End The Sanctions

Focus on the People of Iraq

Making Connections

a two-day forum of facts and culture

Saturday and Sunday • April 13 – 14

9:00 a.m. through the evening

Oakland YWCA • 1515 Webster Street at 15th Street (near 12th Street BART station)

$10-30 donation requested • no one turned away for lack of funds

For the past eleven years, the United States has illegally maintained a brutal blockade (“sanctions”) against the people of Iraq, directly causing the deaths of more than 1.5 million innocent Iraqi men, women and children (mostly children), and has conducted every-other-day air combat sorties over illegally-imposed “no-fly zones,” dropping bombs and firing missiles nearly every week for eleven years. For the past 11 years, the United States has been waging war on the people of Iraq.

• What have been the effects of our barbaric actions on the people of Iraq?

• Who are the people of Iraq?

• To answer those questions, a two-day forum focusing on the people of Iraq will be held at the Oakland YWCA –– with panel discussions, hip-hop music, Middle Eastern music and dance, speakers, questions and answers, food, action groups, letter writing, poetry and presentation of associated issues. The Forum is intended to help build a global, intergenerational movement.

Saturday:

• Keynote speaker Nabil Al-Hadithy, Iraqi-American spokesperson

• Ilitifat Al Gazawi on life in Iraq today. Eyewitness account.

• Panel: “Inside Iraq” the people of Iraq, their culture, and the economic and political aspects of Iraq

–– Mahmoud Suleiman, Shayee Khanaka, Barbara Lubin, Gloria Escalona

• Panel: “Regional Issues and Perspectives”–– Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, Iran, Palestine and Turkey –– Ali Alyami, Hatem Bazian, Ahmet Yazgan, Shahram Aghamir, Sonali Kolhatkar

• Carwil James will speak on “The Politics of Oil”

• Larry Everest –– film “Iraq, The War Against the People”

Sunday

• Youth activities and organizing

• Leuren Moret on the deadly use of depleted uranium by the U.S. in the Gulf Conflict.

• Panel: “Links / Solidarity Groups” Korea, the Philippines, Pakistan, Kashmir & India; Vieques

• Miho Kim, Mario Santos, Ravi Bhatnagar

• How Sanctions Work and the “Smart” Sanctions –– Paul George and Carolyn Scarr

• Efforts to end and to break the sanctions– Gulf Conflict veterans Water Project; the Campaign of Conscience, Voices in the Wilderness delegations and witnesses.

• Action Working Group meetings to develop plans for work to end the war on Iraq.

Both evenings: Music, Poetry & Spoken Word

Sponsored by the East Bay Coalition to Stop the Sanctions on Iraq (EB-COSSI)

Co-sponsored by Acting in Solidarity with Afghan People; Afghan Women’s Mission; American Friends Service Committee; American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Arab Women’s Solidarity Association; Asian Pacific Islander Coalition Against War; Asian Pacific Islander for Community Empowerment; Berkeley Environmental Commission; Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission; Dona Spring-Berkeley City Council member; Berkeley Women in Black; Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC; Institute for Multi-Racial Justice; Japan Pacific Resource Network; Korea Solidarity Committee; Middle East Children’s Alliance; Middle East Radio Project; Philippinos for Global Justice, Not War; Philippino Human Rights Commission; Project Underground; Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism; San Francisco Women in Black; Scientists for Indigenous People; U.S. Japan Peace Forum Organizing Committee; U.S. Japan No War Network; Women for Peace; and Women of Color Resource Center.

Signing, Wheelchair Access, Childcare –– please RSVP

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