Cabinet-level office of peace urged

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Paula M. Davis

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Just under 100 people from several Midwest states gathered in downtown Kalamazoo this weekend to talk about creating a U.S. Department of Peace.

The current clash between Israel and Hezbollah demonstrates why the United States needs a cabinet-level department promoting peaceful means to resolve conflict, U.S. Rep. John Conyers says.

The Detroit Democrat was one of Saturday's speakers for the three-day conference put on by The Peace Alliance, a national group championing the creation of an arm of the government that advocates nonviolence, both here and abroad.

Conyers pointed to news reports in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out suggestions the United States call for an immediate cease-fire in this latest Middle East clash.

He suggested that history shows skirmishes like this one can escalate into a worldwide conflict if not extinguished.

``Why is she going (then)? What is she the Secretary of State for? Why did she study under Kissinger all of these years?'' Conyers said.

``That captures the insanity of so many people in positions of governance in Washington. ... There's nobody around the president who would dare suggest the kind of things that would have to come out of us examining our options through a department of peace,'' Conyers said.

`We have to have an official presence in the cabinet, in the government in which there are people looking for options that are not war,'' he said.

Rice ruled out what she called a quick, ``false promise'' cease-fire in the Middle East and defended her decision not to meet with Syrian or Hezbollah leaders in her visit to the region. Rice said she will work with allies to help create conditions for ``stability and lasting peace.'' Her visit was to start today.

Conyers said he's one of over 70 U.S. lawmakers who officially support legislation for the department of peace. There are bills in both the U.S. Senate and the House, introduced last September.

ynn McMullen, national campaign manager, said the idea of a U.S. Department of Peace has been raised more than 80 times since the 1790s. This recent campaign started in the summer of 2001, when Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced legislation.

The department's broad agenda would include not only finding ways to peacefully address discord in the world, but also domestic issues like gang violence, child abuse and the burgeoning prison population, McMullen said.

There would be assistant secretaries for education, technology, human and economic rights, domestic peace activities and international peace activities.

Internationally, the department would hold world peace summits. The secretary of peace would advise the secretaries of state and defense, as well as the ambassador to the United Nations on national security matters.

``It's not an anti-military campaign. It's not an anti-war campaign. It's not an anti-Bush campaign. It's not an anti-Republican campaign,'' McMullen said. ``We are in favor of the Department of Peace.''

Organizers have held conferences like the one in Kalamazoo this weekend all over the country since April.

The goal is to have the campaign take root across the country, with local organizers urging their lawmakers to get on board with it.

Tom Small, an organizer of Kalamazoo Non-violent Opponents of War, said creating an actual department would give nonviolence a presence in key discussions.

``That would put the government behind an effort to offer alternative solutions to conflict and to put more of its resources and more of its thought into the prevention of violence rather than meeting violence with violence,'' he said.

The Rev. Cecelia Lucas, a priest from Milwaukee who attended the conference, says a department of peace would give authenticity to what the country says it values.

``We talk about wanting to make peace all the time, when all our funds and our energy and our attention are going into weapons and war, how can we actually be making peace?'' she said.

``For me it's a spiritual concept, too. You reap what you sow,'' she said. ``So if you're sowing seeds of apples, you're not going to get oranges. If you're sowing seeds of war, how are you going to get peace?''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.