Contents:

As the CENTER enters another year—with our 1999 Plan of local work for peace and justice (race dialogue, Peace Camp, labor film festival, conflict resolution workshops, victim–offender mediation, Tax Day and more statewide advocacy)—it is good to know that efforts also take place elsewhere. Not only in other cities and states, but internationally! While most COOPERATION TIMES readers will not attend, let me tell you about a wonderful thing taking place in our world! As Archbishop Desmond Tutu asserted, "If we could abolish apartheid, why not war?"

Non-governmental organizations are gathering around the world discussing amazing initiatives that will be taken to the Hague, Netherlands, May 11-15, l999, at the last world conference of the twentieth century. The conference is called by civil society, with governments and inter-governmental organizations invited. Women from West Africa, Sudan, the great Lakes, Sri Lanka and India are forming a group to go to the Hague to discuss conflict prevention and resolution and perform at a cultural evening. Peace Child International will present an original musical play written and performed by young people from both sides of six conflicts. General Lee Butler, former commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command and India’s retired Admiral L. Ramdas will hold a conversation on the abolition of nuclear weapons and the end of war. A campaign to ratify the International Criminal Court statute will be launched.

It has been 100 years since the Czar of Russia and the Queen of the Netherlands called the first world peace congress which established the concept of the pacific settlement of disputes and laid the ground for the World Court and International Court of Arbitration. "We are determined to design a culture of peace for the new century so that the legacy of violence and war which has defined the 20th century is not repeated," said Cora Weiss, President of the Hague Appeal for Peace Foundation. "We will examine root causes of conflict and propose actions and campaigns that will reduce violence and encourage reconciliation."

"What if we asked that every school in the world include peace studies, or coexistence, or conflict prevention, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, along with the usual required courses of reading, writing and arithmetic? Wouldn’t that help create a peaceful, caring population? What if every legislator and parliamentarian had to take a course in international law, and if we asked that there be a human rights lawyer–ombudsperson in every foreign ministry? Or if the Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice were to call for a contribution from every nation’s military budget to provide for immunization for every new born child, and clean water and basic health care for the whole world’s population? What if we insisted that the gap between rich and poor be closed, if we brought together people from Islam and the rest of the world? Wouldn’t that be conflict prevention? Nothing humane is impossible. We hope to foment a new climate, design new ways of thinking and doing for the new century," added Cora Weiss.

The Hague Appeal for Peace is a major end-of-century campaign and conference, dedicated to the de-legitimization of war and to the establishment of peace as a human right. It seeks to refocus our minds on a vision of the world in which armed conflict in the settlement of disputes is seen as illegitimate and fundamentally unjust. The conference will complete an extraordinary sequence of world conferences held over the last decade, but will be convened by civil society, not governments. At the Conference, The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century will be finalized and launched.

The Hague Appeal for Peace is a cross-sectorial initiative. Its Organizing Committee is made up of groups from all sectors of civil society, including disarmament, human rights, gender, environment, development, education, faith-based, law, media and labor. The Committee developed the Appeal’s four program areas: disarmament, including nuclear abolition, demilitarization and the establishment of human security; prevention, resolution, and transformation of violent conflict; international humanitarian law and human rights; and the root causes of war/ building a culture of peace.

Youth will play a vital and integral role in all aspects of the conference. Young people from both sides of conflicts will sit around a hand-hewn Peace Table, a gift of the Nakashima Peace Foundation, and discuss how they will prevent conflict and how they would resolve disputes. Young people will make videos of their visions of a world without war and will send photos to be displayed in the conference center.

The Hague Agenda will be presented at the 1999 United Nations General Assembly. The Agenda will also be presented and discussed at the Millennium Forum, and at a Non–Governmental Organizations (NGO) conference in October in Seoul, and will go home with every conference participant to be implemented at the local and national level.

Speakers and Honorary Committee members include Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs; Federico Mayor, Secretary General of UNESCO; Nobel Laureates Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire Corrigan, Prof. Joseph Rotblat, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Elie Wiesel, Dr. Bernard Lown, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; plus Maj Britt Theorin, Sir Peter Ustinov, Arthur Miller, Christa Wolf, and many others.

The UN NGO/Department of Public Information Executive Committee has endorsed the Hague Appeal for Peace as have Amnesty International, World Watch Institute, World Conference on Religion and Peace, The International Women’s Tribune Center and the Hague Model United Nations. They are joined by 60 international organizations and hundreds of endorsing civil society organizations. The Hague Appeal for Peace was initiated by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, the International Peace Bureau and the World Federalist Movement. Information on how you can participate is available on the Hague Appeal’s website (www.haguepeace.org). Or contact Karina H. Wood, U.S. Outreach Coordinator, Hague Appeal for Peace, 43 Nisbet St., 3rd Floor, Providence, RI 02906, 401-751-8172, fax 401-751-1476, kwood@igc.org.

The bombing of Iraq will, no doubt, amplify the highly charged campaign by the military-industrial complex for a huge increase in military spending.

"The [peace] dividend is over, and now it’s time to begin to meet the modernization, personnel and readiness costs necessary to keep our fighting force the best in the world in the 21st century," stated Pentagon spokesperson Ken Bacon on December 9th.

Earlier, The Washington Post editorialized, "Plenty of internal savings can yet be made within the defense budget; even so, in our judgment, that budget needs to be increased. That means the appropriations’ caps must likewise be eased, and more of the fiscal burden explicitly assigned elsewhere in the budget."

In other words, if Defense Secretary William Cohen wants $25 billion more per year for the next six years, let domestic programs take the hit. Or maybe deduct military spending out of the surplus, rather than using it for Social Security, the national debt or a tax cut.

Mr. Cohen and the Joint Chiefs of Staff clearly want more. That, after all, is their job: build the best military possible in order to protect the U.S. and its worldwide interests.

There’s one catch: the U.S. military is already the most powerful in the world. Its current budget is 20 times more than the nations the Pentagon calls "rogues": Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Cuba. Stretch "bad guys" to cover Russia and China and you’ll find that the U.S. plus its NATO allies, Japan and South Korea, spend 4.5 times as much as all these possible "enemies."

Money isn’t everything, of course. It’s quality that counts. And here the U.S. is miles ahead as well, with the best: tactical fighters/bombers—F-15s, F-16s and F-18s; submarines—the Los Angeles class SSN-668; nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles; long-range bombers—the B-2, B-1B, and B-52H; and personnel, with three million Pentagon employees.

Why, then, the call for more funding? The primary argument being used is that there are severe "readiness" problems. There is some evidence to cause concern: shortages of spare parts, problems in maintaining high-tech weapons, difficulty in retaining pilots and declines in troop quality of life.

These readiness questions are not, however, a function of a budget that is too low. John Rothrock, a retired Air Force colonel, said it best, " We do not need to spend more on defense. We just need to spend differently and more honestly."

Here are some better ways to spend our tax dollars on defense:

1. Cut the pork. Members of Congress insisted on adding $5 billion to the Pentagon budget in 1998 that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) stated "represent a serious hemorrhage of scarce defense dollars to low priority programs at the expense of vital readiness and modernization programs." Not surprisingly, most of this pork went to the districts and states of those Members of Congress with their hands on the purse strings.

2. Abandon the current requirement to prepare for two major wars almost simultaneously. Changing the strategy to meet the real world threats of today would cut Pentagon personnel and produce a leaner, more mobile force. A reduction in active duty personnel would bring about large savings.

3. Eliminate Cold War weapons. The Pentagon currently intends to purchase three tactical fighters at an estimated cost of $329 billion. These aircraft were conceived during the Cold War to counter perceived advances in Soviet fighter technology. According to the General Accounting Office, the F-15E now in our inventory will be the premier tactical aircraft in the world until 2010. We don’t need three new programs. There are also other Cold War weapons systems that should be terminated.

4. Reduce the U.S. nuclear weapons force to the START III level of 2,500 or below. The Pentagon itself is quietly lobbying to cut these numbers to START II levels (between 3,000 to 3,500 warheads) or below, claiming they can maintain an effective deterrent with these lower levels.

Additional military spending will not make for a more effective national defense force. The long term problems must be corrected: a Congress that insists on using the Pentagon budget as a jobs program; a military that insists on weapons and a force structure designed to fight a Cold War enemy that no longer exists; and military contractors who are laughing all the way to the bank.

(Christopher Davis is a research associate and Michael Fonte the executive director of the Council for a Livable World Education Fund, a Washington arms control organization. For more information on military spending and other arms control topics see the Council's web site www.clw.org/ef/ or call the CENTER's office [785-232-4388] for a copy of the 16 page report upon which this article was based.)

As the new year begins, I become very retrospective. I am thankful for all of my blessings, a loving family, friends, and co-workers. I am fortunate to be employed as Foster Care Recruiter for Kansas Children’s Service League (KCSL).

Every year, KCSL pro-vides services to over 12,500 children and families statewide. Our mission is to protect and promote the well-being of all Kansas children by strengthening the quality of their family life through the provision of prevention, early intervention, treatment, advocacy and placement services.

As Foster Care Recruiter for the Topeka area, my job is both challenging and rewarding. Unfortunately as I reflect on my many blessings, I am acutely aware and saddened by children, infancy through seventeen years, who by no fault of their own cannot count many blessings and are in need of foster families. Foster parents must be between 21-65 years of age, may be married or single, either work in or outside of the home. Foster families provide temporary homes for children who are abused, neglected or facing a family crisis. These families provide food, shelter, safety, love, a nurturing environment, health care and a sense of belonging.

I would ask or encourage you to assist me in this effort by asking yourself a question. Can I do more to make a difference in a child’s life?

...to be there for a child, especially when the going gets tough?

...to provide a safe and loving home for a child with behavioral/emotional difficulties?

...to share my home with a child who needs a structured and positive place to call home?

...to work as a "team" to build self-esteem and communicate affection and trust?

...to respect and approach a child with honesty and integrity?

...to see the world through a child’s eyes and understand how pain, fear and anger can color that view?

(Helen Monroe also is a volunteer member of the Customer Advisory Council for the U.S. Postal Service. She moved to Topeka in 1996 from Greenville, North Carolina.)