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WRI homepage > Programme Areas > Nonviolence and Social Empowerment > Case studies
submitted to the Nonviolence and Social Empowerment Conference
Puri, Orissa, India 18-24 February 2001
Nonviolence and Social Empowerment Project
c/o Patchwork
Kaiserstrasse 24 D-26122 Oldenburg/Germany
Tel.: +49-441-2480437 Fax: +49-441-2489661
email: wri-nvse-project@edu.oldenburg.de; website wri-irg.org/archive/nvse2001/
SEWU is an independent trade union established in 1993 to represent the interests of self-employed and survivalist women engaged in the informal sector of the South African economy. SEWU is not affiliated to Cosatu because its members are women from different political parties. It was established by Pat Horn who was a trade unionist. She realised that the government, municipality and public did not recognise this sector. Consequently, people within this sector were harassed by municipality authorities and most of their goods were being confiscated. Their voices were not being heard and they had no bargain power. They were not treated with dignity and respect. Pat Horn visited SEWA in India and after her visit she established SEWU, helped by volunteers from the formal sector. A steering committee was formed. In June 1994 SEWU was launched with 45 members. The steering committee disbanded and hand over to SEWU committee, Pat was employed as secretary/organizer/coordinator.
SEWU's main aim is to empower self-employed women to organise themselves and demand recognition and support for the work they do. Members are assisted to develop skills in leadership, negotiation, and lobbying so that they can directly address relevant institutions and persons with their concerns. SEWU also provides direct advice and assistance with problems such as lack of childcare, health issues, and social security. In addition, SEWU facilitates members' access to a wide range of other organisations that provide social, legal, financial business, counselling services, and skills training.
SEWU is also actively involved in writing submissions or grant proposals to government institutions and international bodies in order to improve the situation of women working in the informal sector. This role is supplemented by SEWU's growing involvement with research into street vendors, home-based workers and the South African informal sector in general.
It is very difficult to organise this sector and there are disadvantages but we overcome most of them. For survivalist street traders, time away from their sites, during trading hours, means money lost. This is one of the basic barriers to setting up and maintaining any trader's organisation. Going to meetings, or even taking time off to talk to an organiser in the streets, is problematic.
Street traders generate other informal employment. These are some common examples.
SEWU organises women in different categories as follows:
Its members are both in rural and urban areas.
The key issue of SEWU is to negotiate with Municipal Authorities in urban areas for better facilities to street vendors.
In most areas we have achieved success and in other areas we are still negotiating. Employed staff are doing these negotiations with members from the affected areas.
At SEWU 12% of members had no formal schooling at all. A further 34% obtained a level of education lower than Std 4, 48% obtained a level of education between Std 4 and Std 6 and 7% obtained matric. SEWU subsidies its members in different skills. We encourage members to shift from traditional female skills to take on skills like carpentry, block making, bricklaying, electricity, plumbing etc. We also recommend literacy skills to our members.
Women who underwent brick making, bricklaying, electricity and upholstery, are making their business viable. There are problems of funding amongst other members as it is difficult to obtain loans from the banks. Presently members get soft loans from the Land Bank. SEWU's function it to help its members until their businesses are sustainable and develop other groups.
SEWU has achieved some of its goals but there is still a lot to be done. The informal sector is growing day by day.
Workshops are conducted where members are taught the country's Constitution, their rights and the promotion of HIV/AIDS campaign.
During transitional period many people were affected by violence. Some lost their close relatives, breadwinners and their homes were demolished/burnt. Most of our members live with that trauma and the government couldn't reach other areas and help them in counselling.
We have a counselling project within SEWU where members are involved in memory cloth project (for more information visit http://iafrica.com/b/bg/bgouws http://www.voices.org.za).
SEWU's plans are to cover all nine South African regions by 2004. Presently we have offices in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Two provinces Orange Free State and Mpumalanga will be launched this year.
Mahatma Gandhi's concept of Gram Swarajya aimed to create an egalitarian society. To achieve it, a committed group of people established Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal (DGSM) at Gopeshwar in 1964. Since the objective was to develop a self sustaining non-violent society, training was imparted in village industries, agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, harvesting forest produce, utilizing mineral resources, employment in various construction activities, educating and awakening people for forest protection, husbanding of natural resources etc. Gradually, DGSM become a symbol of village self-reliance. However, everything changed in 1970 when a massive flood hit the Alaknanda basin devastating the normal life and destroying the property. The flood was unprecedented in the history of the region was described by the government as a natural calamity. But the relief workers of DGSM refused to accept this viewpoint as they have seen the plight of forests between 1950-1970 in the watersheds from where the flood was originated. Thus with while undertaking the relief operation in the flood effected watersheds, DGSM volunteers concluded that the flood was more man mad than claimed otherwise. There was time when wooden sleepers floating in the Alaknanda river, men with withered cheeks and grimed faced women looking quite old in their prime age was the common sight.
While this was happening in the region, Simon sports, a sports goods company in Allahabad was allotted Ash trees (used for sport goods) from the Mandal forest near Gopeshwar in 1973. The local people in the region were customarily using this tree for making Yoke- a traditional agricultural implement. Hence such auction stuck at the very core of our living. Claiming these trees as our birthright, we decided to protect them from the commercial exploitation and need to respect the traditional rights on forest. This all happened during a time when the memory of 1970's flood was fresh in our mind. A question we all were asking that shall we allow the incident like 1970 flood to reoccur or prevent this terrain from any future tragedy. The option was singular; that if we want to save the people and the terrain, the only way left is to prevent any further genocide of our forest. Simon Company auction was a triggering point; this set the ball rolling. A meeting was called by the DGSM in which members of different political parties attended. Suggestions were put forth, and finally, the suggestion made by DGSM based on its very premise of non-violence was accepted and acted upon. According to the suggestion of DGSM, it was decided that people will cling to the trees (Chipko), ear marked for felling and asks the lumberer to axe us first before axing the trees. With this philosophy of peaceful resistance, the very first direct action was launched in Mandal forest near Gopeshwar during 1973.
Mandal forest was the starting point of peoples' non-violent resistance towards commercial exploitation of the forests in the region. In practice the local people with their traditional musical instruments marched to the felling site soliciting protection of the trees. This was unprecedented in the history of the region, which caught the Simon company's contractor unaware. Seeing the massive participation of the people, contractor was forced to retreat. Subsequently, the contract was given in the Mandakini valley where again the contractor had to face the people's resistance. After Mandal Chipko movement, DGSM volunteers fan out in all potential forest felling locations in order to educate and warn the people about the possible threat and also narrating the success story of Mandal Chipko movement. The turning point was in 1974, when Rani forest was auctioned. Chipko workers, local peoples and students, in large number got involved in the movement. They were demonstrating against the arrival of lumberer in the sensitive catchment of Rishi Ganga near Reni village. This protest finally resulted in a climatic victory. In fact, the menfolk of the area were absent that day as they had gone to Chamoli to collect the money owed to them as compensation for their lands. Even the Chipko representatives were not there as they had also been called to Gopeshwar for consultation by the forest department. Only the women remained in the village- 27 frail bodies against a lot of professional axe-man. Not caring for the odds against them, they rushed to the felling site and cling to the marked trees while angry lumberer threatened them with their glistening axes. They remained whole day in the forest battering the odds. Next day, their number increased as the men and women of about one dozen villages around Joshimath reached the site to join them. The agitation continued non-violently for a month when messages were spread through beating of drums and singing of Chipko songs. This was a decisive blow to the contractors, who could now started realizing that their motive is not going to be achieved as the women who otherwise remained confined to house hold work have taken the lead. This was solely because of the fact that it was women of the region who were the worst hit of steady decline of the forests. This had significantly added to their misery in terms of collecting fuel and fodder for their domestic needs. The Chipko vigil continued until finally in 1977 the Reni Chipko committee (appointed by the U. P. Government in May 1974) recommended a total ban on logging in this area. Later the movement spread into Bhyundar valley (lower part of the celebrated Valley of flowers). Despite heavy snowfall, the local women saved the trees. In 1980, another village called Dungri-Pantuli in Chamoli district took to the Chipko task. The government in association with the menfolk of the village was planning to fell trees in the vicinity of the village to make nursery for orchard. This would have deprived the women from the easily available fuel and fodder. The motivated women disobeyed their menfolk and flayed the government order. They put up a brave and determined resistance against the felling and questioned the government officials that why they have not been consulted prior to felling. This is important because it is their responsibility to fetch the fuel and fodder from the forests. Hence any decision pertaining to the forests should have the consent of the women. This was a major victory of the Chipko movement in terms of capacity building of hill women.
The movement methodology was evolved through series of deliberation with the people hailing from various walks of life and political background. There were divergent views, as to how one should prevent the forest felling. Opinion varied from obstructing the trucks heading towards the forest compartment, a priori cutting the marked trees etc. However, the DGSM ideology was finally accepted which suggested that we would not opt for any means, which has a component of violence. An idea was put forth, in which it was suggested that we would cling to the trees and ask the lumbers that they have to cut us first before cutting the trees. This appeared quite exotic at that time many people thought that it is a kind of passive resistance, which may not work at all. However, those who were not very sure about the non-violent way of protest could not anticipate the traditional mind set of the hill people. Basically, the hill people are peace loving community, with strong determination, which is the result of their daily struggle for their survival in these rugged terrain.
During the course of the movement, official or other lobbying channels were kept at bay. However, as the movement gained momentum, it gained sympathy from various people both from the region and outside. Institute like Gandhi Peace foundation and other national dailies also gave significant coverage in national and international press. The reporting made by various news papers and magazine created enormous support for the movement as also it enhanced the moral of the activists. The reporting was mainly focused on the demands of the Chipko movement, its approach and the role of the local people.
The movement did not agree on a formal structure. It was basically an informal conglomeration of the local people and DGSM volunteers. The idea was to create local leadership so that the it can have a self sustaining character. Nevertheless, DGSM, which was spreading the movement, was present in all the scene of action, but it was always kept in mind that local leadership should take the front seat. Especially after 1974 Chipko movement, there was overwhelming participation of the women folk. Since it was an entirely new activity for them, DGSM though always remained present during the direct action, however, where ever possible, enough opportunity was given to the women to express their potential and guide the direct action. Movement did not have any funding from any source. DGSM had small saving from its Khadi and Village Industry Commission (KVIC), this resource was utilized as and when required especially when travel expenditure was required. Rest every thing was supported by the local people. Hence it did not required any significant financial support.
The goal was to prevent commercial felling of forest crops and safeguarding the traditional rights on the forests in the river basin. This was because of the very fact that DGSM realized after 1970's Alaknanda flood that in order to prevent the terrain and people from future calamity, it is very important to save the forests which acts as green defense belt. Since DGSM was clear in her mind that the task is monumental and a small organization like DGSM can not do it alone. IT is therefore; essential that local people especially, the women who are the worst hit should be made partner to this action. This was achieved through persistent meeting, deliberation and demonstrations.
The objective has been largely achieved. Government of Uttar Pradesh has put a complete ban on commercial forest felling. This definitely gives us a sense of accomplishment. However, according to us the accomplishment is partial in the sense that, Himalaya need continuos nurturing. The terrain has been mercilessly denuded for last one century. The wounds are sever. Therefore, during the course of the movement, it was decided that the popular awakening should be pooled towards rejuvenating the denuded slopes. In this regard for past 30 years, we have been conducting eco-development and environmental conservation camps in the Upper Alaknanda basin. This is a second phase of the Chipko movement from protection to conservation and rejuvenation of the degraded forest cover. This was a difficult task to begin with. In the beginning, it looked quite exotic to talk about regreening the barren community land. The initial phase was witnessed with some inertia. But the time and persistency of the DGSM volunteers, who originally trained in Gram Dan and Chipko movement, paid off. Villages were selected on the basis of their felt need and assessing the threat perception caused by the depleted forest resources. Gradually the eco-development camps become the platforms to develop a closer rapport, exchange views and ideas and evolve strategies for redressing various developmental issues. Today these camps have become symbol of holistic development. In many watersheds the denuded forest cover has been reclaimed, biomass production has gone up and lost prosperity is gradually being reclaimed. Viewing these development, the movement of eco-development camps have increased and spread over many parts of the region witnessing overwhelming participation of the local people especially the women.
However, we feel that this is going to become an endless task considering the terrain dynamics and mounting population pressure. It is therefore, felt that such camps should be continued with spontaneity whether DGSM is there or not. This is the unfinished task towards which DGSM is currently pooling its energy and resources besides keeping close watch on the forests of the region.
Movement, which begins with saving the forest from commercial exploitation, becomes a symbol of fight against social injustice, improper developmental planning, faulty environmental policies. Rural hill folk who were mere spectator of the government policies have become a voice to reckon with. They could question the developmental planning, if found is not tune to the environmental condition of the terrain. In every village there is now a village organization formed by youth and women. These organization have realized their collective potential in shaping the destiny of their villages. Currently, there are innumerable village level women organization called Mahila Mangal Dals. These collective force of the hill women is an out come of the Chipko movement which allowed and encouraged them to realize their hidden strength and immense potential. Viewing the current demographic profile of the hills, majority of the menfolk is away in the mega cities to support the family back in the hills. It is therefore, pertinent that the major responsibility of running the village house hold lies with the women. Since they had to directly suffer the forest genocide in the past, they could very well realized the significance of the Chipko movement spearheaded by DGSM. More over, DGSM in tern could sense that unless this large available and directly affected population of women force is organized, least is expected to be achieved. Thus the subsequent and on going eco-development activity of DGSM could motivate the women to address and redress the natural resource and village rejuvenation program. In fact, contrary to the existing government program where people's participation is sought after the program is finalized. DGSM believed in making people's program where initiator and implementers are the rural people especially women of the region. In the process, DGSM and other agencies act as support organizations. Women of the region have now been empowered so much so that in many villages they are managing the village and Panchayat forests, including taking part in various village developmental programs. After 30 years of hard work the result is in front of the people. They could see their growth in terms of economy like increase in fodder and fuel yield, thus could save lot of time for other house hold work. They could keep high milk yield cows, which not only supply them nutrition but also fetch them hard cash. The camps also helped in evolving interactive developmental issues such as school, roads, basic health etc. Today the situation is such that many times participants healing from distance villages in the eco-development camps, initiate the similar program in their respective villages and DGSM knows about it only it receive the invitation for the same. This is the level of awakening and self sustaincy of the program initiated 30 years ago.
Nevertheless, in such people's program there are always some drawbacks especially by the vested interest groups, with in the village ands out side. Such hurdles are tackled though at times difficult by open debate on the merit of any new program. For instant, when decisions are made about a direct action, DGSM takes people into confidence as also their consent as to how one should go about it. It is the collective approach and become feasible due to informal structure of the Chipko movement. There is no hiarchial set up. Though the initiators are the collective workforces of DGSM, however, finally the decision is finalized in open assembly during the village level meeting and off late in the Eco-development camps.
There are six major demands of the Chipko movement many of them successfully achieved. The demands are as under
Thus, a movement which started from the sheer need of survival, become the mouth peace of the local people who could now think, plan and execute programmes as per their felt-need along with pooling their collective energy to save the terrain from any further calamity.
Translated from original Hindi
Good Evening. I thank the organizers of this event for the opportunity to share with you the experience of struggle on the Island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, beseiged by US Naval activities during the past six decades. I thank the people of Puerto Rico and, in particular, the people of the Island Municipality of Vieques, for allowing me to live and work with the community during these past twenty years and to participate in such an important struggle for peace and justice in such a special place.
I am here in representation of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, a grass roots community organization on Vieques that defends the basic demands of the people of this small Caribbean Island, demands known as the four D´s: demilitarization, decontamination, devolution (or return of the lands) and development.
I will share with you tonight some history of the US military presence and activities on Vieques, the environmental, health and socio/economico consequences of that presence and the historic and heroic struggle of a small community against the mightiest naval force in the history of the world.
Around 7:00 PM (EST) on April 19, 1999, a U.S. Navy pilot launched two five hundred pound live bombs from his FA-18 jet that missed their target at the bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, destroying the Navy's observation post, killing David Sanes, a civilian security guard and injuring several others.
David Sanes' killing was the chronicle of a death foretold. For decades Viequenses have been clamoring for an end to the bombings and shelling on the Island and for an end to the military presence. This was not the first time that the Navy missed its target. Fishermen generally complain about the great number of unexploded bombs in the coastal waters of Vieques and the destruction caused to coral reefs and other elements of the marine environment from the bombing. In October of 1993, another FA-18 fighter jet missed its target by about ten miles, dropping five 500 hundred pound live bombs about a mile from the main town of Vieques. Luckily, no one was killed in that incident. In November of 1994, during a two week exercise, a Navy air wing dropped 20thousand pounds of live explosives, including Napalm, on Vieques. In 1998, during maneuvers involving Navy and Puerto Rican National Guard troops, bullets broke windows in the Public School Buses parked at the Public Works area of the Municipal Government in the Santa María sector. Several government employees in the area at the time had to take cover until the shooting stopped.
Vieques is an island municipality of Puerto Rico, six miles southeast of the main island. 72% of its population of approximately 9,000 live below the poverty level. The Municipal Government reports over 50% unemployment. Studies by the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health indicate that Vieques suffers a 27% higher cancer case rate than the rest of Puerto Rico. The mortality rate for cancer on Vieques is 34% higher than in all of Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico Legislature ordered an epidemiological study to determine the causes of the higher cancer rate. People on Vieques, environmental and health experts throughout Puerto Rico, relate the abnormally high cancer rate to the environmental degradation caused by U.S. Navy and NATO bombing (the Navy "rents" Vieques to NATO and other countries for bombing practice) on this Island.
Since the 1940's, the U.S. Navy controls ¾ of Vieques' 33,000 acres. The western end is used as an ammunition depot while the eastern third is a bombing and maneuver area. Military expropriations in the 40's caused a social and economic crisis that lasts to this day. The Navy controls the shortest connecting point between Vieques and the main island (the Puerto Rico Ports Authority must use an 18 nautical mile route instead of the six-mile route controlled by the military). The Navy controls the highest points on the island, the best aquifers and most fertile lands, extensive white sand beaches, and hundreds of archaeological sites.
Large-scale ecological destruction is the result of over half a century of bombing and experimentation with new weapons systems. In his study titled "Vieques: The Ecology of an Island Under Siege", Professor José Seguinot Barbosa, Director of the Geography Department of the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, explains that "the eastern tip of the island constitutes a region with more craters per kilometer than the moon." Professor Seguinot Barbosa adds "the destruction of the natural and human resources of Vieques violates the basic norms of international law and human rights. At the state and federal level the laws pertaining to the coastal zone, water and noise quality, underwater resources, archaeological resources and land use, among others, are violated."
Chemical engineer Rafael Cruz Pérez, in an article titled "Contamination Produced by Explosives and Residuals of Explosives in Vieques, Puerto Rico" (published in Dimensión,
Magazine of the Association of Engineers and Surveyors of Puerto Rico, Year 2, Vol. 8, Jan. 1988) points out that " . . .chemicals from the bombing (TNT, NO3, NO2, RDX and Tetryl) are transported by diverse mechanisms toward the civilian area. . .We find that the effective concentration of particles of contaminants over the civilian area of Vieques exceeds 197 micrograms per cubic meter and therefore exceeds the legal federal criteria for clean air." Studies done recently in the bombing area by leading Puerto Rican environmental scientists Dr. Neftalí García and Jorge Fernández, indicate dangerously high levels of heavy metals and other toxic chemical components related to military activities in the soil and water. The EPA and the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board previously announced their intent to deny the Navy permission to continue bombing activity that results in discharges into bodies of water. However, with the signing of the Presidential Directives, these agencies have abandoned their responsabilities to the environment and the people of Vieques to allow the Navy to continue with its destructive activities here.
The Navy stated in May of 1999 - after a Freedom of Information Act Request by the Military Toxics Project helped obtain the information - that 263 Depleted Uranium projectiles were "accidently" fired from a Harrier Jet into the impact area at Vieques during training for the war in Yugoslavia in February of that year. Documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicate that only 56 DU rounds were retrieved and because of the danger of unexploded conventional ordnance in the area, the search for the rest of the DU was postponed until August of 1999. The Navy has still not publicly stated the status of their "cleanup". Depleted Uranium poses a serious threat to the health of the people of Vieques who suffer an already alarmingly high cancer case rate. We believe the Navy has been using Vieques for practice and experimentation with DU weapons possibly for decades.
Scientific studies carried out over the past two years identified high concentrations of arsenic, barium, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, copper, tin, mercury and silver and lead. Aluminum, chromium, iron, manganese, nickel, and vanadium concentrations were found in some areas. High concentrations of nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, hydrocarbons typical of diesel fuel, and phosphates, that are formed from bomb explosions or are present in other war artifacts, were also found. The metals found in high concentrations are present in explosives, propellants, paints, conventional and uranium bullets, napalm, chaff, flares and other paraphernalia used by the Navy in Vieques.
Metals have been found in plants, violinist crabs, fish, mussels, Thalassia and sea grass beds, and humans in Vieques, which confirm the expected processes of biomagnification. High concnetrations of mercury and lead have been found in hair samples of civilians in Vieques subcontracted by US companies like Raytheon and General Electric to work in the impact areas.
High contentrations of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth and lead have been found in hair samples of a large number of civilians in Vieques that do not work in impact areas. Other metals found in above normal levels are boron, cadmium, tin, manganese, mercury, silver and vanadium. Uranium in above normal concentrations has been found in stool samples of civilians.
Fishermen have for decades struggled to get the Navy to stop bombing and leave the island. Giant military ships destroy fish traps and bombing and other maneuvers impose severe restrictions on fishermen's entry into some of the best fishing areas around the island. On numerous occasions fishing boats have been damaged by naval gunfire and fishermen have been severely hurt by bombs exploding close to their fishing activities.
After the April 19th killing of David Sanes, groups of Viequenses and supporters from the main island of Puerto Rico occupied several areas inside the bombing zone to block the possibility of renewed bombing and-or maneuvers. Close to the site where Sanes was killed, a giant cross was placed by members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CPRDV), fishermen and others on 22 April. Until the arrests of May 4, 2000,, a group of young Viequense men and women together with university students from Puerto Rico, maintained a permanent vigil at the site of the cross. The area has been renamed Moount David.
The Puerto Rico Independence Party (PIP) set up a protest camp about a mile from Mt. David, also in the bombing range on the 8th of May. On the North coast of Vieques (both Mt. David and the PIP camp were on the South coast of the island) a group of fishermen and other residents of Vieques occupied the Yayi Key while a group of Vieques teachers, with support from the CPRDV and the Congreso Nacional Hostosiano (a coalition of PR Independence groups) held a position directly across from the Yayi Key. All of the protest camps were within Navy restricted zone. Labor groups, the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations, and university students set up other camps.
In front of the entrance to the bombing range at Camp García, another camp was set up on December 3rd, to block all military vehicles and personnel from entering or leaving the base. This was a project of a coordinating committee made up of church groups, political organizations, the Vieques Womens Alliance, a youth group and the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques.
On 25 June, 1999, a Special Commission on Vieques appointed by the Governor with members from the three major political parties, the churches, Vieques fisherman and the Mayor of Vieques submitted its report in which it supported the position of the community - total demilitarization, decontamination, devolution (return of all lands to the people) and development. The Governor of Puerto Rico established Public Policy demanding the immediate and permanent cessation of all military activity on Vieques.
Representatives of the CPRDV successfully lobbied to have a clear statement on Vieques included in the final resolution of the UN Committee on Decolonization in July. On behalf of the Vieques committee, a protest was formally introduced to the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN at Geneva and a complaint filed with the Organization of American States, citing Navy abuses and violations. On the main island, a national coordinating committee - "Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques" (All Puerto Rico with Vieques), rallied fifty thousand people for a demonstration at the entrance to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in the town of Ceiba on the 4th of July of 1999.
A Presidential Panel - two of the three members from the Department of Defense - appointed to investigate the military presence on Vieques recommended the continuation of bombing for a five year period while the Navy searches for alternatives. This recommendation was universally rejected by all sectors of Puerto Rican society.
In January of this year (2000), the Governor of Puerto Rico made an abrupt turn and signed an agreement with President Clinton authorizing the continuation of bombing for at least three more years. The Presidential Directives, signed by Clinton and Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Roselló on January 31, without the slightest participation of the people of Vieques, gave the green light to the Navy to remove protesters from the civil disobedience camps inside the bombing area and reinitiate bombing shortly thereafter.
The Directives suggested the clean up and return of the eight thousand acres on the Western end of the island and the fifteen thousand acres on the East to the people of Vieques. However, Congress recently passed the Military Appropriations Bill that stipulates only 4 thousand of the 23thousand acres controlled by the Navy will be returned to the people of Vieques. Without community participation in the process, the Navy and the Puerto Rican government work to return lands before carrying out environmental cleanup. The agreement between the Governnor of Puerto Rico and President Clinton was recently changed and approved by Congress, openning the door for renewed use of live weapons, and does not include language about the cleanup of the impact area nor does it discuss the return to the people of Vieques of any of the land on the Eastern third of the Island. It also leaves the Navy´s giant ROTHR Radar functioning with its electromagnetic contamination and the Navy in control of the hightest point on Vieques, Monte Pirata, where it will continue to operate an observation post and communications center.
In Febrary of this year, over one hundred and fifty thousand people marched in San Juan against the Presidential Directives. The march - considered by many to have been the largest ever - was convoked by Puerto Rico´s most influential religious leaders in support of the position of our community: not one more bomb, not one more minute.
On 4 May of this year, over a thousand Marines and hundreds of federal officials - FBI, customs officials, US Marshalls, among others - arrested over two hundred people in the bombing area, including priests, nuns, pastors and ministers, fishermen, housewives, students, workers, union leaders, grandmothers and great grandmothers. Shortly afterwards, the Navy resumed bombing, with non-explosive projectiles, they say, and only for 90 days a year, according to the Presidential Directives.
Since the May 4 arrests, close to a thousand people have been arrested during a series of civil disobedience actions inside the bombing area and in other parts of the Navy´s restricted zones on Vieques. In small, medium and large groups, by water in fishing boats and by land through the Navy´s perimiter fence, hundreds of Viequenses and Puerto Ricans from the main island have entered the restricted zone to protest and disrupt the continuation of bombing and press for demilitarization.
On 13 May, 54 people entered the restricted area of Camp García and were arrested. A group of Viequense women directed a team of fifteen people who got through Navy security, made it out to the bombing area on the 1st of June and before being arrested, carried out a ceremony in memory of women who have died from cancer on Vieques. Other groups of women, Viequense university students, labor and religious leaders, a group of Puerto Rican physicians and a group called Artists for Peace on Vieques are among the hundreds who have been arrested over the past six months for participating in civil disobedience actions here.
In June of this year, the Puerto Rican Independence party organized its members for a large scale civil disobedience action aimed at disrupting Navy maneuvers. The President of the Party, Puerto Rican Senator Rubén Berríos, other legislators, mayoral candidates and assemblymen and women from all parts of Puerto Rico participated in the actions led by the PIP. Over one hundred members of the PIP were arrested and many spent over a month in the Federal Prision in San Juan.
During that same period, Vieques fishermen outmaneuverd Navy patrol boats and after leaving several civil disobedients in the bombing area, led the high speed, high tech Navy vessels through shallow waters where they stayed caught up on the coral reefs. The fishermen returned safely to the civilian area.
On the first of October, a coalition of organizations in Vieques and on the main island of Puerto Rico, carried out a march in support of civil disobedience. While approximately five thousand people marched in the Esperanza sector, 70 people entered the restricted area on the Western end of Vieques. Hundreds of people travelled to Vieques that day in private yaughts and fishing boats to participate in the demonstration.
The following Sunday, hundreds of Viequenses blocked the entrance to the Navy´s Camp García with their cars during a two hour demonstration. On the 22nd of October, hundreds of people from our community tore down large sections of the Navy´s perimeter fence close to the entrance to the bombing area. When Navy security forces approached the protesters from inside the base, they were "attacked" with paint filled balloons and lots of whistle blowing.
This past October 17th, nine people from Vieques entered the bombing zone during large scale NATO maneuvers. Although the Navy was informed of the presence of the group, they nevertheless continued to bomb from ships and jets. Three Viequense veterans, part of the civil disobedience team, were caught in the firing when they tried to get to the observation post after the oldest member of the group - 70 year old Korean war veteran, Angel Navarro - suffered a diabetic shock. Bombs fell within feet of the group as they tried to get Navarro medical attention.
At the same time and close by in the bombing zone, six other Viequenses - including the Deacon of the Catholic Church, Justino López; the ex Mayor of Vieques, Radamés Tirado;
retired Viequense teacher and veteran Angel Guadalupe; José Silva, whose wife died of cancer shortly before the killing of David Sanes; Cedric Morales, leading member of the Vieques Chamber of Commerce; and myself - waited out the bombing from 8:00AM until 11:00 PM, moving from one place to another to stay clear of Naval gunfire. After crossing the entire bombing zone on the second day between 4:00 and 6:00 AM, we were arrested close to the observation post
Every Saturday night for the past year and a half, the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques holds a vigil at the Peace and Justice Camp in front of the entrance to the bombing zone. Last Saturday around 200 people participated and around thirty people spent the night to provide security due to rumors of a possible FBI/PR police intervention against the Camp.
There have been protests and civil disobedience actions for Vieques throughout the US, and in Vieques we are greatly appreciative of all the solidarity activity organized by the Puerto Rican communities and others here. This past Sunday, activitists from Puerto Rico and New York placed a Vieques flag, a Puerto Rican flag and sign for peace in Vieques on the Statue of Liberty, before being arrested.
Members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques have travelled recently to Korea, Okinawa, England, Mexico and the US to help raise consciousness about the US Navy presence on the island and to learn from other communities that face environmental degradation and repression at the hands of the US military. We maintain contacts with people struggling in Hawaii, the Phillipines and Panamá and have received activits in Vieques from many of these countries during this past year of intense struggle.
From 16 to 20 November, we will celebrate in Vieques an International Tribunal on Human Rights Violations in Puerto Rico and Vieques, with the participation of judges and observers from across the globe.
We now prepare for our - and their - next maneuvers.
The CPRDV, together with the Vieques Women´s Alliance, the Vieques Conservation Trust and other community leaders, has begun to articulate a vision for future social and economic development of a Vieques freed from the Navy. For several years the CPRDV worked on the development issue with the UN based Economist Allied for Arms Reduction and Columbia University´s Urban Technical Assistance Program. In July of 1999, a group of highly respected Puerto Rican professionals organized, at the request of the CPRDV, a Multidisciplinary Technical Team in Support of Vieques.
The local grassroots organizations recommend the creation of a community land trust to keep and maintain the lands rescued from the Navy in the hands of the people of Vieques. We also recommend the establishment of a continuing education and training program in order to adequately empower the community of Vieques to fully participate in the development process.
The decontamination of Vieques is crucial to ensure the healthy social and economic development of the island. Our community will continue to struggle for an end to militarization, for the environmental restoration and devolution of the lands that belong, by natural right, to the people of Vieques.
The people of Vieques need your support in this historic moment. We ask organizations and individuals to show solidarity by bringing up the issue of Vieques at the workplace, in schools, at community and religious meetings. The struggle for peace in Vieques, is a struggle for people everywhere who believe that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is worth fighting for, even against the most powerful military forces of our times.
Thank you.
* (Founded in 1993, the CPRDV is a grassroots organization dedicated to ending the US military presence on Vieques and promoting the sustainable development of the island. Donations for this struggle can be sent to the CPRDV, Box 1424, Vieques, PR 00765. For more info. bieke@coqui.net)February 21st, 1989. Front page in the best selling Spanish newspaper: "Prosecutors and military judges retreat from action against deserters. Yesterday, only three were actually arrested among the 60 objectors and deserters fleeing military service who yesterday presented themselves in different military offices to vindicate the abolition of conscription and the armed forces as well. National Council for Conscientious Objection having dismissed their application, they nevertheless decided not to follow the military call up that was sent to them. Unexpectedly, the military authorities took no action and only in Bilbao were detained three of them. In the following press conference, the Conscientious Objection Movement, who organises this civil disobedience, resumed that military service 'still exists because we consent about it' and publicly invited all recruits to leave the quarters. They argued that 'the military may arrest single deserters but cannot proceed when they come in groups like today's 60, that is, when we are organised and ready to denounce their coercive response'. They concluded stating that 'this insumision mobilisation will end up with military conscription".
April 17th, 1996. With a record of 12,000 insumisos or total objectors and 330,000 conscientious objectors in seven years, and unable to enforce substitutory civilian service, the newly elected conservative government agreed to abolish compulsory military service. Some 120,000 paid soldiers would be recruited in the following six years to assemble a total strength of 170,000.
November 15th, 2000. Today, the Spanish armed forces face serious trouble to approach a total force of 140,000 and meet the international compromises. As a matter of fact, neither the military expense nor the military institution in itself are backed by the society. Younger people, though largely unemployed, are reluctant to join the military profession. As a countermeasure, the Spanish Minister of Defence has openly invited the Magrebian immigrants to fill the gap. Meanwhile, the Conscientious Objection Movement has reframed the insumision to the new situation: its activists join the military to desert shortly afterwards.
This story traces back to the early 1970s. Then, Pepe Beunza defied compulsory military service by publicly declaring himself a conscientious objector. Spain was still a military dictatorship and provision for CO did not exist. Very obviously, he was imprisoned. But nevertheless, more followed, organising in small groups and asking for a "self-organised civilian service for peace". They understood this alternative service as a step to accomplish their goal of abolishing conscription and the armed forces themselves.
Then Franco died, and the transition to formal democracy provided a more favourable political opportunity structure for the struggle: (a) they suffered no meaningful or massive repression because the authorities had decided to avoid all conflict with the military until the completion of the political transition; (b) their antimilitarist stand was well reputed because they had been active against the dictatorship and continued active for a participatory democracy; (c) they enjoyed regular access to political networks and had influence about the security and peace issues; (d) they kept growing both in numbers and mobilisation ability. Born in January 1977, it was the Conscientious Objection Movement who melted all the existing groups and became the movement spokesperson.
When some years later, in December 1984, the newly elected socialist government passed the Conscientious Objection Law, the movement, being very authoritative in this issue, managed to convince most political actors that it was not a fair legislation. As a matter of fact, the law did not differed greatly from those that already existed in Western Europe average: it established the typical provision to patronise general compliance with military service, e.g. the substitutory service was to be a 50% longer; the solicitor had to explain his conscientious objection, and in-service conscientious objection was obviously not acceptable. But both public and political opinion framed the new legislation as a device to punish the brave and well-respected conscientious objectors. The background opinion pools confirmed that a majority of the younger people opposed conscription, a fact that has to be read in connection with the movement's previous mobilisation.
The Conscientious Objection Movement felt strong enough for contention and issued a CO application that did not comply with the newly passed legislation. The governmental agency accepted it and, at that very moment, the Constitutional Court made a case about the legislation, so its enforcement was suspended for three years. Finally, in October 1987, the higher tribunal endorsed the legislation and shortly after, in February 1988, the government began to reject the movement's CO application. "Follow the law or else you will have to cope with military service" was the message. Two years before, the government had managed, against all predictions, to win the referendum on NATO-membership and felt fully legitimised to redrive the conscientious objection issue
But also the movement felt stronger than ever before. The time to fight conscription had finally arrived. It was positive that any compliance with substitutory service would never pose a real menace to military conscription nor have any influence in any other military policy. At that time, as it was known in the International Conscientious Objectors' Meetings, the Spanish and South African CO movements were hearty advocates of the abolition of conscription. Today, conscription no longer exists in either of both countries.
The Spanish newer COs refused to send a new application or any application at all. They became insumisos. And the older ones, who were to be released from all duty because they had been waiting for years to a never coming substitutory service, asked to be reclassified for military service; they also wanted to be insumisos. Then, beginning in February 1989, they began to present themselves before the military judicial authorities, one group every two months in fixed days all over Spain, showing their seek-and-capture indictments, and as many times as needed in order to get arrested. Political and social representatives accompanied them to show public support. That was the image in the mass media, who developed sympathetic with the struggle. The armed forces were the bad guys in this story: many military authorities felt disempowered to do anything, and only a few of them, committed to enforce the law, arrested the insumisos, which immediately was reported as a shameful action. As a matter of fact, it was the government who finally ordered its attorneys to present case against every detention.
Then, the government reached the conclusion that the implementation of the substitutory service would make a change, it would convince the public opinion that the civilian servants were the good conscientious objectors while the insumisos were lazy and lacked solidarity with their fellow citizens. However, many did not follow the bait. At first, a vast majority of the ought-to-collaborate NGOs renounced to do it; hence, the governmental agency run short of posts to meet the increased numbers of conscripts applying for conscientious objection. This shortage became structural and the COs, convinced that it was their chance to get away from service and that punishment was dubious -the government could not cope with the insumisos already-, came in larger and larger numbers and cared very little about providing a regular and fair service. Were they "real" conscientious objectors? Who cared, conscription was the issue, and along with it military expense, armament trade, intervention in the Gulf war, etc.
Two years later, in 1991, the government agreed a new military service law with the major opposition party: a shorter military service, a better plan to promote voluntary and paid enrolment, and the assignment of all causes against insumisos to ordinary courts. The military were kept away from the repression, which could now be normalised and better controlled as well -the Spanish judicial system is permeable to governmental action. However, this resulted in (a) diverse patterns in the sentences agreed by the judges -some opted for a low punishment that avoided imprisonment and occasionally absolution, and some others for jail sentences; (b) in the areas where judges decided jail sentences the penitentiaries had to deal with a plentiful and organised constituency of insumisos who began to demand better conditions for all; (c) public opinion understood that punishing the insumisos was unfair and drove to nowhere; conscription was the real problem.
Then, the government granted open prison to all the insumisos, they slept four days a week in jail and public opinion began to feel released and comfortable with this low-profile repression. So the movement retook disobedience: they did not turn up to sleep and were reclassified into closed prison. One scandal followed another, the conflict kept growing, the numbers of insumisos and conscientious objectors broke records year after year… It was in January 1994 when the government publicly declared that the conscription system faced a clear-cut crisis: the armed forces were running short of conscripts and their future was unclear. A special crisis plan was approved: higher numbers of voluntary and paid recruitment, the creation of many more places for substitutory service -public money for NGOs programs was conditioned to having substitutory places agreed-, and the replacement of all prison sentences in the cases of insumision by a prolonged -12 to 14 years- denial of citizen rights: no public jobs or subsidies or the like. The measures, who were protested by many, did not really work, and two years later the new elected government, coming into terms with reality -in two or three years the armed forces would effectively run out of conscripts-, ended up with conscription.
Since then, we have assisted to its countdown: still growing figures of conscientious objection, a permanent struggle to enrol enough contract soldiers, no matter who or how they are, etc. The results of the ongoing "professionalisation" of the Spanish armed forces confirms the estimation that, contrary to what the government affirms, the end of conscription is a direct impact of the nonviolent peace resistance described in this report. France and Spain, who engaged in the process at the same time, have evolved very differently: the French are the largest and most powerful non-conscript armed forces in Europe while the Spanish are the smallest -when compared to its population- and least powerful of all; this very conclusion applies to their military expenditure rate.
A ten-variable study of the conscription reality in ten Western European countries has recently confirmed that, to a larger extent, the end of conscription in Spain is explained by the mobilisation variable. It was the movement who introduced the issue in the political agenda, who managed to provide the master frame in its whole process, who mobilised significant political actors after the goal of ending conscription, and who kept the conflict at its peak for years by providing large numbers of resisters; contentious politics has proved successful in this case.
Very obviously, the insumisos have been the heart of the mobilisation, what means a bias to 18-35 year-old-male. But we must wipe away the image of individuals refusing to bear arms on grounds of conscience. Though building upon the former, it has been a distinct political movement. First, at the core of the movement older activists and plenty of women have worked hand to hand with the insumisos, on equal terms. To the inside, everyone was insumiso, independently of one's personal situation about the conscription duty. Second, it was not the individual but the group who did the decision-making, always on consensus. So if a particular insumiso had to drop the resistance, he did it on other reasons than disagreement with the action undertaken, and continued in the movement. Third, collective identity and a sense of movement glued the groups.
The movement also provided schemes so other people would support the struggle: (a) self-accusations of having helped the insumiso to break the law; (b) manifestos to be signed; (c) insumisos' parents groups; (d) arrested insumisos' support groups; (e) varied workshops and workgroups. These procured the involvement of older people, professionals and non-activists in general, thus widening the movement.
Two were the grassroot organisations that undertook most of this work: the Conscientious Objection Movement and MiliKK. Among them, it was the Conscientious Objection Movement, older, more experienced and much better organised on a state level, who, besides providing more insumisos, designed the mobilisation in detail, provided its tempo and coordinated the leading actions. New left, autonomous and Basque and Galician radical nationalist groups also promoted their own insumiso organisations. Poorly coordinated with the Conscientious Objection Movement or MiliKK, their action and discourse sometimes differed from those of the leading organisations, but overall remained inside the general action frame provided by them because becoming an alternative required much more effort that they were ready to pay. There were also groups who stayed outside the insumision action frame: the Association of Conscientious Objectors, based almost exclusively in Catalonia, though supporting total resistance, promoted substitutory service and liaisoned with the Catalonian Autonomous government to do so.
Nonviolent direct action has been the mark of this mobilisation. It belonged to the movement's tradition, was part of its collective identity. Some of its activists, usually the oldest, embraced it as a philosophy, and some others, commonly the newcomers, just as the most effective mean, but this difference was never an issue. Outsiders and some other groups who joined the insumision did pose some objections to nonviolence in general terms, but agreed that insumision was nonviolent and that such was a key reason for its wide public support. Lots of creative nonviolent direct actions were performed and broadcasted right away. When outbursts of violence occurred, the movement had no problem in communicating that it had been the police. Nonviolence and civil disobedience as well achieved a better credit after the insumision mobilisation.
In the Basque Country, the movement tried to present both nonviolence and civil disobedience as a feasible alternative to the armed struggle. As a matter of fact, during the 15 months of ETA's cease-fire in 1998-99, several initiatives followed the proposal for extensive civil disobedience that the Conscientious Objection Movement first presented in 1991: (a) Lizarra's pact, which ended with previous political polarisation on the issue; (b) Udalbiltza, which congregated local institutions around disobedient action; (c) nonviolent action was rehearsed by the political environment of ETA; and (d) permanent workshops on civil disobedience became common. ETA's new offensive, harsh as it is, has eclipsed the prospects for change.
Civil disobedience has been the mean. It was most appropriate to defy an institution which, like conscription, relied on compliance. Lobbying was not feasible in a high-domain policy like conscription, dictated by reason of the state; it could have obtained some improvement in substitutory service at the most, never its abolition. Litigation drove nowhere in a political system where the judicial system could be intervened by the executive power. The sentence by the Constitutional Court marked the end of that path.
Lobbying was exercised on symbolical grounds. The movement approached the ombudsman to release the insumisos in military prisons from wearing military uniform. MPs were asked to visit the insumisos in jail. The movement also agreed with some sympathetic judges that some insumisos would be given full pardon. The aim of it all was to challenge the authorities and present them as totalitarian, unfair and illegitimate, while the insumisos were common people who represented the will of society. The movement also agreed terms with some peripheral parties so they would lead the demand for abolition of conscription in the regional and state parliaments -the Basque and Catalonian parliaments did approved several motions in that direction-, become uncooperative with the implementation of substitutory service, and ignore the administrative sanctions against the insumisos. But the mobilisation was never under negotiation. For the movement, abolition of conscription was nothing but a step forward in the run for the abolition of the armed forces.
The media played an important role in the sympathetic diffusion of the struggle. Civil disobedience, nonviolence and the assets of the very goal of ending conscription did a great deal in obtaining media's involvement. Of course, contacts were nurtured -some journalists were activists themselves- and appropriate news formats provided. The movement was a source of spectacular news and its voice was given space in return. Hence, the Conscientious Objection Movement became the authoritative speaker of the mobilisation; its stories usually received better credit than those of the government did. Of course, the movement also had its publications, but they were addressed more to the activists and closer people than the public in general.
No staff, no elected leaders, no voting, just many people gathering almost every single day in their home groups to decide and do. Of course there existed informal leaderships but procedures were provided to let all voices be listened. Weekend or longer meetings were organised periodically to have deeper discussions and introduce newer members into the group. The assignment of tasks was always ad hoc and sometime commissions or small groups for specific tasks were created. All the groups that compounded the Conscientious Objection Movement gathered regularly on a state level -every weekend in the peak moments- to decide and structure single campaigns. Money was raised through alternative activities -fiestas, concerts, selling t-shirts and other materials- to pay for general expenses. Grass-roots in its plenitude, perfectly horizontal, which produced an astonishingly coordinated action.
Empowerment is at sight. Conscripts have learned that conscription existed upon their consent; at first they looked for the movement's umbrella but soon after they began to take decisions and act on their own, figures of resisters are always approximate because they have become fully autonomous in their insumision. Movement activists know they have done something important with their lives, they have attained abilities they did not have before and know how to work in association with others. The movement organisational network has improved its influence: its discourse and views are widely known, civil disobedience is legitimate, networking with other political actors is easier. Plain people have witnessed a successful nonviolent mobilisation.
Results, however, should be assessed against both objective and subjective parameters. The end of conscription has followed the insumision mobilisation. That's a fact. But the movement feels uncertain about it, like a parent who does not fully recognise his/her child. The abolition of conscription was its goal when the insumision was launched; there were many other goals, just like today, but it was the end of conscription what produced the critical mass. Now, it looks a minor goal, partly because it has been attained, partly because the movement is now much more ambitious, and partly because the government is recycling it into a pretended professionalisation of the armed forces. Success is a social construction. Facts need interpretation and the movement is doing very little to forward its own, partly because it lacks conviction about the end of conscription being a clear-cut result of the mobilisation. Facts tell us it actually is, but that is not enough to tag it as a success, impact or even consequence of the movement action.
Besides, the new horizon impacts as somewhat disempowering. The movement's goal today, abolition of the armed forces, appears a more complicated struggle. Civil disobedience is no longer that straightforward, people do not longer feel such a direct burden on their shoulders like it was conscription. Mobilising depends much more on framing the issue than implementing an action about it, and framing requires direct experiences or grievances; it could be the economy of the military -military expense and military production- but this is obviously more abstract and distant than conscription. If the movement continues on doing insumision -now into the barracks-, in spite of its poorer turnover, it is possibly because it is more secure grounds that the more ambitious but entangled wider horizon of antimilitarism.
CARTA ABIERTA DEL MOVIMIENTO DE OBJECIÓN DE CONCIENCIA A LA OPINIÓN PÚBLICA FRENTE AL ÚLTIMO SORTEO DE LA MILI (noviembre 2000)
El 8 de noviembre de 2000 tendrá lugar lo que el Gobierno ha anunciado como el último sorteo del Servicio Militar Obligatorio. Las personas que integramos el Movimiento de Objeción de Conciencia (MOC) creemos que es una fecha indicada para comunicar una serie de consideraciones sobre lo que ha venido siendo y será la lucha antimilitarista.
En primer lugar, sentimos una gran alegría al contemplar la debacle definitiva de la mili y de su prestación sustitutoria. En el plazo de algo más de un año, ninguna persona tendrá que sufrir esa forma de servidumbre, esa escuela de antivalores que niegan la convivencia humana y fabrica ciudadanos obedientes y acríticos. El ejército dejará por fin de disponer de esa institución dañina, que hasta hace bien poco era tenida como parte del orden natural de las cosas, para socializar el machismo, la homofobia, el autoritarismo, la obediencia acrítica y el culto a la violencia; señas de identidad de su propia estructura y funcionamiento.
Nuestra alegría es mayor, si cabe, por ser esta abolición-suspensión del servicio militar principalmente una de las consecuencia de la movilización social de base y participativa que ha envuelto la acción del movimiento antimilitarista desde hace ya casi 30 años. La abolición de la mili es una verdadera conquista social, y la decisión del gobierno y sus socios, tomada a finales de 1996 y actualizada hace pocos meses, solamente constata lo inevitable y ha sido forzada por el cambio en la mentalidad colectiva, a pesar de declaraciones políticas oportunistas.
Desde de los primeros setenta hasta ahora, la acción política del movimiento antimilitarista, a través de la objeción de conciencia (antes de su intento de domesticación mediante la Ley de Objeción de Conciencia), los servicios civiles autogestionados, la objeción colectiva, la insumisión a la mili y a su prestación sustitutoria, la objeción fiscal al gasto militar, las acciones directas noviolentas, etc., ha conseguido abrir el debate social sobre el reclutamiento forzoso y la función del ejército, y colocarlo en los medios de comunicación, bloquear la puesta en marcha real de la prestación sustitutoria, quebrar la función disuasoria de la LOC haciendo de la objeción de conciencia legalizada un fenómeno de masas, y producir la participación en campañas antimilitaristas de miles de personas que le han perdido el miedo a desobedecer y cuestionar públicamente al ejército.
En concreto, la insumisión ha demostrado la posibilidad y la efectividad «aquí y ahora» de la desobediencia civil como forma de acción política legítima. Los sucesivos gobiernos durante todo ese tiempo han respondido a esta actividad noviolenta con represión; cárcel (que miles de objetores e insumisos han conocido en estos treinta años y conocen actualmente) y «muerte civil» para los desobedientes. Todo ello acompañado de campañas de criminalización, que no han conseguido hacer menguar la solidaridad activa que la insumisión ha generado en amplios y variados sectores sociales. En estos momentos, diez insumisos-desertores, con condenas de 2 años y 4 meses, permanecen encarcelados en la prisión militar de Alcalá de Henares, y otros tantos, serán encarcelados en breve.
El llamado proceso de "profesionalización y modernización" de las Fuerzas Armadas es la pantalla con la que el gobierno y el ejército quieren ocultar el derrumbe de la mili y vaciarlo de contenido antimilitarista. Lo forzado de este proceso se revela en su improvisada y desastrosa planificación (con continuos cambios de calendario y objetivos de contingente) que, combinada con la conciencia generada por estos años de trabajo antimilitarista, lo conducen a lo que hoy es ya un evidente fracaso por falta aspirantes a soldado. A pesar de 4000 millones de pesetas de propaganda engañosa en dos años, de rebajar al mínimo los requisitos, y de la utilización de la mujer para cubrir el cupo, captar personal y "embellecer" la imagen del ejército, en ninguna de las convocatorias de este año se ha superado la cifra de un aspirante por plaza, y dos de cada tres plazas quedarán vacantes. Esto revela tanto el desprestigio como la deslegitimación social del Ejército a pesar de las campañas de adoctrinamiento
El MOC nunca ha considerado la desaparición del servicio militar como un fin en si mismo, sino como una etapa en la lucha por la abolición del ejército y el militarismo social. El retroceso del militarismo que supone la abolición de la mili viene, sin embargo, acompañado de un intento de remilitarizar otros sectores como la economía (aumento y camuflaje de los presupuestos militares, financiación a través de impuestos indirectos, potenciación de la industria y el comercio armamentístico) y la política exterior (ingreso definitivo en la OTAN, participación en misiones "humanitarias" y de agresión). Por eso, lejos de desmovilizarse, el MOC se reafirma en su trabajo antimilitarista, del que forman parte la objeción fiscal a los gastos militares, la denuncia del tráfico y producción de armas, de la injerencia del Ejército en el sistema educativo, la educación para la paz, las campañas por el desmantelamiento de campos de tiro e instalaciones militares, la investigación de alternativas noviolentas de defensa, la acción directa noviolenta, la insumisión y la insumisión en los cuarteles.
Ante la descomposición del servicio militar y su prestación sustitutoria, y el fracaso de la "profesionalización" por evidente ausencia de respaldo social, los y las antimilitaristas del MOC proponen la apertura inmediata de un debate social, amplio, serio, participativo, riguroso y en profundidad sobre la "defensa", que hasta el momento ha sido hurtado sistemáticamente a la sociedad civil. Un debate que gira alrededor de cuestiones como qué es lo que debe defenderse (la paz, el bienestar social...), de qué hay que defenderse (del ejército y del militarismo como proyecto social, de la resolución violenta de los conflictos, de la situaciones de desigualdad y explotación), y cómo debe ejercerse esa defensa (devolviendo poder a la sociedad civil, ampliando radicalmente las formas de participación democrática). Sin embargo, el gobierno prefiere intentar superar este "divorcio" entre FAS y sociedad (reconocido también por analistas militares) mediante el adoctrinamiento y la imposición de un modelo de ejército profesional. El MOC propone resolverlo democráticamente en su sentido profundo; ponerse del lado de la sociedad, y deshacerse de la antidemocrática, peligrosa, garante de la desigualdad, represiva y obsoleta estructura militar: abolir el ejército.
We had meetings of all villagers, men and women. In every village the meeting went on for hours where the problems of the villages were discussed threadbare. There were very lengthy discussions of the economic situation of the village at which doubts and disagreement were freely expressed. It was only after this exercise that that the villagers unanimously agreed to adopt the plan for full employment.
The facts and figures about the economic situation in Sonbaheli emerged from the discussion being supplied by or ferreted out from the villagers. In Sonbaheli there are 120 families, the population being around 850. There are about 300 men and women in the village in need of employment. It came out in the discussions that they have work for only 60 days in the year in the fields. The village is in a non-irrigated area and the villagers are able to take only one crop of paddy or miner millets like ragi, gurji etc. in a year. A few villagers grow small patches of vegetables with irrigation from wells. Allowing another 30 days for necessary work like house repairing, rope making etc. and another 30 days for social functions, religious holidays etc. the villagers are without work for full eight months, that is, at least 240 days in the year.
It is a traditional practice in these areas for all villagers, both farmers and landless labourers, to meet at the beginning of the agricultural season and fix the daily wage for the season after a thorough discussion. That year this had been fixed at 15 rupees. Calculated at that rate, the loss suffered by 300 able-bodied villagers in 240 days came to a whopping 10,80,000 rupees a year.
We calculated the amount of money that went out of the village for buying daily necessities of life, like clothes, oil, sugar etc. There were next to no industries in the village. The villagers produce some oil at home from local oilseeds for their own use, but this did not meet their need. Each family, on the average, bought 600 rupees worth of oil from the market.
This came to 72,000 rupees per year. A little jaggery or raw sugar and refined sugar were also used. Based on the off take of sugar from the dealer it was calculated that the village consumed 10,000 rupees worth of sugar annually.
The biggest expenditure was on clothing. With a per capita consumption of 12 metres of cloth per head in a year, the total for 850 persons came to 12,000 metres costing 1,53,000 rupees a year.
The calculations were rough and ready, done by the villagers themselves.
They may vary from the actual figures, but the difference is likely to be very small. The expenditure on other items could not be estimated, but that on the three items, oil, sugar and clothing come to 2,38,000 rupees.
There was no time to go into the details of the economics of farming, though the problems of inadequate prices of farm products, high cost of inputs, high rates of interest charged by the money-lenders and the corruption that made the banks of no help were discussed. It was obvious that the actual average income per head from farming was higher than the daily wage of 15 rupees a day. It may well be three times as much, taking into account the amount of food grains stored by the villagers for their own use. The total income is estimated at 800,000 rupees a year, but a third of it is drained away in buying essential goods from outside. This means that the villagers have little surplus with them, no savings at all, and that is the actual condition of the people. A single crop failure sends them to the threshold of starvation.
The villagers could grasp the facts very well. The production of only three items, cloth, sugar and oil in the village would provide one-fourth of the idle labour of the village with work and stop the outflow of the same amount which comes to: 75x15x240= 270,000 rupees. Many other industries could and should be started in the village, such as soap making, manufacture of farming tools and implements by the village blacksmith, bee keeping, pisciculture, animal husbandry and so on. In the course of time even bicycles could be manufactured in villages. Very often people are made to believe that village self-sufficiency and swadeshi would mean acceptance of austerity, a tightening of belt. Simple living certainly means the giving up of consumerism. But the average level of living of the villagers needs to be raised at least five times and this can be achieved by, and only by, khadi, village industries and animal husbandry plus improved farming methods. The products of 72,000 man-days of labour, at 15 rupees a day comes to 1,080,000 rupees, and this would immediately provide the villagers with at least four times the goods they consume today.
But this could be achieved only when the village community resolves to use only goods produced in the village to the exclusion of those produced by centralized factories, those giving protection to the village artisans. The community of Sonbaheli decided to do so. They could grasp the point that by 'buying cheap' they were only cutting each other's throat including her/his own. They had to cultivate the spirit of neighborliness and an economy of affection. It would be a matter of pride to buy things produced by a neighbour even if it is a little costlier and looks a little crude.
When a group of villages joins the movement, as has happened, then there can be division of labour between the villages. A soap making unit or a smithy in each village may not be viable. So the principle of patronizing things produced in one's own village would be extended to include other neighbouring villages.
There are many laws and policies of the Governments, both Central and states, which prohibit people to do something or force them to do something else. For instance there is a law in Orissa that forces farmers to sell sugar cane produced by them to a sugar mill if it is nearby. The farmers are debarred from producing raw sugar (jaggery or gur) by the same law.
Officials often collude with big business to force people to this or that.
Direct action, satyagraha, has to be resorted to uphold the rights and interests of the communities.
The next case study that we take up now started with direct action and came to the full employment idea by that route. Bijapur is a medium sized village in the Nowrangpur district in Orissa. The region had been deeply involved in the freedom movement and scores of people had courted imprisonment. An unproveked firing by the police had taken scores of lives. So the district had a fighting tradition. There was a dilapidated Ashram in the Bijapur village. An elderly lady, Ms. Nayana Majhi and a young worker, Shri Narahari Jani, were running an orphanage for girls there with half-a dozen inmates. One day officials of the Forest Department of the State Government came there and dug pits in about 250 acres of the villagers' farm land for planting eucalyptus trees. These were to be sold to a paper mill when full-grown. Our activist friends were despondent. The villagers would lose all their land and would be forced to migrate, they thought, what would be the use of our looking after these orphans? They discussed this with the villagers. The villagers were afraid of the authorities and dared not do anything against them. Our two friends took the lead in filling up the pits and the villagers followed suit. The police came to arrest the two activists and by now the villagers had shed their fear. About three hundred men and women followed these two to the police station and offered to be arrested. The police were nonplussed and let everybody go. This incident had a far going impact. This plantation project was going on in other contiguous administrative units, the Rural Development blocks also. Earlier the villagers would come stealthily at night and loosen the foots of the plants so that the latter would wither away. But after this Bijapur incident several hundred inhabitants of a village came with trumpets blowing and drums beating and uprooted all the plants defiantly.
This success made the villagers look for other abuses to fight. It was discovered that the revenue official of the area was collecting 'fines' from the farmers for having illegally encroached on Government's land. Actually the villagers have been cultivating the land for decades. According to the law the land ought to have been settled in the name of the farmers after the payment of a small royalty, but the villagers had been ignorant of the law and the land revenue officials had been exploiting this ignorance to fill their pockets.
It was found out that the previous year some 16,000 rupees had been collected from the villagers as 'fines', but receipts had been given for say ten rupees where a hundred had been collected. The villagers decided to have recourse to direct action. They sent a delegation to the local revenue officer, approached the District Magistrate. They created enough pressure on the Revenue Officer to force him to return 12,000 rupees to the villagers saying that the rest have been spent and requested the villagers to leave him in peace.
Naturally this success had a wide spread impact. All the surrounding villages stopped paying 'fines.' Karagaon, a neighbouring village much larger than Bijapur, had been paying something like 90,000 to 95,000 rupees a year before this. The stoppage of the extortion had a visible effect on the villages. The children wore better clothes, everybody ate better food, the homes looked better maintained.
These successes whetted the villagers' appetite for more. There is a large tank in the village that was dug on village land by a grant from Vinoba's Land Gift Movement. The Government had no jurisdiction on it. Yet the local authorities had leased it to a contractor for three years for pisciculture. The villagers took action. They did not allow the contractor to enter the village and no one went to work for him. Ultimately a compromise was reached. Half of the fish caught was taken by the contractor so that he did not suffer any loss and was enabled to recoup the license fee. The villagers took the other half.
The women of the village had become organized in a Women's Committee under the guidance of Ms Nayana Majhi. These were different from such committees organized by official development agencies, were fully autonomous and independent of all official connections and interference.
They had created a fund by collecting ten rupees per month from its members from which the members took loans and engaged themselves in small enterprises like paddy dehiscing and selling the rice, making pancakes and puffed rice to be sold on market days, making clay toys and so on. The Women's Committee of Bijapur decided to lend a hand. Its members collected 6,000 rupees from among themselves and friends and bought 5,000 rupees worth of fingerlings, which were stocked in the big tank that the villagers had wrested from the officials and two other small ones. One thousand rupees were paid to a watchman. A year later, in 1999, the fish were caught and sold. Fishermen had to be hired from outside for catching the fish as none in the village knew the technique.
They took about 4,000 rupees in wages. The fish fetched 28,000 rupees in the market and there was a net saving of 18,000 rupees that was deposited in a post office saving bank account. The next season they stocked twice the quantity of fingerlings in two dams, the big one and one small. They expect to have a net saving of around 56,000 rupees. We have to receive the report yet.
The women of the village had also engaged in an anti-drink drive. Illicit distilleries were destroyed by the women campaigners who also confronted the police and excise officials who were allowing illicit distillation by taking bribes. This movement also spread to the neighboring villages and all these are now largely free from the drink habit. There are only a very few who drink clandestinely.
Some villages, having asserted their rights over the village forests have begun planting useful trees. All these successes boosted the self-confidence of the villagers immensely, so that when the ideas of village self-government and full employment were mooted the villagers responded enthusiastically. There was a prolonged discussion as at Sonbaheli. It was decided to take up three village industries first for self-reliance: oil, sugar and cloth. After a year there has been good progress in the case of the first two. Farmers now do not sell their sugar cane to the mill that used to buy their produce. They manufacture raw sugar and sell it locally. Interestingly the villagers now use gur or raw sugar in their tea in the place of refined sugar. Oil seeds are being collected for the extraction of oil. Soap making has been introduced.
Fifty spinning wheels have been procured and villagers are growing their own cotton. There are very skilled weavers and looms in a neighbouring village, but there has been some delay in procuring parts for repairing some of the spinning wheels and some pre-processing machineries. Only a few of the spinning wheels are in use. The khadi programme is yet to go into top gear. What is remarkable that the people have been able to mobilize tens of thousand rupees of capital by using their own savings and idle manpower. In other villages people have dependency syndrome. They expect the Government or some voluntary agency to provide the money for whatever needs to be done in their villages.
Vested interests, traders, liquor merchants, corrupt officials etc. of the area are trying to stop the movement or divert it by lodging criminal cases against the workers, by trying to bribe them, diverting their attention, and creating factions among the villagers, but have not been successful. The morale and commitment continues to be high.
There are four such clusters of villages in Orissa. A fifth is coming up in the area hit by the super-cyclone. The progress has been uneven, but the endeavour continues.
Here are some interesting facts about the Bijapur cluster of villages.
There are twelve villages in the cluster with a population of around ten thousand. Grama Sabhas or village councils have been constituted in 10 of them. Six villages have community funds. Women's Committees have been formed in all of them. The Women's Committees in have their own funds in six villages as follows.
Swadhina's journey began at Calcutta in 1986 on 29 December at a gathering of around 150 women. The organisation is a collective dream of a group of women and men with years of experience in social action with primary focus of working towards women's self-reliance as the term `Swadhina' translated literally would mean in English.
Swadhina actions are based on the following beliefs that :
In the Indian society from the day a girl is born she is under the power and influence of her father; as soon as she crosses the threshold of her infancy she too attends the school like her brothers but is soon forced to give up her studies and concentrate on the household chores because education is never considered to be her forte. And then what follows inevitably is her marriage - with a lot of dowry.There again she is under the control of her husband - her activities further restricted to the four walls of the kitchen where she continues to slog till she reaches her deathbed. This post marital life is ofcourse punctuated by a number of attempts to attain motherhood - some of which are successful while the others are not. And if she is able to "ring the bells of heaven" in any such endeavours she is "lucky" enough, having saved herself from further oppressions.
If we try and analyse the life of an average, rural Indian woman we will find that economic situation of a woman plays a vital and decisive role. Why is a woman not given proper and adequate education? It is because of the belief that a woman can never play the role of a bread earner for the family and her activites are anyway going to be limited to the domestic front. A woman's health is also much ignored on the same grounds - that she is not the bread earner for the family and hence her health may well be neglected.Women have been deliberately subjugated on the basis of their economic handicap. Men have always thrust their opinion and ideas on women on the basis of the statement, "….we have always been the bread earners and hence the decision making power belongs to us".
Why is the bride's family compelled to pay heavy amount of dowry? It is again due to economic reasons. The bitter truth is that the money acts as a compensation for food and clothing for the bride at her in-laws place since it is believed that a woman cannot provide for herself.
Economic empowerment is not just about money power, it is about Self Reliance, it is about Self Confidence. So empowering involves three aspects - one, to bring awareness that women can and are capable of being economically self reliant -whether for themselves or their family at large; secondly to help them understand the idea of equality so that they can protest against discriminations (as in the case of unequal wages) and thirdly, stimulate them to inculcate a system of effective utilisation of money. To be economically self reliant is thus a big challenge for a woman. What she does not realise is that economic control is yet another of the means a male dominated society resorts to in order to subjugate women. It is important for them to keep the women under control because every empowered woman is a threat to male dominance in the society.
Swadhina is presently working in four states of the country - West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. This case study is Swadhina's involvement towards empowerment of tribal women in the remote rural areas of Orissa where Swadhina has worked in around 90 villages in the districts of Mayurbhanj, Rayagada and Dhenkanal for nearly 7 years now.
Orissa is one of the very backward states of the country having a large section of tribal population living in the hilly forest areas. The state has a large number of people living in abject poverty. At the same time being a rich store house of mineral and other natural resources the state has undergone largescale industrialisation in the past few decades.
As happened elsewhere in the world, here too the blessings of `modernization' development had been massive deforestation and displacement of many people with the disastrous break down of the life support system. Poor as they already were now lost control of and access to a wide variety of resources on which they have depended for ages.In the three districts where Swadhina is working people are mostly agricultural workers. Most of them are landless who during the rainy season migrate to the neighbouring districts to work for the big landholders. They live in temporary huts and return to their respective village when the cultivation is over. Rest of the year they collect different types of forest produce which they sale for income. This has specifically and adversely affected the lives of women increasing manifold their daily drudgery. Such displacement, non-access, non-possession, non-entitlement further thrust them to a situation of mute acceptance. Women have always remained invisible, forgotten, unrecognized. Now they have lost the most gaining very little.
At the same time it is interesting to note that the tribal society is much different from the so called modern society. At the earlier days their society was much more equal and just in their dealings with women. Women have always worked equally with men and have earned respect. But of course their society was plagued with a number of myths and superstitions. Gradually they came in contact with the so-called `civilised' society and the women began to lose the position of equality that they have been enjoying so far while the vices like superstition stayed on. As days passed the tribal women began to be pushed behind men, as their counterparts in the outer society. Along with this women became more and more victims of the evergrowing superstitions within their society. As contacts with the outer world increased their men began to venture outside their boundary for work while the women were those " who could work but could not earn". If they would go out to work they faced immense discrimination in terms of attitude of their employers as well as in terms of wage that they received (which was almost always lesser than their men folk). Moreover most of the time these earnings were taken away by their husbands who used this money for drinking and other such vices.
In the context of Orissa thus the challenges towards women's economic empowerment are on one hand to strengthen the rural economy to eradicate poverty and on the other to bring about an attitudinal change in women that "they can and are capable of" being self- reliant breaking the myth of a weak woman, a woman without voice and change it into the strong and capable voice of an empowered woman.
We believe that the process of empowerment begins with organising women at the grass roots, help them enhance their analytical power to identify and analyse the issues that affect their lives and take up actions around those. The much promised benefits of development has never `trickled down' to the poor, rather it has created multiple forms of dependence. The challenge therefore is to strengthen the self-sustaining local systems, re-establish people's faith in the wealth of indigenous knowledge for self-development.
Formation of women's organisation: In each working village there is a village level women's organisation which plays a pivotal role in the local development. Through repeated trainings the women are oriented on social issues, equipped in leadership skills.
Gradually they gain confidence and assume responsibilties for all the development activities initiated. The process of empowerment starts in their mind, in their attitudes and value system and judgements. Ultimately when Swadhina withdraws they continue to work as local village level organisation.
Skill Training: Skill trainings were organised merely to enhance the level of perfection of these arts and skills. Also these trainings taught them to make effective utilisation of their skills - towards economic empowerment. Such trainings also developed in them the interest to rejuvenate their gradually decaying skills and arts of their culture. It is not imposing any alien economic venture on women rather after identification of the local skill, availability of raw materials, the women's groups decide which type of activity will be pursued.
In Khetrapatna village in Mayurbhanj district Patra community members are traditionally weavers but in course of time their income degenerated since what they produced simply could not compete with the other products in the market.Women from this village participated in a special weaving training where they learnt new designs which will have better prospect of sale.
Loans for Self-help: Women have greater enthusiasm in starting small business; for instance in the rural areas women find much interest in ventures like poultry, pig rearing, rice husking etc. However the greatest problem is financial.The illiterate men and women face maximum exploitation at the hand of the money lenders on whom they traditionally depend for loan and hence the villagers always avoid encounter with the money lenders. From Swadhina small loans were given to women which they used for productive purposes.
Special trainings were conducted to guide them in this regard, especially on the business management tactics; they were also elaborated on the process of obtaining loans, rate of return etc.
Sakahar Marandi is a mother of three children who runs her small shop at the village market. She is a 28 year old tribal woman who had gone to school but left after the primary level. Once she was hospitalised having a tumour which had to be operated immediately. She needed around Rs.3000/- for the treatment and, thus applied for a loan from her village women's savings fund. Though in the fund she herself had saved only Rs.500/- the women's committee approved the loan. The operation was successful. She is now completely cured and have slowly repaid the loan. Later she took another loan to start the shop. Shakhar is a proud and confident woman now running the shop shedding all inhibitions and shyness.
But it is not business and money making which bring the women together, they rather invest in social relations. At Masharda village in Mayurbhanj the Kalandi community members are traditionally bamboo basket makers. They are considered `untouchables'. Here a group of 19 women got a loan of Rs.100/- with which they purchased bamboo. It takes longer time for them to understand and learn the maintenance of production record, cost and profit calculation. While working together in the open field they share with each other the joys and sorrows of life. Important information is announced like next date for the pregnant mothers check up camps etc. This stress on the value of group sharing as opposed to the dominant capitalistic value of individual profiteering is very vital for any economic empowerment process.
To be the best by pushing others out is a norm in capitalist economy. The non-violent values of fellowship, concern for others, feeling with nature and other non-commercial approaches are ridiculed as outdated. But any social and economic empowerment effort is bound to be a failure if it does not simultaneously emphasise on value promotion which will ultimately sustain and strengthen the process of empowerment initiated. The village based people's organisations too can degenerate into institutions abusing power. Therefore it is very important to emphasise on the value of accountability.
Savings Promotion: The task is not over with generation of some income. In order to remain economically secure what rural women need is not just regular income but also a good amount of savings which may help them to sustain themselves. Women are thus encouraged to save money in the group fund out of which they can apply for loan for initiating a small business or to meet any emergency situation at the family.Rural banks/post offices being located in far off distances they never dreamt of saving money in a formal system. Secondly, rural people having had bitter experiences in the past do not trust "outsiders" with their money. So the challenge was to build a system which would operate within the rural conext within women's group.
Formation of the savings fund, run and managed by the women themselves, has thus brought immense relief to the women and through them to the whole community. They have now been released from the clutches of the local merciless money lenders who for ages have continued to exploit and oppress the poor villagers. Presently there are 90 Women's Savings Groups having total of around Rs.300,000/- saved in the fund.
Agriculture has been commercialised with promotion of cash crops and introduction of machines and use of chemicals which also means external dependence. Farming for health is the concept which therefore is being promoted. Women are encouraged to grow new variety of nutritious vegetables, fruits at their homes which will cater to the health need of the family members at the same time they can earn money by selling the surplus. Community Nurseries jointly owned by the community and developed on a piece of land offered by the villagers are also encouraged which will continually supply seeds/ saplings to the families.
Awareness Programmes- When Swadhina initiated its work among women it was found that most women though eager, were hesitant to come forward because the societal values had led them to believe that women were incapable of being economically strong. So the challenge was to make the society around the women believe in their capabilities as well as to develop the same belief in the women about themselves. The work was indeed difficult because to break age old myths and beliefs was a herculean task. Awareness programmes thus became the critical step towards empowerment - rallies, awarenss camps, trainings etc. became a regular feature of Swadhina's village groups.
There are many constraints towards women's empowerment which can be summarised as below :
There has been definite positive changes in household and community perceptions of women's role, as well as changes at the individual level. There is greater mobility and increased confidence in women who previously were wholly dependent on their husbands and many of them had not been engaged earlier in any economic activities outside the home for fear of social disapproval. Many superstitious beliefs have been eradicated. The number of women showing interest in the literacy centres too has increased.There are now many women with special skills like the health workers in Dhenkanal who are working as expert midwives in the area. In return to their service they get a cloth, vegetables and rice, sometimes also money. These women now have the skill and confidence to sustain themselves through their service to the community.
Empowerment does not happen overnight. It takes a long time to reach that state of refinement in the inner life through non-violent means which can never be measured by the material possessions. Mahatma Gandhi said that non-violence is a process of conversion, the conversion, if achieved, must be permanent. Any society or a nation constructed non-violently must be able to withstand attack upon its structure from without or within.The women with whom we have worked all these years will surely inspire many more women towards economic empowerment leading to qualitative improvement in life whereby they feel confident in the dignity of being themselves, enjoy the right to be themselves and not just in successful generation and accumulation of material wealth. Together in their newly felt inner power they refuse to be passive victims but actively create and shape their own future.
Courtesy: Autonomous Development, Raff Carmen
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