GREEN PRESS RELEASE PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

Jan 13, 2002

G/GPUSA The Green Party USA

PO Box 1406,

Chicago, IL 60690

1-866-GREENS2

http://www.greenparty.org email: gpusa@igc.org

The original Green Party USA founded 1991

working for the movement since 1984

GREEN PARTY USA URGES: COME HOME TO PEACE

The Green Party USA calls for activists and Greens worldwide to join in

solidarity against the illegal U.S. war on the people of Afghanistan.


We have urged a "hands off" policy in that region, but now we are

disappointed to find some European Greens in government breaking solidarity

and supporting our agressor government against Green values. We urgently

call on Die Grunen, the German Green Party, to come home, to reverse their

vote and withdraw from their government coalition supporting this war.


The historic Green committment to nonviolence means breaking the cycle of

war and revenge, of patriarchal domination and corrupt corporate enclosure.

We cannot, we will not trade the lives of thousands or millions of

innocent civilians in the poorest countries, along with the destruction of

entire ecosystems, to gain a few windmills at home and a seat at the table

of Power. Their lives are not ours to trade. We must support peoples' right

to make the decisions that affect their own lives.


As Greens we urge ending all military buildup in Central Asia and all

covert operations that tighten the corporate hegemony of the region and its

energy resources. We will not advocate UN "peacekeeping" run by the

Pentagon. We opposed the US-led NATO destruction of Kosovo and the German

Greens support for the NATO bombing.


Petra Kelly, a cofounder of the original German Greens, and two-term

elected member of the German Bundestag (1983-90), called for rejection of

war as a political instrument, radical disarmament, removal of foreign

military bases, dismantling of military alliances, abolition of nuclear,

biological, and chemical weapons and the world arms trade. *


Kelly wrote before her death:


"The Greens, set up as a kind of anti-party party, have turned into a

party obsessed with power... Sometimes I almost despaired of this attitude,

particularly within my own party. What is left of the honesty and

credibility of a party that set out to do things completely differently?"

(written in the last few days of her membership in the Bundestag) **


And in 1989 Kelly said:


"But becoming a coalition partner and becoming a junior partner in

government cannot mean losing our Green identity. It cannot mean giving up

our key principles of radical and ecological solutions, of nonviolent means

and ends, of democratic grass-roots decisions, and of working for a

demilitarized and denuclearized society. More and more the German Green

Party is moving toward giving up those positions for the sake of becoming

acceptable to the Social Democrats, for the sake of having three or four

ministers in a red-green cabinet. But how high will the price be?...


"We cannot afford to make compromises when trying to protect human lives,

when trying to protect the health of peoples and of all living things on

the planet! Talking suddenly about "limit values" of, for example, dioxin

or lead, or accepting here and there a little bit of deterrence or

radioactivity cannot be Green politics! We must provide healing, life

affirming answers, not just repairing a little bit here and there. We must

empower people at the grass-roots level to start initiating political

action themselves; we must help them share more power... Our future, our

potential, and our credibility lies in interconnecting the issues of peace,

human rights, employment, ecology, and social justice." ***

Media Committee, The Greens/Green Party USA

The Green Party USA promotes the broad-based movement for sustainability

and justice in our Ten Key Values: Grassroots Democracy, Ecological Wisdom,

Social Justice and Equal Opportunity, Nonviolence, Decentralization,

Community Based Economics, Feminism, Respect for Diversity, Personal and

Global responsibility, Future Focus and Sustainability.



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* from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, introduction p.5

** from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, "Morality and Human Dignity", p.126

*** from Nonviolence Speaks to Power, p.66, from a speech titled Global

Green Politics given at the Ecopolitics Conference, University of Adelaide,

Australia Sept 21-24,1989)

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International Law on the Bombing of Civilians

http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html