GREEN PARTY USA URGES: COME HOME TO PEACE

GREEN PARTY USA URGES: COME HOME TO PEACE

The Green Party USA calls for activists and Greens worldwide to join in
solidarity against the illegal U.S. war on the people of Afghanistan.

We have urged a "hands off" policy in that region, but now we are
disappointed to find some European Greens in government breaking solidarity
and supporting our agressor government against Green values. We urgently
call on Die Grunen, the German Green Party, to come home, to reverse their
vote and withdraw from their government coalition supporting this war.

The historic Green committment to nonviolence means breaking the cycle of
war and revenge, of patriarchal domination and corrupt corporate enclosure.
We cannot, we will not trade the lives of thousands or millions of
innocent civilians in the poorest countries, along with the destruction of
entire ecosystems, to gain a few windmills at home and a seat at the table
of Power. Their lives are not ours to trade. We must support peoples' right
to make the decisions that affect their own lives.

As Greens we urge ending all military buildup in Central Asia and all
covert operations that tighten the corporate hegemony of the region and its
energy resources. We will not advocate UN "peacekeeping" run by the
Pentagon. We opposed the US-led NATO destruction of Kosovo and the German
Greens support for the NATO bombing.

Petra Kelly, a cofounder of the original German Greens, and two-term
elected member of the German Bundestag (1983-90), called for rejection of
war as a political instrument, radical disarmament, removal of foreign
military bases, dismantling of military alliances, abolition of nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons and the world arms trade. *

Kelly wrote before her death:

"The Greens, set up as a kind of anti-party party, have turned into a
party obsessed with power... Sometimes I almost despaired of this attitude,
particularly within my own party. What is left of the honesty and
credibility of a party that set out to do things completely differently?"
(written in the last few days of her membership in the Bundestag) **

And in 1989 Kelly said:

"But becoming a coalition partner and becoming a junior partner in
government cannot mean losing our Green identity. It cannot mean giving up
our key principles of radical and ecological solutions, of nonviolent means
and ends, of democratic grass-roots decisions, and of working for a
demilitarized and denuclearized society. More and more the German Green
Party is moving toward giving up those positions for the sake of becoming
acceptable to the Social Democrats, for the sake of having three or four
ministers in a red-green cabinet. But how high will the price be?...

"We cannot afford to make compromises when trying to protect human lives,
when trying to protect the health of peoples and of all living things on
the planet! Talking suddenly about "limit values" of, for example, dioxin
or lead, or accepting here and there a little bit of deterrence or
radioactivity cannot be Green politics! We must provide healing, life
affirming answers, not just repairing a little bit here and there. We must
empower people at the grass-roots level to start initiating political
action themselves; we must help them share more power... Our future, our
potential, and our credibility lies in interconnecting the issues of peace,
human rights, employment, ecology, and social justice." ***

Media Committee, The Greens/Green Party USA

The Green Party USA promotes the broad-based movement for sustainability
and justice in our Ten Key Values: Grassroots Democracy, Ecological Wisdom,
Social Justice and Equal Opportunity, Nonviolence, Decentralization,
Community Based Economics, Feminism, Respect for Diversity, Personal and
Global responsibility, Future Focus and Sustainability.


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* from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, introduction p.5
** from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, "Morality and Human Dignity", p.126
*** from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, p.66, from a speech titled Global
Green Politics given at the Ecopolitics Conference, University of Adelaide,
Australia Sept 21-24,1989)
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