Open Letter to the Canadian Peace Congress
For a Principled Anti‐imperialist Position on
the Democratic Republic of Congo
Halt PM Harper’s Attempt for a New War
By: Don Currie
Chair Canadians for Peace & Socialism
Editor Focus on Socialism
April 26, 2010
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca
Dear Comrades and Friends
April 26th, 2010
I am writing to you as a member of the Canadian Peace Congress. I am also writing in my
capacity as Chair of Canadians for Peace and Socialism and editor of Focus On Socialism,
www.focusononsocialism.ca
I am a former member of the interim‐executive of the Canadian Peace Congress. I attended
and participated in the WPC Conference on Foreign Military Bases in Havana Cuba in October
2005 and there attended the Secretariat of the WPC Council where the Canada Peace
Congress formally paid its dues and rejoined the WPC. I was for a time the acting member
for Canada on the WPC Executive. All of the work and expenses associated with Canadian
participation and attending the Havana event was the result of the generous and active
support of the Regina Peace Council. Others who encouraged and supported the
reactivization of Canada’s role in the WPC and supported the costs of my attending were
John and Betty Beeching of Vancouver, life long supporters and activists in the Canadian
Peace Congress. John Beeching is a former Chair of the Vancouver Peace Council. Canadians
for Peace and Socialism also made a generous contribution. No other groups or individuals
participated in or supported that effort.
Along with others I was an active organiser‐participant at the Edmonton April 2006 Meeting
of the peace activists and former members of the Canadian Peace Congress who came
together to re‐found the Canadian Peace Congress. It was formally decided to re‐found the
Congress and work towards a Renewal Convention. Sylvia Bradley Currie, an active life long
builder of the peace movement and the Canadian Peace Congress moved the motion to re‐
found the Canadian Peace Congress. The motion was supported unanimously.
It was at the Edmonton Meeting where delegates decided that the Congress would resume
its active work by organizing the World Peace Council Work Shop on Imperialism at the
World Peace Forum in Vancouver June 2006. Sylvia Bradley Currie and I assumed the main
responsibility for organizing that event making several trips to Vancouver. We met Orlando
Fundoro Lopez, President of the WPC and discussed Canadian participation at the World
Peace Forum. Cathy Fischer, Editor of the Saskatchewan Peace News, Peter Gehl vice‐
president of the Regina Peace Council, Sean Currie, Chair of the Edmonton Peace Council
and Jeanette Hanly Morgan former executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress gave
all of their energies to that project.
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Sean Currie, Chair of the Edmonton Peace Council subsequently attended the World Peace
Council Regional Meeting in Caracas and established the working relationship between the
Canadian Peace Congress and the Venezuelan organizers of the World Peace Council
Assembly. It was the result of that work that the organizing of the Canadian delegation to
the WPC Assembly was facilitated and actually took place. The work of organizing the
Canadian delegation to the WPC World Assembly, including participation of President Dave
McKee at that event was the direct result of that process.
Following the WPC World Assembly, I was an active organizer‐participant of the
Extraordinary Renewal Convention of the Canadian Peace Congress in Winnipeg Manitoba
October 2008 and authored the draft main resolution below. The Constitution of the
Canadian Peace Congress was drafted and submitted for approval by Peter Gehl, Vice‐
President of the Regina Peace Council.
I was organizer‐participant of the Canadian delegation to the World Peace Forum Assembly
Caracas Venezuela April 2008 and delivered greetings to the assembly on behalf of Canada
as the acting member of the outgoing WPC Executive. Sean Currie was Chair of the Forum
on Indigenous Peoples. The Canadian delegation attended the joint meeting of Canada,
Mexico and the USA and the Regional Director for the Americas at the World Peace Council
Assembly in Caracas where we jointly discussed and agreed on the process that led us to the
Tri‐Lateral WPC Conference in Toronto October 2009. I was an active participant in
organizing the event and drafted the call to the Tri‐Lateral Conference and attended the
Toronto meeting as a delegate representing the Southern Interior of the BC.
I am a life long activist for peace and member‐supporter of the Canadian Peace Congress
since 1952. Along with thousands of other Canadians, my wife and I gathered signatures on
the first Ban the Bomb Campaign and later the Stockholm Peace Appeal and all subsequent
campaigns of the WPC and the Canadian Peace Congress.
I mention these things for one reason and one reason only, to forestall any suggestion that
what I have to say may lack legitimacy since I am no longer on the executive of the Canadian
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Peace Congress or hold any formal post in the WPC. I am a rank and file member of the
Canadian Peace Congress and supporter of the WPC and happy to be so.
What is my concern? I have seen many wars in my time and have a fairly good instinct about
when another major one is being planned by imperialism. Preventing even one war
instigated by imperialism from taking place will be a victory for peace.
The Canadian news media is full of speculation about the Harper Conservative minority
government considering participation in another imperialist adventure, this time in Africa.
What is being discussed and actively promoted by imperialist reaction is some from of new
and direct military intervention in the internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
We have very little information as to what is happening in the DRC except that the leading
imperialist states covet the rich resources of that country, and are involved in meddling and
fomenting regional conflict and what appears to me to be a hostile intent towards the
current Kabila Government.
A direct intervention by imperialism in DRC will be under some US‐NATO mandate. It will be
undertaken in collusion with the UN Security Council and the UN forces already in the
country. US‐NATO sponsored meddling in DRC can result in a major war in one of the
biggest countries in Africa where the progressive forces have been struggling from the time
they won independence under the leadership of the great patriot and revolutionary Patrice
Lumumba. It will compound the terrible suffering of the people of the DRC and other
African countries as well.
The Canadian Peace Congress executive must immediately discuss this turn of events and in
consultation with the World Peace Council, and the WPC Regional Director for the Americas,
adopt a policy decision and issue a public statement condemning any military participation
by Canada that interferes in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. Other African countries, in particular the peace forces in South Africa should
be contacted through the WPC and be urged to participate in any international effort for
peace.
Should Canadian participation in a new military adventure in the DRC take place it will be
promoted to the Canadian people under the bogus doctrine of the former Liberal
Government and its former Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy the main author of the
“responsibility to intervene”, “failed states’ and other such subterfuges that attempt to
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justify imperialist military interventionist wars on spurious grounds to cover up the aim of
securing raw material resources and suppressing the anti‐imperialist forces and oppressing
the people.
We are all aware that NATO is presently involved in an effort to recast its image from an
aggressive military alliance to one with a “social agenda”.
The World Peace Council is well aware of the history of the struggle of the people of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo against imperialist domination and control of their
country and its vast natural resources. The great people’s hero, Patrice Lumumba gave his
life for that noble cause.
We are very much in need of a reliable analysis of events in the DRC and in particular any
statements from its present government about what its attitude will be to further foreign
intervention. It is very difficult to find reliable information.
I call upon all who receive this message to immediately consider what must be done to
become informed, to adopt a principled anti‐imperialist position and to make it known
publicly. There is little doubt in my mind that imperialism is seeking a deeper and permanent
military presence in the DRC.
The internet is full of speculative articles by reactionary think tanks about where Canada’s
“next war” will be after it withdraws from Afghanistan in 2011. The Canadian Peace
Congress must condemn such war mongering and call upon the Canadian people to demand
its government promote peace, not imperialist war in Africa.
In Peace and Solidarity
Don Currie, Chair Canadian for Peace and Socialism
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