Welcome to BASE21

By Green Korea United, leeyj@greenkorea.org

These days it is really hard to sleep. We live in a most dark and urgent situation. We have a tremendous pain from terror. We also have a fear from war. We offer our deepest condolences to the victims and all Americans who are grieving the incomprehensible loss caused by the attacks on September 11. Any kind of terror, which threatens innocent lives with such violence, cannot be justified by any excuse or under any pretext.

We are concerned with the reaction of the US government and don't agree with the US war of the retribution. Violence begets violence. We have to break the cycle of killing. Let's close our eyes and think about the children and people of Afghanistan. They are dying now. They are starving and escaping from their country because of fear and US/allies' decisions. It is not difficult to imagine how many innocent people will die from the war.

We have to choose life, not death! Missiles can not bring peace. The only thing that we want is peace. "No war on the earth!".

In Korea, all peace activists organized and participated in the anti-war movement. On October 10, 765 Korean civic organizations issued a joint statement and held a proclamative rally and march for the 'termination of war of retaliation, denouncement of Korean government's war support and peace on the Korean peninsula', to voice their repeated concern over the US attacks, and to denounce the plans of the Korean government which pledged to give full support to the US.

On October 23, a mass rally against war and globalization took place where more than 6,000 people gathered and expressed their strong wills for peace. More anti-war rallies are being planned in Korea.