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Today it is obvious that unarmed popular movements are able to overthrow authoritarian regimes, even militarized and dictatorial regimes that have controlled countries for decades. Through mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, noncooperation, strikes and boycotts some 30 dictatorships have fallen during the last decades. We have more recently seen how entrenched authoritarian regimes have fallen within “the Arab Spring” in Egypt and Tunisia, and previously similar dramatic transitions have happened throughout Latin America, Easter Europe, Western Africa, as well as in South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. All these examples point towards the people power or nonviolent revolution that Gandhi was instrumental in developing during the struggle in South Africa and India. However, it is also obvious today that these regime changes point towards a number of problems and challenges, some of which our theme group want to engage with.

The James Lawson Awards are named after and presented in person by James Lawson, a leader in US Civil Rights movement who led the Nashville Lunch Counter sit-ins of 1960 and who Martin Luther King, Jr. called, “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world."

WRI are preparing to release a new edition of the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns, and running a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to get it finished - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/war-resisters-international-handbook-for-nonviolent-campaigns/x/6667143

Elections for WRI Council will take place in Cape Town. The following people have been nominated as individually elected Council members:

Carlos Barranco, state of Spain // Albert Beale, Britain // Pelao Carvallo, Paraguay/Chile // Jungmin Choi, Korea //  Estefanía Gómez Vásquez, Colombia // Daniel Jakopovich, Croatia/United Kingdom // Cattis Laska, Sweden // Subhash Chandra Kattel, Nepal // Moses John, South Sudan // Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, South Africa // Lexys Rendón, Venezuela // Rosa Biwangko Moiwend, West Papua // Miles Rutendo Tanhira, Zimbabwe/Sweden // Sergeiy Sandler, Israel // Igor Seke, Serbia/Mexico // Hülya Üçpinar, Turkey // Stellan Vinthagen, Sweden

Read 'What does it mean to be a WRI Council member?' here.

[video:https://vimeo.com/96791815 autoplay:0]

Dereje Wordofa presents the trend of "militarisation of youth and child soldiers" in Africa, despite the international instruments for human rights.

Dereje Wordofa is Regional Director for Africa at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). He is committed to lasting peace, sustainable development and social justice.

This webinar is part of the series of webinars by and for the African Nonviolence and Peacebuilding Network.

[video:https://vimeo.com/96215948 autoplay:0]

Conway Hall, London, 17 May 2014

 

Dear friends,

People power in South Africa – mass nonviolent direct action –

helped end the scourge of apartheid and vicious, politically-sanctioned racism.

Today, twenty years since our first democratic elections, South Africa still faces many problems - including street violence, small arms, xenophobia, economic injustice – and opposition to these ills are mounting, with civil society again using creative, unarmed methods. Throughout the continent, we see increasing militarism too often supported by powerful politicians, and this year’s South African elections suggest that people all over are tired of business as usual.

It is in this context that we are welcoming War Resisters' International to Cape Town, for the first ever WRI International Conference in Africa.

We'd like your help to make this possible.

Yeo-ok Yang and Jungmin Choi, activists of World Without War, and Reverend Bora Im of Hyanglin Church were put into prison on May 20.

They were sentenced to pay a fine of two million won each (approximately 2,000 USD) for taking a direct action to block the construction of Jeju Naval Base, which had been illegally undertaken without an agreement with local residents.

15th May was International Conscientious Objection Day, marked around the world as a day to celebrate those who have and those who continue to resist war, especially by refusing to be part of military structures.

Hundreds of people worldwide are imprisoned for rejecting conscription, or leaving the armed forces having developed a conscientious objection to war. In the Republic of Korea alone, there are more than 400 people incarcarated.

[video:https://vimeo.com/95387204 autoplay:0]

Janet Cherry examines contemporary and historical case studies of international solidarity campaigns, and discussed lessons to be learned about strategies for effective international solidarity. It focused on labour movements and direct action campaigns, with examples from Africa.

Janet is an activist and academic based at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.