MAY/JUNE 2006

May 1st, 2006

Our meeting in March considered Climate Change and our responses. We heard that every Church of England diocese has a designated environmental officer, each of whom

EDITORIAL Our meeting in March considered Climate Change and our responses. We heard that every Church of England diocese has a designated environmental officer, each of whom has drawn down a government subsidy for workshops which have challenged and inspired their parishes. As is so often the case, the Quakers too are ahead of us. In 2004 Quaker Green Action published a booklet called “Walk Cheerfully, Step Lightly” giving 26 pages of practical suggestions for changes we can make to reduce the damage we inflict on the earth. We are very grateful to Elizabeth Rendell, our speaker at that meeting. This month we focus on Development issues and our speaker will be Vicky Cann, Campaign Officer for WDM, who attended the UN World Water Forum in Mexico City. WDM was founded 30 years ago in the belief that charity alone is not enough – that we need to fight the causes, not just the symptoms, of poverty. WDM’s policies are set by the priorities of their partners in developing countries. WDM’s campaigns have kept poverty on the political agenda and in the public eye. World summits are now dominated by the debt issue, trade reform is on the agenda, and Britain is increasing, not cutting, overseas aid. British aid money is being used to push water privatization on poor countries, making it less likely that clean water will get to the poorest people. And while poor people lose out, a group of big UK companies are profiting from this aid. In a world where nearly 6,000 children die every day because of unclean water, this is a scandal that must stop. This meeting will also be our AGM and reports will be given on the year’s work. Please note my changed email address. Chris Dove Note: the views expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily coincide with those of the Commission. DEVELOPMENT BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Malawians have been living and coping in a land of extremes. Many people have been standing in long queues to receive food; they wait while their children are sick under both the baking sun and alternating heavy rain, according to Fr Joseph Mpinganjira, Secretary General of the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (Cadecom). After the latest floods, Fr Joseph describes the situation he found when he visited the area affected. “Where the river Shire had burst its banks, it had swept up in its path maize and sorghum crops, as well as livestock and the remnants of people’s homes and belongings. How do I now draw on my faith to comfort those who have lost everything, and do not know how they are going to start again? Can I really preach “Man does not live on bread alone?” As the developmental arm of the Church, Cadecom works to bring hope to communities by making Jesus felt in our programmes, but on this day, the people brought hope to me. They asked for tools and seeds so that they can plant again as soon as the flood waters had receded, as they still hoped that there was a chance of reaping a good harvest. The hope they expressed – that they could start again – bolstered my own as I got back into the car. One way forward is for all Malawians to look for some of our own answers to the problems causing our hunger – issues such as climate change, investment in irrigation and the impact of HIV/Aids on our ability to feed ourselves. Cadecom’s work cannot reach everybody, but with funding support from long-term untiring partners such a Cafod we are able to create development with the people and for the people, moving us closer to the hope that we as Malawians and Africans will be able in a few years to better understand ourselves and handle difficult situations for ourselves.” Source: The Tablet 4 March WATER At the World Water Forum, the UN launched a report which said: “The privatisation of water services displays uneven results. Many multinational water companies are currently decreasing their activities in developing countries. The potential of local small-scale companies and civil society organisations to help improve water services has largely been overlooked by governments and donors.” Clean water is a human right. Yet the UN has declared that water quality is declining in most regions, that there is an increasing demand for water to grow crops for burgeoning populations, and that urban areas are exploding. By 2030 some 2 billion people will live in illegal squatter settlements and slums with no access to water. Furthermore, after almost 15 years of promises by world bodies, national governments, water companies and others, the world’s poorest are still not getting the most basic human need. There is now no chance that the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people without access to clean water by 2015 will be met. At this rate of progress, says the World Water Council, “access to clean water cannot be guaranteed until beyond 2050 in Africa, 2025 in Asia and 2040 in Latin America and the Caribbean.” A report by the UK charity WaterAid shows that 61% of the EU’s international aid earmarked for water and sanitation goes to comparatively wealthy countries. Global water companies are blamed. National governments, the IMF and the World Bank have all pushed them to provide water to the poor. There have been some successful privatisations, but many others have left people paying high prices, with thousands unemployed and governments locked into crippling long-term contracts. Research by the World Bank and others demonstrates that the public sector is not always incapable of providing clean water. It still provides, in difficult circumstances, water for 90% of the world. The public sector is in many countries reforming itself, gaining confidence and learning how to raise money and stand up to international pressure. Cities such as Recife in Brazil and Bogota in Colombia have persuaded the World Bank to make loans for public service expansion, something inconceivable 10 years ago. The pendulum is swinging back towards the public sector and, at some point, international donors, banks and governments will recognise that clean water is a human right and that to deny it to people for the sake of a political idea makes no sense. Until then billions of people will die from water-borne diseases, waste hours of their day collecting water or go into debt to stay alive. Source: John Vidal. The Guardian Weekly 24-30 March HUMAN WRITESAbout a year ago, I took on the responsibility of writing to a prisoner on Death Row. This is something I can recommend; it takes very little time and costs very little money. Initially I was concerned that a correspondent of my age would be of very little interest to a young man on the other side of the Atlantic, and more particularly worried that accounts of my full and happy life would only add to his loneliness and sense of desperation. However, I need not have feared. My correspondent, Robert, is always more than delighted to receive my letters. A typical response is “I was so very happy to receive your so very sweet and loving letter. You all really did brighten my day up for me. You always know how to put a Great Big Smile on my face.” Naturally I feel more than a little ashamed to have such a response to what seem relatively feeble efforts on my part, but it makes me realise how much letters mean to people like Robert. I belong to an organisation called Human Writes, which gives helpful advice to people writing to those on Death Row. It also publishes a quarterly magazine, and I was very impressed by an article by Dennis Skillicorn (2005) Missouri Death Row, in the latest edition, from which the following is an extract. “What a wonderful truth that affairs of the heart know no man-made boundaries! Regardless of the circumstances, or how hard the system may work to discourage us or tear us down, stereotypes or false innuendo can never stifle our desire or ability to care for our fellow man. Even from inside a maximum security prison, there are ways to make a positive difference.

For example, Compassion is a bimonthly publication created, written and edited by death row offenders to raise scholarship money for family members of murdered victims. It also gives those living life on death row a chance to share their artistic and social expression and to contribute to their culture in a positive way. They share life lessons in hopes that others who read their material will not make the same bad choices they made. They write about the importance of forgiveness, reconciliation, restitution and restorative justice. They share their pain their regrets, their remorse …. and their dreams. Our mission is to raise donations for scholarships that go to murdered victims’ families to aid them with their education. Offenders do not handle any of the money – all funds are controlled by a board of directors on the outside. However, the editor and assistant editors of Compassion choose the winning applicant(s) in each scholarship funding cycle. What we are doing is an effective tool to tear down false stereotyping and show the world the truth about who we are. That truth is that the vast majority of those on death row are not the people who committed their crimes. Most had drug or alcohol related offences and now have a clear heart and mind. Free of their former destructive lifestyle, they are able to return to those things that are truly valuable to us all, such as love of God and love of family. Their focus is back on positive things. To subscribe to Compassion visit our website at www.compassionondeathrow.org, or write to Compassion, 140W South Boundary Street, Perrysburg, Ohio 3551 Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like to write to a prisoner on death row. Anthea Dove Britain’s ‘independent’ deterrent is in American hands. In 1962 the US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara revealed that the British Trident fleet “did not operate independently” to Harold Macmillan’s acute embarrassment. His Permanent Private Secretary, Sir Robert Scott recorded that the decision to accept President Kennedy’s offer of their Polaris missile submarine, has “put us in American’s pocket for a decade”. The US knows where the British nuclear submarines are and firing the missiles without US supplied data and satellites is almost impossible. The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston is one-third managed by the US firm of Lockheed Martin; the nuclear warhead factory was designed and built by a US company as a copy of the one at Los Alamos. The British fuse and firing system is designed and built by America’s Sandia national laboratory. Some of the nuclear explosives are imported from the US and so too is the warhead casing and guidance system. In 2004 President Bush agreed to renew the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement, providing nuclear support to the UK until 2014, stating “it is in our interest to continue to assist the UK in maintaining a credible nuclear force.” Source: Dan Plesch. The Independent Oct 31 The Real Meaning of Deterrence In an excellent article in the Tablet under this title, Gerard W Hughes SJ considered what is meant by the policy of “nuclear deterrence”. It includes four Trident submarines, each Trident carries more fire power than the total expended during World War II and their missiles have a range of 4,000 miles. “Each Trident submarine carries up to 16 missiles, and each warhead has an explosive power eight times that of the Hiroshima bomb, an explosion that caused 70,000 to 100,000 immediate deaths. Another 100,000 died in the next three weeks. Many children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were born post-war, still suffer severe deformities passed on by the radiation inflicted on their ancestors.” Gerard Hughes goes on: “So what does it mean for us to keep a deterrent? After all, ‘deter’ sounds a polite word, like ‘gently persuade’. In fact, its Latin root is from terrere, to terrify. A deterrent is the weapon of a terrorist, one who terrifies others into submission. We know something of the devastation, the murders, injuries and grief terrorists can cause. Yet as a nation we are prepared to do far worse, while trying vainly to ensure that other ‘less responsible nations’ are incapable of doing the same. Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement, stripped away all the false language about nuclear deterrence with the simple question: ‘What is the difference between throwing innocent people into ovens and throwing ovens at innocent people?’” Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh used his Easter message to launch a campaign against the upgrading of Trident, urging that the billions of pounds would be better spent on relieving hunger and encouraging development in poor communities. Source: The Tablet 22 April Here are some random quotations that I hope will be of interest It’s not fair! Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence, complains that in Iraq the “insurgents” are not being fair. “The enemy cannot win a single conventional battle. So they challenge us through non-traditional, assymetric means, using terror as their weapon of choice.” Terror isn’t a weapon, it’s a tactic. Roadside bombs are the weapons, against which the world’s most powerful military is all but helpless. Rumsfeld seems to be complaining that the enemy, faced with a vastly superior force, refuses to act like real men and stand still so that they can be killed! Source: NCR 14 April. US military spending is nearing $500bn a year or about $15,000 per second. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on April 4 1967, exactly one year before he was killed, said of the Viet Nam war: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. In 1997, according to a study conducted for America’s Second Harvest Network, which provides emergency hunger relief services, there were 21.4 million hungry people in America. That number increased to 23.3 million in 2001 and to 25.35 million in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available. The study surveyed 30,000 local charitable agencies and used 52,000 face-to-face interviews. For further information see www.secondharvest.org. Source: NCR March 10 “What doesn’t seem to be understood is that when your children are dying of malnutrition, when you have no hope of improving the miserable conditions in which you and your family are forced to live, no wall, no amount of enforcement, no punishment will keep you from doing what provides hope.” An El Salvadorean mother of three, replying to US proposed remedies against immigration. Words of wisdom If I cycle instead of using a car, walk, save energy, recycle my waste, buy less, etc., I am having a less harmful effect on the planet. If I can persuade someone else to do the same, the effect is doubled. What if I can persuade six, ten, twenty people? What if I persuade the politicians to bring in better environmental legislation? Practise multiplication! Source: Scarborough Greenguide Issue 12 Thought for today All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances you would help if you found them in trouble, and would help you if you needed it. Mark Twain 1835-1910 Barbara Hungin Chair 01642 784398 Sr Mary Walmsley CJ Secretary 01904 464919 Nan Saeki Treasurer 01904 783621 Chris Dove Editor 01947 825043 email: dove.whitby@phonecoop.coop or 22 Blackburns Yard Whitby YO22 4DS website:www.ayton.info/middlesbroughjp If you have not checked it out, the Commission website gives access to much more than just the current newsletter. John Blatchford has set up an ongoing archive of all the newsletters for the last 2 years. PROGRAMME FOR 2006 Date Place Theme 18 March Middsbro’ Environment 20 May York AGM WDM 15 July Hull Quiet Day 16 September York Asylum issues 18 November Youth Forum A Prayer Jesus Christ, friend of the poor and lonely, we give you thanks for any opportunity to learn of those whose lives, lacking clean water, are burdened by circumstances beyond their control. We pray that our work may help to bring comfort and hope to all people in need as we seek your Kingdom of Peace on earth. Amen

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