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Women for Peace, Peace for Whom? 1325 and the U.S.

Action Plan A Critical Analysis By Charlotte Dennett, US WILPF In this paper: A review of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 WILPFs role in trying to shape a National Action Plan Hillary Clintons Speech Announcing the NAP, 12/19/11 Dissecting the NAP: Whos In Charge, Anyway? On December 11, 2011, hundreds of women gathered at Georgetown University to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announce the creation of a U.S. Action Plan to advance the
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implementation of UN Security Council 1325. The Resolution, passed 11 years ago, calls on nations around the world to involve women in all stages of peacemaking and peacekeeping, (as well as policymaking in general) precisely because women are so adversely affected by conflict and have not had their voices heard on matters of war and peace. It passed with great fanfare, but little action until recently. Last year, on the tenth anniversary of Resolution 1325, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton enthusiastically endorsed the creation of a US Action Plan, claiming that "countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full and equal rights and opportunity."
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From the time Clinton announced the Action Plan (which is mandated for every country that signed on to 1325) to her speech last month, WILPF played an active role in trying to make the NAP reflect the real security needs of women at home as well as abroad. WILPF, in conjunction with the Susan Braden of the U.S. State Department, coordinated a series of consultations in 5 cities -- --- to allow women of all walks of like to discuss what security and peace meant to them. "What we want to see, " said Laura Roskos, President of WILPF US, in describing the consultations, "is the involvement of women from across the social landscape of the country in
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formulating -- and monitoring -- the U.S. National Action Plan." Added Tanya Henderson, WILPF's executive director, "We want to be sure that the U.S. NAP doesn't become just a means to make war safe for women. WILPF strongly believes in preserving the original spirit of 1325: to advance the status of women and prevent future wars." Clearly, US WILPF felt it had to play a role in monitoring an action plan for the US, especially since the US plays such a disproportionate role in the world. Still, within International WILPF, 1325 has become a matter of some controversy, with even some of the original promoters of 1325 disavowing it, claiming it had become
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the very opposite of what it was intended for. Some WILPF women wanted nothing to do with the NAP, especially since it meant coordination with (some even said collaboration) with the U.S. State Department. The author, while expressing deep reservations about the NAP, personally endorsed the consultations and attended the consultation in Boston with the idea of getting a firsthand view of how it unfolded. The reservations came from an acute awareness of the fact that the NAP was to be drafted by three entities not known for their sincere sponsorship of human rights: the U.S. Department of Defense, The U.S. National Security Council, and the U.S. Secretary of
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State, along with U.S. AID. Coupled with a historical knowledge (explained in Part II of this document) of how the U.S. foreign policy establishment has always sought to control the content and direction of the global womens movement, this author went into the experience with eyes wide open, while holding out the possibility that some genuine progress might occur under the direction of Hillary Clintons State Department. After all, this was the woman who as First Lady wrote a book on how it takes a village to raise a child and who, in her college days, was both a feminist and opponent of the unjust and illegal U.S. war in Vietnam. Coupled with WILPFs determination to make the US NAP responsive to
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the domestic needs of American women for peace and security, this seemed like a laudable enterprise which, however it turned out, would yield valuable insights into where we should go once the NAP was released. The five consultations themselves went smoothly, each one attended by Susan Braden of the State Department. Braden kept her comments focused on the international applications of Section 1325, but she listened respectively as women from different communities explained their own situations, often took notes, and acknowledged that What I am hoping, Braden told women at the Boston consult, is
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that you can share with me what we are doing at the local level that works and that we may be able to apply internationally. It became very clear to this observer, however, that the women who participated in their separate group discussions in Boston were far more interested in sharing what was not working at the local level. Economic insecurity topped the list of their complaints, buttressed with some pretty scary statistics: According to the 2011 Census, nearly a third (29.9%) of femaleheaded households are living below the poverty line.

How, some of the participants asked, can women get involved in politics and peace-making when they are in a struggle for economic survival? This is why economic issues made their way into WILPFs list of 64 recommendations after the consultations. (Ex: Promote employment paths for women that provide a living wage, paid sick days, unionization, and health and safety standards. Strategies should be employed to support the balance of paid work and unpaid care giving, such as paid family medical leave. Strengthen and enforce laws against sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the workplace
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domestically, and support the codification of such laws in international settings.) No doubt because of Ms. Bradens active participation, members of WILPFs 1325 subcommittee were hopeful that at least some of WILPFs suggestions would make their way into the US Action Plan. Clintons Speech Billed as the first ever National Action Plan in the U.S. the plan as announced by Clinton and enacted by President Obamas executive order simply reiterated that it would increase womens security in conflict zones and involve womens voices in government and peacekeeping
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operations around the world. Clinton, in her speech, went into considerable detail on the five stages of the National Action Plan, peppering her comments with telling anecdotes). She described, for instance, how the new President of Kosovo worked as a police officer in that war-torn nation and became president with an aim to bring good government, the rule of law and reconciliation, all the while insisting that she be part of the solution ). There was much to commend in Clintons speech, when viewed from the standpoint of trying to bring about meaningful reforms. For years, she said, many of us have tried to show the world that women are not just victims of war, but agents of peace.
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She hailed the selection of three women for the Nobel Peace Prize, three women who would command the global spotlight and urge the international community to adopt an approach to making peace that includes women as full and equal partners. She extolled her State Departments new partnership with Americas top womens colleges to train and support women and girls going into public service around the world. Hundreds of leaders and activists came to the State Department, she said, all eager to pour their talents and energy into their communities and to make their countries even better. They are ready to work for peace, enter politics, serve in the military, lead civil society, live
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up to their own God-given potential. They just need the opportunity. Yet the National Action Plan she proceeded to describe completely excluded the application of these sentiments to the situation of women in her own country. When WILPF unveiled its 64 recommendations prior to the announcement of the NAP, WILPFs executive director Tanya Henderson summarized the overriding sentiments coming from American women consulted in five cities: When it comes to matters of war and peace, U.S. women havent changed their minds. Building peace at home takes precedence over waging war, even when this requires real change to our domestic policies and national security platform.
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Real change, she said, would come when our leaders cut military spending, fund human needs, and support women candidates for public office by ratifying the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). .. What is required is the political will to adopt and implement measurable benchmarks and inclusive processes, to reform the delivery of education and health care, and put into place effective measures to close the wage gap between men and women, not by stagnating mens wages but by paying women full value for their economic contributions. Dissecting the NAPWhos in Charge, Anyway?
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First, the way NAP was presented to the nation reveals that Hillary Clintons team is not in charge and perhaps was never in charge. Through sources this author has learned that it is Obamas women advisors led by Samantha Powers -- who called the shots on this NAP, and this is reflected in the fact that Obama announced the NAP without one mention of Hillary Clinton. (See the White House Fact Sheet on the National Action Plan and his speech introducing it). The State Department is one of four players in the formulation of the NAP with the Department of Defense and USAID clearly playing a pivotal road. Given the nature of the sponsorship, the results reflect an
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agenda that can only be described as using women as agents of peace in the service of empire. As the Obama White Houses Fact Sheet on the NAP stated, The National Action Plan contains commitments by the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security, and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Many of the stated goals are laudable for instance, under Prevention, it states: The United States Government will strengthen its
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efforts to prevent and protect women and children from harm, exploitation, discrimination, and abuse, including sexual and genderbased violence and trafficking in persons, and to hold perpetrators accountable in conflict-affected environments But the goals are all couched in the overarching goal of conflict prevention in countries overseas, which means one thing to women in general and something else to the national security establishment involved in drafting the NAP. Another term for conflict prevention is counter-insurgency and when you get right down to it, as School of the Americas founder Roy Bourgeois so
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poignantly put it in one of his addresses, Who are the insurgents? He went on to say they are poor people struggling for their rights, for decent food, living standards, health care everything that WILPF members aspire to, everything WILPF wanted in its NAP but was robustly ignored.. Will they Listen? was how WILPF ended its 64 recommendations. No they did not listen. And now WILPF still wants to work with these people? (See below and Part II regarding an invitation to WILPF to help train U.S. overseas advisors in gender sensitivity). This author spent 18 years studying the role of missionaries in Latin America, and came out
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concluding that they are pawns in a much bigger game involving major U.S. corporations bent on conquering foreign markets and their major shareholders including the preeminent and probably most powerful family in the world, the Rockefellers. As documented in Thy Will be Done. The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (HarperCollins, 1994) the job of the Summer Institute of Linguists (known in the US as the Wycliffe Bible Translators) was and continues to be -- pacification of indigenous peoples, pushing them aside so they do not resist the incursion of corporations (oil companies, ranches, agri-businesses, mineral companies) onto their lands.
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Are well-meaning women similarly being used for pacification? As we take a look below at what the NAP calls for, please keep in mind that what the national security establishment seeks to do is to preserve stability in areas where American corporations are to invest. They loathe unrest, especially if it is against them or against their surrogates, such as the dictators who ruled over Arabs for decades. Dictators will be tolerated up to a point until opposition begins to simmer dangerously. No group is more sophisticated in putting its finger to the wind than the Rockefeller Brothers Fund which, by the way, funds (the author just
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discovered) Connect-US (see, for instance, http://www.rbf.org/post/connect-usfund-executive-director-among-topinfluential-young-leaders) the same fund that previously turned down WILPF but is now trying to rope WILPF into implementing and interpreting the NAP for overseas advisors. Does Hillary Clinton understand what this is all about? I daresay she does, as Secretary of State who, incidentally, has a long familiarity with the Rockefeller establishment. (More on that at a later time) She may try to steer things in a way that helps women and gets women involved, but she knows who calls the
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shots, who sets forth the exigencies of empire. As Susan Braden told the Boston consultation, She asserts that where women are disempowered, extremism and other anti-democratic forces are more likely to lead to security challenges for the U.S. This is arguably one way women like Braden and Clinton can try to get military men to take their concerns about involving women in peace negotiations more seriously (rather than to dismiss women as soft and therefore unreliable) by putting equal rights for women in a national security context. And surely there are anti-democratic forces like Muslim
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extremists that are very worrisome to women. But what about indigenous people who protest colonial and imperial oppression and have long been characterized by their oppressors as extremists? Below I will quote from Hillarys speech on the NAP: First, we will partner with women in vulnerable areas to prevent conflicts from breaking out in the first place. Women are bellwethers of society and, in fact, sometimes they do play the role of canary in the coal mine. They know when communities are fraying and when citizens fear for their safety But political leaders too often overlook womens knowledge
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and experience until its too late to stop violence from spiraling out of control. Then she talks about how the United States will invest in early warning systems that incorporate gender analysis and monitor increases in violence and discrimination against women, which can be indicators of future conflict. We will also support grassroots womens organizations that work to stop violence and promote peace. In short, support womens organizations that engage in pacification work. And who will the NAP bring in to help? Says Clinton: one place to start
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is with the poorly trained soldiers and police who contribute to a culture of lawlessness, of violence and impunity, and often are fueled by discrimination against any woman outside their family. The United States will help build the capacity of foreign militaries, police forces, and justice systems to strengthen the rule of law and ensure that protecting civilians and stopping sexual and gender-based violence in particular is a shared priority. My guess is that building foreign militaries and police forces has a much higher priority than preventing gender-based violence. One only has to look at the impunity of UN peace forces to figure that one out.
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Now ultimately, the best way to protect citizens is to end the conflict itself. So a third focus of the National Action Plan is expanding womens participation in peace processes and decision-making institutions before, during, and after conflicts. A key player in furthering what is known as the soft side of counterinsurgency is USAID, which has long been funded covertly by the CIA. This became a known fact during the Vietnam war and no doubt continues to this day. Heres what Hillary Clinton has to say: So the United States will encourage our international partners to include women and civil society organizations in the design and
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implementation of relief efforts and reconstruction planning. We will designate gender advisors for all USAID crisis response and recovery teams So the fifth focus, she continues, is institutionalizing this work across the United States Government. As part of this process, we will increase training for our troops, diplomats, and development experts on international human rights and humanitarian law, protecting civilians, preventing and responding to sexual and genderbased violence, and combating trafficking-in-persons. Sounds good, but again, I doubt that the prevention of violence and trafficking is the overarching concern. As noted in the 2010 Case Study, What the Women
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Say: Participation and UNSCR 1325, in the decade since the resolution was passed, more funding has been available for the women, peace and security agenda, but most of it does not grant activists on the ground when and where it is needed and put to most efficient use. Clinton continues: At the State Department, we have already begun a new initiative on women, peace, and security in Africa, focused on building local capacity in countries affected by conflict. And thats just the beginning, because around the world, from Iraq and Afghanistan, to South Sudan, the new transitional democracies in the Middle East and North Africa, our embassies are developing local strategies to empower women
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politically, economically, and socially. Africa and the Middle East: why, pray tell, is there such an emphasis on these regions? WILPF members know the answer: oil and minerals are up for grabs. Clinton continues, So by working with partner militaries, the Pentagon will build on the excellent work already underway in places like Afghanistan where our Provincial Reconstruction Teams engage with communities to curb violence against women, honor killings, and female immolation and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where AFRICOM experts are training local soldiers to protect human rights and
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prevent sexual and gender-based violence. NATO, she adds the same NATO that pounded Libya into submission in its efforts to NATO-ize the entire Mediterranean is factoring women and their needs into key planning processes and training courses, stationing gender experts throughout operational headquarters, and deploying female engagement teams to Afghanistan, where the alliance is also training local women to serve in the security forces. In 2012, 10 percent of the Afghan military academys class will be women, and by 2014 Afghanistan expects to field 5,000 women Afghan national police officers.
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Is this what WILPF wants to be part of? Or does WILPF want to go on a separate path, critiquing the NAP, insisting on addressing the real security needs of women abroad and at home, and making its recommendations in 1325 part of a voter guide? WILPF can come out of this whole process whole, and proceed in its mission of true peace-building envisioned over a hundred years ago by our brave foremothers, or it can become irreparably co-opted. The choice is yours. As you make your decision, please consider the following: WILPFS VISION STATEMENT

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WILPF envisions a transformed world at peace, where there is racial, social, and economic justice for all people everywhere - a world in which: - The needs of all people are met in a fair and equitable manner, - All people equally participate in making the decisions that affect them, - The interconnected web of life is acknowledged and celebrated in diverse ways and communities, and - Human societies are designed and organized for sustainable existence. WILFPS MISSION STATEMENT

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WILPF members create the peaceful transformation they wish to see in the world by making connections that: - Provide continuity with the past so that knowledge of historical events and patterns informs current activities for change; - Create analysis and action that reflect and reinforce each other; - Link and challenge root causes of oppression, especially racism, sexism, heterosexism, militarism, economic disparity, and political disempowerment; and - Build and strengthen relationships
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and movements for justice, peace, and radical democracy In keeping with WILPFs Mission of providing continuity with the past and providing analysis and action that reflect and reinforce each other, Part II will give an historical analysis of efforts to co-opt the international womens movement, and what WILPF can do to prevent that.

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