PHA-Exchange> KWRU: Urgent call from the USA

[SAULELYDIS at aol.com]

Greetings to everyone we met in Mumbai in January. It would great to have PHM 
have some role in these events in August. Please see www.marchforourlives.org 
and www.kwru.org for further information and updates and photos of recent 
activities here in the US. 

Please contact us, 
Jen Cox, Tara Colon
KWRU

Dear Friends in the International Community:

We, the movement of the poor in the United States, known as the Poor People's 
Economic Human Rights Campaign,  are in an increasingly dangerous struggle 
for human rights under the government of George W. Bush. We need the support of 
the international community! Please support us as we fight for an alternative 
to this nightmare that we, and all of you, are living under Bush.

We ask that:

1) Your organization or movement endorse our March for Our Lives and 
Bushville in August (see below). Letters of solidarity would be great and/ or you can 
fill out the form at www.marchforourlives.org ("Get Involved" section) and 
send it to us.

2) Your organization or movement send representatives to be human rights 
observers in August and/ or accompany us in some other way from wherever you are.

Thank you. Please contact us to see how we can work together for "another 
world."

Jen Cox
International Relations Coordinator
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
______________________________________________________________________

AN URGENT CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS OBSERVERS

>From August 23 to August 30, poor and homeless families from across the 
United States, led by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, will set up 
a tent city called BUSHVILLE in the New York City area. On August 30, 2004, 
thousands of poor and homeless families and others from across the United 
States will peacefully march on opening day of the Republican National Convention 
from New York City's United Nations at 45th and 1st Avenue through downtown 
Manhattan to the site of the RNC at Madison Square Garden. 

The MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: STOP THE WAR AT HOME will show for the world the 
miserable conditions and human rights violations being suffered by people in the 
United States, as both parties have abandoned the poor. We will march because, 
as poverty, hunger, unemployment and homelessness grow throughout this 
country, we have been abandoned by our political leaders from both parties, and we 
cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to be "disappeared" from the 
public eye and the political debates as our families suffer.

We send out an urgent call to the international community to send HUMAN 
RIGHTS OBSERVERS to Bushville and to the March for Our Lives: Stop the War at Home.

NOW MORE THAN EVER, we need the eyes of the international human rights 
community to be on the United States, to ensure that we are able to get our message 
out to the nation and to the world about the suffering of the poor in the 
richest country in the world.

While the US government continues to make war and hurt people around the 
world, it is committing grave human rights violations against its own people as 
well, implementing economic policies that impoverish and kill people across the 
US (homelessness, unemployment, denial of health care, water and heat, food, 
education), while at the same time limiting and repressing efforts of the poor 
and others to speak out on the human rights situation in the US. The real 
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION are the policies which have left millions without 
housing, food, water, heat, health care and education in our own country and 
around the world.

The PPEHRC is organizing Bushville and the March for Our Lives to make 
visible the suffering and struggle of the poor in the US. Our lives depend on our 
speaking out and telling our story to the world: yet when we speak out we are 
jailed, threatened, our families are attacked and our children are taken away by 
the government. Our families and lives are at risk either way, but all we 
have left is our voice, and so we appeal to the world community at this dangerous 
time in history.

During the week-long Bushville, we will be highlighting the WEAPONS OF MASS 
DESTRUCTION which exist in our country, and which are being used to violate 
human rights in this country and around the world. At Bushville, we will be 
taking international observers on a special "Reality Tour" in which we will expose 
these true WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION to be documented by the international 
human rights community.

Please see www.kwru.org or contact Jen Cox at kwru at kwru.org for more 
information on being an human rights observer at Bushville and the March for Our Lives 
this August in New York City.