Galway Anti-war/Occupation/Deportation Picket Continues

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday May 27, 2003 17:14 by Global Women's Strike womenstrike8m at server101 dot com 087 7838688

Picket against war, occupation and deportation at Mill Street Garda Station! The Global Women's Strike calls on women, children and men to Strike out against all warmongers and globalisation with a picket and grassroots speak-out at Mill St Garda station at 1pm sharp on Wednesdays. All welcome to speak out. Bring pots and pans to bang! The war on Iraq is not over but an illegal occupation and the theft of people's assets and resources has begun. Like all other colonial powers through the ages, the US and UK knew that not only killing and maiming people, but allowing and even organising the looting of museums and libraries, allows them to devalue the lives, work and hopes of everyone from Iraq. The occupying powers have already started to stoke divisions between communities of different religion or ethnicity to make it easier to steal from them. Women and children continue to suffer

Picket against war, occupation and deportation at Mill Street Garda Station!

The Global Women's Strike calls on women, children and men to Strike out against all warmongers and globalisation with a picket and grassroots speak-out at Mill St Garda station at 1pm sharp on Wednesdays. All welcome to speak out. Bring pots and pans to bang! Invest In Caring Not Killing!Women Globally Say No War or Occupation!No More Deportations!Right to Stay for Parents of Irish-born Children!No new weapons for Gardai!Women the carers, asylum seekers, women with disabilities, young and older women, pensioners, students, teachers, travellers, women of colour, including mothers, sisters and daughters of soldiers trained to kill and be killed, of gardai protecting warplanes from us --Will call on the Gardai and the army to: · Refuse to serve the warmongers or provide assistance to an illegal occupation of Iraq at Shannon· Refuse to detain, imprison and deport people who have fled wars, occupations, environmental disasters and poverty· Abandon the purchase of new, dangerous 'crowd control' weapons

The war on Iraq is not over but an illegal occupation and the theft of people's assets and resources has begun. Like all other colonial powers through the ages, the US and UK knew that not only killing and maiming people, but allowing and even organising the looting of museums and libraries, allows them to devalue the lives, work and hopes of everyone from Iraq. The occupying powers have already started to stoke divisions between communities of different religion or ethnicity to make it easier to steal from them. Women and children continue to suffer the most with no clean water and not enough food. Yet rarely did we hear or see women from Iraq on our TV screens. Women are in their homes struggling to keep families alive or at hospitals, fighting to get their sick children treated. Cholera is endangering many lives, gun battles still rage on the streets and baby milk formula, which will kill thousands of babies especially when mixed with unclean water, is being shipped into Iraq. Now is the time when we women, who with our children make up the majority of casualties and of refugees, must continue to come out and say No War and No Occupation. We know that every casualty, every collateral damage, every victim of friendly fire, every cholera victim, every infant killed by formula feeding is some mother's daughter, some mother's son. Women, children and men in Iraq are not accepting that this is normal and neither do we.

On the 8th of March, the 4th Global Women's Strike's caravan to Shannon airport learned that the Gardai did not want to be doing the work of supporting the US/UK war effort by protecting warplanes from us. We know that the army are also uneasy about doing this work. Most didn't want to support an illegal war, a massive racist slaughter, as women of colour at our Strike events describe it. This support work for war crimes makes them liable for prosecution, along with Bush, Blair and Aznar. But men who support the Global Women's Strike are speaking out about the long tradition of men's refusal of the work of killing. One of the most recent is the refuseniks in the Israeli army, which gets over $3 billion a year from the US to keep the Middle East under US/Israeli domination.

And women of colour at our Strike events told us about how these very wars, along with poverty and the catastrophic effects of globalisation on our climate, displace them and their families. They flee to countries like ireland only to be humiliated, detained and deported from places like Mill St Garda Station. Truly War is the enemy of the poor, as Martin Luther King was killed for saying.

Every week since the war on Iraq began, our picket has been protesting war, asking whether the Irish security forces have become Bush's and Blair's storm troopers (and for such low pay!) and calling on them to refuse. We are also out there in solidarity with those arrested at Shannon airport and in court for actions against war and for life. Our picket is noisy with chanting and a weekly cacerolazo - banging of pots and pans also used by women in Argentina to protest devastating poverty worsened by official corruption; by women in Venezuela to protest an attempt at a US-backed coup; and most recently in Barcelona against the war. On the picket we, and the people who stop to discuss the occupation with us, to tell us some news or speak-out against war and for investment in caring, learn from each other the truth we will never hear from TV or read in the papers.

There can be no business as usual for an Irish government which cravenly violates the constitution in order to befriend and protect the US, a rogue State that ignores what the vastmajority of people here and in the world have clearly said: we wanted NO WAR ON IRAQ. Governments everywhere have been bought off or threatened - the US superpower threatens us in ireland too not only with poverty and renewed emigration from removal of its investment.. It also threatens us militarily when it attacks our sisters and brothers in Iraq or anywhere - it's our survival and that of our children, which is also at stake.

There has never been a more urgent time to act for life and against mass murder by globalisation and its wars. We are doing this for our children too, so they - along with women and men of every age, race, religion or belief and income level - are more than welcome on our picket.

Global military budgets = $ 900 billion+ Essentials of Life = $ 80 billion

Coming together across all that divides us to demand these billions now being wasted on death and destruction for caring and for life is the most effective way to end war! Why is there money for war and occupation (including policing Shannon, legitimate protests on our streets, new and dangerous weapons for Gardai) but no money for: clean water, food, medicine, single mothers, maternity care in rural areas, disability benefits and carers, students, travellers, pensioners, asylum seekers fleeing war, rape and other torture, decent pay for nurses, teachers, jobs at Shannon…?

For further information telephone 087 7838688 or email maggie_ronayne@hotmail.com

The Global Women's Strike and Strike events are independent, women-led, non-party political events co-ordinated in ireland by the Wages for Housework Campaign, Galway, with participation by women and their organisations in over 70 countries. We welcome the participation of all sectors of the anti-war movement who respect the non-party political autonomy of grassroots women and what we are organising in ireland and globally.

See Website: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com
For more information on men's support: payday@paydaynet.org and for information on men refusing military service see website: http://www.paydaynet.org