Cathy Deppe
Cathy Deppe gained "new insights from recent participation in the annual peace conferences commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki", in Japan.[1]
Berlin trip
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” This is a favorite Robert Frost line I mused over on my first trip to Berlin for the International Peace Bureau (IPB) World Peace Conference. My husband Alex and I were in Berlin to represent the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Council (NWTRCC), based in New York.
Germany was readying for Unity Day on October 3, a national holiday celebrating the day “The Wall” came down, and the people of Germany were once again united. I could hardly wait to take my first walk in this bustling, rebuilt city, east through the Tiergarten to the famous Brandenburg Gate that anchored the Berlin Wall for 27 years. At first obscured from sight by an immense Ferris wheel set up for Unity Day festivities, the Gate soon came into spectacular view as a testament to peace. Germany, knowing the consequences of war, has admitted more of the world’s 65.3 million refugees than any other country.
In another testament to peace, a disarmament action was in full swing in the Platz der Republik, outside the Reichstag. The unveiling of artist Joe Hill’s astonishing interactive painting “#3DnukeBerlin” introduced the IBP press conference. Though I had not yet unpacked our NWTRCC banner, I was honored to help display another proclaiming “Ban Uranium Weapons.” I was to learn much more about this issue in the coming days.
Our coalition partner in Berlin was the Conscience and Peace Tax International (CPTI), a collection of war tax resisters and peace tax campaigners with a conscientious objection to paying for war. CPTI has special consultative status at the United Nations, and promotes the aim that since the UN already recognizes that since human beings are free to reject military violence, therefore “no person shall be compelled to participate in military violence, directly or indirectly through military taxation.” Conscientious objection to military service is a basic right outlined by the UN Human Rights Council as early as 1987, and reaffirmed July 5, 2002, in a resolution entitled “Conscientious objection to military service.”[2]