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About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Leading by Example: Cuba in the Covid-19 Pandemic

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Helen Yaffe reprinted by Transcend

The response of socialist Cuba to the global SARS-CoV2 pandemic has been outstanding both domestically and for its international contribution. That a small island nation, subjected to hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism and, since the Revolution of 1959, six decades of the criminal United States blockade, can play such an exemplary role is due to Cuba’s socialist system. The central plan directs national resources according to a development strategy which prioritises human welfare and community participation, not private profit.


Video of Cuban Isolation Center

Cuban authorities reacted quickly to Chinese information about SARS-CoV2 at the start of the year. In January, authorities established a National Intersectoral Commission for COVID-19, updated their National Action Plan for Epidemics, initiated surveillance at ports, airports and marines, gave COVID-19 response training for border and immigration officials and drafted a ‘prevention and control’ plan. Cuban specialists travelled to China to learn about the new coronavirus’ behaviour and commissions of the government’s Scientific Council began to work on combating the coronavirus. Throughout February, medical facilities were reorganised, and staff trained to control the spread of the virus domestically. In early March a science and biotechnology group was created to develop COVID-19 treatments, tests, vaccines, diagnostics and other innovations. From 10 March inbound travellers were tested for COVID-19. All of this was before the virus was detected on the island.

On March 11, three Italian tourists were confirmed as the first cases of COVID-19 in Cuba. Cuban healthcare authorities stepped into action, organising neighbourhood meetings, conducting door-to-door health checks, testing, contact tracing and quarantining. This has been accompanied by education programmes and daily information updates. The population went under ‘lockdown’ on 20 March, required to abide by social distancing rules and wear facemasks when leaving homes on essential business. Business taxes and domestic debts were suspended, those hospitalised had 50% of their salaries guaranteed and low-income households qualified for social assistance and family assistance schemes, with food, medicine and other goods delivered to their homes. Workshops nationwide began to produce masks, bolstered by a grassroots movement of home production, and community mutual aids groups organised to assist the vulnerable and elderly with shopping for food as long queues became the norm. On 24 March, Cuba closed its borders to all non-residents, a tough decision given the importance of tourism revenue to the state. Anyone entering the country was required to spend a fortnight in supervised quarantine, under a testing regime. Defence Councils in the Provinces and Municipalities were activated.

In April payment of utility bills was suspended, likewise local and regional transport, while transport was guaranteed for medical staff and other essential workers. Havana and other cities were disinfected. 20 communities in six provinces were placed under total or partial quarantine. A Cuban-designed mobile phone app, ‘Virtual Screening’, went live with an opt-in application allowing users to submit an epidemiological survey for statistical analysis by the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP). Measures were taken to keep the virus out of prisons, with active screening twice daily and no reported cases by 23 April.

By May 24, a Cuban population of 11.2 million had reported 82 deaths and fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases; 173 confirmed cases per million people, compared to 3,907 per million in Britain. Not one healthcare worker had died, although 92 had been infected by mid-April.

Cuba’s exemplary response is based on five features of its socialist development. First, its single, universal, free public healthcare system which seeks prevention over cure, with a network of family doctors responsible for community health who live among their patients. Second, Cuba’s biopharma industry which is driven by public health needs, produces nearly 70% of the medicines consumed domestically and exports to 50 countries.[1] Third, the island’s experience in civil defence and disaster risk reduction, usually in response to climate-related and natural disasters. Its internationally applauded capacity to mobilize national resources to protect human life is achieved by a network of grassroots organizations which facilitate communication and community action. Fourth, the island’s experience in operating infectious disease (border) controls. For decades, Cuba has sent healthcare professionals to countries which have infectious diseases long-since eradicated on the island and has invited tens of thousands of foreigners from those countries to study in Cuba. It has well-developed procedures for quarantining people (re)entering the island. Fifth, Cuban medical internationalism, which has seen 400,000 healthcare professionals providing free healthcare for underserved populations in 164 countries; some 28,000 medical personnel were serving in 59 countries when the pandemic began. By late May, an additional 2,300 healthcare specialists from Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigades, specialists in epidemiological and disaster response, had gone to 24 countries to treat patients with COVID-19.

A commitment to high-standard public healthcare

In 1959, Cuba had some 6,000 doctors but half of them soon left; only 12 of the 250 Cuban teachers at the University of Havana’s Medical School stayed. There was only one rural hospital. The revolutionary government faced the challenge of providing a high-standard public healthcare system almost from scratch. To that end, in 1960, the Rural Medical Service (RMS) was established and over the next decade hundreds of newly graduated doctors were posted in remote areas. RMS physicians served as health educators as well as clinicians. National programs were established for infectious disease control and prevention. From 1962 a national immunization program provided all Cubans with eight vaccinations free of charge. Infectious diseases were rapidly reduced, then eliminated. By 1970, the number of rural hospitals had reached 53. Not until 1976 was the pre-revolutionary ratio of doctors to citizens restored. By then, health services were available nationwide and indicators had improved significantly. A new model of community-based polyclinics was established in 1974 giving Cuban communities’ local access to primary care specialists. Training and policy emphasized the impact of biological, social, cultural, economic and environmental factors on patients. National programs focused on maternal and child health, infectious diseases, chronic non-communicable diseases, and older adult health.

In 1983, the Family Doctor and Nurse Plan was introduced nationwide. Under this system, family doctor practices were set up in neighborhoods, with either the doctor or the nurse living with their family above the practice, so medical attention is available 24 hours a day. Family doctors coordinate medical care and lead health promotion efforts, emphasizing prevention and epidemiological analysis. They rely on history-taking and clinical skills, reserving costly high-tech procedures for patients requiring them, holding patient appointments in the mornings and making house calls in the afternoons. The teams carry out neighborhood health diagnosis, melding clinical medicine with public health, and individualized ‘Continuous Assessment and Risk Evaluation’ (CARE) for their patients. Family doctors and nurses are also employed in large workplaces and schools, child day-care centers, homes for senior citizens and so on.

By 2005, Cubans had one doctor for every 167 people, the highest ratio in the world. Cuba now has 449 policlinics, each attending to 20,000 to 40,000 people and serving as a hub for 15 to 40 family doctors. There are more than 10,000 family doctors spread evenly throughout the island.

Primary Health Care as the backbone of Cuba’s response

An article in April 2020 Medicc Review describes Cuba’s primary health care system as a ‘powerful weapon’ against COVID-19. ‘Without early access to rapid tests, massive testing was clearly not in the cards as a first strategic option. However, primary health care was.’ Cuban authorities ensured that everyone in the healthcare system, including support staff, received COVID-19 training before the virus was detected. Senior medics from each province were trained at Cuba’s world-famous hospital for tropical diseases, Instituto Pedro Kourí. On returning to their provinces they then trained colleagues in the second tier – hospital and polyclinics directors. ‘Then they went on to the third tier: training for family doctors and nurses themselves, lab and radiology technicians, administrative personnel, and also housekeeping staff, ambulance drivers and orderlies. Anyone who might come into contact with a patient’, explained a polyclinic director, Dr Mayra Garcia, who is cited in the Medicc article.

Each polyclinic also trained non-health sector people in their geographical area, in workplaces, small business owners, people renting homes, especially to foreigners, or managing childcare facilities, telling them how to recognize symptoms and take protective measures. Senior medical professionals in the polyclinics were sent to family doctors’ offices as reinforcement. Medical staff were posted in local hotels to provide 24-hour detection and health care to foreigners residing there. Walk-in emergency services were re-organized to separate anyone with respiratory symptoms and to provide 24-hour assessment. Non-COVID-19 related appointments were postponed where possible or shifted to home visits for priority groups.

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Question for this article:

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

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The Medicc article underscores the importance of the CARE model for combating COVID-19. All Cubans are already categorized into four groups: apparently healthy, with risk factors for disease, ill, and in recovery or rehabilitation. Doctors know the health characteristics and needs of the community they serve. ‘The CARE model also automatically alerts us to people who are more susceptible to respiratory infections, the people whose chronic diseases are the risk factors most commonly associated with complications in COVID-19 patients’ explained Dr Alejandro Fadragas.

Throughout Cuba, CDRs, or street committees, organized public health information meetings for family doctors and nurses to advise neighborhoods about the pandemic. Once the first cases were confirmed, the family doctors daily house visits were extended and became the ‘single most important tool’ for active case detection, to get ahead of the virus.[4] Some 28,000 medical students joined them going door to door to detect symptoms. This procedure means the whole population can be surveyed.

People with symptoms are remitted to their local polyclinic for rapid evaluation. Those suspected of having COVID-19 are sent on to one of the new municipal isolation centers established throughout the island. They must remain for a minimum of 14 days, receiving testing and medical attention. If the case appears to be another respiratory illness, they return home but must stay indoors for at least 14 days, followed up in primary care. Hospitals are reserved for patients who really need them.

Primary healthcare professionals are also responsible for rapid contact tracing for all suspected cases; those contacts are tested and must isolate at home. In addition, the homes and communal entrances of patients sent to isolation centers are disinfected by ‘rapid response’ teams consisting of polyclinic directors and vice directors, alongside family members. Family doctors’ offices are also disinfected daily. Meanwhile, workers in hotels where foreigners are lodged are checked daily by medical staff. The polyclinic provides them with PPE and disinfectants. Polyclinics and family doctors are also responsible for 14 days follow-up for COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals.

Home-grown medicine

The Cuban treatment protocol for COVID-19 patients includes 22 drugs, most produced domestically. The focus has been placed on prevention, with measures to improve innate immunity. Early on the potential of Cuba’s anti-viral drug Heberon, an interferon Alfa 2b human recombinant (IFNrec), was identified. The biotech product has proven effective for viral diseases including hepatitis types B and C, shingles, HIV-AIDS, and dengue. Produced in Cuba since 1986 and in China since 2003 through a Cuban-Chinese joint venture, ChangHeber, in January 2020 it was selected by the Chinese National Health Commission among 30 treatments for COVID-19 patients. It soon topped their list of anti-viral drugs, having demonstrated good results.

The drug has most efficacies when used preventatively and at early stages of infection. In Wuhan, China, nearly 3,000 medical personnel received Heberon as a preventative measure to boast their immune response; none of them contracted the virus. Meanwhile, 50% of another 3,300 medics who were not given the drug did get COVID-19. Cuba’s IFNrec is recommended in the medical protocols of several countries, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Johns Hopkins Medical Centre and the World Journal of Paediatrics among others. The product was already registered in Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Jamaica, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Uruguay. By mid-April requests for its use had been received from some 80 countries and it was being administered by Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigades treating COVID-19 patients overseas. On 14 April it was reported that 93.4% of COVID-19 patients in Cuba had been treated with Heberon and only 5.5% of those had reached a serious state. The mortality rate reported by that date was 2.7% but for patients treated with Heberon it was just 0.9%.

Other Cuban medicines reporting promising results include:

Biomodulina T, a immunomodulator which stimulates the immune systems of vulnerable individuals and has been used in Cuba for 12 years, principally to treat recurrent respiratory infections in the elderly.

The monoclonal antibody Itolizumab (Anti-CD6), used to treat lymphomas and leukemia, administered to COVID-19 patients in a severe or critical condition to reduce the secretion of inflammatory cytokines, which cause the massive flow of substances and liquid in the lungs.
CIGB-258, a new immunomodulatory peptide designed to reduce inflammatory processes. By 22 May, 52 COVID-19 patients had been treated with CIGB-258; among those in a severe stage, the survival rate was 92%, against a global average of 20%. For those in a critical condition the survival rate was 78%.

Blood plasma from recovered patients.

Cuban medical scientists are producing their own version of Kaletra, an antiretroviral combination of Lopinavir and Ritonavir, used to treat HIV/AIDS. Domestic production will eliminate costly imports from capitalist big pharma and subject to the US blockade. Meanwhile, the homeopathic medicine, Prevengho-Vir, which is believed to strengthen the immune system has been distributed for free to everyone on the island. Medical scientists are evaluating two vaccines to stimulate the immune system and four candidates for specific preventative vaccine for COVID-19 are under design.

By early May, Cuban scientists had adapted SUMA, a Cuban computerized diagnostic system, to detect antibodies for COVID-19 rapidly, allowing for mass testing at low cost. ‘The objective is to find new cases and then intervene, isolate, seek contacts, and take all possible measures to ensure that Cuba continues as it is now’, said Cuba’s top epidemiologist, Francisco Durán during his daily televised update on 11 May. This means the island no longer relies on donated tests or expensive ones purchased internationally. Cuba’s comparatively high rate of testing is set to soar.

BioCubaFarma is mass producing facemasks, personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical and sanitary products, as well as coordinating state enterprises and self-employed workers to repair vital equipment, such as breathing ventilators. Cuban efforts to purchase new ventilators have been obstructed by the US blockade which, for almost 60 years, has included food and medicines among its prohibitions.

Leading the global fight

On March 18, Cuba allowed the cruise ship MS Braemar, with 684 mostly British passengers and 5 confirmed COVID-19 cases, to dock in Havana after a week stranded at sea, having been refused entry by Curacao, Barbados, Bahamas, Dominican Republic and the United States. Cuban authorities facilitated their safe transfer to charter flights for repatriation. Three days later, a 53-strong Cuban medical brigade arrived in Lombardy, Italy, at that time the epicenter of the pandemic, to assist local healthcare authorities. The medics were members of Cuba’s Henry Reeve Contingent, which received a World Health Organization (WHO) Public Health Prize in 2017 in recognition for providing free emergency medical aid. It was the first Cuban medical mission to Europe. By 21 May, over 2,300 Cuban healthcare professionals had gone to 24 countries to treat COVID-19 patients, including a second brigade in northern Italy and another to the European principality Andorra.

The threat of a good example

Cuban medical internationalism began in 1960, but the export of healthcare professionals was not a source of state revenue until the mid-2000s with the famous ‘oil for doctors’ program under which 30,000 Cuban healthcare workers served in Venezuela. US President Bush’s administration responded by attempting sabotage Cuba’s medical export earnings with the Cuban Medical Parole Programme. This induced Cuban professionals, who had paid no tuition costs, graduated debt free and voluntarily signed contracts to work abroad assisting underserved populations, to abandon missions in return for US citizenship. President Obama kept the Programme, even while praising Cuban medics combating Ebola in West Africa. It was ended in his last days in office in January 2017.

The Trump administration has renewed attacks on Cuban medical missions, fuelling their expulsion from Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia, and leaving millions of people in those countries without healthcare. The motivation was the same; to block revenues to a nation which has survived 60 years of US hostility. In the context of the pandemic, when the US government’s wilful failures have resulted in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, socialist Cuba’s global leadership has represented the threat of a good example. Lashing out, the US State Department has labelled Cuban medics as ‘slaves’, claiming that the Cuban government seeks revenues and political influence. It has pressured beneficiary countries to reject Cuban assistance in their time of urgent need. These attacks are particularly vile; it is likely that Cuba is receiving no payment, beyond costs, for this assistance.

Meanwhile, the criminal US blockade, which has been punitively tightened under Trump, is preventing the purchase of urgently needed ventilators for Cuba’s own COVID-19 patients. A Chinese donation to Cuba of medical equipment was blocked because the airline carrying the goods would not travel to Cuba for fear of US fines. There is now a growing international demand for an end to all sanctions, not least against Cuba which has shown global leadership in combating the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. We must all add our voices to this demand. There are also calls from organisations and individuals worldwide to nominate Cuba’s Henry Reeve Contingents for a Nobel Peace Prize. What is clear from its history of principled medical internationalism is that, with recognition or without, revolutionary Cuba will continue to fight for global healthcare wherever its citizens, and its example, can reach.

Latin America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Protests worldwide embrace Black Lives Matter movement

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from Thomson Reuters (reprinted by permission)

Thousands of people took to the streets in European and Asian cities on Saturday [June 6], demonstrating in support of U.S. protests against police brutality.


Video of demonstrations around the world

The rolling, global protests reflect rising anger over police treatment of ethnic minorities, sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white officer detaining him knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes with fellow officers beside him.

After a largely peaceful protest in London, a few demonstrators near British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence threw bottles at police, and mounted officers charged push protesters back.

Earlier, more than a thousand protesters had marched past the U.S. Embassy, blocking traffic and holding placards.

Many thousands had also crowded into the square outside parliament, holding placards reading “Black Lives Matter”, ignoring government advice to avoid large gatherings due to the risk from the coronavirus.

“I have come down in support of black people who have been ill-treated for many, many, many, many years. It is time for a change,” said 39-year-old primary school teacher Aisha Pemberton.

Police in the German city of Hamburg used pepper spray on protesters and said they were ready to deploy water cannons. One officer was injured, they added.

Several hundred “hooded and aggressive people” had put officers under pressure in the city centre, police said, tweeting: “Attacks on police officers are unacceptable!”

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Question(s) related to this article:

Are we making progress against racism?

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In Paris the authorities banned demonstrations planned outside the U.S. Embassy and on the lawns near the Eiffel Tower.

However, several hundred protesters, some holding “Black Lives Matters” signs, gathered on Place de la Concorde, close to the Embassy. Police had installed a long barrier across the square to prevent access to the embassy, which is also close to the Elysee presidential palace.

In Berlin, demonstrators filled the central Alexanderplatz square, while there was also a protest in Warsaw.

PLACARDS AND FLAGS

In Brisbane, one of several Australian cities where rallies were held, police estimated 10,000 people joined a peaceful protest, wearing masks and holding “Black Lives Matter” placards. Many wrapped themselves in indigenous flags, calling for an end to police mistreatment of indigenous Australians.

Banners and slogans have focused not just on George Floyd but on a string of other controversies in different countries as well as mistreatment of minorities in general.

In Sydney, a last-minute court decision overruling a ban imposed because of the coronavirus allowed several thousand people to march, with a heavy police presence.

In Tokyo, marchers protested against what they said was police mistreatment of a Kurdish man who says he was stopped while driving and shoved to the ground. Organisers said they were also marching in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I want to show that there’s racism in Japan now,” said 17-year-old high school student Wakaba, who declined to give her family name.

In Seoul, dozens of South Korean activists and foreign residents gathered, some wearing black masks with “Can’t breathe” in Korean, echoing George Floyd’s final words as he lay on the ground.

In Bangkok, activists avoided coronavirus restrictions by going online, asking for video and photos of people wearing black, raising their fists and holding signs, and explaining why they supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
Protesters were expected to gather in Washington for a huge demonstration on Saturday as demonstrations across the United States entered a 12th day.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux around the world; Writing by William Mallard and Hugh Lawson; Editing by Frances Kerry and Kevin Liffey
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

global, HUMAN RIGHTS

‘A part of history’: Calm prevails over D.C.’s biggest George Floyd protest

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from Thomson Reuters (reprinted by permission)

Tens of thousands of demonstrators amassed in Washington and other U.S. cities on Saturday [June 6] demanding an end to racism and brutality by law enforcement, as protests sparked by George Floyd’s fatal encounter with Minneapolis police stretched into a 12th day.

Reuters Video of Washington demonstations

A Lincoln Memorial rally and march to the White House marked the largest outpouring yet of protests nationwide since video footage emerged showing Floyd, an unarmed black man in handcuffs, lying face down and struggling to breathe as a white police officer knelt on his neck.

Demonstrators rallied on Saturday in numerous urban centers – among them New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Miami – as well as in small, rural communities across the country.

“It feels like I get to be a part of history and a part of the group of people who are trying to change the world for everyone,” said Jamilah Muahyman, a Washington resident at a demonstration near the White House.

One of the more surprising Black Lives Matter rallies was a gathering of 150 to 200 people in the east Texas town of Vidor, notorious for its long associations with the Ku Klux Klan.

Floyd’s May 25 death has sparked a storm of protests and civil strife in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, thrusting the highly charged debate over racial justice back to the forefront of the political agenda five months before the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election.

With the notable exception of Seattle, where police used flash-bang grenades in a confrontation with demonstrators in the city’s Capitol Hill district, Saturday’s protests on the whole took on a relaxed tone compared with those of recent days.

The week began with sporadic episodes of arson, looting and vandalism in several cities that authorities and activists have blamed largely on outside instigators and criminal elements.

Police have at times resorted to heavy-handed tactics as they sought to enforce curfews in some cities, including New York and Washington, where baton-swinging officers in riot gear dispersed otherwise orderly crowds.

Those clashes have only galvanized the focus of the protests into a broader quest for reform of the criminal justice system and its treatment of ethnic minorities.

“I’m just hoping that we really get some change from what’s going on. People have been kneeling and protesting and begging for a long time, and enough is enough,” said Kartrina Fernandez, 42, a protester near the front of the White House.

“We can’t take much more.”

The intensity of protests over the past week began to ebb on Wednesday after prosecutors in Minneapolis had arrested all four police officers implicated in Floyd’s death. Derek Chauvin, the white officer seen pinning Floyd’s neck to the ground for nearly nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly groaned “I can’t breathe” was charged with second-degree murder.

But Saturday marked the largest demonstration over Floyd’s killing to date.

Crowds numbering in the tens of thousands converged on the nation’s capital, despite health risks posed by the coronavirus, though official estimates of the turnout were unavailable.

The rallies in Washington, as elsewhere, were notable for drawing racially mixed crowds.

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Question(s) related to this article:

Are we making progress against racism?

(Article continued from left column)


Another website with many photos of the demonstrations throughout the United States

“Especially as a white person, I benefit from the status quo, and so not showing up and actively working to deconstruct institutional racism makes me complicit,” said Michael Drummond, 40, a government employee, explaining his reason for taking part.

Hundreds of miles to the south, in Floyd’s birthplace of Raeford, North Carolina, hundreds lined up at a church to pay their respects during a public viewing of Floyd’s body prior to a private memorial service for family members.

Floyd’s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday in Houston, where he lived before relocating to the Minneapolis area.

In New York, a large crowd of protesters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan on Saturday afternoon, marching up a largely deserted Broadway. Thousands of others gathered in Harlem near the northwest corner of Central Park to march downtown, about 100 blocks, to the city’s Washington Square Park.

In Philadelphia, demonstrators gathered on the steps of Philadelphia Art Museum steps chanting, “No justice, No peace.” Others marched along Benjamin Franklin Parkway, through John F. Kennedy Plaza, and around Philadelphia City Hall.

On the West Coast, protesters briefly blocked traffic on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge as motorists honked in solidarity.

An almost festive atmosphere prevailed among protesters assembled at an outdoor strip newly rechristened Black Lives Matter Plaza – the phrase “Black Lives Matter” painted in large yellow letters on the pavement – a block from the White House.

It was near the spot where U.S. Park Police and military personnel cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful demonstrators with chemical spray and smoke grenades on Monday night, paving the way for President Donald Trump to walk from the White House through the park to a church to hold a bible aloft for cameras.

On Saturday, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, a vocal critic of Trump’s response to the protests this week, was spotted in the crowd while songs such as “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond and “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar blared from loudspeakers.

The demonstrators included families and people of all ages carrying signs with slogans such as “Fed up,” “All lives do not matter until black lives do,” and “My black son matters.”

Police officers were present but in smaller numbers than earlier in the week. They generally assumed a less aggressive posture, wearing patrol uniforms rather than body armor and helmets.

In another sign of easing tension, Major General William Walker, commander of the D.C. National Guard, told CNN that the nearly 4,000 additional Guard troops deployed to the city from 11 states at the Pentagon’s request were likely to be withdrawn after the weekend.

“They will be redeploying this week, probably as early as Monday,” Walker said.

Reporting by Nandita Bose and Makini Brice in Washington and Lucas Jackson in New York; Additional reporting by Linda So, Mike Stone, Suzanne Barlyn, Barbara Goldberg, Scott Malone, Raphael Satter and Andrew Hay; Writing by Frank McGurty and Steve Gorman; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Robert Birsel
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Herstory of Black Lives Matter

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

Excerpt from the website of Black Lives Matter

In 2013, three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — created a Black-centered political will and movement building project called #BlackLivesMatter. It was in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman.

The project is now a member-led global network of more than 40 chapters. Our members organize and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.

As organizers who work with everyday people, BLM members see and understand significant gaps in movement spaces and leadership. Black liberation movements in this country have created room, space, and leadership mostly for Black heterosexual, cisgender men — leaving women, queer and transgender people, and others either out of the movement or in the background to move the work forward with little or no recognition. As a network, we have always recognized the need to center the leadership of women and queer and trans people. To maximize our movement muscle, and to be intentional about not replicating harmful practices that excluded so many in past movements for liberation, we made a commitment to placing those at the margins closer to the center.

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Question(s) related to this article:

Are we making progress against racism?

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Painting a street near the White House on June 6, 2020 (click on image to see video)

As #BlackLivesMatter developed throughout 2013 and 2014, we utilized it as a platform and organizing tool. Other groups, organizations, and individuals used it to amplify anti-Black racism across the country, in all the ways it showed up. Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Mya Hall, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland — these names are inherently important. The space that #BlackLivesMatter held and continues to hold helped propel the conversation around the state-sanctioned violence they experienced. We particularly highlighted the egregious ways in which Black women, specifically Black trans women, are violated. #BlackLivesMatter was developed in support of all Black lives.

In 2014, Mike Brown was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. It was a guttural response to be with our people, our family — in support of the brave and courageous community of Ferguson and St. Louis as they were being brutalized by law enforcement, criticized by media, tear gassed, and pepper sprayed night after night. Darnell Moore and Patrisse Cullors organized a national ride during Labor Day weekend that year. We called it the Black Life Matters Ride. In 15 days, we developed a plan of action to head to the occupied territory to support our brothers and sisters. Over 600 people gathered. We made two commitments: to support the team on the ground in St. Louis, and to go back home and do the work there. We understood Ferguson was not an aberration, but in fact, a clear point of reference for what was happening to Black communities everywhere.

When it was time for us to leave, inspired by our friends in Ferguson, organizers from 18 different cities went back home and developed Black Lives Matter chapters in their communities and towns — broadening the political will and movement building reach catalyzed by the #BlackLivesMatter project and the work on the ground in Ferguson.

It became clear that we needed to continue organizing and building Black power across the country. People were hungry to galvanize their communities to end state-sanctioned violence against Black people, the way Ferguson organizers and allies were doing. Soon we created the Black Lives Matter Global Network infrastructure. It is adaptive and decentralized, with a set of guiding principles. Our goal is to support the development of new Black leaders, as well as create a network where Black people feel empowered to determine our destinies in our communities.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network would not be recognized worldwide if it weren’t for the folks in St. Louis and Ferguson who put their bodies on the line day in and day out, and who continue to show up for Black lives.

global, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

France: Solidarity with the struggles of pacifists and anti-racists in the USA, following the murder of G. Floyd

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

A post on June 1 from the facebook page of Roland Nivet, Mouvement de la Paix, France [Peace Movement]

Protests and demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota (USA) last week by police continued to intensify across the United States on Sunday and Monday to protest this horrific murder and the string of racist murders in the US.

President Donald Trump attributed the violence to “thugs” who, he said, “dishonored the memory of George Floyd. This comment, which preceded the announcement of repressive measures against various American organizations, drew criticism from Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic mayor of Atlanta.

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Readers’ comments are welcome. See the form below.
 

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According to Amnesty International of the USA, “the US police do not respect the right to peaceful protest. They are failing throughout the country to meet their obligations under international law to respect and facilitate the right to peaceful protest … This exacerbates a tense situation and endangers the lives of demonstrators. We call for an immediate end to all excessive use of force and for law enforcement officials to guarantee and protect the legal right to demonstrate. »

Our pacifist correspondents in the US believe that current events “should be interpreted as public mourning, from people shouting that the killing of black and brown people should no longer be tolerated. These uprisings across America reveal a thirst for democracy and the fact that young and old of various ethnicities recognize that this is a time when we must stand up against this history of inhumanity that has existed for too long and that discrimination, racism, and the killing of black and brown people must be stopped. For these activists, “Now is the time to change America! We are going to fight together with the awareness that our struggle is linked to struggles inside and outside the country, wherever there is injustice.

Mouvement de la Paix condemns this new racist murder and brings its total solidarity to the peace and anti-racist activists who are fighting a hard fight in the USA.

Mouvement de la Paix reaffirms its determination to continue its fight against racism and xenophobia in France. More than ever, the fight against racism, xenophobia and the rise of extreme right-wing extremism must unite all humanists throughout the world.

Europe, North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY,

“America’s Moment of Reckoning”: Cornel West Says Nationwide Uprising Is Sign of “Empire Imploding”

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

An interview on June 1 by Democracy Now ( Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)

As thousands from coast to coast took to the streets this weekend to protest the state-sanctioned killing of Black people, and the nation faces its largest public health crisis in generations and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, professor Cornel West calls the U.S. a “predatory capitalist civilization obsessed with money, money, money.” He also makes the connections between U.S. violence abroad and at home. “There is a connection between the seeds that you sow of violence externally and internally.”


Cornel West

(This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.)

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Cornel West, could you respond to what professor Yamahtta Taylor said? You agree that, of course, the murder of George Floyd was a lynching. You’ve also said that his murder and the demonstrations that have followed show that America is a failed social experiment. So could you respond to that and also the way that the state and police forces have responded to the protests, following George Floyd’s killing, with the National Guard called out in so many cities and states across the country?

CORNEL WEST: Well, there’s no doubt that this is America’s moment of reckoning. But we want to make the connection between the local and the global, because, you see, when you sow the seeds of greed — domestically, inequality; globally, imperial tentacles, 800 military units abroad, violence and AFRICOM in Africa, supporting various regimes, dictatorial ones in Asia and so forth — there is a connection between the seeds that you sow of violence externally and internally. Same is true in terms of the seed of hatred, of white supremacy, hating Black people, anti-Blackness hatred having its own dynamic within the context of a predatory capitalist civilization obsessed with money, money, money, domination of workers, marginalization of those who don’t fit — gay brothers, lesbian sisters, trans and so forth. So, it’s precisely this convergence that my dear sister Professor Taylor is talking about of the ways in which the American Empire, imploding, its foundations being shaken, with uprisings from below.

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Readers’ comments are welcome. See the form below.
 

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The catalyst was certainly Brother George Floyd’s public lynching, but the failures of the predatory capitalist economy to provide the satisfaction of the basic needs of food and healthcare and quality education, jobs with a decent wage, at the same time the collapse of your political class, the collapse of your professional class. Their legitimacy has been radically called into question, and that’s multiracial. It’s the neofascist dimension in Trump. It’s the neoliberal dimension in Biden and Obama and the Clintons and so forth. And it includes much of the media. It includes many of the professors in universities. The young people are saying, “You all have been hypocritical. You haven’t been concerned about our suffering, our misery. And we no longer believe in your legitimacy.” And it spills over into violent explosion.

And it’s here. I won’t go on, but, I mean, it’s here, where I think Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer and Rabbi Heschel and Edward Said, and especially Brother Martin and Malcolm, their legacies, I think, become more central, because they provide the kind of truth telling. They provide the connection between justice and compassion in their example, in their organizing. And that’s what is needed right now. Rebellion is not the same thing in any way as revolution. And what we need is a nonviolent revolutionary project of full-scale democratic sharing — power, wealth, resources, respect, organizing — and a fundamental transformation of this American Empire.

AMY GOODMAN: And your thoughts, Professor West, on the governor of Minnesota saying they’re looking into white supremacist connections to the looting and the burning of the city, and then President Trump tweeting that he’s going to try to put antifa, the anti-fascist activists, on the terror list — which he cannot do — and William Barr emphasizing this, saying he’s going after the far left to investigate?

CORNEL WEST: No, I mean, that’s ridiculous. You know, you remember, Sister Amy — and I love and respect you so — that antifa saved my life in Charlottesville. There’s no doubt about it, that they provided the security, you see. So the very notion that they become candidates for a terrorist organization, but the people who were trying to kill us — the Nazis, the Klan — they’re not candidates for terrorist organization status — but that’s what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a Trump-led neofascist backlash and clampdown on what is going on. We ought to be very clear about that. The neofascism has that kind of obsession with militaristic imposition in the face of any kind of disorder. And so we’ve got to be fortified for that.

But most importantly, I think we’ve got to make sure that we preserve our own moral, spiritual, quality, fundamental focus on truth and justice, and keep track of legalized looting, Wall Street greed; legalized murder, police; legalized murder abroad in Yemen, in Pakistan, in Africa with AFRICOM, and so forth. That’s where our focus has to be, because with all of this rebellious energy, it’s got to be channeled through organizations rooted in a quest for truth and justice.

North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

Statement by Former US President George W. Bush

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

A press release June 2 from the George W. Bush Presidential Center

Laura and I are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country. Yet we have resisted the urge to speak out, because this is not the time for us to lecture. It is time for us to listen. It is time for America to examine our tragic failures – and as we do, we will also see some of our redeeming strengths.

It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country. It is a strength when protesters, protected by responsible law enforcement, march for a better future. This tragedy — in a long series of similar tragedies — raises a long overdue question: How do we end systemic racism in our society? The only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America — or how it becomes a better place.  

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Readers’ comments are welcome. See the form below.
 
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America’s greatest challenge has long been to unite people of very different backgrounds into a single nation of justice and opportunity. The doctrine and habits of racial superiority, which once nearly split our country, still threaten our Union. The answers to American problems are found by living up to American ideals — to the fundamental truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by God with certain rights. We have often underestimated how radical that quest really is, and how our cherished principles challenge systems of intended or assumed injustice. The heroes of America — from Frederick Douglass, to Harriet Tubman, to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr. — are heroes of unity. Their calling has never been for the fainthearted. They often revealed the nation’s disturbing bigotry and exploitation — stains on our character sometimes difficult for the American majority to examine. We can only see the reality of America’s need by seeing it through the eyes of the threatened, oppressed, and disenfranchised. 



That is exactly where we now stand. Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason. Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions. We know that lasting justice will only come by peaceful means. Looting is not liberation, and destruction is not progress. But we also know that lasting peace in our communities requires truly equal justice. The rule of law ultimately depends on the fairness and legitimacy of the legal system. And achieving justice for all is the duty of all. 

This will require a consistent, courageous, and creative effort. We serve our neighbors best when we try to understand their experience. We love our neighbors as ourselves when we treat them as equals, in both protection and compassion. There is a better way — the way of empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice. I am confident that together, Americans will choose the better way. 

North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

USA: An uprising is a collective gasp for life

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

A facebook post by the Lee County NAACP

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

We heard George Floyd cry “I can’t breathe” and “Momma, I love you” on the recording of his lynching in the streets of Minneapolis. The image of a white officer choking the life out of a Black man while fellow officers looked on is viscerally reminiscent of the lynching photographs that were used to terrorize African-Americans for decades in this nation.

We have also watched as crowds of people—black, white, and brown; gay, straight, and trans—have taken to those same streets to cry out against systemic racism. Protestors are right to decry such brutal and inhumane treatment as racism. Thank God people are in the streets, refusing to accept what has been seen as normal for far too long. What a shame it would be if this nation could watch a policeman murder another human being, then pose like a hunter with his prey while his colleagues looked on, and there not be protest, anguish, anger, outrage, and moral disruption.

All that is needed to understand why Black people are crying out is to ask what the response of our justice system would have been if a video had emerged of four black men doing that to a white man. We all know what racism looks like. But the lethal violence of racist officers is only one manifestation of the systemic racism that is choking the life out of American democracy.

The mentality that crushes a brother’s neck – as in the case of George Floyd in Minneapolis – or shoots a man jogging because of his skin color – as in the case of Ahmaud Arbery – is the same mentality that sends black and brown and poor and low-income workers of all colors into the lethal path of the COVID-19 pandemic without needed protections, health care and economic resources.

Whether it is police abuse of power or policy abuse of power, these deaths serve as a collective knee on the necks of people of color.

The people’s demand for love, truth, justice and fundamental human rights is a cry that will not be comforted until change fully comes. This demand is rooted in the mental, social and political trauma caused by seeing violent deaths year after year at the hands of far too many police departments and judicial systems with no one held accountable.

Please join us this week as we continue to speak truth to power and hold this nation accountable for its violence.

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Question for this article
 
What’s the message to us today from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

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EVENTS THIS WEEK

TODAY [June 1] – CULTURE DAY OF ACTION

We have no option but to organize, we have no option but to mobilize, we have no option but to register and educate people for a movement that votes. We cannot back down. Our lives depend on it.

Join us for a cultural day of action today, June 1st, to let others know that Somebody’s hurting our people… it’s gone on far too long… #WeWontBeSilent anymore! We rise together on June 20, 2020! #EverybodysGotARightToLive!

Check out our Culture Days of Action Digital Toolkit for virtual banners, songs, signs and social media posts to share.
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THURSDAY [June 4]– CALLING ALL FAITH LEADERS

Please join the final Prophetic Council call before the June 20, 2020 mobilization. On our call Rev. Barber, Rev. Liz, and Campaign leaders from across the nation will share updates and ground us spiritually for the struggle ahead.

We will meet over Zoom Thursday June 4th at 7:30pm EST/ 4:30pm PST.

Register for the call

THURSDAY – STUDENT FELLOWS DIGITAL TOWN HALL

On Thursday, June 4 at 9pm EST/ 6pm PST the Moral Fusion Student Fellows will host a Facebook Live event featuring students and recent graduates talking about the impact of campus closures, police violence, the economic crisis, and COVID19, and demonstrate the importance of organizing and mobilizing for June 20. Join us at FB.com/ANewPPC

If we take time to listen to this nation’s wounds, they tell us where to look for hope. The hope is in the mourning and the screams, which make us want to rush from this place. There is a sense in which, right now, we must refuse to be comforted too quickly. Only if these screams and tears and protests shake the very conscience of this nation—and until there is real political and judicial repentance—can we hope for a better society on the other side of this.

The very people who have been rejected, over and over again, are the ones who have shown us the possibility of a more perfect union. On June 20th, 2020, poor and low-income Americans of every race, creed, culture, and sexuality will come together for the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington Digital Gathering to lift up a new moral agenda in our public life that promises transformative change to heal the wounds of systemic racism.

Register to join us.

Forward together, not one step back!

Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Co-Chairs, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Follow the Poor People’s Campaign on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!

Sent Via ActionNetwork.org.

(Thank you to Tikkun and Rabbi Michael Lerner for calling this post to our attention.)

North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

English bulletin June 1, 2020

. LINK GLOBAL, EAT LOCAL . .

As we have seen in this bulletin in recent months, the global health and economic crisis has inspired many to envisage and prepare for radical change believing that “another world is possible.”

This month we feature two aspects of this movement: 1) towards local food production and consumption, known as food sovereignty; and 2) global rlinkage of activists via webinars and online courses and conferences. Hence a new variation on the old slogan that we should “Think global, act local.”

Food sovereignty

As pointed out by The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty , the disconnect between food supply and demand has never been this huge. While almost a billion people around the world sleep hungry at night, tons of food are wasted across fields caused by transportation and market bottlenecks. Every year, a third of the world’s food – amounting to as much as USD 1.2 trillion – is lost or goes to waste. With today’s pandemic, lockdowns and supply chain failures have put this problem into overdrive. To meet this crisis, The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, has issued 9 demands, including priority to local food production and local markets. One of their demands is to lift sanctions and cease all military aggressions which are exacerbated the crisis of hunger.

Another coaltion, the Planetary Coalition, also based in Asia and including partners around the world, calls for “a new earth Democracy” with a wide range of actions including “local biodiverse food systems.” They remind us that “Contrary to what we are made to believe, it is not globalisation that protects people from famines, which it produces and aggravates, but peoples food sovereignty, where people at the community level have the right to produce, choose and consume adequate, healthy and nutritious food, under fair price agreements for local production and exchange.”

A leader in the food sovereignty movement has long been the international peasant’s movement La Via Campesina, a global coalition of 182 organisations in 81 countries. Now they remind us that “As the world reels under the fallout of a pandemic, now is the time to start building an equal, just and liberal society that embraces food sovereignty and solidarity.”

The North African Network for Food Sovereignty has put forward a series of demands and urgent measures in response to the health emergency including support to subsistence farming activities, subsistence stockbreeding, and coastal subsistence. As well as encouraging the consumption of their products through the creation of direct markets and fighting illegal and monopoly speculation.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa is working to establish food sovereignty and agroecology as a key policy response to the climate crisis that is negatively impacting Africa. “Agroecology is a reverse response rejecting the industrial monoculture agriculture that contributes more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions, degrades the environment, depletes biodiversity, erodes diverse cultures, and only feeds less than 30 percent of the world population.”

In the United States there is a rebirth of the Food Sovereignty Movement. This is illustrated by the increased use of urban farms and gardens in the city of Detroit and the program Seeds and Sheep by the Navajo Nation in Utah.

Examples from France, Thailand and Singapore are cited in the article “Grow your own: Urban farming flourishes in coronavirus lockdowns.”

Webinars, online courses and conferences

Increasingly, conferences are taking the form of Webinars so that people can take part from around the world.

The world conference “No Nukes, Climate Justice, Peace” originally scheduled for New York City in April was held instead online with up to 500 people joined by Internet and with simultaneous live streaming so anyone could join by listening in simultaneously or later on a YouTube publication. The conference was sponsored by hundreds of leading nuclear disarmament, peace, climate and justice organizations. Speakers came from the United States, Japan, Germany, Costa Rica, Iran and Australia.

The Webinar “Youth Actions for Climate, Nuclear Disarmament and Sustainable Development” was held on May 14 and 19 sponsored by Abolition 2000 Youth Network, World Future Council, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament and the Basel Peace Office. Speakers came from Switzerland, United States, Canada, Kenya, Morocco, Czech Republic, Philippines, Bangladesh, South Korea and Japan.

The Webinar “How Young People Can Lead Climate Change Action, sponsored by the International Youth Foundation took place in November 2019 and was made available as a video this month on a website called Youthlead.

Nonviolence International has a weekly Webinar series. “Young Women Fighting for Our Planet” took place on April 22 and the video is available online via Facebook. Speakers are from Kenya, United Arab emirates, Canada and South Korea.

Campaign Nonviolence is holding a Weekly Nonviolence Community Course online for six weeks from May 28 through July 2. There are places for 50 participants. Advanced registration is required.

Movimento por la Paz (Spain) is holding an online course “Five paths for peace” beginning on May 18, with places for 20 participants filled in order of registration.

Finally, here at the Culture of Peace News Network, Mirian Castello, based in Brazil, is hosting a weekly Webinar interviewing activists for a culture of peace. Registration is open for people around the world to access the webinar live and submit their questions to the person interviewed. The first three interviews are now available as online videos.

Now we see that the technology is available and is being used for the “global movement for a culture of peace . . . promoted through sharing of information” that was envisaged in 1999 by the United Nations Declaration and Programme of Action.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT



Earth Day Communiqué – 22nd April 2020 Making Peace with the Earth

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION



If Culture of War was a human choice and invention, what if we choose a culture of peace?

HUMAN RIGHTS




Amnesty International: Ignored by COVID-19 responses, refugees face starvation

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION



Mexico: Universities of ANUIES to share best practices on culture of peace
          

EDUCATION FOR PEACE



Campaign Nonviolence: Weekly Nonviolence Online Community Course

WOMEN’S EQUALITY



Webinar and Video: Young Women Fighting for Our Planet

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY


The New World Citizen Laboratory, Yali Gabon and PAYNCoP Gabon join forces to raise awareness about Covid 19

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY



Global military expenditure sees largest annual increase in a decade—says SIPRI
d-information, d-sustainable

International Fellowship of Reonciliation: Open letter to the United Nations

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

An open letter published by Pressenza (reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license)

His Excellency Mr. Antonio Guterres Secretary-General
United Nations Headquarters, New York City

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We are writing to you as International Fellowship of Reconciliation, a global movement seeking to transform, through nonviolence, the world away from endless cycles of violence towards justice, reconciliation, and lasting peace. As a concerned international NGO, accredited to the UN ECOSOC, we are writing to you to express our appreciation for your efforts dealing with the current health crisis in the world and to share some of our thoughts with you at this difficult time.

We join with you in recognizing “the fury of [COVID-19] illustrates the folly of war,” and we thank you for your leadership in calling for a global ceasefire as a first step to “end the sickness of war”. We are encouraged that your call has resonated with millions across the world, and gained endorsements from 70 Member States, with expressions of acceptance from parties to conflict, and non-state actors as well.

We call on all UN member States to support Your appeal, to the General Assembly and to the Security Council, and put it into practice.

The pandemic has revealed the single common vulnerability of humankind, which knows no border. We who are but one of the species on the planet earth must shun our urge for identity superiority or risk even more devastating pandemics. With this shattered illusion of separateness, humanity cannot tolerate war and violence anywhere, as it threatens health and peace for everyone everywhere. Countries are grappling internally with political, economic, racial, and social divides that exacerbate efforts to contain the virus, while inequity in the global community reveals the new depths of suffering in countries that already bear the brunt of the pain caused by climate change, hunger, economic sanctions and exploitation, and armed conflicts.

While the impact of COVID-19 on the countries where we have active members has varied, together, we affirm the urgency for a new and creative way forward that builds human security globally through health, economic justice and peace. We therefore appeal:

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Question related to this article:
 
How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

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1. Prioritize the protection of poor and marginalized people. Economic inequality increases the impact of the pandemic and sets the stage for more devastation with the risk of even greater lethality. For instance, underinvestment in healthcare means many countries are unable to meet the simple challenge of providing personal protective equipment to those in need. Concentrated poverty means sheltering in isolation, and for women and children locked down with abusers, it promises new levels of violence, abuse, and death.

2. Protect civil liberties and human rights. Emergency legislation rushed through in many coun- tries may serve as cover for oppressive measures and the violation of human rights. Traditionally marginalized communities are forgotten or ignored, and vulnerable people are cut off from offi- cial support. We urge you, Mr. Secretary-General, to prioritize and support the work of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Michelle Bachelet to adapt the global index for hu- man rights to ensure that it monitors abuses in a world now reshaped by COVID-19 legislation. We urge you to call on all member States for accountability.

3. Use the momentum of this global crisis to shift resources to meet human needs and create lasting peace. Weapons of war cannot defeat a virus, address climate change, nor solve any other world problem. As States pursue ‘business as usual’ military strategies to contain the virus and create security, the world wastes opportunities to coalesce around creative responses that match the grave nature of this crisis, like protecting the most vulnerable from harsh economic impacts and working in solidarity to ensure global health emergency preparedness. These are the kinds of creative responses that lead to lasting peace. We call for disarmament and a major reduction in military spending worldwide, starting with the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We call for the conversion of military industry to civilian production and for the end of exports of weapons to states at war or violating human rights. Humanity will thrive with equitable local community investment and the shift from funding warfare to funding healthcare and peace. We urge the United Nations to invest more capacity and financial support in nonviolent conflict transfor- mation, mediation and Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping.

Now is the time to create a “new normal” built on a culture of peace and non-violence. We call for global bridge-building and cooperation, and global leadership encouraging increased global solidarity. The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals recognize the interconnected reality of our world. With branches, groups, and affiliates in more than 40 countries, IFOR offers its support to UN agencies in achieving these goals. By highlighting the centrality of peace to a world free from poverty and ine- qualities, the SDGs challenge the world to put into practice a new way of thinking. Addressing the issues named above ensures that nations can create roadmaps out of COVID-19 that leave no one behind.

We wish you well and further success in your work.

Charlotte Sjöström Becker, President of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation

[Editor’s note: The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) was founded in 1914 in response to the horrors of war in Europe. Today IFOR counts 71 branches, groups and affiliates in 48 countries on all continents.]

global, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY, United Nations,