GREENS OFFICERS AND ACTIVISTS VISIT EUROPE, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN

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Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576,
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Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
scottmclarty@yahoo.com

GREENS OFFICERS AND ACTIVISTS VISIT EUROPE,
AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN

Meeting with European Green officials to
coordinate efforts on global warming, defending
the rights of children, the War in Afghanistan,
and democratic globalization

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Officers of the Green Party
of the United States have just returned from
meetings in Europe with legislators and other
officials who are members of various European
Green Parties. Meanwhile, Green activist Medea
Benjamin, founder of the non-profit organization
Global Exchange and 2000 Green Party candidate
for U.S. Senator from California, and three other
women from Global Exchange recently returned from
a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On Thursday, December 6, they released a report
describing their findings and offering
recommendations to the Bush Administration about
how to alleviate the suffering of Afghanistan's
civilian population ("Reconstructing Afghanistan:
Statement by Global Exchange Women's Delegation
to the Region"
<http://www.globalexchange.org/september11/gx120501.html>.)

"The U.S. bombing has created a whole new class
of refugees, most of whom are not receiving any
kind of aid," said Ms. Benjamin. "The U.S.
therefore has an tremendous responsibility to
ensure that the refugees we have created do not
die from lack of food. We need U.N. peacekeepers
in Afghanistan now to get food to people. The
U.S. must today end its resistance to an
international peacekeeping force. It is
unconscionable for the U.S. to frustrate
humanitarian efforts."

The contingent from Global Exchange has been
working closely with the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA),
Afghan Womens Mission, Afghan Womens Council, and
Afghan Womens Network, all of which have demanded
that women be included in the plans for
reconstructing Afghanistan and in the Bonn talks
on establishing a new Afghan government.

Annie Goeke, chair of the International Committee
of the Green Party of the United States, Tom
Sevigny, a member of the party's national
Steering Committee, and Green Party Political
Coordinator Dean Myerson met last week with
Belgian Green Party Minister Jean Marc Nollet, a
United Nations representative, to discuss
Children's Rights and a campaign to protest the
U.S.'s refusal to sign on to the Child Rights
International Treaty. They also discussed
strategies to address global warming and control
carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) emissions with
Olivier Deleuze, chair of the European
Parliament.

"Green Parties on both sides of the Atlantic have
continued to develop and meetings during this
visit promise to move our cooperation to a new
level of practical coordination to build the
Green Party globally and get real results on
Green issues," commented Myerson.

"We emphasized to European Greens that they are
in a position to embarrass U.S. government
officials for their inaction or bad policies, and
that our own experience in the U.S. political
system can help them do so, thus getting more
results on many issues of common concern. This
is the next step for the Earth's only global
political party to combine the leverage of
European Greens in governmental positions with
our new-found growth and impact to affect U.S.
policies in a way not expected by the elites in
the U.S."

Goeke, Sevigny, and Myerson spoke at a public
forum attended by officials from the European
Federation of Green Parties (EFGP) in the Maison
des Femmes, discussing the U.S. Green Party's
goals and clarifying the party's position on the
War in Afghanistan: disagreement with the German
Greens' decision under the leadership of Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer to support the U.S.'s
unilaterally conducted military strikes; calling
for an international court to try the criminals
behind the September 11 attacks in accord with
international law; demand for representation from
Afghan women's organizations in the Bonn talks.

They later met Arnold Cassola, Secretary General
for EFGP, and officials from the European
Parliament Green Group and from the Heinrich
Boell Foundation, which supports and coordinates
the Green movement in Germany. Greens in Europe
and the U.S. plan to participate in the 2nd World
Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from
January 31 to February 5, 2002. About 100,000
people attended the first WSF in 2001, an
initiative of international NGOs that presented a
democratic alternative to the Globalization Forum
in Davos, Switzerland.

Tom Sevigny represented the U.S. Green Party in
Budapest at the European Federation of Green
Parties Council meeting on international
security; Annie Goeke attended the World
Citizen's Assembly conference in Lille.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)