Category: Peace

New Haven Peace Commission, New HOPE Housing Program, Newhallville Neighborhood to Celebrate International Day of Peace

by City of New Haven Peace Commission

In 1981 the United Nations General Assembly declared September 21 as the International Day of Peace. The Assembly established it as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.

To bring attention to the importance of this day, the City of New Haven Peace Commission for more than a decade has planted a tree on the grounds of a city school, library, or public space. This year, the New Haven Peace Commission, New HOPE Housing Program, and Newhallville neighborhood will join together with the international community to recognize the International Day of Peace by co-hosting a program at the new home of HOPE, 660 Winchester Avenue, New Haven.

The program has been planned jointly by Newhallville neighborhood organizations, Alder Devin Avshalom-Smith, Peace Commission members, Rev. Bonita Grubbs and staff of Christian Community Action, and new residents of HOPE. [The date of the program was not chosen before our newsletter went to print. The event will be during the week of Sept. 18. Contact the City of New Haven Peace Commission at nhpeacecommission@gmail.com.]

During the program, a permanent memorial to recognize International Day of Peace will be installed on the grounds of HOPE, near a specially-chosen tree, provided and planted by URI (Urban Resources Initiative) and the placement of a plaque nearby to commemorate the day. The tree is planted to remember those killed by gun violence in our communities and in wars abroad and to affirm the commitment of New Haven as a Peace Messenger City, for action toward peace and justice everywhere.

2022 Theme: End racism. Build peace. From the United Nations website for 2022 International Day of Peace: https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace.

Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on 21 September. The UN General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.

But achieving true peace entails much more than laying down arms. It requires the building of societies where all members feel that they can flourish. It involves creating a world in which people are treated equally, regardless of their race.

The Peace Garden Is Blooming!

by Frank Panzarella, volunteer at the Peace Garden

Great progress is being made in the West River neighborhood of New Haven in restoring the Peace Garden. Gladiolas, Echinacea, roses, butterfly flowers, flowering bushes, milkweed and more now adorn the site and new mulch is currently being spread to keep down the stubborn weeds.

All this requires many volunteers to weed, water and distribute the mulch. The Peace Garden sits at a gateway crossroad for New Haven and will be adjacent to a new housing construction project in the West River neighborhood.

Our thanks to members of the Peace Commission, URI, the West River Watershed Coalition, and residents of the West River neighborhood for their ongoing work at the garden.

We want to see this garden become a jewel in the revival of New Haven attractions and a portrait of our values in promoting world peace and peace within our own city. We are currently looking for ideas from the community as to what they would like to see in improving the layout of the garden.

Included in this garden is a significant donation from the City of Hiroshima: a Ginkgo tree taken from a cutting of a tree that survived the destruction of Hiroshima — a symbol of the tenacity of life.

We need your help to restore the beauty of this garden. Please come and volunteer to work. We meet every Friday from 9:30 to noon. The garden is located at the end of the Route 34 connector between Martin Luther King Boulevard and Legion Avenue, where they meet Ella Grasso Boulevard. For more information call 203-562-2798 or email frankpanzarella@hotmail.com.

Build Back Better: End the New Nuclear Arms Races

by The CT Committee for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

[Vice President Kamala Harris was met by demonstrators when she spoke in New London on May 18 at the graduation of the Coast Guard Academy. The following is from the email calling for people to join the demonstration.]

The Biden-Harris Administration proposed a new economic agenda to Build Back Better, investing in children and caregivers, affordable healthcare, housing, education, and clean energy technologies, while increasing jobs and improving our quality of life. However, billions of dollars are flowing into the modernization of nuclear weapons, including the Columbia-class submarine and weapons for Ukraine. While U.S. nuclear doctrine is “Mutually Assured Destruction,” the war in Ukraine fans nuclear tensions between the United States and Russia, who collectively possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. For more info, email: nuclearbanct@gmail.com.

The Voluntown Peace Trust posted the above photo and following update on its Facebook page.

The Voluntown Peace Trust posted the above photo and following update on its Facebook page.

This morning, as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Coast Guard Academy commencement ceremony, 18 demonstrators gathered nearby with signs to remind the visiting Vice President of an important message: that we cannot adequately fund the national infrastructure at home while also funding war-making abroad at the same time.

Thank you to everyone who came out to the demonstration, and thanks to Jonathan Daly-LaBelle for the photo.

West River Peace Garden Needs Volunteers

by Frank Panzarella, volunteer at the Peace Garden

Through the hard work of the City of New Haven Peace Commission, New Haven became a United Nations Peace Messenger City several years ago. In recognition of this distinction, a Peace Garden was established in the West River neighborhood and work was done to lay out a sign and establish a design for the garden.

For several years the garden was tended by the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation, particularly by Stacy Spell, the Board President at that time, and occasionally other volunteers.

A volunteer tends to the New Haven Peace Garden

A volunteer tends to the New Haven Peace Garden

Since then, the original sign was replaced due to weather damage and a new team is working to make major improvements on the garden led by Aaron Goode.

This garden sits at a gateway crossroad for New Haven and will be adjacent to a vibrant new housing construction project in the West River neighborhood.

We want to see this garden become a jewel in the revival of New Haven attractions and a portrait of our values in promoting world peace and peace within our own city.

Included in this garden is a significant donation from the City of Hiroshima: a Ginkgo tree taken from a cutting of a tree that survived the destruction of Hiroshima — a symbol of the tenacity of life.

We need your help to restore the beauty of this garden. Please come and join us, and volunteer to work. We meet every Friday from 9:30 to noon. The garden is located at the end of the Route 34 connector between Martin Luther King Boulevard and Legion Avenue where they meet the Ella Grasso Boulevard. For more information call 203-562-2798 or email frankpanzarella@hotmail.com.

Stand Against War and Empires

Joan Cavanagh, New Haven Sunday Vigil

We condemn the Russian invasion and war against the people of Ukraine in the strongest terms. There is no justification for this new war in Putin’s quest for empire, with the terror, suffering and death it is inflicting on the innocent and the threat it brings of a wider war which puts the entire world at risk.

We condemn the U.S. and allied Western governments for their historical complicity in helping to create at least a partial pretext for this invasion, including their aggressive expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance in the post-Soviet world and their own long history of imperialist war-making.

We condemn the nine nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea) for refusing to abolish nuclear weapons. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the global nuclear stockpile is close to 13,000. Together, the U.S. and Russia possess 90% of that stockpile. These weapons make a nuclear exchange a real and present danger in the current crisis.

The sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe are bringing more misery and hardship to the people of Russia. They, like the Ukrainians, are victims in Putin’s attempt to recreate the Russian Empire.

Jockeying for domination over the world’s resources benefits only a very small number of people-the 1% who already control most of the wealth on the planet- while killing, maiming, terrorizing, and displacing those who stand in their way. There are both shared as well as competing business interests among the members of that small percentage in this as in every crisis they foment.

We celebrate the brave Russians who are taking to the streets in protest against their government’s actions, risking not only arrest but, in many cases, their lives. We wish our fellow citizens would follow their example to protest our own government’s ongoing military incursions throughout the rest of the world.

We stand with the brave and suffering people of Ukraine.

Join our vigil to RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR every Sunday, 12-1 p.m., Broadway, Park and Elm Streets, New Haven. https://newhavensundayvigil.wordpress.com.

To donate to humanitarian relief for Ukraine, go to the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee website (uuarc.org) and click on the “Donate Now” button. This is the quickest way to get much-needed help to the people. (Alternatively, you could send a check to the organization at 1206 Cottman Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19111. Memo: “Victims of war in Ukraine.”)

Connecticut Activists Rally in Solidarity with Ukrainian Victims of the Russian Invasion

by Erwin Freed, Socialist Resurgence, March 8, 2022

[Below is an excerpt from the article, which can be read in its entirety at socialistresurgence.org/2022/03/08/connecticut-activists-rally-in-solidarity-with-ukrainian-victims-of-the-russian-invasion].

Responding to an international call initiated by major antiwar groups, activists in Connecticut organized an emergency protest at the Federal Court Building in New Haven in solidarity with Ukrainian victims of the ongoing Russian invasion on March 6. The main slogans of the international call, initiated by Code Pink and two British antiwar coalitions, were “Stop the War in Ukraine! Russian Troops Out! No to NATO expansion!” The international call also opposed U.S./EU sanctions against Russia, which are a way of waging war by economic means, and demanding opening borders to refugees.

Endorsers of the Sunday action included Unidad Latina en Acción, New Era Young Lords, Promoting Enduring Peace, Mending Minyon, 350CT, International Marxist Tendency (Socialist Revolution), Socialist Resurgence, and a number of individual members of local clergy, labor, and other social movement groups. The protest was quickly organized on an emergency basis in a collaborative manner with much collective discussion on slogans, speakers, and building activities by activists from endorsing groups. Despite the limited time to build the action and bad weather conditions, over 100 people showed up to listen to a broad range of speakers, to stand in solidarity with Ukrainians struggling against Russian occupation and against U.S./NATO intervention.

Speakers at the demonstration connected the war on Ukraine and mounting inter-imperialist militarism with a diverse range of different local and international issues. Stanley Heller of Promoting Enduring Peace kicked off the rally by denouncing the Russian invasion and calling for international solidarity for the Ukrainian people and Russian antiwar activists, as well as victims of imperialist violence in Syria and Yemen.

Melinda Tuhus, speaking on behalf of 350 Connecticut, spoke about the devastating human and environmental cost of militarism. Melinda pointed out how “the war in Ukraine highlights dirty energy’s role in destabilizing our geopolitics,” giving specific examples of how the war and responses by various countries and companies have horrific implications for the environment. This includes a planned increase in liquified natural gas by the United States, a type of fuel whose production releases methane emissions, which are 100 times worse for the climate than CO2. She pointed out that “militaries around the world, with the U.S. far in the lead, consume massive amounts of oil and gas” and that the U.S. military’s almost $800 billion budget should be converted to human needs.
Nika Zarazvand, a local Iranian activist involved with many struggles for justice, spoke about the devastating effects of sanctions for working and oppressed people. She mentioned her own experience: “As an immigrant from Iran, I am used to people not knowing anything about my country other than the talking points of sanctions and nuclear weapons.” She continued that her family members in Iran were unable to access COVID vaccines, PPE, and health care due to the crippling unilateral sanctions on Iran. In the U.S., Nika’s family members “are interrogated for over two hours at their own bank … because they send money to Iranian medical students in Ukraine.”

Update from Mark Colville of the Kings Bay Plowshares

[See past issues of PAR and visit kingsbayplowshares7.org for more information on the Kings Bay civil disobedience against nuclear weapons and the trial]

Mark’s Facebook posting of Feb. 3 Update: my noncompliance hearing in Hartford tomorrow morning is canceled!

At the eleventh hour comes a communique from the judge which reads in part:

“ORDER: The Court has been advised…that (1) restitution has been paid in full by Mr. Colville’s co-defendant [Translation: the government has already stolen the inheritance of one of my co-defendants against his will], (2) Probation does not object to the Court’s waiving the drug testing condition because Mr. Colville does not have a history warranting such a condition, and (3) Mr. Colville is otherwise responsive to the Probation Office, makes himself available for home and office visits, and is respectful and communicative… [I]t does not appear that there is a need to hold a hearing on any violation. Nor does the Court see why it would be productive to have a compliance review hearing in light of the above. If the Probation Department believes at some point in the future that such a hearing is necessary, it shall file on the docket either a violation report or a request for a compliance review hearing with a clear explanation setting forth the reasons such a hearing is necessary. Further, unless anyone objects within 7 days of this order, the drug testing condition will be considered waived. Accordingly, the violation hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow (2/4) is CANCELLED. Signed by Judge Michael P. Shea on 2/3/2022.”

To all the friends who were planning to come (tomorrow), I do apologize for the late notice and hope you check your social media before getting in the car. That said, it sure is nice to get a win once in a while! The Amistad Catholic Worker will celebrate tonight.

And tomorrow we will wake up again in a country that is still spending $100,000 per minute for the coming ten years on first-strike nuclear weapons. Indeed, we have work to do–especially in Connecticut, where a huge chunk of that money is being spent at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in New London. So stay tuned for many more opportunities to resist this criminal government.
Peace and Joy and thanks… And the next round’s on me (in a really kind of wishful-thinking sort of way)!

Mark Colville

New Haven Peace Activist Dealing With Son’s Cancer While Jail Still Possibility

by Ed Stannard, New Haven Register, Jan. 14, 2022

Mark Colville served 18 months in jail for his 2018 protest of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and he’s still battling what he considers an idolatrous government.

Because he refuses to submit to drug tests or consent to disclosing his finances, Colville faces a hearing that could end up with him being put back in jail for violating the terms of his supervised release.

Colville was one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia on April 4, 2018. Colville poured blood, hammered and wrote biblical texts on the monuments to the Trident D5 nuclear missile and was arrested, tried and convicted.

Since his release from the jail in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Sept. 10, 2021, however, he and his family also have been dealing with a more personal issue: his son Isaiah’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“It was diagnosed right about the time I was getting out of prison, so it was a big shock,” Colville said. Isaiah Colville, 19, will have his last chemotherapy treatment Monday, and the journey his family has taken has been complicated by the elder Colville’s legal issues.

“It’s a very aggressive form of cancer,” Mark Colville said. “You get tumors that grow very quickly, but the treatments, the chemotherapy regimen, is also very effective.” According to Luz Catarineau, Isaiah’s mother, the treatment gives her son an 80 percent chance of a cure. “But it’s still a very aggressive form of cancer. He’s not out of the woods yet,” Colville said.

Colville’s hearing originally was scheduled for early December. “We asked for a postponement until my son’s treatments were done … and the court wouldn’t give me that, the government wouldn’t agree to a postponement that long.” He was given until this past Monday.

Mark’s hearing has since been moved to Feb. 4. Updated information is at https://kingsbayplowshares7.org.

To read the above article in its entirety, please go to https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/New-Haven-peace-activist-dealing-with-son-s-16768112.php.

Happy 100th Birthday, Al Marder

by Lucy Gellman, The Arts Paper, January 19, 2022

Al Marder listened from the corner of the screen, his head bobbing as Millie Grenough lifted her hands and began to conduct the impromptu New Haven Peace Commission choir. A cacophonous chorus of “happy birthday” rang out over the screen, voices lifted to give a centenarian his due.

Al Marder poses with New Haven peace activist and Peace Council member Mary Compton at the Peace Day celebration at the Amistad Memorial statue outside New Haven City Hall Sept. 21, 2015. The statue was built thanks to his guidance and supervision. Marder is chairman of the Amistad Committee. (photo: cjzurcher)

Al Marder poses with New Haven peace activist and Peace Council member Mary Compton at the Peace Day celebration at the Amistad Memorial statue outside New Haven City Hall Sept. 21, 2015. The statue was built thanks to his guidance and supervision. Marder is chairman of the Amistad Committee.
(photo: cjzurcher)

Marder—a lifelong champion of worker rights, disarmament, anti-racism and literally keeping the peace in New Haven—turned 100 Tuesday evening with a clear call to do good in the face of climate disaster, economic depravity, global precarity and violence that has gripped both New Haven and the country. Speaking at a meeting of the New Haven Peace Commission, of which he is a founding and current member, he showed no sign of stopping as he entered his second century of life.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to spend the evening with you,” he said as commissioners kicked off the night with birthday wishes and a musical interlude. “The struggle for peace is not easy. We’re living in a society that’s built on guns and killing and we’re trying, you and I, to educate young people that there’s another way of living. A peaceful way, a just way, to treat each other as individuals without hatred, without killing.”

Marder has made peace—particularly labor rights, demilitarization, and a fervid commitment to anti-racism—his life’s work. Born in 1922 to Ukrainian immigrants in the city’s Hill neighborhood, Marder started growing his roots as an organizer before his 10th birthday. Some of his earliest memories are of an economically hard-hit New Haven as the city headed into the Great Depression. In an interview with Mary Donahue of Connecticut Explored in 2016, he recalled watching unemployed men come from the rail yard to his parents’ Oak Street grocery store, looking for something to eat.

Even at a very young age, Marder became committed to fighting for the wellbeing of his fellow New Haveners, and saw it as a struggle tied to the rights of workers and to the end of the military-industrial complex. At 16, he became the chairman of the Connecticut Young Communist League, publicly declaring a lifetime commitment to the cause that later made him a victim of invasive FBI surveillance. His years as a student at James Hillhouse High School were formative in and outside the classroom, as he spent organizing with a fire he still carries every time he speaks today.

[You can read the article in its entirety at www.newhavenarts.org and click on Arts Paper]

The Consequences of Endless War

by Joan Cavanagh, New Haven Sunday Vigil for Peace and Justice

On August 29, 10 members of the Ahmadi family, seven of them children, were killed by a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. One branch of the Pentagon investigated another and essentially decided that the mistake was an unfortunate by-product of a usual days’ work that did not go quite as planned.

This strike gives us a small window into the methods and consequences of the war that the U.S. government is waging daily and the sense of normalcy with which its architects regard it. So does the air-strike on Baghuz, Syria in 2019, which killed an estimated 60 civilians and whose previously successful cover-up was revealed by the New York Times on November 13 of last year.

These “incidents” are the tip of the iceberg. In 20 years, U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan have caused thousands of deaths among non-combatants, the full extent of which remains unknown despite valiant attempts by watchdog groups, whistleblowers, and non-governmental organizations to document them. Many have gone unreported or underreported. The whistleblowers have been sentenced to prison.

This is the 21st-century face of endless war: anonymous killing by remote control, off the radar of most of us, although it is being done by our own government. The consequences for the immediate victims are obvious. Survivors face less visible but deeply scarring outcomes.

The role of these virtual warriors is unprecedented. Studies of post-traumatic stress disorder among them are necessarily in their infancy but an estimated 4% are already suffering from PTSD. Surely the cumulative psychological toll of witnessing the devastating results of their work will have a long-term impact that we cannot predict.

Historically, U.S. citizens, who have learned the truth of wars being fought, and war crimes committed in our names, have struggled to end them. We cannot possibly achieve a decent society while our nation is inflicting this kind of damage on the rest of the world. Please, learn as much as possible about these wars that the policymakers would prefer you didn’t concern yourself with, and act to help stop them.

Joan Cavanagh is part of the New Haven Sunday Vigil to “Resist this Endless War.” This is an edited version of a longer Forum piece in the New Haven Register on November 28, 2021, https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Opinion-The-consequences-of-endless-war-16653302.php.

Vigil to Support Mark Colville’s Probation Violation Hearing Jan. 10

Join us at 1 p.m. Jan. 10 for a vigil either in person outside the Federal Courthouse in Hartford, CT or virtually to support Mark Colville, one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. Mark is being called back to court because he refuses to submit to drug testing which is one of the conditions of his 3 years of supervised probation. He contends it has nothing to do with what the 7 were sentenced for.

Meanwhile, Mark points out that the Federal court continues to protect nuclear weapons even though the possession of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law, (see the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons https://www.icanw.org). Right now, the US is spending $100,000 a minute for the next 10 years on the development and production of new nuclear weapons. These are stolen resources from the people of this world. It begs the question: Who are the real criminals here? And why are they not drug-testing the Pentagon’s nuclear war planners, whose criminality and terrorist threats now place the United States in the category of a rogue nation and whose work continues to threaten all life on this planet?

The vigil will be live-streamed on Facebook and Youtube. Further details will be on the website closer to the date. https://kingsbayplowshares7.org.

* * * * * * * * * *

Also note that January 11 will mark the twentieth year that the prison at Guantanamo has been open. Witness Against Torture is planning a small presence in Washington, DC this year and many other vigils around the country. There will be a vigil at the White House at noon and then participants will attend webinars at a nearby church. Some people will fast from their homes from Jan. 7-11 and get together on Zoom in the evenings. Details are at: http://witnessagainsttorture.com/2021/12/22/january-11-rally-at-the-white-house-20-years.

EMAIL: kingsbayplowshares@gmail.com

WEBSITE: www.kingsbayplowshares7.org

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Kingsbayplowshares

TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/kingsbayplow7

INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/kingsbayplowshares7

Traditional Reading ‘Beyond Vietnam’

by Henry Lowendorf, Greater New Haven Peace Commission

It has become a tradition in New Haven to celebrate the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., with a public reading of his brilliant speech, Beyond Vietnam.

The reading will take place at noon Monday, Jan. 17, via Zoom. Contact the Peace Council at 203-389-9547 or grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com if you would like to read or participate. To listen in solidarity, contact us for the Zoom link.

At a time when the people of our country and the world face an ongoing pandemic, economic deprivation, gross inequality in jobs, health care, housing, education, we celebrate the crystal clarity of King’s vision for peace and justice expressed during the brutal U.S. war on Vietnam 54 years ago. Today we call for ending the dozens of wars, blockades and gross interference in the political affairs of other nations waged by the U.S.A.

The Greater New Haven Peace Council invites you to join in reading this powerfully emotional and historical analysis that is today as relevant as it was when King presented it in 1967.

King: “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Congress is now passing a new military budget of three-quarters of a trillion dollars, a huge increase over Trump’s last budget, which itself was highly bloated over Obama’s. Military spending consumes over half of U.S. discretionary budget while the U.S. spends more on weapons and war than the next 11 countries combined.

King: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Contact the Peace Council now to be added to the roster of readers or for the Zoom link to listen to the readings: 203-389-9547,  grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com.

King called for an end to the madness of militarism, inequality and greed. Let’s settle for nothing less than a just transition to a Green, Peace Economy that works for all of us.

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