Women for Peace and Justice in Iran www.women4peace.org
Revised
We support the recent student demonstrations in
We support the legitimate right of the people of
The Iranian people have a rich and long history of struggling for democracy and independence since the early 20th century. They were successful to replacing an autocratic monarchy with a constitutional monarchy in 1906. They struggled against British colonialism and later on against US Imperialism. The CIA defeated the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people in 1953 by bringing back to power the Shah of Iran. It took 25 years for the democratic, popular, non-violent and mass uprisings of the Iranian people to overthrow the regime of the Shah in 1979.
The Iranian people, the young and the old, men and women, workers and
students, people of all walks of life have continued in their varied form of
movements to achieve their legitimate and just goals. They have made great
strides and will continue to better their society. It is the Iranian people and
their genuine, native and grass-roots movement that will determine the goals
and slogans. If there is going to be a change of regime in
The greatest impediment in the victory of the just struggles of the people
of
In addition the intervention of the
The history of the US involvement in Iran and in other countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, Panama, Vietnam, and countless other shows that the US has always supported the most dictatorial forces in its covert and overt operations.
The US Government is hardly in a position to talk about other governments’ treatment of people while its military forces are occupying Iraq, it has sent an American Viceroy in the grand tradition of the 19th century colonialists to rule Iraq, while its soldiers are marshal on a marshal law all over Iraq, driving in their tanks with their machine guns and shooting Iraqi youth demonstrators.
President Bush "supports" the demonstrations of the students in
President Bush, Michael Ledeen of the American
Enterprise Institute, Rumsfeld and other
neoconservatives claim that they support democracy in
The only truthful reason for the involvement of US Government in
It is in this context that:
We condemn any and all forms of intervention by the
We support the self determination of the people of
We offer our ethical support to the Iranian People's struggles for peace and justice and for a better future for their country.
We accept the leadership of the Iranian grass –roots movement in setting up their own demands.
We ask all the organizations and individuals in the global peace and Justice movement to offer full support to the just aspirations of the Iranian People while respecting their self determination.
We ask that the American Peace and Justice movement express its strong and
unconditional opposition to any form of