Minutes of General Meeting
March 29, 2007

A General Meeting for USC4P&J was held at the home of Maria V. on March 29 Attending were: Maria V., Patrick, Gen, David, Ilona, Anna, Maria Chiara and Stephanie.

1. Discussion of the "Organizational Structure and Operating Mechanisms" laying out the principles and policies of our group as well as rules and guidelines for the members' mailing list.

The two documents, which had been circulated via email, were discussed and revised. Changes included:

• Adding a section explaining that this is an all-volunteer group, there are no members' dues and members may contribute economically to the group's activities.
• Changing from monthly meetings to bi-monthly (every two months). Members felt that monthly meetings were not necessary, also in light of the fact that many members already attend two films per month. It was decided that meetings of smaller working groups to organize events/initiatives would be more effective.
• Annual elections would be conducted online, with the membership appointing an Elections Administrator at the general meeting preceding the elections.
• On the mailing list rules, it was suggested that an explanation of the two lists, announce and members, be added.
• And for members wishing to discuss the issues on-line, the USC4P&J forums will be activated. This will allow those interested to post as much as they want without filling the inboxes of all our members.

The revised documents will be circulated once again to the membership asking for an up/down vote or to let us know if anyone thinks they need more work.

2. Discussion of upcoming events in the U.S. and ways to support them in Rome:

• April 28 Impeachment Day ( www.impeach07.org or www.a28.org) Members agreed to support this initiative which aims at "spelling out" IMPEACH in creative ways across the U.S., and now in Rome, in order to call attention to the growing movement for impeachment. A call to the membership will be made to form a working group to discuss the best methods for our group.
• June 10 The World Says No to Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org) We agreed to send an endorsement from our group to the initiative in the U.S. and to postpone talking about how we will support this initiative until the date is closer. It was noted that although we are endorsing the call in the U.S., we will still consider the groups organizing and the platform for any demonstrations organized in Rome.
• Two proposal from Traduttori per la pace :
  • Coro della resistenza -the idea is to form a choir to sing anti-war songs in English and Italian and animate protests. We decided to support this initiative and send a call to the membership so those interested can meet with Traduttori per la pace.
  • Non-violence for a Change - screening of the video (in English with Italian subtitles) and meeting on non-violent activism. This will be organized by several groups, with a tentative date set for May 19. A planning meeting will be held, tentatively, on April 16. It was decided we will support this initiative and a working group will be formed to organize with Traduttori per la pace.
• Rete Lilliput in Cremona - we have been invited to speak in Cremona on the peace movement in the U.S. The date is set for April 13. Either Gene or Stephanie will travel to Cremona for this meeting.
• Free the Afghan Prisoners - rally organized by Emergency on Mar 31 at P. Navona. It was decided we would support this rally and be present with our U.S. peace flag.

3. Gen suggested forming a reading group to study conflict resolution and brought 4 books which were distributed to members. A meeting will be held at a future date to discuss the content of the books and ways to apply the techniques to our group and our work.

4. Maria Chiara attended a meeting on Afghanistan organized by ARCI, Beatti i Costruttori di Pace, Tavola della Pace and others. She reported on the meeting, the situation with reconstruction funds going for the most part (70%) to contractors, the opium trade and the upcoming Peace Conference. Italian groups will work to organize a seminar on Afghanistan by June 2007. See below her notes on the conclusions of the meeting.

Next General Meeting: May 2007, exact date to be announced. Join our mailing list for updates.

Conclusions of a public meeting held on March 25th at Ex Hotel Bologna Via di Santa Chiara Roma

A path towards and justice in Afghanistan; considerations and proposals of the civil society.

www.afgana.org

Among the others Giuliana Sgrena, Sen. Francesco Martone, Vittorio Agnoletto, Luciano Vecchi (responsible member of DS at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Elettra Diana, deputy, Gianni Rufini (professor of Humanitarian Aid and peace keeping at York University) attended the meeting.

The meeting has been organized 24 hours before the vote at the Senato about the financing of military missions. It is meant to be a contribution to the defining an alternative plan for Afghanistan. To carry it out the persons who will sign the appeal, will set up a tavolo di lavoro permanente that will help to build a shared working plan: among other proposals there is a seminar held by international experts and delegates of the Afghan civil society, a mission in Afghanistan.

First of all we promise to do our best in order that the Italian Government may succeed in obtaining the liberation of the two Afghan people who are still in the hands of Taleban and of the Afghan Services.

We all agree that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse and more dramatic every day and so we firmly believe that it is necessary to elaborate an alternative, effective, multidisciplinary peace program. A global approach is needed because the situation is very complicated. Everybody should work with this in mind. We should urge politicians to organize the peace conference. We hope that after the vote at the Senate it will be possible to start a new route towards peace.

We wish that in Afghanistan not only armed troops but politics and diplomacy will be at work again; even if it is realistic to state that at the moment soldiers will have to stay there, we must think seriously about different recruitment rules.

We think of creating a tavolo permanente in view of the peace conference, in cooperation with other groups already existing in order to study different aspects of the Afghan situation, social reality, etc. Everybody should choose a work area to devote his/her interest. The deadline has been fixed at the end of June.

Some points to treat in view of the peace conference can be:

• How to set up peace negotiations
• How to treat with enemies
• How to increase humanitarian aids
• To elaborate and provide good means of defence of civilians
• Which should be the extension of the UN mandate
• Should only NATO be present? Also Islamic countries should attend the conference
• An international police force is needed
• To break the mechanism of international contracts: in fact 70% of the resources assigned for people have gone to contractors and subcontractors
• Opium: to set up laboratories for experiments in different areas. To eradicate poppies and try alternative cultivations is very hard to propose because they are usually less remunerative than opium. One should buy from peasants tomatoes or potatoes at the same price as opium! If one buys drug from drug traffickers to buy medicines for Afghans, the money goes to warlords.
• How to guarantee free information from dangerous areas? (Mastrogiacomo's kidnapping is a sign that the situation in Afghanistan is worsening also for journalists). Do people think that information is important from difficult areas? If so it is not only the individual journalist's problem, but everybody should feel responsible. If nobody writes about Afghanistan, people will forget about the problems of that country. Iraq is slowly slipping from people's attention; in Iraq there are only embedded journalists.

We plan to organize a seminar lasting 1 day, or 1 half day, divided in various sections.

We should try to communicate with the whole of the Afghan society, not only with groups that are more similar to us.

We should also produce some elements in view of a peace plan in Afghanistan.

Maria Chiara