GLOBAL DAY of ACTION

on MILITARY SPENDING

2011
http://demilitarize.org/
No. 3 ! February 2011

Global Day of Action on Organizers:

Military Spending The!International Peace
Bureau ( I P B) !is
dedicated to the vision of
12 April, 2011 a World Without War.
We are a
Nobel Peace Laureate (1910); over
Welcome to our third newsletter. As we get closer to April 12, more and the years, 13 of our officers have
more organizations and people are signing on. The Food Not Bombs been recipients of the Nobel Peace
network, School of the Americas Watch, International Network of Prize.
Engineers & Scientists, and the Global Network against Weapons and Our 320 member organisations in 70
countries, together with individual
Nuclear Power in Space are all on board. Changemaker in Bangladesh, members from a global network,
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Switzerland, and bring together expertise and
Peace Movement Aotearoa in New Zealand will all participate. Welcome! campaigning experience in a
common cause. Our current main
This newsletter will focus on what's going on in Latin America. We'll also programme centres on Sustainable
tell you about our organizers packet and our new one-pager on the military- Disarmament for Sustainable
Development.
industrial-academic complex, update you on the debate in the United States,
and give you another idea for how to turn your April 12 event into a photo
opportunity that the media will want to jump at. Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS) is a
community of public
scholars and organizers

Big Buildup In Latin America linking peace, justice,

and the environment in
the U.S. and globally.
We work with social movements to
Largely overlooked in the broad sweep of American foreign policy for the
promote true democracy and
last decade, Latin America has attracted the renewed attention of some U.S. challenge concentrated wealth,
policymakers. Unfortunately, this attention may serve only to re-militarize a corporate influence, and military
region with already bitter memories of military dominance. power. As Washington’s first
progressive multi-issue think tank,
GDAMS partner John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship for Reconciliation the IPS has served as a policy and
research resource for visionary
has written about new planned U.S. military bases in Colombia, some of
social justice movements for over
which are already under construction despite a Colombia Constitutional four decades.!
Court ruling that the basing agreement was invalid. In addition to new
facilities in Colombia, the Army Corps of Engineers has been planning the
construction of new military compounds in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama,
Ecuador, and Belize.
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GDAMS Website
The United States’ renewed interest in power projection in Latin America
Our website is up and running at
has driven the militarization of other states in the region. Citing "the threat
http://www.demilitarize.org. Here
posed by the empire and its allies," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has you can find out where actions are
taken a $4 billion loan from Russia to purchase new armaments. Brazil, being planned around the world. You
seeking to secure its regional preeminence, is making massive new can watch videos that can give you
investments in naval technology despite its ongoing problems with poverty ideas of what you can do on April 12.
And you can download information
and urban development. Perhaps reacting to Brazil’s maneuvers, Argentina about global military spending and
has announced an enormous 50 percent increase in its military budget and related topics such military bases.
expressed its renewed interest in nuclear technology. Here, for instance, is a comparison
compiled by A. Dueck of the
International Peace Bureau of the
estimated costs of fulfilling the
Millennium Development Goals (in
SOA Watch in Colombia: colors) versus what we’re spending on
the military (in black).

Civil society efforts are already underway in the region to close bases,
demilitarize U.S. regional policy, and abolish nuclear weapons. But few
regions in the world have suffered as much at the hands of military-first
policies as Latin America. As the new wave of militarization accelerates, the
issue of military spending will require evermore agitation.

Organizers Packet
Want to participate in April 12 but don't know where to begin? With our
GDAMS Organizers Packet, we give you all the information you need to
hold an event on April 12 and connect with an international movement that
is saying no to the enormous waste of money on global military spending.

Inside, you'll find a sample press release, fact sheets, and suggestions of
what kind of highly visible action you can organize for April 12.
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Photo Wall
The Military-Industrial- We need more submissions to our

Academic Complex Photo Wall! Get creative – show us

with a sign or a graphic what you
would do with $1.6 trillion, and
encourage your networks to do the
As researcher Subrata Ghoshroy explains in our new one-pager on the
same. It only takes a few minutes to
Pentagon's influence on campus, the United States spends nearly $80 billion make a powerful statement!
annually on defense research and development (R&D) alone. This line item
exceeds the total spending on defense – not just R&D – by the UK, France,
Russia, and other spending giants. Every year, approximately the Pentagon
provides $4 billion to support university research in the United States. You
can read more about where this money goes in the full fact sheet.

Poster Power
The United States spends more on the military than virtually all the rest of
the countries of the world combined. You've probably heard this before.
But how do you convey this fact to people simply and visually?

Here's an idea for your April 12 event. Create signs that represent the
countries and their military spending. Include the flag and the amount of
money the country spends on its military.

But here's the twist: each of the signs is sized proportionate to the spending.
So, the U.S. sign would be huge, the Chinese sign about one-tenth the size,
and all the other signs proportionately smaller. That would have an
immediate visual impact.!

Here's a ratio chart that you can use if you start with a U.S. figure of 10 feet:
United States: 10 ft South Korea: 4.9 in

China: 1 ft, 5.9 in Brazil: 4.9 in

United Kingdom: 1 ft, 0.5 in Canada: 3.7 in

France: 1 ft Australia: 3.6 in

Russia: 11 in Spain: 3.5 in

Germany: 8.6 in Turkey: 3.4 in

Japan: 8.5 in Israel: 2.6 in

Saudi Arabia: 7.1 in Greece: 2.5 in

Italy: 6.7 in United Arab Emirates: 2.4 in

India: 6.6 in Netherlands: 2.3

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Don’t Forget
Of course, you can use these same ratios to suit your circumstances. Here’s
• Let us know if you’re planning
a desktop example from the IPS office taking the top ten countries. It puts an event for April 12
the U.S. at 2 feet and divides the remaining sides by 5: (g d a m s 2 0 1 1 @ g m a i l . c o m ) –
share your ideas with others
around the world!

• Sign up on our Facebook page

• Follow us on Twitter

Properly blown up, the visual impact can be astounding. This can also be an
excellent participatory activity if you turn the bars into signs for ten or
twenty people to hold.