WRI friendly organisation

Raz'ezzhaya ulica, 9, 191002 SAINT-PETERSBURG
Tel/fax: 007-812-1124199; 1125058; e-mail: info@soldiersmothers.spb.org

Foreword

The organisation "Soldiers' Mothers of Saint Petersburg" is a non-governmental human rights organisation that defends the rights of conscripts, recruits and their relatives.

While the powers sees former-Yugoslavia at peace, the Balkan Peace Teams in both Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have been witnessing the tensions. Otvorene Oci ("Open Eyes" - the team in Croatia) still has an office in Split and has moved the other office from Zagreb to Karlovac. The Karlovac office has reported three explosions aimed against Serbs: on 24 February (this only made page 4 of the local newspaper!), and two others on 28 February and 2 March after a demonstration against Serbs returning from FRY to Vojnic.

DFG-VK Votes to Double its Affiliation Fee to the WRI.

In Hamburg last November Gernot Lennert, the anti-militarist answer to Jørgen Klinsman, scored the most marvelous goal for WRI in Germany since the Berlin Coundl meeting of 1990. The goal followed an incisive tactical build-up and delicate interpassing with WRI's French star Dominique Saillard.

Lennert began the move with a shrewd agenda-change resolution, a manoeuvre rarely seen outside Germany, opening the way for Saillard to face the assembled ranks of the DFG-VK.

Speaking tour with Saswati Roy, from SWADHINA (India) - June-July

The WRI FöGA working group, which had already sponsored Saswati's participation in the 1994 Triennial in Brazil, is now planning a speaking tour for Saswati in Germany from mid-June to mid-July. These dates were chosen to allow her to take part in the next WRI Coundl meeting, in Liege. Saswati has already been invited by several groups to speak on the position of women in India and grassroots relationships between development, environment and women's issues.