There is No Military Solution to Fundamentalism

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New IPB LOGOIPB Statement

Tackling the challenge represented by ISIS (Islamic State or ISIL) is a tough assignment, both for governments and for civil society. Their barbaric killings and rapidly expanding control of territory have resulted in precisely the reaction intended: military intervention by the US and its allies. Despite the failures of the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, those with hammers in their toolboxes once again see every problem as a nail. Continue reading “There is No Military Solution to Fundamentalism” →

Remembering Gerry Conlon, Supporting Chelsea Manning

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Report by Genny Bove

The Irish greeting Céad míle fáilte (a hundred thousand welcomes) is no exaggeration. Over in Dublin from Wales again for a few days, this time with Chelsea Manning’s Mum Susan, we are once again experiencing the extraordinary hospitality, warmth and staunch solidarity of our friends here, and it’s wonderful.

Thursday night we gathered at the Teachers’ Club in central Dublin for an evening gathering Resisting Injustice organised by Afri to remember the late, great Gerry Conlon who met and offered his support to Chelsea’s family and who spoke so eloquently against injustice and for Chelsea Manning last November, just a few months before his untimely death from cancer this June.

Donal O’Kelly, the creative force behind January’s Manning Truthfest, was MC for the night. Donal has helped keep the cause in the public eye in myriad ways, most recently dedicating the World’s Best Radio Show award for his play Francisco to Chelsea Manning.

Nuala Kelly
Human rights campaigner, Nuala Kelly, speaking about Gerry Conlon at Resisting Injustice. Photo: Dave Donnellan

The first speaker was Nuala Kelly, whose talk drew on her extensive experience of supporting Irish prisoners in overseas jails. She recounted how she had at first been more aware of Giuseppe Conlon’s arrest back in 1975 than that of his son Gerry but how later, in her work with the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas, she became involved in supporting Gerry and his family in their quest for justice. Nuala emphasised the impact on families when a person is imprisoned and the importance of offering support and working alongside families. She described how the campaign to free the Guildford Four, Maguire Seven and Birmingham Six started to gain momentum, with local groups little by little getting involved and taking their own solidarity initiatives, such as a women’s group organising street stalls in central Dublin. If we are going to build an effective campaign to free Chelsea, we need to find ways to engage as many people as possible as well as being mindful of the perspectives of both the prisoner and her family. Continue reading “Remembering Gerry Conlon, Supporting Chelsea Manning” →

War Games at Croke Park

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A USAF F-16C over Iraq in 2008. Source: Wikipedia
A USAF F-16C over Iraq in 2008. Source: Wikipedia

I was planting a tree in the garden of my north Dublin home on Saturday afternoon when the silence was shattered by a sudden thunderous roar, the like of which I had never heard before, while I caught a glimpse of a black streak flashing across the sky. My wife ran from the house alarmed and fearful – thinking that an attack of some sort was actually taking place. In our local vegetable shop, a staff member reported customers instinctively ‘running for cover’ as they were overwhelmed by the deafening noise. A man in his 70s who was repairing a house nearby had to go inside for an hour as a result of the shock.

We later learned that the cause of our Saturday afternoon jolt was two F-16 war planes, performing a fly-past for the American football match in Croke Park. I thought of the fear that, if only for a few seconds, these war planes had generated. The vaguest hint, perhaps, of what it must be like for families in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for whom this is a daily reality, except in these instances it is no propagandist fly-past as the war planes ‘deliver’ death, destruction and misery. I thought of what it would be like for my own children if this had been the ‘real thing’, and of those children for whom this sound is the last they will ever hear! Continue reading “War Games at Croke Park” →

Afri expresses outrage at the “fly past” by 2 U.S. jet fighters as part of the U.S. football match in Croke Park on Saturday 30th August

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The justice and peace group Afri have expressed outrage at the “fly past” by 2 U.S. jet fighters as part of the U.S. football match in Croke Park at the weekend.

“Many people in the surrounding areas were shocked and frightened when the silence of a quiet Saturday afternoon was shattered by the thunder of 2 F16 fighter jets which, without warning or explanation, flew overhead in a “lap of honour” for the participating teams.  What would it be like if, as in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, they were firing the missiles which are their stock in trade?  Who gave consent for this invasion of Irish air space by elements of the U.S. war machine? Is it appropriate that the headquarters of Ireland’s national games, built over many years by the pence and shillings, cents and euros, of loyal supporters should be used as a backdrop for U.S. war propaganda?

If official permission was given, Afri would condemn the authorities in Croke Park and the Irish Government for collusion with this disgraceful display.  As with Shannon Airport, this shows a typically supine attitude by the Irish Government to U.S. power.  Is there no limit to our willingness to prostrate ourselves before the altar of U.S. militarism?   Sport should be a means of bringing people together and promoting peace, not a vehicle for promoting war and militarism,” said Dr. Iain Atack of Afri.

Should there be a recurrence of this event in future years, Afri stated that it will mobilise people to protest against such obscene conflation of war and sport.

Article in the Irish Times by Fiona Gartland: Croke Park Classic: fighter jet fly-past upsets people, dogs and anti-war group

Afri alarmed by Irish companies supplying US army and military industry

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Shannon

Press release

The justice and peace group Afri has expressed alarm at the extent to which Irish companies are involved in supplying military equipment, including to the US army. Afri first brought this issue of Irish participation in  the military industry to light when it published the ‘Links’ Report in 1996, demonstrating the early stages of this trend of supplying such components.

Afri condemns the practice of companies making profits on the back of human suffering and misery caused by war and violence. Irish companies are supplying components, including parts for drones to one of the most aggressive military forces on the planet, the US army, which has been involved in the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. This, along with the use of Shannon as a war-port, places Ireland ever closer to the heart of the US war machine. Continue reading “Afri alarmed by Irish companies supplying US army and military industry” →

An International Ban on Killer Robots is needed now

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Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, has said an international ban must be put in place now, before one country starts using them in conflict, opening the door to others to follow suit.

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Copenhagen, Professor Sharkey noted that so far no nation has openly used entirely autonomous aircraft, submarines, surface vessels or tanks that are capable of tracking, selecting, targeting and deploying weapons entirely by themselves and based on algorithms. However,  such systems are already being developed by a number of countries, including the US, China, Israel, Taiwan and Russia. However,  because they have not yet been used, an opportunity is there to ban them before nations race to develop and start using them.

To read more: click here

Professor Sharkey was also interviewed about the Campaign to Ban Killer Robots on RTE: click here

Irish Government should promote health, education and overseas aid – not useless weapons of war

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The justice and peace group Afri have expressed dismay at the revelation that the Irish army plans to spend over €4m on upgrading its air defence missile system. The Army stated that the purpose of the missile system is to “take out enemy aircraft” and elaborated on this unlikely scenario by stating that the missiles in question would “deter hostile actions”.

Extraordinarily, this monumental waste of resources is occurring at the same time as health, education, social welfare and overseas development aid budgets continue to be cut causing intense suffering to some of the most vulnerable people in our society and on our planet.

Afri raises the question as to where the ‘hostile action’ is likely to come from that would require such weapons, suggesting that the real agenda is being set by NATO (towards which Ireland is moving ever closer) with its push towards ‘interoperability’ and aggressive military actions. Where does this fit with Ireland’s traditional neutrality, which has been shown to be strongly supported by Irish people in successive opinion polls? For example, a Red C poll carried out for the Peace and Neutrality Alliance in 2013 showed 78% of people support Irish neutrality, an essential element of which is non-participation in aggressive military alliances and minimal military spending.

Afri calls on the Labour Party in particular to clarify where its priorities lie in terms of such spending. Afri believes that this bizarre decision is representative of why the Labour Party is being wiped out in Government. Labour is clearly not listening to its voters by subscribing to and supporting such obscene choices as spending on missile systems while cutting health, education and overseas development aid.

Just A Second! Exploring Disarmament for Development

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Students participating in Afri's 'Just a Second' schools project, holding up a banner to raise awareness about the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS)
Students participating in Afri’s ‘Just a Second’ schools project, holding up a banner to raise awareness about the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS)

Report by Rose Kelly, Afri Development Education Co-ordinator, 6th May 2014

‘Out beyond notions of wrong-doing and right- doing there is a field, I’ll meet you there.’ ~ Rumi

These were the favourite lines from poetry of young peace activist Aseel Asleh.

Aseel, who described himself as a ‘Palestininan citizen of Israel’, was a member of the international organisation Seeds of Peace .With his fellow members of that organisation, Aseel worked towards the manifestation of such a ‘field’ as Rumi describes. At 17 years of age, while attending a Seeds of Peace event, Aseel was shot and killed by Israeli security forces.

On the 29th April 2014, Afri facilitated a World Cafe event in St. Enda’s College Galway for over 70 young people all of whom are around the age Aseel would have been when he was shot and killed. The young people came from St. Enda’s, Salerno and Gort Community College. The session was the culmination of months of work involving a wide range of activities including art, story, drama, discussion, creative writing and imagining, as part of the Afri ‘Just a Second’ project.

The intention of the ‘Just a Second’ project was , starting with a focus on the amount of money spent on militarisation every second, to consider the real cost of war and militarisation; to imagine the alternatives; and to come up with ways in which we can work together to help bring about this alternative.

Symbols and story played a significant part in the unfolding of the project. At the event on the 29th April, we had several of these symbols in evidence eg peace cranes, dreamcatchers and St. Brigid’s Peace Crosses. Likewise, into the mix , we brought the stories of child/teenage victims of militarisation. Through their stories, we brought their presence into the room both as witnesses and inspiration. Six years old Celia Griffin who starved to death during An Gorta Mór, Ten years old Sadako Sasaki who died of Leukaemia, ( the A-bomb disease ) a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima and Aseel Asleh. We did our best to manifest Rumi’s field in the bright and spacious gym hall.

The three ‘questions’ up for discussion at the World Cafe were…

What are the real costs of militarsation?

How can we create an alternative Dream?

What am I/we going to do to make this happen?

What the young people came up with together was heart-warming and hopeful.

The event finished with the participants writing a message for peace on large sheets of paper which were then photographed as a contribution to the International Peace Bureau’s Global Day Against Military Spending.(GDAMS)

I began this piece with a reference to Rumi and to Aseel Asleh, not just because we included his story on the day but because, with a spine-tingling serendipity, as I opened my laptop to begin writing, waiting for me was a message from one of Aseel’s good friends, Jen Marlow. Today would have been Aseel’s Asleh’s 31st birthday.

Launch of the Irish campaign to Stop Killer Robots

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At the Irish Launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: (From left to right): Fiona Crowley (Amnesty Ireland), Tony D'Costa (Pax Christi), Iain Atack (ISE), Professor Noel Sharkey, Joe Murray, Lisa Patten (Afri). Photo: Dave Donnellan
At the Irish Launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: (From left to right): Fiona Crowley (Amnesty Ireland), Tony D’Costa (Pax Christi), Iain Atack (ISE), Professor Noel Sharkey, Joe Murray, Lisa Patten (Afri). Photo: Dave Donnellan

On 10 April, the Irish launch of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots took place at Trinity College Dublin with a keynote address by Professor Noel Sharkey, chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, a founder of the global Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Afri—a peace and human rights organisation that opposes war and militarization—held the launch in association with the International Peace Studies Programme of the Irish School of Ecumenics. Other organisations participating in the Irish Campaign to Stop Killer Robots include Amnesty International Ireland and Pax Christi Ireland.

Born in Belfast, Sharkey is a well-known robotics and artificial intelligence expert at the University of Sheffield in the UK. At the event, he called on the Irish government to show leadership on the crucial issue of ensuring human control over targeting and attack decisions by banning fully autonomous weapons.

In a press release, Afri described the launch as timely given the context of moves by some countries towards the use of lethal autonomous robotic weapons. It expressed strong support for call for a comprehensive ban and said it was “delighted” to have Professor Sharkey at the launch of campaign in Ireland.

Afri co-ordinator Joe Murray called for an urgent ban of autonomous weapons, noting “Should we allow the monumentally insane policy of developing fully autonomous weapons to be pursued then even the element of human intervention will be sidelined and we will have war and violence of epic proportions. It is time to wake up and shout stop.” Continue reading “Launch of the Irish campaign to Stop Killer Robots” →

Petition – U.S the military use of Shannon Airport

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The people of Ireland are being pulled into wars we don’t support. Every week planes full of armed U.S troops pass through Ireland’s Shannon airport en route to conflict zones. The airport has been directly involved in the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Over two million U.S troops have used Shannon Airport since 2002.

Ireland has even given an exemption to fees for these military flights. In addition, CIA rendition torture aircraft have regularly used the airport en route to the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison camp and other torture sites. Shannon’s use as vital cog in the illegal U.S. renditions programme has been highlighted by Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, the UN Committee Against Torture and others.

It’s time to show the world that we don’t support the bombing, killing and torture of innocent people.

With Shannon back in the news, we now have a real opportunity to put pressure on politicians to hear our voices.

Please sign and share the petition today.

http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-respect-ireland-s-constitution-end-u-s-military-use-of-shannon

Continue reading “Petition – U.S the military use of Shannon Airport” →