly to enact an emergency
application of UN Resolution 377 ("Uniting for Peace") to
stop the US-led bombing of Iraq and protect Iraqi civilians.

Uniting for Peace provides that in the event of a "threat to
the peace or act of aggression," which the Security Council
does not counter, the General Assembly "shall consider the
matter immediately." The Assembly can recommend collective
measures, including the use of armed forces, to member
states to "maintain or restore international peace and
security."

This action follows a recent call in New Delhi made by
women’s organizations from over 35 countries condemning the
Bush Administration’s war against Iraq and urging the
General Assembly to challenge US aggression. The
organizations also condemn the Bush Administration’s
attempts to undermine the United Nations, which have been
reported in the Chilean newspaper, La Tercera, and other
sources. According to those reports, the US has issued a
warning to the 191 UN member states, demanding that the
General Assembly not convene an emergency session to address
the US attack on Iraq.

In their open letter to the UN General Assembly, the group
of organizations stated, "The bribery and bullying that the
Bush Administration calls diplomacy reflects its brazen
contempt for democracy both in the US and abroad. Bush has
claimed that the United Nations would render itself
irrelevant if it did not submit to his demands. But as the
decrepit state of the US Democratic Party reveals, it is
those who collude with illegitimate power that render
themselves irrelevant. Meanwhile, the resolve of many UN
member states to stand firm against the US, reinforced by
the call to enact Uniting for Peace, offer hope for a
revitalized international system better able to fulfill the
United Nation’s founding mission to ’save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war.’"

The groups first issued the call to enact Uniting for Peace
on September 12, 2002, when Bush declared, in a speech at
the United Nations, his intent to escalate hostilities
against Iraq. Since then, the threat posed by his
Administration to the people of Iraq, and indeed, to the
people of the world, has mushroomed. The world now faces a
nuclear-armed religious fundamentalist who, according to
journalists who have interviewed him extensively, believes
that he was placed in the White House by God to carry out a
divine mission. With Bush’s doctrine of preventive war
justifying an attack against any country that he claims is a
threat to present or future US interests, the world is his
target. The Bush Administration is indeed a grave threat to
international peace and security and must be challenged by a
multi-lateral effort aimed at protecting the principles and
practices of international cooperation and the rule of law.
The organizations made the following declarations to the
General Assembly :

* "We therefore reiterate our call on the United Nations
General Assembly to convene an emergency session to enact
United Nations resolution 377, Uniting for Peace to halt the
US-led bombing and protect the human rights of Iraqi
civilians.

* "We condemn the Bush Administration’s plan to sideline UN
relief agencies and turn Iraq’s reconstruction into a
bonanza for US-based corporations. We urge the General
Assembly to address the issue of reconstruction and to
guarantee the social and economic rights of Iraqi women and
their families in the reconstruction process." ###