Women take message to Bush (From Stroud News and Journal)

Women take message to Bush

ANTI-WAR campaigners from Stroud plan to take their message of peace to Washington DC.

Carol Kambites and Grace Trevett, members of Stroud's Women Opposing War (WOW) group walked from Stroud to London last year to hand Tony Blair a postcard protesting against the bombing of Afghanistan.

Now they will now join American peace campaigners in the US capital. The pair will take part in a Stop the War at Home and Abroad rally in the streets of Washington on Saturday, April 20.

"There has been an appeal for active support from people from outside the United States," said Ms Trevett. "So we are sending two representatives."

They will take a peace scroll full of messages from people in the Five Valleys who would like to see a non-military solution to the problems in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

"It will show our support for the American Peace Movement," said Ms Trevett.

"Despite what we see on the news not all American people are in agreement with their government's policies.

"The first night bombs were dropped on Afghanistan 10,000 peace people came out into the streets of New York in protest."

Ms Trevett said peace campaigners had faced some opposition from the public while mounting their nightly vigil in Stroud High street but that was nothing compared with the hostility faced by Americans who openly voiced their lack of support for the war.

"The White House has promised a war without end," she said. "The people in America who are coming out and opposing the government have to be incredibly brave to do that.

"I'm just glad we've got the opportunity to support them.

"It's time for all of us to cherish freedom and democracy and make the governments accountable for what's happening," she said.

"There has to be another way of resolving things, rather than blindly going into other countries and destroying human life.

"What's being proposed at the moment by our governments is taking us to a place of absolute madness."

Anyone who would like to add their own message to the peace scroll should speak to the peace activists who mount a short nightly vigil in Stroud's High Street from 5.30pm.