[OPIRG-EVENTS] Call-out and meetings for participants, supporters and creative autonomous actions of support

[Angela Pinchero <pincherobehave@yahoo.ca>]

Calling for participants, supporters and creative
autonomous actions of support:

IMPORTANT DATES:   (details below)
EVENT INFORMATION SESSION:
	When:  Friday, February 7th, 2003
	Where: Simard Hall (On Wallard Street), Room #125,
University of Ottawa
	Time:   5:30pm
Agenda: Informational/organizing meeting for people to
learn more about the action on Feb 14th and how to
become involved through their own means. A film will
follow entitled "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm".

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TRAINING SESSION:
	When:  Wednesday, February 12, 2003
	Where: Simard Hall (On Wallard Street), Room #125,
University of Ottawa
	Time:   5:30pm
Agenda: Training for those interested in taking part
in the Feb 14th “Sit in for Love” action
SCENARIO MEETING:
	When:  Thursday, February 13, 2003
	Where: (To be announced)
	Time:   6pm
Agenda: Forum for in-town and out-of-town “sitters” to
go over action details.

MASS SILENT SIT-IN AT THE WAR DEPARTMENT IN OTTAWA
When:  Friday, February 14, 2003
	Where: Department of War
Time:   Before morning rush hour

(Details updated on www.nowar-paix.ca)


Below was the call-out that went out for a mass silent
sit-in on February 14th at the War Department – a
direct action of love and non-cooperation with
Canadian participation in the war on Iraqis.  This
email is requesting both participants and people to
support the participants. There are many roles one can
do on Feb 14th – from participating in the sit-in,
supporting the sit-in at the Department of War, making
Valentines or providing food, medical and legal
support for all involved. We are also calling for
autonomous actions of support for the sit-in
participants by creative groups and individuals. 

We are encouraging everyone who is able and willing to
participate in the direct action to do so. The
effectiveness of the action depends on participation
and we have lots of out-of-town sisters and brothers
coming to join us - groups from Toronto, Hamilton,
Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, St. Catharine's,
London and Peterborough. There are also folks that
will be coming to support the sit-in at the Department
of War. The sitters for love are deterermined and we
are calling on individuals, small groups and larger
organizations that support our demands to either join
our sit in or organize autonomous creative support to
keep us going through the cold.

Sitters and supporters are already planning to create
Valentines and messages of love for all of those who
have died or suffered due to Canadian military
spending. (These people include Canadian soldiers,
Afghan and Iraqi citizens, people who have died here
on our streets due to a lack of affordable housing and
irresponsible social priorities….)

We encourage other groups or individuals to make
Valentines or organize autonomous actions of support,
doing the type of resistance they do best and have the
most fun at.  We do ask that you come out Feb 7th or
contact us to learn more about the sit-in so that your
actions/performance/art/activity can coincide
effectively with the silent sit-in and it's goals. 

We encourage everyone who wants to learn more about
the event, the participants and what they can and want
to do, to come to an information and organizing
meeting on Feb 7th at 125 Simard Hall building on
Wallard Street at the University of Ottawa. (map at
http://www.nowar-paix.ca/documents/churchmapimage.gif)

There will also be civil disobedience training for the
sitters on Feb 12th at the same location (125 Simard
Hall) starting at 5:30. Finally, when all of the
participants are here in town on the evening of
Feb13th there will be a scenario meeting so that
participants can make collective decisions and have
discussion ahead of time, so they can act collectively
the day of when there isn't a lot of time to talk.
(Location to be finalized)

See www.nowar-paix.ca for updates and details.


A MAJOR NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION IN OTTAWA TO END
CANADA'S ROLE IN THE WAR AGAINST IRAQ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY
14


"Hate cannot drown out hate; only love can do that."-
Martin Luther 
King, Jr.

The War Dept. Needs a Change of Heart!
Protest The Unspeakable Atrocity of War and Sanctions
Mass Silent Sit-in at the War Dept., Ottawa
Surround the War Dept. with the Power of Love on
Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14, Morning Rush
Hour 
Buses to Ottawa on Thursday, Feb. 13

Demanding...
Stop the war against the people of Iraq.
Bring Canadian troops home now
Full medical/financial compensation for veterans of
the 1991 war against Iraq.
Turn the War Dept. into the Housing Dept.


Why a Silent Sit-in?
We will refuse to speak because the unspeakable has
been taking place since 1991 in Iraq, and continues to
unfold - unspeakable acts directed from Canada's War
Dept. and the U.S. Pentagon. Our silence and peace
will be a stark contrast to the media noise of war and
mass murder. It will be a strong, forceful expression
of disapproval, of non-cooperation with evil. Our
physical presence, through nonviolence, is the
alternative: solid, deeply felt love for the victims
of war, and compassion and love for our opponents -
those making war who are divided from the best part of
themselves. It is only by making ourselves accessible
to them that they will come to us to dialogue, to get
answers to questions, to find solutions that do not
involve murder.


PREPARATORY MEETINGS: - For those in Ottawa, there
will be an open meeting on how to support and or
participate in the action 7th, Civil Disobedience
Training on Feb12th, and finally the Scenario final
meeting with in-towners and out-of-towners on Feb
13th. (Details below) The action will start after an
extremely early breakfast on Feb 14th.

For out-of-towners, buses leave for Ottawa the morning
of Thurs. Feb. 13, return late Fri. 
Feb 14. Bus tickets $40 return*, includes
accommodation/meals. To book a seat call:
Toronto: (416) 651-5800, Hamilton: (905) 730-1181,
905-523-7879,
Kitchener-Waterloo: (519) 578-1425 (call after 3:30
pm), Guelph: (519) 
824-2091, St. Catharines: (905) 688-5550 ext. 3977.
In Ottawa call (613) 237-0730
(Groups are also organizing in London and
Peterborough)

Sponsored by Homes not Bombs, tasc@web.ca, hasc@tao.ca

PREPARATORY MEETINGS:

Information and Planning for the "Sit-in for Love" -
5:30pm Feb 7th, 125 Simard Building, on Wallard St. at
University of Ottawa– This is an info and organizing
meeting for people to learn more about the action on
Feb 14th and so they can figure out how they want to
get involved. This is a meeting for people interested
in "Sitting for Love" or doing any other supportive
role/action. There will also be a movie, "Hidden Wars
of Desert Storm" shown on campus after the meeting.

Civil Disobedience Training  - 5:30pm Feb12th, 125
Simard Building, on Wallard St. at University of
Ottawa – This is a training night for those interested
in taking part in the Feb 14th "Sit in for Love"
action.

Scenario Meeting – 6:00pm Feb13th. This will involve
all of the actions participants that plan on "Sitting
for Love" and allows in-town and out-of-town "sitters"
to go over the action details and make collective
decisions. Location to be announced. This will be
either St. Paul's University or Wesley United Church,
both blocks away on Main St.  

WHAT TO BRING:
Lots of layers of warm clothing to protect against the
cold.
Sleeping bag since we are sleeping on church floors
Extra food and snacks
Homemade Valentines with messages of peace (or
school-made messages!)
Valentine-making materials that we can work on at the
sit-in.
Placards and banners with messages that will "speak"
for us
If you can organize donations of food in your area to
bring to Ottawa 
(bread, crackers veggies, fruit), that would be great!
Those snacks 
will come in handy if we are at the sit-in for an
extended period of time. Cardboard or green garbage
bags to sit on when we hold the sit-down protest. We
will likely be sitting either on the sidewalk or on
the pavement in front of the entrance to the War Dept.

WAR AS UNSPEAKABLE
Below is one of the potential attack scenarios
discussed on CBS News. 
Like any war planning, it is obscene, it is
unthinkable, it is unspeakable. 
Let us go to Ottawa without fear, with love in our
hearts and a 
determination to stop such atrocities as those
discussed below.

Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2003 (CBS News)

They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so
devastating they 
would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to
fight.

If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one
day in March the 
Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400
cruise missiles at 
targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David
Martin reports, this is more than the number that were
launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf
War.

On the second day, the plan calls for launching
another 300 to 400 
cruise missiles.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one
Pentagon official 
who has been briefed on the plan.

"The sheer size of this has never been seen before,
never been 
contemplated before," the official said.

The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the
National Defense 
University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses
on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will
to fight rather than the physical destruction of his
military forces.

"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight,"
says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock
and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of
precision guided weapons.

"So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather
like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days
or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.

In the first Gulf War, 10 percent of the weapons were
precision guided. In this war 80 percent will be
precision guided.

The Air Force has stockpiled 6,000 of these guidance
kits in the Persian Gulf to convert ordinary dumb
bombs into satellite-guided bombs, a weapon that
didn't exist in the first war.

"You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're
the general and 30 of your division headquarters have
been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I
mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2,3,4,5
days they are physically, emotionally and
psychologically exhausted," Ullman tells Martin.

Last time, an armored armada swept into Kuwait and
destroyed Saddam's 
elite republican guard divisions in the largest tank
battle since the World War II. This time, the target
is not the Iraqi army but the Iraqi leadership, and
the battle plan is designed to bypass Iraqi divisions
whenever possible.

If Shock and Awe works, there won't be a ground war.

Not everybody in the Bush Administration thinks Shock
and Awe will work. One senior official called it a
bunch of bull, but confirmed it is the concept on
which the war plan is based.

Last year, in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the
U.S. was badly surprised by the willingness of al
Qaeda to fight to the death. If the Iraqis fight, the
U.S. would have to throw in reinforcements and win the
old fashioned way by crushing the republican guards,
and that would mean more casualties on both sides.

Statement from CBS News Anchor Dan Rather: "We assure
you this report contains no information that the
Defense Department thinks could help the Iraqi
military

---
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Toronto: (416) 651-5800,
Hamilton: (905) 730-1181, 905-523-7879,
Kitchener-Waterloo: (519) 578-1425 (call after 3:30
pm),
Guelph: (519) 824-2091,
St. Catharines: (905) 688-5550 ext. 3977.
Ottawa: (613) 237-0730
---





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