Wales Peace Festival 2008

This page features a comprehensive guide to the speakers and events featured at this year's Wales Peace Festival. Scroll down for the minutes of the festival and the Peace & Progress festival report.

The Wales Peace Festival 2008 was held on 18-19 October at two adjoining Bangor University premises – the Department of Lifelong Learning and the Department of Computer Sciences, to both of whom many thanks. It was sponsored by CND Cymru, Cymdeithas y Cymod and Cynefin y Werin. The local hosts and organisers this year were the Bangor and Ynys Môn Peace and Justice Group. Many other groups and individuals from all over Wales helped to make the festival a success. The economic crisis and recession impacted on many of the discussions and topics featured below.

1. Speakers

The festival was opened and subsequently chaired by Stephen Thomas, of the Welsh Centre for International Affiars. In his introduction Stephen discussed peace building and the ‘credibility crunch’ of the United Nations – from Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its achievements, to its shortcomings and its potential.

• Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cymru) Chair of CND Cymru made a wide-ranging address about nuclear proliferation and the NPT, about Trident replacement, and security in the Middle East and Palestine in particular. She floated the idea of a Wales Peace Insititute in order to bring together in a practical way many of the themes of this conference.

• The author Mark Curtis was unable to attend due to illness, so at the last moment Milan Rai stepped in to speak in his place, discussing the political theories and world view of Noam Chomksy. Milan (Voices in the Wilderness/ Justice Not Vengenace) is co-editor of Peace News.

• Moazzam Begg, an eloquent and moving speaker for the Cageprisoners organisation, spoke about torture, detention without charge and rendition, speaking from harrowing personal experience, having been held at the notorious Baghram air base in Afganistan and at Guatanamo Bay. He spoke of those still held illegally, such as former British resident Binyam Mohamed, and of current developments and campaigns.

• Greg Muttitt of Platform addressed the conference with a report on the bid to privatise Iraqi oil, handing over resources and production to foreign companies, a surrender unmatched by other oil-producing nations. Depite threats from the USA and the IMF, such as cutting off reconstruction aid, the Iraqi parliament is still refusing to enact the enabling legislation. The plan is now to proceed anyway, with no legislation. This ploy is fiercely resisted by the (illegal) oil workers’ trade union and by the Iraqi public. Greg called for no long-term contracts to be signed as long as US troops remained in Iraqi soil and truly democratic decisions can be made.

• Mary Compton, from Powys, is a former president of the National Union of Teachers. She is joint editor with Lois Weiner of The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their Unions. Mary is a passionate campaigner for Palestine and was an international observer of the 2006 election won by Hamas. She described her own experiences of life in the West Bank.

• Dr Bianca Ambrose-Oji, formerly of Bangor University’s Centre for Arid Zone Studies/Natural Resources Unit, and now of Forest Research, presented a detailed analysis of the effects of climate change on the continent of Africa, with regard to ecology, resources, population, society, armed conflict and governance.

2. Workshops

• PAWB/ Dylan Morgan the campaign against nuclear new build at Wylfa and elsewhere
• St Athan Miiltary Academy/James Maiden update on the capmpaign against this massive but ailing South Wales PFI project
• Is religion the cause of war?/ Rev Guto Prys ap Gwynfor Cymdeithas y Cymod debate
• Shooting films, shooting people/ Jonathan Ervine Univ of Bangor: war, peace and the cinema
• More power than we know/ Milan Rai The power of activism
• African Perspective/Nick Jewitt & Dr Bianca Ambrose-Oji discussed the impact of AIDS and malaria, conflict, sustainability and resources

3. Campaigns

Two postcard campaigns were launched at the Festival, one for the release of Binyam Mohamed from Guantanamo Bay, the other for facilitating overseas study visas for Palestinian students trapped in Gaza, particularly for Zohair Abu Shaban to study at Imperial College, London.

4. Stalls

The festival had a busy central forum with a children’s corner and the following stalls:
Palas Print bookstall (Selwyn Jones), Wales Nicaragua Solidarity (Ben Gregory), UNICEF & cluster bombs campaign (Menai Williams), the Quakers (Flora Figgins), Communist Party (David Morgan), Socialist Party (Iain Dalton), Aberystwyth Network/Climate Change Wales (Moth Foster) calling for a Wales Climate Camp in 2009, Socialist Labour Party, Chrtistian Aid (Anna Jane Evans), Peacewords (Karl Sadil), Cymru Cuba (Selwyn Williams), Cymdeithas y Cymod (Arfon Rhys), Wrexham Diocese Peace (Maria Pizzoni); Trio Naatyashwora and victims of oppression in Nepal (Norma Blackstock); Bangor & Ynys Môn Peace & Justice (Linda Rogers); Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum (Genny Bove); PAWB (Dylan Morgan).

5. Cultural events

• Film Jonathan Ervine showed extracts from the film 11-09-01 September 11th for discussion.
• Exhibition Snapshots and cuttings from 30 Years of Protest in North Wales, collected by Phil Steele
• Bangor Community Choir Sunday lunchtime session of songs from around the world
• Trio Naatyashwora Trio member Ram gave an impromptu song and conch recital, a foretaste of Nepali concert at Bangor’s Anglican Chaplaincy Sat 25 Oct 7. 30pm in aid of Bangor & Ynys Môn Peace & Justice group (tickets from the Muse bookshop, Upper Bangor)
• Festival gig at the Anglesey Arms in Menai Bridge on Saturday night featured DJ Hippyad, Trnstone and Bandabacana. It raised £600 for Palestinian causes, including the Bustaan Qaraqa community environmental project established near Bethlehem this year by four ex-Bangor students. The money will be handed over to Alice Gray of the collective when she visits the group at Bangor’s Quaker Meeting House on 10 November.

6. Committee discussions

A small meeting was held upstairs at the Anglesey Arms to discuss the future of the Wales Peace Festivals, the future direction of Cynefin y Werin, wider collaboration with other movements and organisations in Wales, and the idea of a Wales Peace Institute. It was agreed to progress these discussions at a meeting in Aberystwyrh in the New Year. Kelvin Mason of Aberystwyth Peace Network chaired the meeting, James Maiden of Cynefin y Werin took the minutes.

7. Ways forward

Stephen Thomas closed the festival with a concise summary of events and points of action for the future, referring to the agenda of [6].

Festival Report

On Saturday 18 October it was reported that President George W Bush had agreed to intervention in the world financial system only on the condition that ‘democratic capitalism’ was maintained and that the principle of the free market, which had in his view benefiited so many people around the world, was not undermined. The intervention of the USA in world politics, economics and society, to forward a particular agenda, was a thread that ran through many of the lively discussions and talks at the festival.

In his address to the conference the next day, Greg Muttitt, of the organisation ‘Platform’, reported on the struggle in Iraq against the privatisation of oil reserves and production. The valiant fight put up by workers, trade unionists and the Iraqi people to maintain ownership of their oil has so far been successful. This struggle has progressed despite the illegal status of union membership in the oil industry (Saddam Hussein’s old law will remain on the statute book), and in the face of threats and bribes by the USA and the IMF concerning debt relief and aid for reconstruction – and of course the enduring presence of US and coalition troops on Iraqi soil. There is now a push to bypass the obstinacy of the Iraqi parliament by signing contracts without a law being passed. This would result in 40 percent of oil reserves and 90 percent of production being handed over to foreign, particularly British, control. Platform maintains that no long-term contracts should be signed until Iraq is free from occupation and its people are allowed to make truly democratic decisions for themselves – a view endorsed by speakers from the floor, who discussed ways in which we could stand by the people of Iraq.

Past President of the National Union of Teachers, Mary Compton, drew many connections between the actions of the US and its allied forces in Iraq and interventions by the US and Europe in the struggle for human rights in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.

Mary was one of the international team of observers of the election in 2006 that brought Hamas to power. As we know, the results were immediately denounced by Europe and the US and a process was begun of creating new division between Hamas and Fatah, much as has been carried out between the Shia and Sunni communities in Iraq.

The extent of the attempted destruction of the rule of law and human rights by the US and Britain was outlined by Moazzam Begg, speaking about his internment in Guantanamo Bay. He and the audience discussed the necessity of naming those members of our government complicit in illegal acts of torture and holding them to account. The campaign was joined to demand that Binyam Mohamed, the last British Resident to be held in Guantanamo Bay, receive a fair trial and that David Miliband disclose documents that would reveal the complicity of the British government in his torture.