This working group examines the links between militarism and corporate influence to dominate and control the world's resources. Many transnational corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAe Systems are deeply involved in promoting - and receiving - multi-billion dollar contracts to build and support Star Wars and the nuclear arsenal. We demonstrate how economic interests of corporations influence and drive military policy and we are building new connections to the anti-corporate globalization movement.

News & Events

Military-Corporate Working Group Update Fall 2003
Steven Staples, Alice Slater

The tremendous growth in the anti-war movement and the global concern and media attention to weapons of mass destruction, nuclear abolitionists have been given new opportunities to educate the public about the continued dangers of nuclear weapons, and to draw in activists into anti-nuclear work.

One of the most exciting developments was the September 13th 2003 world-wide call for actions against "globalization and militarism." Actions were held around the world to protest the WTO's during its ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. The actions linked the expansion of the unfair global economy as part of the same grand strategy the relies on the threat of pre-emptive war and nuclear weapons.

Members of the Military-Corporate working group have been working with many organizations that have not traditionally been part of the peace movement on nuclear abolition and broader peace issues. In Cancun, groups from North America, South East Asia and Latin America came together to organize a 3-hour seminar on globalization and war. More than 200 people attended the event which was standing-room only and one of the best attended seminars of the week.

See:
From Sea Turtles to Smart Bombs: How the Anti-Globalization Movement Is Taking on the Global War Machine

Contact Information

Steven Staples
Director
The Rideau Institute
Abolition 2000 Secretariat
30 Metcalfe St., Suite 500,
Ottawa ON   K1P 5L4   Canada
tel:+1-613-565-7832
e:mail: sstaples@rideauinstitute.ca
www.rideauinstitute.ca

Alice Slater
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment
215 Lexington Ave., Suite 1001
New York, NY 10016 USA
Tel: 212-726-9161
Fax: 212-726-9160
aslater@gracelinks.org