August 26, 2004

Dear WILPF members and friends,

While the U.S. Presidential campaigns focussed on the candidates' war records, over 300 WILPF women gathered in Sweden to talk about peace. Women came from Albania, Australia, Belarus, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Polynesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States to attend the 28th Triennial International WILPF Congress.
The theme of the Congress was "Water, Women, Peace." An excellent seminar was held discussing water as a source of national and international conflicts. Six women from different countries gave horrifying examples of how the issue of water is inextricably connected to our WILPF work. They spoke of communities and whole countries suffering from the degradation and pollution of water supplies due to corporate disregard for the environment. In addition to the dwindling supply of clean water in many countries, "the bottom line" of corporate greed is once again rearing its ugly head by the growing trend to privatize the remaining supply of drinkable water. The issue of Water will be a major focus of WILPF's International Program.

Thanks to the remarkable efforts of the U.S. WILPF's Cuba Campaign, members of the Congress unanimously agreed with the proposal that International WILPF sponsor an International Women‚s Peace Conference to be held in Cuba in 2006. It was recognized that holding such a conference in Cuba follows WILPF's long tradition of woman-to-woman diplomacy - examples of which include the original delegations that left from The Hague in 1915 to stop World War I, to Emily Greene Balch's trips to Haiti, through the Peace Declaration signed by United States WILPF and Vietnamese Women's Organizations in 1971.

The Congress was also a time to thank the outgoing officers and to vote for new ones. I'm very pleased to announce that U.S. nominee Regina Birchem from Pittsburgh, Pa., is the new President of International WILPF. Regina was not only nominated by the U.S. Section, but in addition was nominated by Bolivia, Denmark, El Salvador, Norway and The Netherlands. She is an educator, biologist, and researcher. She has been a tireless worker for WILPF. In addition to her expertise in gender, environment, peace and development issues, she is also admired for her insistence on organizational transparency and inclusiveness.

She is joined by a team of four Vice Presidents and Treasurer:
Annelise Ebbe - Denmark
Marta Benavides - El Salvador
Dulcy de Silva - Sri Lanka
Samira Khoury - Lebanon
Treasurer: - Mans van Zandbergen

Over 50 WILPF women from the U.S. were at the Congress. We hope you may have a chance to talk to anyone from your area who went, and possibly arrange a "report back" to your branch.

We invite all those on this list, who are not members of WILPF, to join us in Making Peace a Reality. For your convenience, you can join on line by going to http://www.wilpf.org,
or by sending your $35 membership dues to:

WILPF, 1213 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107

Yours for peace with justice,
Sandy Silver,
President
WILPF - U.S. Section