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Statement
from the Strike for the Shut
DSEi events Since
the first Global Women’s Strike on 8 March 2000, women in over 70
countries have taken action together to demand that the world INVEST IN
CARING NOT KILLING. This year, strikers on every continent confronted the
global war machine that is not only invading Iraq but imposing decades of
poverty, tyranny and genocidal conflict on the peoples of Africa, Asia and
Latin America. We demanded that the world’s military budgets be returned
to the world’s carers who are women first of all – “a
total change of priorities so life and the care of it once more becomes
society’s priority, to be shared by all; and we stop the oil for war and
war for oil that makes war on all of us every day.” On the
8th of March, Ugandan women used the GWS to win some free
health care for everyone. In
Guyana, Afro, Indo and Indigenous women used it to confront divisions that
promote violence and profits for the few.
Indigenous women from the Andes of Peru
and Bolivia are demanding the military budget for Indigenous mothers and
other women who keep the Indigenous community alive and fighting back.
Tanzanian women with disabilities are pressing for tricycle wheelchairs
adapted for their needs, their "Encourage development not war"
call highlights how war causes disability – if people survive. In
Venezuela women have defended a revolution in which On a continent
plagued by US-backed military dictatorships and disappearances, the Chavez
government promotes a caring use of its military. Soldiers, as well as
defending the revolutionary process, work with and for the community:
building homes, schools, providing healthcare . . . They
say the war is over but Bush is talking about a 10-year long occupation of
Iraq. There is a growing movement in Iraq against the occupation, and in
the world against US military might and bullying. The Community Picket in
Parliament Sq. is part of this movement. We are here to bear witness and
save lives and to give a voice to the unrepresented, starting with the
Iraqi Women’s League: “We fear the threat of fundamentalist religious
movements, which an occupying army inspires…The Iraqi people have not
been liberated by the US. We have been subject to a barbaric
attack…’Reconstruction of Iraq’ is now a euphemism for the daylight
robbery of our resources.” There
is a group of men called payday that supports the Global Women’s Strike
calling for men to refuse to kill and to join women in the fight for money
to go into caring instead of into the military. We demand that society Invest in Caring not Killing. And to that end globally we say Stop the World and Change it! |