Wrapped in protective shawls and with
their broad-brimmed, flower-laden hats
buffeted by the stiff sea breeze, some 30
Women up-ended their teacups into the
Pacific waters at Crescent Beach to sym-
bolize their rejection of the federal
government’s Goods and Services Tax on
Feb. 18.

Afterwards, the costumed women,
ranging from middle-aged to senior citi-
zens, sang to the tune of “Baby Face”
words that included these lines: “The
GST — will make the have-nots worse off
than before/ While U.S. corporations
suck our juicy nation/ Say no to GST.”

The Boston-Tea-Party style protest
concluded the annual conference of Rag-
Ing Grannies groups from across BiG
and in several other Canadian centres,
other Grannies poured their tea at the
Same time into nearby waters.

The Grannies conference at Crescent
Beach’s Alexandria Lodge was the third
since a group of Gabriola Island women in
the mid-Eighties donned funny hats,

Grannies’ tea-dumping
a modern tax protest

shawls, and other humorously stereotypi-
cal granny apparel to sing their opposi-
tion to the arms race, pollution, corporate
greed and other social ills.

Today Raging Grannies groups are
found coast to coast, and the tea
protest — attributed to an idea by Pat
McCreery of the newly-formed second
Vancouver group, the Gastown Grannies
— took place also in Halifax, Thunder
Bay, Edmonton and Victoria.

Doris McNab of the Vancouver Raging
Grannies said conference activities in-
cluded watching a video on media distor-
tions by Noam Chomsky. But mainly, the
groups got together to discuss issues and
swap songs, she said.

Grannies tunes are written to popular
melodies, but the words originate with the
various groups. “One granny writes a
song, brings it to the group, and you
wouldn’t believe the rewriting that goes
on. But it makes for better songs,” McNab

related.

Raging Granny dumps hér tea in the ocea
“no taxation without representation” pro
American Revolution.

nat Crescent

PHC TO — LISA EVANS

Beach in a parody of the
test in 1773 which helped launch the

Time running out for changes in peace body

By MIGUEL FIGUEROA

y any measure, the Athens Session of
the World Peace Council (WPC) was an
extraordinary event. Peace activists from
every continent — 98 national delegations
and 16 regional and international organiza-
tions in all — came to Greece Feb. 6-11 to
attend the session.
~ Faced with.a sapidly. changing interna-
onal situation and a looming financial and
Structural crisis within the organization,
Tadical renewal of the WPC was clearly on
the agenda. It remains to be seen, however,
if the organization met the challenge to

_Temain viable and relevant in the new condi-

tions.

The debate over the future direction and
Structure of the WPC has been raging for
Several years. At its 1986 Session in Sofia,
Bulgaria, delegates agreed to the need for
Major re-structuring, a new style of work,
and a greater role for national peace groups
' the world-wide body.

Recent upheavals, including the thaw in
the cold war and the historic changes in
Eastern Europe, make renewal of the
World’s peace movement that much more
urgent.

Several national committees, based

Primarily in western Europe and North

Merica, have become increasingly critical
of the top-heavy, bureaucratized structure
of the organization, the presence of sectar-
lan attitudes which inhibit contacts with
Other peace movements, and a resulting
failure of the WPC to effectively co-
Ordinate peace campaigning at the regional
and global level.

: Ina June, 1989 letter to the WPC Bureau,
Nine national committees, including the

anadian Peace Congress, stated that the
WPC “has been unable to promote and
ngage in an open critical and self-critical
debate on the new prospects and challeriges
Of peace work” and called on the organiza-
tion to move “in the direction of a network
Of survival, an open coalition, with its
bureaucracy dramatically cut.”

Over the intervening months, peace
Organizations in eastern Europe added their
Voices to the call for dramatic structural
changes. At a meeting in Moscow on the
Very eve of the Athens Session, Soviet Peace

ommittee secretary Grigori Lokchin
Noted that while the WPC Sofia meeting
had begun the process of change, further
Progress did not develop and that a “crisis”

now gripped the organization.

“Our movement has fallen behind the
pace of official diplomacy ... there is a lack
of new ideas and [we are] lagging behind the
times conceptually,” Lokchin said, adding
that while not negating the past achieve-
ments of the organization, there isa need for
“a new type of WPC [because] the present
WPC can.no longer serve the goals now
required — it’s obsolete.”

The WPC’s problems were compounded
by the grave financial crisis facing the organ-
ization. The Soviet and other eastern Euro-
pean peace committees, the Peace Council’s
main financial backers over the years, have
indicated that they are no longer willing or
able to fund the organization’s $1.5 million
(U.S.) annual budget. Donations-in-kind,
such as air transportation and publishing of
the WPC’s New Perspectives magazine,
would also be terminated.

At the Athens meeting, the debate
quickly focussed on the proposed new
structures and positions polarized between
those demanding and those resisting fun-

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

ROMESH CHANDRA ... a change in
title but real reform slow in coming.

damental changes.

The division lines centred around two
draft set of rules, one set presented by the
WPC Bureau, headed by president Romesh
Chandra, and an alternative draft intro-
duced by the Finnish and Czechoslovak
peace committees.

The bureau’s draft included some minor
structural reforms. but, in the opinion of
many delegations, maintained the old-style,
top-heavy structure. The Finnish-Czech
proposal was aimed at radically _ re-
structuring the organization along demo-
cratic lines.

The vast majority of delegates from the
developing countries supported the bureau’s
draft, wary that substantial changes would
also lead to the weakening of the organiza-
tion’s commitment to anti-imperialist solid-
arity.

They were also highly suspicious of
“euro-centrist” tendencies, warning that the
decline in military tensions in Europe did
not signal global changes in imperialist pol-
icy, as shown by the recent U.S. invasion of
Panama, Israel’s continued expansionist
policies in the Middle East and aggression
elsewhere around the world.

When the competing drafts were sent to a
special “rules and regulations” commission
for final drafting, a major debate ensued.
The chair, supported by a majority of the
delegates, ruled that the alternative draft
would not be discussed and most of the
western delegations walked out of the
commission meeting in frustration.

The walkout, however, seemed to bring
all of the delegations to their collective
senses, and following some negotiations, it
was agreed to set up a smaller “working
group” to propose a “consensus draft”
which would incorporate many of the
proposals raised by both sides. Ultimately a
compromise draft emerged which would
streamline the top bodies of the WPC and
place more control in the hands of its
member peace organizations.

According to Gordon Flowers, executive
director of the Canadian Peace Congress,
the walkout was necessary. ‘‘Otherwise
none of our concerns would have even been
partially addressed,” he said.

While some important reforms were
achieved in the WPC structure, there are
concerns that the leadership and the style of
work will remain unchanged. At the execu-
tive meeting (the new policy body of the

WPC) immediately following the session,
the monthly Peace Courier — one of the
few WPC services that has really improved
since the Sofia session — came under harsh
attack.

In terms of leadership, the changes
appear to be “more formal than substan-
tial” as well. Romesh Chandra was
appointed WPC “president of honour” and
Evangelos Maheras of the Greek Commit-
tee for International Detente and Peace,
was elected president.

Under the new rules, however, the presi-
dent of honour will become a full-time posi-
tion, while the presidential post will be
voluntary and rotating, suggesting that
Chandra will still play a dominant role in
the leadership.

According to Flowers, “the style and out-
look of the WPC will continue in the old
ways ... now with the financial crisis it is
unlikely that many national groups will
want to contribute unless the organization
initiates real action.”

The Feb. 20 executive meeting of the
Canadian Peace Congress drew the conclu-
sion that “the WPC, which we have all
cherished and supported for many years, is
in acute crisis and mere cosmetic changes
simply will not suffice.”

“Tt is our view that the overall task to
launch a renewal of the WPC was not
achieved. ... we find the organization so
decentralized the possibility of co-ordinated
work is unlikely. (It is)an organization with
a major financial crisis, and a leadership
unlikely to change its style or reach out to
build a new world disarmament coalition
Open to new groups.”

“Without real change it is our recom-
mendation that any future relationship with
the WPC should only be networking with
no special relationship such as affiliation.

_We should begin networking with other
international organizations and expand our
bilateral relations with both WPC and non-
WPC organizations, expand our solidarity
work and give priority to a campaign to
reduce military spending by 10 per cent per
year for the next ten years.”

Many other national organizations left
Athens with similar reservations about the
WPC’s future prospects. [t may yet be pos-
sible for the organization to renew its
approach and refurbish its image, but time,
money and grassroots support is running
out.

Pacific Tribune, March 5, 1990 « 7