Teach-in to focus on the ‘Path to Peace’

By Corinne Ball

Asheville, North Carolina, Jan. 15— The Western North Carolina Peace Coalition (WNCPC) will be hosting “Path to Peace, a continuing dialogue” on Sat., Jan. 19 from 12:20pm to 6:00pm at the Lipinsky Auditorium at the UNC-Asheville campus. The teach-in is coordinated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast, at the Grove Park Inn, held by the YMI Cultural Center.

Sponsored by Active Students for a Healthy Environment (ASHE) and the UNCA Chapter of Amnesty International, the focus of the teach-in will range from lectures and workshops to artistic endeavors including belly dancing, poetry, and theater.

Professors from UNCA and Warren Wilson College will be speaking, as well as activists from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, the War Resisters League, and Quaker Eco Witness, among others. Topics will range from “The Media and the War” to “Terrorism as Religious Addiction.” Workshops and lectures will also include information on women living in the Muslim world to how the recently passed Patriot Act will affect constitutional rights. Dialogue will extend to nuclear war and the US War on Drugs in Colombia.

Included in the program are singer and activist Peggy Seeger, who will be performing, and local activist Clare Hanrahan, who was released Tuesday morning after six months in jail stemming from a School of the Americas protest in Fort Benning, Georgia. Hanrahan will be speaking on problems inherent in the prison system.

“It’s going to be an amazing afternoon,” said Julie Maccarin, an organizer of the event. “We have an incredible array of speakers on an array of subjects.” Maccarin added that many different perspectives will be covered during the day and that different speakers are adding different elements to the recipe for a peace dialogue.

“Those of us in the WNCPC have felt the need for some community discussion on the direction of US foreign policy,” said Ursula Scott, an organizer of the teach-in. “Looking to King’s life, and his stance against the US in the Vietnam War, it seemed like an appropriate time to raise questions similar to those he had raised in a different era about a different war.”

Scott went on to state that people will get a sense of how complex the issues in this war are. “There exists a whole range of possibilities that are not being discussed in mainstream media or [the Bush] administration.”

“Everyone has a common desire for peace. At Christmas we sing songs of peace. Soldiers presently fighting long for peace. Everyone longs for peace. In America there are different ways people believe we can achieve peace,” said Maccarin. “If we can understand how people have come to hate us, maybe we can act in ways that create mutual understanding and a way for us to live together in peace.”

And while Scott explained that the teach-in will give options towards less violent means of confronting terrorism (responses based in nonviolence), she stressed that the teach-in is for everyone.

“This is an opportunity for those who do have questions to come together and share them along with their fears and hopes as to where they would like our country to go,” said Scott. “I hope as many people as possible, whatever their points of view are, will join us. This event is for people whose minds are still open.”

Info: Peace Line, 271-0022

Environmentalists, labor organizers travel to Colombia to assess impact of US aid

Washington, DC, Jan. 8— On Jan. 17, a delegation of 35 US citizens will travel to Colombia to bear personal witness to the effects of US policy in the South American country. The delegation will include seven people from North Carolina, including Erin Pratt, an Asheville resident. The group will travel to Bogota and will split into two smaller groups to visit Putumayo and Barancabermeja. People from 16 states will participate.

The delegation has been organized jointly by the human rights organizations Witness for Peace (WFP) and Global Exchange, which resolved to send the observers after the US Congress voted to provide $1.3 billion – earmarked almost entirely for a large-scale US military intervention in Colombia. WFP has joined with other human rights groups in expressing concern that most of the aid will go to the Colombian army, which has repeatedly been linked to brutal paramilitary groups and accused of serious human rights violations.

Aerial spraying of chemicals in Southern Colombia is damaging the Amazon Rainforest. Environmentalists from Amazon Watch,m the Pesticide Action Network, the Nature Conservancy, the Green Party, and Eco Access will travel south to Putumayo to assess the impact of US aerial spraying on the animals, plants, forests, and people living in this area.

Fifty percent of the labor leaders assassinated worldwide are Colombians. US labor organizers from the machinists, steamfitters, plumbers, farm labor, carpenters, and stagehands unions will visit Barancabermeja – an industrial center hard hit by paramilitary death squads tied to the Colombian military, has received nearly $1 billion in US aid.

“People in the United Stated need to know that more than a billion of their tax dollars are going to be spent on a military intervention that will not solve our domestic drug problem, but will escalate a very complicated, decades-old armed conflict. US money will further inflame a conflict that each year kills thousands of innocent civilians, and displaces tens of thousands of civilian Colombians from their homes,” said Pratt.

The delegation will observe the effects of US policy and bring those observations back to the United States.

Witness for Peace, which led the US movement against the US backed-Contra War in Nicaragua in the 1980’s, has taken over 10,000 US citizens to Latin America and the Caribbean since its founding in 1983. WFP is a grassroots, non-violent, faith- and conscience-based organization.

“We know that there are risks,” said Gail Phares, a WFP founder and activist who will lead the delegation. “But we at Witness for Peace have long believed that we must be willing to take the same risks for peace that others take for war.”

Source: Witness for Peace

Local businesswoman seeks to expand Asheville entertainment venues

Asheville, Jan. 7— Stephanie Coleman, owner of ISSUES International Newsstand, is welcoming the new year with a schedule of live performances to take place at the Fine Arts Theater in downtown Asheville. The first event for the venue is folk singer David Rovics, who brings his “Anti-War Roadshow” to Asheville on Thurs., Jan. 17, at 10pm. (Tickets for the show can be purchased at ISSUES, 32 Biltmore Ave.).

Coleman’s decision to promote live events stems from the success of events she’s held at ISSUES, as well as the recognition of an underserved market.

“I observed many people looking for entertainment beyond spoken word poetry slams and musical open mic nights, and as successful as those events have been for ISSUES, I felt that I could do more with additional space,” said Coleman. The Fine Arts Theater, located next door to the Newsstand, proved to be the perfect location for the type of entertainment she plans to promote.

The next concert, slated for late February, is Digital Ancient, based out of Providence, Rhode Island. Digital Ancient will bring the sounds of “Galactic Soul Music” from the Afrohypnotic lable. Coleman is also working on details for a stand-up comedy show scheduled for March.

For information on these and other upcoming events, contact Stephanie at ISSUES, 242-3257.