Tri-Valley CAREs
Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
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Thursday, February 22, 2018
Posted by Marylia Kelley
Representatives of Bay Area peace groups, including Tri-Valley CAREs, will gather Sunday, February 25, from 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm to watch the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and call for dialogue and diplomacy with North Korea.
The watch party will take place at the Café Valparaiso, 1403 Solano Avenue, Albany, California. RSVP is required to Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, at [email protected] or to Marylia Kelley at [email protected]. Media are encouraged to attend.
In November 2017, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an Olympic Truce, or a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games, which gained the support of 157 Member States including both Koreas and future hosts of the Olympic Games: Japan, China, France and the United States. The truce period spans the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, from February 2 – March 25, 2018
The Olympic Closing Ceremony watch party is part of a national Olympic Truce Campaign, endorsed by 135 organizations. As noted in the Olympic Truce Call to Action, another war with North Korea would be disastrous. It could easily go nuclear. It should be unthinkable, and there are peaceful diplomatic alternatives.
Speakers at the Olympic Closing Ceremony watch party will include Paul Liem, Chair of the Korea Policy Institute, and Ann Wright, US Army Colonel, (ret), former US Diplomat, now with Women Cross DMZ and Veterans For Peace. Rafael Jesus Gonzales, Poet Laureate of Berkeley will read a new poem written specifically for this occasion.
Claire Greensfelder, representing NoWarWithNorthKorea.org, a campaign of INOCHI / A World Without Armies, will unveil the groups’ new billboard and bumper sticker campaign. Other visuals will include signs and banners.
Members of the Bay Area Korea Collaboration are using the occasion of the Olympic Closing Ceremony to call for an indefinite extension of the Olympic Truce, indefinite postponement of joint US-South Korean military exercises, US support for a proposed North-South Korea Summit, leading to direct talks between the US and North Korea, and an official end to the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice with a permanent peace treaty.