It’s a great honour for me to accept the invitation to give this lecture. Lewis Valentine was Plaid Cymru’s first president and its first parliamentary candidate in Caernarfonshire in 1929. But he has a place in Welsh history in particular because of his part in the burning of the bombing school in Penyberth in Llþn. In the context of the events of the last few months, the significance of that deed is even more important.

It’s worth reminding ourselves of what led up to the burning of the bombing school In 1932 in the World Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, a new agreement was presented to forbid air bombing because of its generally destructive effects and the likelihood of killing many innocent people. Britain was mainly responsible for the failure of the agreement. Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister at the time, justified his opposition on the grounds that defence means having to kill the enemy’s women and children more quickly than they can kill our women and children. Their intention was to rearm with a central role for the airforce.

In 1935 The Peace Ballot was held in Wales, England and Scotland by the League of Nations Union. The third question on the ballot was “Are you infavour of banning warplanes of every kind through international agreement?” Almost a thousand people in Wales voted for this proposition, with the highest vote in the three countries in Caernarfon, Montgomeryshire, Meirionydd, Cardiganshire and Anglesey.. The response to the ballot in Wales was astounding. People declared clearly that they were against the war plans.

This was ignored by the British Government and they continued with their huge rearmament schemes. Furthermore, they decided to settle an essential part of the scheme, a school to train bombing skills, in Caernarfonshire.

This is what Lewis Valentine wrote to act against the bombing school in 1936. He said in court:

"We could not be dumb and silent – life would not be worth a fig if we kept quiet. It would be a betrayal of our children’s inheritance, and it would be a shameful and foul thing to live in doing so We could not remain silent. Better death than shame.”

His words re-echo today..

At the beginning of this year millions o f people throughout the world protested against the plans of Britaniand the USA to attack Iraq. Tony Blair and George Bush gave the same justrivcation for war as Stanley Baldwin ddn in 1932: the people of Iraq had to be killed before they could kill us with their weapons of mass destruction. But people didn’t believe that Iraq was a threat. “Not in our name” was shouted across the country

I’ve been busy with the peace movement for 35 years, but I’ve never seen such spontaneous protestions and anger and fear that we had this year. As in the Peace Ballot in the Thirties, people of every background, age, religion, society expressed their view: writing letters, marching, holding vigils and meetings, praying, pupils marching out of school. Once again, the British Government ignored the will of the people. It went to war..

Night after night we saw all the cruelty of the airbombing on Tele. 725 Cruise missiles, fifty cluster bombs, 12,000 guided missiles. I can’t begin to imagine the terror of the people beneath those bombs. It’ not sure how many thousands were killed and inhured but independent research estimates that between 5542 and 7216 of ordinary people were killed in the war – over 5,000 innocent children, women and men.And for what? We saw on Tele one little child who lost his family and was seriously hurt by the bombs. But we didn’t see the others.

And what about the weapons of mass destruction? The justification for the war. There’s still no evidence of their existence. If Hans Blix and his inspectors had had the time needed to finish their work it could all have been solved peacefully. We have the International Criminal Court and Court of Justice in the Hague where Saddam Hussein should have been condemned for his crimes. Me have international agreements to control mass destructive nuclear and chemical weapons as Britain possesses, and we have bodies established to run them and monitor them. We can choose the way of peace. But they chose war.

Now the government is trying to justify the war on the grounds that they have “freed” the people of Iraq. It seems Saddam Hussein has gone and everybody’s glad – glad to see the end of a cruel tyrant who didn’t think twie of killing thousands of his own people. But at what cost? And does anything we have seen or heard justify the terrible human cost? Can such oppression promise a better future for Iraq?

What does the future hold for Iraq now?

I went to Iraq before the war in February this year with a group of the European Parliament from 11 different countries. Our intention was to raise awareness of the human situation in the land. The visit was rranged by a help agency and the UN Arms Inspectors were still working.

Conditions in Iraq were frightening.. The conomic sanctions imposed since 1990 had more or less destroyed essential services, especially, health, education water and sewerage, communications and the supply of energy.

We met Dr Waleed Majeed who has worked with the International CARE Movement in Iraq since 1991. He said the clinics and hospitals were getting worse rapidly and that medical equipment like incubators at least 20 years too old. Scarcity of equipment was causing horrendous problems. Sanctions on writing materials such as medical books had made it almost impossible to proved for health personnel to give the best and latest treatment to their patients. I Met a doctor under instruction who earned 11 dollars a month for working 24 hours with three days rest every fortnight. He said he’d be working a hundred years on that pay before he could buy a house in Iraq.

I visited two hospitals in Baghdad and Basra to meet the staff as well as patients. It wasn’t to easy towalk round full words, seeing very sick children with their families round them sitting on the beds and the floor. I felt as if I were interfering and felt most uncomfortable. That is, until the mothers began to call me to them and their children. Like mothers all over the world, they were trying to protect their children in the only way they could. They even asked me to take photos and show the world what they were suffering because of the lack of facilities and proper care. I talked to doctors who were literally seeing people dying before their eyes because of the lack of drugs. 20% of the drugs were banned by the sanctions because of “double usage” i.e. the possibility they could be used for military purposes. At that time the statistics showed that deaths among children had doubled during the las ten years. I saw frightening photographic evidence and figures that showed the increase of defects at birth since the Gulf War of 1991 following the expanded use of weapons fitted with uranium. There was an increase of thirteen times in the numbers suffering from leukaemia and a fivefold increase in other forms of cancer in some districts.

That war destroyed the water system and sewerage systems and as a result diseases once under control began to reappear. When we were there we were even warned not to use tap water to clean our teeth as it was infected. We saw untreated sewage falling straight into the river Tigris. This was the water that people drank and still drink apparently.

I met the director of the Work Food Programme in Iraq who explained how the programme Oil for Food works. This is the programme to distribute food to the Iraqi population of 25 million. About 16 million people were entirely dependent on it for survival. War would destroy the distribution of food and have a terrible effect on most of the population, he said, and we have already seen proof of that.

I went to Iraq to meet the people and see the human situation for myself. It did not seem like a country preparing for war. People were trying to live normal lives, seeing that war was inevitable. Life was a daily war for them. There’s no evidence that their lives have improved since the war. American forces have managed to secure the oil wells and ministry but can’t defend hospitals from being looted. 500 oil fields are under American and British control. One contract after the other is being given to American companies: worth up to 6 billion pounds of reconstruction work in Iraq after US bombs caused destruction. It’s the people of Iraq who are paying. It’s immoral and unseemly. The United Nations are the only body with the right to supervise developments in Iraq nawr and ensure a democratic government is in place..

The war has not brought justice nor democracy. Nor peace. Peace means much more than the absence of war. There’s no peace without justice and that means living without fear, without threats to life or health or the community.

No place proves this more than Palestine. My visit to that country last May has changed my life. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there.

One image that will stay with for ever is Bethlehem under curfew. Like a ‘ghost town’. We managed to pass a road barrier after finally persuading the soldiers . The street were empty– no cars, no people. Went slowly in our little bus up to the Square of the Nativity It was a strange sensation. To be in a place so significant and holy to every Christian and find it under the worst kind of oppression. We asked to driver to stop the bus. He did so but was so full of fear that he refused to get out with us as the soldiers were around ready to shoot those who broke the curfew and go on the street. Rather confident that they wouldn’t shoot at us we walked through the silent street. Soon people were coming to their windows and smiling and waving at us – some were laughing and clapping and thanking us for challenging the authority f the army. We met Palestinian MPs but rather than meet them in their offices we met them in their houses. We heard from them about the recent weeks. They’d been living like this for weeks, unable to leave their homes to go to work nor to the nor to see a doctor nor go the mosque to pray. The Church was shut and priests risking their lives in order to take food and help to families. The whole town was being punished because of suspicions, unproven, that a self-sacrificing bomber came from Bethlehem. This was a “mass” punishment by the Israeli government, breaking international law according to 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventional

I was in Bethlehem 6 months earlier, the day after the siege of the Church of the Nativity came to an end. At that time, the atmosphere was quite different. After 39 days the soldiers had withdrawn. During the siege the church bells had been silent for the first time within memory. That Sunday the rang ceaselessly. People were out on the street celebrating, greeting friends and neighbours they hadn’t seen for such a long time. Evidence of the army was everywhere – burnt cars, bullet cases like confetti under foot. But the people were so glad to be “free” – it was like a fair in atmosphere. I stood on the flat roof of a building and looked around with the sound of bells and people’s voices filling the air. It was just like the scene I remembered in the Children’s Bible when I was young: white square houses, the church, olive trees. Everything I expected to see in Bethlehem. It was a very emotional moment.

But now Bethlehem was completely still. Its people were prisoners in their own homes, their own town. Ac that was as cruel as anything I’ve seen anywhere. I hope the present negotiations that would see the army leave Bethlehem succeed, but I’m not very optimistic.

During two visits to Palestine last years I had a glimpse of life in that land. I went to the refugee camp Jenin. A large area of the camp had been completely destroyed. Really destroyed. Houses crushed, children playing in the rubble and nobody knew were there any bodies beneath it. On the night the tanks went in the doctors were locked up in the hospital. They could hear what was happening outside – bullets were breaking the window – but theyre were prevented from going out to help wounded people.

I wen to the camp of Balatta in the north of the country. We call it a camp but in fact Balatta is a city of concrete.. Thousands of houses and people crammed into a small area. Pobpel with nothing, no work, no facilities, no money, often without hope. Ac suffering daily attack by the army firing at them, preventing them for moving, destroying hundreds of h ouses. On the walls every where were pictures of “martyrs” – the people who had died during the intifada. Many people were ill, with depression and stress and under those circumstances some saw their lives to be the only weapon they had left. One must condemn the violence and murders by the self-sacrificing bombers completely, but is it not the greatest tragedy the fact that young people are so lacking in hope that they’re prepared to die in such a horrible way?

When we were in the bus on our way to Gaza City we were stopped by soldiers and the way barred before us. Two went to try and take to the soldiers about why didn’t they let us pass. Their response was to shoot in to the sky. We ran back to the bus. I’m not a brave person! After an hour or so there was a long queue of cars stopped behind us. Very soon hundreds of people had parked and got of their cars and wandered around chatting. They accepted the situation without questioning it. Being prevented from travelling was a nuisance for us– meetings had been arranged with people waiting for in Gaza. But for them it was a way of life; people on their way home being caught up for hours without any reason. We wre there for seven and a half hours before they allowed us to go on at 11.30 pm.

This was during Ramadan. Most of the people hadn’t eaten at all during the day and they had to eat and pray all night. We went out to look for food for our bus driver who was a Moslem.Once the people outside we were from the European Parliament they came to us with drinks and food, one after the other – welcoming us to their country, thanking us for being there and being more than ready to talk about their experiences and asking us questions. The main question was one we couldn’t answer, - “Why does the world allow this to happen in Palestine?”?"

But even under the worst circumstances imaginable it’s possible to find people who can see light and act positively.

I work with the people of Israel and Palestine. Mainly women’s groups. Striving together for peace. Some have visited Wales and talked of their experiences. Also there are over a thousand Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied lands. They’re not conscientious objectors. They’re loyal to their country but are members of a movement named Yesh Gvul – there’s an end.. And it’s a moral end. That’s why they aren’t willing to support the policy of the government of Israel, a policy they fear that has its only aim the destruction of Palestine but is also a policy that will undermine Israel itself too. Hundreds have been in jail as a result.

In Jerusalem I met Ramie and Nurit-Peled Elhanan, Israeli parents of a young thirteen year old girl, Smadari, killed by a bomber on her way to a ballet lesson. Their story should be hear by everyone.l Despite their grief after her death, they were not full of h ate. They joined a group of parents from Palestine and Israel who have paid the ultimate price – the loss of a child. The slogan of the group is that they lost their children not their heads. In Nurit’s words, no one was on their side – except all the other parents who have suffered the same loss and who would never consider revenging the death of a child by killing someone else’s child. They work together for peace.

I saw the same positive spirit during the World Summit on Maintainable Development in Johannesburg last September. Around the Conference thousands upon thousands of people came together to urge the leaders to listen to them and to act against poverty and for peace and justice. There were trade unions, women’s groups, churches, students nd people of every age and background. I saw a drama by a group of young people trying to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. I also went to Kwazulu Natal to meet the King of the Zulus, King Goodwill, who has been in the centre of the battle against AIDS. A struggle, he says, that’s worse than any war in the past. In his district a child is buried every day. The virus has affected one of every three people in South Africa and 6 million are expected to die AIDS there in the next 10 years.

I also went to Alexandra Township; a stone’s throw from the Conference itself. There thousands of people live on top of one another in tin shacks. The awful poverty was in contrast to the luxurious buildings and hotels in Sandton where the governments were meeting. I saw with my own eyes the reality of poverty, lack of clean water and sewerage and the damage to the environment and health. This was the world-wide apartheid that the President Thabo Mbeki referred to in his opening speech.

More people than ever suffer poverty, hunger, war and oppression. Over 2 million people are without clean water.. More than 8% of children in the developing countries die before their first birthday. Natural resources are being destroyed. A study published by the National Science Academy in June of last year showed that we use about 25% more of natural resources than the world can supply. The gap between poor and rich grows daily. The poorest 40% of people have only 11% of the resources. Globalisation is on the increase.

The Summit was an opportunity to change the world. But that chance was thrown away. World leaders assembled to change the course of history did not have the political will Indeed the most powerful leader in the world wasn’t there at all – too busy to come. That’s George W Bush of course. The leader who had withdrawn form the Kyoto protocol against change in the climate and who had showed that he was ready to break any international agreement that was not a profit economy – especially the big oil firms – the USA. It’s interesting to note that three of the biggest international companies in the world, McDonalds, Nike and Disney, spend more on advertising every year than the 18 poorest countries spend on their people annually. This was reflected in Johannesburg. It was the interests of the rich and powerful that dominated the agenda not that of the poor.

Summit Failure.

Why did it fail? Because of the lack of political will. There are enough resources in the world not only to feed but also provide a home, work, education to every person on earth. But our resources are being misused and wasted so that a small minority can make a profit. Business was higher on the agenda than children in Johannesburg.

Can you imagine our world if the leader of the USA had put the same energy and resources to fight poverty as he did to start the war against Iraq? George W Bush travelling the world seeking the backing of the poorest people, arguing and persuading and bribing countries to follow him. A foolish dream maybe. But not an impossible one nevertheless.

A different world is possible. That’s the motto of the World Social Forum - 100,000 people coming together every January to discuss different ways of living and working. I was inspired by the meeting in Brazil this year. People from every part of the world agreed on a declaration against war and for a wile I believed that we could really change things. I still believe it’s possible, if we could as people build an international consensus for it. In that spirit I shall be going with thousands of others totoCancún in September to present our message to the World Trade Organisation.

One of the things that have stayed with me after my visit Iraq is that people feel powerless to change the course of events. After returning, I was determined to use all my strength to stop the war. I walked with the thousands, spoke in rallies and meetings, I distributed leaflets, I wrote to the papers and to the Security Council of the United Nations and of course I voted in Parliament. I went to Fairford to protest against the B52 bombers that were preparing their deadly loads to be released on the men, women and children I’d met a few weeks earlier. Nothing brought the reality of war home to me more than seeing these huge black aeroplanes.

But nobody could stop the war, The decision had been made already and neither George Bush nor Tony Blair wanted to listen to any one. They had a choice. They chose war.

But they heard our voices. And they will remember what we said. We have no time to grow fainthearted. There’s too much to do and we aren’t without power. So in which direction shall we go now?

I believe we must re-claim the United Nations for the people of the world. I’ve been reading the Charter that set up that body in 1945. It starts with the words:

"We, the people of the United Nations, are determined to save the generations of the future from the scourge of war that brought immeasurable sadness to mankind twice during our lifetimes;

To reaffirm our faith in basic human rights, in the dignity and worth of the individual, in equal rights of men and women and of large and small nations, and to establish the conditions whereby justice and respect towards the implications that derive from agreements and international law can be upheld.”

We are the people of today.. On us the responsibility lies to strengthen and expand the new world-wide peace movement– to globalise that movement.

Welsh people were at the forefront in establishing the United Nations in 1948, bsed on the principle that the members solve disputes in a peaceful way. 63% of the 191 present members of the United Nations re countries smaller than Wales. I’m confident, had Wales had a seat in the United Nations that we would, as in 1932, have voted against war and for peace. We have, in Wales, much to contribute to a different world. We believe in the rule of international law and that no one is above that law. Respect for human rights is one of the most important weapons we have in our fight for peace.

Once again I hear the words of Lewis Valentine 'We could not be dumb and silent’ – and that cry is just as relevant today. In the time that I spent in Iraq and Palestine I saw how destructive are violence and poverty. Violence and poverty are the source of the oppression suffered in these countries. Only by stopping violence and defeating poverty does true peace exist. And only by discussion, consensus, compromise and understanding will this be achieved. The enemy is not the people of Iraq nor Palestine nor Israel nor America nor any other country, but poverty and violence.

Only a powerful, world-wide, peace movement can ensure that the power s of oppression shall not ignore this reality.

The governments of the powerful nations don’t listen, but we can ensure that they hear. It’s our responsibility therefore to speak up for peace. Woe betide us if we stay silent.

Jill Evans ASE/MEP