Revive the Peace Movement Network

RPM Member Mark Colville Sentenced to 21 months in prison

Mark Colville, of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who was found guilty of conspiracy and damage to a nuclear sub base in Georgia, was sentenced on Friday April 9. He was not given "time served", the 15 months he had been in prison in Georgia. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, in other words six more months. Colville and the other "6" poured blood on a plaque with the name of the base and a model of the submarine that is packed with Trident nuclear-tipped missiles in a waiting room of the base. Details here.

Before being sentenced Colville called as a witness Stephen Kobasa of New Haven. Both Kobasa and Colville spoke eloquently on the evil of nuclear weapons and the possibility that weapons housed at Kings Bay might be part of the killing of billions of people in a nuclear war.

We received this email on April 8:

“The taproot of violence in our society today is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison. Until we squarely face the question of our consent to use nuclear weapons, any hope of large scale improvement of public morality is doomed to failure.” Rev. Richard McSorely, S.J.

Thank you, everyone, for your accompaniment and support during this unusually long stretch of time we’ve spent swimming in a legal undertow. It’s almost a year and a half now since the Kings Bay Plowshares trial ended in Georgia. I am the last of the seven who has yet to be sentenced, and that will finally be happening on Friday, 4/9, at 10am. Due to ongoing Covid concerns we’ve decided to opt for a hearing by video conference; one nice advantage this provides is the opportunity for the public to listen in on the proceedings. Should you wish to do so, here are the instructions we have from the court:

Dial 1-888-684-8852, enter the call access code 2296092 and enter the security code 1234 or dial 1-888-684-8852, enter the call access code 8878734 and enter the security code 1234. If one isn't working or overloaded try the other access code. And remember to mute.

Deep gratitude to everyone who wrote letters to the judge. I’m asking her to consider them as expressions of the conscience of the community regarding the criminal enterprise of nuclearism, as it continues to scourge humanity and creation beyond reason or accountability. My family, my neighborhood and I have a right to live without a nuclear gun on hair-trigger alert held perpetually to our heads, and this court’s failure to recognize that right has made it an accessory to crimes against humanity. This is the reality that I plan to confront as clearly and simply as possible on Friday... and the rest, as an old friend used to remind me, is God’s problem.

Peace and Love,

Mark

P.S.: Here’s a link to the beautiful festival of hope we celebrated Monday night...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx7__Pm4Tss

New Open Letter Condemns Those Who Erase Syrians Through Lie

March 27, 2021

Hundreds have signed an open letter called "Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the 'Anti-Imperialism' of the Fools"

This is how it begins:

Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency

[The following Open Letter was a collaborative effort of a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them. It is signed by activists, writers, artists, and academics from Syria and 34 other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America, and appears in multiple languages: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian.]

To see the full letter and all signers click here for New Politics or here for Al-Jumhuriya

About RPM

We started in 2016 as a network to discuss our disappointment with the state of the peace movement and how to move forward. See our Founding Document here. If you agree with it and the general direction of our resolutions consider getting your group to join us. Write to us at: 2rpm@mail.com

Our Board

We have a 4 person board:

Swati Birla - Swati Birla is a translator and a feminist people's health activist. She has been engaged in anti-caste and anti-racist labour politics in India and U.S. with student labour unions, Sanhati collective and the Global Prison Abolitonist Collective.

Currently she is completing her doctoral degree in Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her dissertation The Past is a Foreign Country examines the connections between territories, places and people by revisiting anti-colonial political histories. Her work connects histories of partition in the South Asian subcontinent with the violence perpetrated against Muslims and Dalits (lower castes) in contemporary India.

Robert Cuffy is a supporter of the Socialist Workers Alliance of Guyana and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s AfroSocialist Caucus. Robert currently works in NYC as a child protective specialist supervisor and is a member of Social Service Employees Union Local 317 within DC37. His political work centers around the revival of the West Indian radical tradition as embodied by the likes of Claudia Jones, CLR James, Andaiye and Walter Rodney.”

Stanley Heller is a retired schoolteacher. He works for Promoting Enduring Peace and the Middle East Crisis Committee (for which he hosts the weekly TV program "The Struggle".) He's written two books, "The Uprising We Need" (2017) and "Zionist Betrayal of Jews" (2019)

Yasser Munif is a Syrian activist. He is a professor of sociology at Emerson college in Boston where he teaches courses about Race and Racism, Arab and Global Revolts, Feminist Theory, Critical Globalization Studies, and Postcolonial Theory. His research examines grassroots struggles and politics from below in marginal sites. His work appeared in publications including "Rethinking Marxism," "The Journal of Asian and African Studies," and "The Journal of Palestinian Studies." His book "The Syrian Revolution: Between the Politics of Life and the Geopolitics of Death" (2020) was published by Pluto Press. He is the co-founder of "the Campaign for Global Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution" which organizes cultural events and political actions in the US to raise awareness around grassroots politics in Syria. He is also member in the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists.

Links to Supporting Groups

Alliance of Middle East Socialists, Campaign for Global Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution, Middle East Crisis Committee, P romoting Enduring Peace, Voices for Creative Non-Violence, War Resisters League, Solidarity