Letter to Helen Clark

14 October 2001

Helen Clark, Prime Minister,
Parliament Buildings,
Wellington.

Dear Helen Clark,

“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretext whatsoever.” Quaker Declaration to Charles II, 1661.

Wellington Quakers Peace and Public Questions Committee ask you to call for an immediate end to the United States attacks on Afghanistan.

We are sure that such military actions will exacerbate and not solve the problem of why the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were attacked. It seems certain that the attacks on the United States were largely in response to the way in which they have been pursuing their political and economic objectives in many parts of the world.

We draw to your attention the following report; “UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 (IPS) - The overriding messages from this week's General Assembly debate over terrorism are that retribution should be secondary to building a global anti-terrorism alliance that addresses the causes of violence - and that this alliance should be led by the United Nations, not the United States.”

We urge you to say to the United States that New Zealand is happy to engage in United Nations-approved, truly international policing actions to deter world terrorism. That we are willing to play our part in international mediation, but that we will not engage in a war controlled by the United States against whichever unfortunate nations are named as their enemies at the time.

The United States' best friends are those who will tell them that their only real means of defence will be, (1) to cease their own acts of terrorism, for example, those perpetrated on Iraq over the last eleven years, (2) to begin to make amends for the damage done, (3) to bring criminal acts of terrorism to justice through legal channels (we are heartened in this regard to note Britain's recent decision to ratify the International Criminal Court treaty).

We urge you to say to the United States that their military interventions have no place in a world seeking ways to live amicably and without terrorism.

Sincerely,

Tony Maturin.
For Wellington Quakers Peace and Public Questions Committee.

cc: DPM, Matt Robson, Rod Donald, Bill English, Winston Peters.

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