Howard Clark

1 December 2002Feature

Dozens of Afro-Colombians fled from their home village, Villahermosa in the department of Choco;, in 1997, caught between guerrillas and paramilitaries. Some 6,000 displaced people from 49 villages, including Villahermosa, fled to Pavarondo;. After some months there, the women among them issued a statement:

“We women from Pavarandó want and need our voice to be known in the country and in the world because of what we have been living through for the last nine months…

1 June 2002Feature

A moral imperative or a political strategy? Howard Clark examines the role of conscientious objection in relation to the wider antimilitarist struggle.

"Here I stand", said Martin Luther, "I can do no other"; My initial image of conscientious objection was rather framed by the Protestant tradition of the individual conscience taking a stand against authority, nailing theses to church doors and going to the stake rather than renouncing their faith. I understood it as a personal moral imperative rather than as a political strategy.

That, too, is how I think states have understood conscientious objection (CO). By the end of the…

1 June 2002Review

MOC/proyecto editorial traficantes de suenos

This 348-page anthology contains the most significant documents of the last 30 years of MOC - the Spanish movement for conscientious objection. The story begins with the pioneer conscientious objector, Pepe Beunza, declaring his refusal to join the military back in 1971 - still in the days of General Franco's dictatorship. It comes right up to the date with MOCs response to the end of conscription in 2000 and a chronology that goes right up to 2002. The texts are mainly short and peppered…

3 July 1984Feature

From 3 July 1984

You may have noticed how terms “real defence” and “credible defence” have become popular in CND circles in the past year. They have a hard-nosed ring to them, indicating that the user isn’t a woolly-minded idealist or a wishy-washy pacifist. The Labour leadership’s failure to present a coherent defence policy in the general election seems to have prompted some people…

7 December 1979Feature

From 7 December 1979

On November 24, some 400 people sat in rows facing a platform in central London and most of them raised their hands. So was the Anti-Nuclear Campaign launched.

There was little joy about the occasion. The platlorm sat firmly in control of the proceedings throughout the morning session, despite anarchist protests about the set-up and a heap at leaflels about why this was all wrong.…

12 January 1979Feature

From 12 January 1979

Many anti-nuclear campaigners in Britain are developing, albeit haphazardly, a direct action strategy against nuclear power. Our co-ordination is higgledy-piggledy but, while the general outlines have not been explicitly agreed, some sort of strategy seems to be emerging. It involves direct intervention and obstruction at sites, at installations or on fuel routes: calling on…

15 December 1978Feature

From 15 December 1978

Writing in the afterglow of a beautiful day of guerilla nonviolence at Torness, I’m no longer daunted by the question with which I’ve been shadow-boxing these past few weeks: “exactly how do we intend to reverse the nuclear power programme?”

On that site, I saw for myself the achievement of the people who occupied Half Moon Cottage in creating a symbol for us to rally around…