Global Peace Campaign

see the planned ad (Greg Nees)

let us fight no more (Osho Yamada)

Yumi Kikuchi and how the Global Peace Campaign began

situation

Sponsorship from ynot


	Now we concentrate our voices, brains and minds for seeking Peace. Oct. 8th Yumi Kikuchi, the advocate of the Global Peace Campaign, with lack of sleep from covering from the mass media, would like to comment. At last military operations have started. How regrettable!! If the operations kill only one innocent person, we say the Bush administration is the same as the terrorists. It seems between the American government and citizens of the U.S. there is alienation. Due to the military action, bigger terrorists will strongly focus upon the people of the U.S.A, England and other countries that support this war. We seek the immediate stop to this hostile operation. From now on, the mass media will probably report support of the war from the U.S. government's voice. Even in Japan some companies have that bias. Now our voice for seeking peace will be strong to reach the whole world. We concentrate on our loving peace minds and brains in realizing peace. The Global Peace Campaign's activity will play the role to gather and form together those seeking peace in the whole world. So we continue being ad for our opinion by way of our expression. The Oct 9th ad in N.Y. Times will possibly be postpone, but there will be an ad if space allows. After this, by continuing this kind of peace ad in the U.S. press, hopefully the civilians of the world will continuously appeal not to support the military intervention, but seek to find the criminals and judge the case in the international court of law. We are going to place an ad in Islamic countries to investigate more clearly. And we'll realize the opinion ad in Japan immediately. With the talk of assisting U.S. forces, our taxes will just be used on helping destruction and killing. Prime Minister Koizumi must realize Japanese people will be directly involved in this crises of terrorism. The role of Japan is to lead the peaceful world, not to do this. I sincerely wish everyone who reads this message does as much as they can in their way for peace. Proposer of G.P.C Yumi Kikuchi "glove - peace project" Let's publish a full-page advertisement in Japanese newspaper, Oct. 5th The Global Peace Campaign started with a couple of my friends in Japan, the U.S. and England with the idea of publishing Marine Corps veteran Greg's letter in an American newspaper. We had a great success at the first step, and now this campaign is supported by 14 countries; Japan, the U.S., England, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Mexico, Belize, New Zealand, Republic of Mali, Brazil, and El Salvador. On October 4, your donation was paid to the New York Times. Unless something happens, the advertisement will be published on October 9. I thank all of the people who donated to our campaign. People demand peace regardless of the differences in religion or nationality. I again made up my mind to continue this campaign until people in the world can live safely and peacefully. We have a big vision, but have begun with a small step. As for me, I want to take care of my health and try to live simply in peace. In Japan, Ms Aya Tenkawa initiated a wonderful movement. Letfs do it together. Our international teams have started to prepare for the next advertisement to be published in the U.S., England, Italy, Pakistan, and Malaysia. New teams are being organized one after another. As soon as the details are determined, we'll let you know. Let's together broaden the peace movement that started from Japan to the world. Global Peace Champaign Promoter: Yumi Kikuchi A Press Conference Announcement, Oct. 2nd We, the Global Peace Campaign, whose members are composed of Japanese, American and British volunteers have since the terrorism on Sep. 11th, finally collected enough contributions to place a full-page advertisement in the New York Times as our original intention. Today, Oct. 2, we will remit the contribution from Japan to the Public Media Center in the US. On Oct. 4, it is going to be transferred to the New York Times, and the ad will be placed in the New York Times on Oct. 9. We have started this campaign with placing the Japanese office in Kobe, Genki-mura, since Sep. 17 and fund raising since Sep. 18. Within 2 weeks, it exceeded the original contribution target of 12,500,000 yen, and it reached 17,000,000 yen on Oct. 3. In this announcement, we will introduce the final draft of the ad to put in the New York Times as well as explain our activity plans for the near future. We have been thinking of the 2nd and 3rd plans to be launched. We will also make an announcement of the new activity report from"Chance!," which is the network of young people who generate the new peace movement. So, please attend this press conference, if you have time to spare. Date and Time: Friday, Oct. 5. 4:00 - 5:00pm Place: Fade in Cafe (18-5 tomihisa-cho Shinjuku-ku) Phone:03-5368-0125 5 minutes from Shinjuku-Gyoen-mae station If you have any questions, please call: Yumi Kikuchi (Global Peace Campaign) 0470-97-1011 Ichiro Kobayashi (CHANCEI) 070-5569-5974 Remittance to ad agency completed! Oct. 2nd This is Stone. At around 15:00 on October 2, the amount of USD75,000 or JPY9,090,000 (@JPY121.20) has been remitted to ad agency in the US from the Rokko Branch of Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, to cover the remainder of the advertising cost. This brings the total fund to USD101,000, which includes USD6,000 raised by the international team and USD20,000 sent earlier as a deposit. One week to go until October 9. Can't wait to see the final proof of the ad! International Team in full steam in designing the ad! September 28 Sergeant Greg Nees' letter, with slight modifications, has been delivered to the ad agency's copywriter today. Art work from the Japan Team has already been sent. And we have been able to obtain full cooperation from the Veterans for Peace. This is so fortunate for us as only those organizations with proven activity record can place opinion ads through the ad agency. I could not but cry for joy when they said to me "thank you for giving us a new mission". If you wish to see the draft ad we sent from Japan, please refer to the webside:http://www.jp2000.net/chance/knpu/Index.html stone(web master -Japanese version-) "Veterans for Peace" will be the ad sponsor Sept. 27th This is YumiKikuchi@Global Peace Campaign reporting on the progress made to date at the International Team. Dear all, I have good news for you. The "Veterans for Peace (VFP)" (http://www.veteransforpeace.org), with whom we have been negotiating since last week, have agreed to accept the role of sponsor of our advertisement in support of Global Peace Campaign. Given that Sergeant Greg Nees, who wrote the letter, is a retired marine officer, we have been contacting VFP in the hope that they would feel sympathy with our cause. I reported a few days ago that things may not be so easy, VFP being a large organization. But today, I have been able to talk directly with the President and Vice President of VFP who agreed to give us their full support. They have also agreed to make an arrangement to enable donations (tax exempt for contributions made within the US) to be made by credit card from anywhere around the world through their website. Contributions can be made from the Veterans for Peace website, by clicking on the button found at the top left corner. Please look for Global Peace Campaign link. (It might take a few days for the link to be established as this arrangement was agreed only a few hours before.)The VFP is an organization that is dedicated to many wonderful undertakings and activities, including volunteer work in road, bridge and water projects in such countries as Vietnam and Iraq where the US engaged in war, as well as organizing events for helping people to overcome the various pains and sufferings of the wars. Having the VFP as the sponsor of the advertisement should help to prevent Japan bashing or other similar moves which some of our Japanese supporters in the US expressed their concern about. In the ad, we intend to include a message asking for donations to the VFP, support to the victims of the terrorist attacks and the ensuing tension (with the hope that these will not develop into a war), and continued support for the media campaign. Bravo! We are now able to sign a formal agreement with ad agency. I am so very happy..... we have overcome one big hurdle. As for the timing of the advertisement, October 8 (Monday) is a holiday, being Columbus Day. We have therefore decided for the following day, October 9 (Tuesday). If we are not able to raise the necessary funds by then, we will put off the insertion to the following Monday. This date falls exactly on the 4th week from the terrorist attacks. And, what is more, it is the birthday of John Lennon and also Bow Yamada san. What a splendid coincidence. Wouldn't it be nice if we could place our ad on this date! Yumi Kikuchi We have made a deposit on the peace ad! Sept. 26th 14:30 Details of advertisement fee Thanks to ad agency, we were entitled to a discount rate of$95,000 for placing an ad on the NY Times, instead of a regular fee of$140,000. The ad agency will charge us $6,000 separately for ad production, so the total cost will come to $101,000 or about Y12.5 million. We have made a deposit on the peace ad!This is Ishida Yukihisa (stone), webmaster of this site. At 2:30p.m., Sept. 26, I transferred $20,000 or Y2,367,000 (dollar/yen exchange rate, dollar=118.35 yen, as of Sept. 26), to the bank account of ad agency to reserve a place for the ad on the NY Times. The ad agency is an acclaimed creator group, which has dealt in opinion ads of non-governmental organizations for more than 30 years. At the bank, I felt my legs tremble with sense of responsibility, knowing that I absolutely cannot make a mistake in handling donations offered out of good will of hundreds of people. I checked many times if I got the name and account number of the recipient correct. The bank clerk told me the money would be transferred after two to three days. Now, we secured a full-page ad space in the NY Times! The NY Times will print our ad on its page if we transfer the remaining$81,000 (Y9.72 million) by Oct. 3. The actual deadline will be Sep. 28 since it is the last business day before Oct. 3. As of 3 p.m. Sept. 26, outstanding balance of donations made to Open Japan stands at Y2,902,985. We need about another Y6,820,000 by Oct. 3, which means we only have seven days left. Osho Yamada, who heads secretariat of Open Japan, will leave for Tokyo tomorrow to ask for contribution to various sectors. We appreciate your further cooperation to realize this campaign. Thank you. stone(web master) Now is the time for action!! Sept 26th, 10:00a.m. This is Yumi Kikuchi at the Global Peace Campaign. I would like to announce what has been decided by talking with all the main members of the International team since last night. First of all, regarding the timing of the ad, Elizabeth from Public Media Center (PMC) has pointed out that our ad may be buried among all the other company ads that are posted in the New York Times to mourn the victims of these terrorist incidents. PMC is a reliable advertising agency in San Francisco that has been handling the opinion ads of NGO for more than 30 years. We used this agency when we posted our opinions for Y2K (Computer 2000 problems). Secondly, the advertiser must be chosen. Global Peace Campaign is a newly born network of civilians who want to solve this incident in a peaceful manner. It hasn't obtained trust from people in the U.S. yet; therefore it needs support from an established non-profit organization, which agrees with our campaign. In this matter, we are currently in contact with Veterans For Peace(VFP). The contact person agrees with us completely, but since it is a big organization, they need approval from the board of trustees. It will probably take a couple more days. VFP is a very trustworthy organization that has been working in Vietnam and Iraq to heal the wounds of the war. If they agree to be the advertiser of this campaign, it would be the best way to rouse public opinion within U.S. Please, pray that the negotiation goes well. Most importantly, the ad will be a shortened version of Gregg's letter. If there is enough space left, several people have mentioned to include the letter of parents who had lost their son in N.Y. However, considering the request from PMC to minimize our writings to less than 1500 words, we, the International team need to discuss more about this issue as to decide what to include and what to exclude. Upon the request from the Japan team, we will try to include a time for simultaneous world prayer. Today, we will deposit $20,000 (about \2.4 million) out of what we have collected so far to the PMC account in the U.S. to reserve space in the New York Times. The earliest we can post our ad will be on October 8th. I heard that opinion ads are most read by policy makers on Monday, not on Sunday. The general public takes time to read newspapers on Sunday, but if we were to deliver the message to politicians and leaders, the Monday paper is the best shot. The earliest Monday is October 1st, but this won't be possible since we haven't collected enough money at this point, and the content hasn't been decided, yet. Thus, the most realistic date is the 8th. In order to make this happen, we need to deposit the rest of the money. With the help from PMC, the cost of posting an ad in New York Times has been discounted to a total of $101,000. The payment for PMC is a very fair amount of $6000. In Japanese yen, depending on the rate, this will be about \12.5 million. Adding expenses within Japan, the total cost for this will probably be around \13 million. The only problem is that we are running out of time. If we can't make the rest of our payment by October 3rd, the ad will be canceled. We currently have \5 million collected. We need to collect \8 more. Please let your friends and relatives know about this project. We ask for your continuous support on this. For all our friends, acquaintances, and those we have yet to meet who have donated money, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. By the way, if you send Global Peace Campaign e-card by using http://www.ynot.co.jp/, one yen will be donated to this campaign. This way, those of you short on cash can contribute. Thank you very much. Now is the time for action. Yumi Kikuchi (Today, I am going to Ehime from Sara-santi, (http://www.npo.co.jp/santi/), Kobe, then go back to my house in Kamokawa late tonight). Gulf War and International Beach Clean-up, Sept 26th Although it had stopped raining, it was a windy and chilly morning. I could take a longer time for breakfast because this friend's house in Kamakura was very close, 15 min. away, to today's clean-up target, Kugenuma beach. Her husband, a surfer, is the commissioner of the Surfrider Foundation (http://www.surfrider.gr.jp/ja/index.htm). They have two daughters who fortunately looked after my baby, allowing me to have time to relax. The International Beach Clean-up started in 1990 with my friends in Japan answering the call from an Environmental group from the U.S. I was still working for the American Bank at that time. The activity is quite simple. Every year on the same day, the third Sunday of September, we simultaneously collect garbage from beaches all over the world. The garbage is counted and recorded on a specified common data card. Then, after gathering and analyzing the data in each country, we try to explore the origin of the garbage and use the results for the reduction of garbage from the origin. At present about 75 (?) countries have joined this activity. When the Ocean Conservancy, one of the environmental groups in the U.S, started to sample the garbage from beaches, the activity was confined within the U.S. However, when the investigation had been run repeatedly, they acknowledged that much of the garbage came from other countries across the ocean and that other countries should carry out this activity as well. It was then in the summer of 1990 that I received a letter asking for help. Activities like preservative actions, clean-up and so on, have a long history in Japan with many people volunteering. When the Japanese campaign started, I was excited by the fact that people living in different countries were unified and acted together for the same purpose of cleaning the Earth. The next year, at the beginning 1991, the Gulf War erupted. The war arising from conflict over the crude oil of the Middle East caused numerous victims and environmental destruction. At that time we joined together to seek a peaceful resolution and formed the network called PAN, a lobby group of environmental groups. (We didn't feel the case was so emergent compared to this time.) I just felt sorry for the ocean slugged by crude oil and wanted it to recover as much as possible. I with the help of two friends, we established 'JEAN (Japan Environmental Activity Network)'. There was no office and we worked as volunteers while working in other paying jobs. We published the newsletter 'JEAN letter' and started campaigns such as appeals to the Ministries and companies of concern. Since we didn't know where we could ask for funds, each of us invested one million yen towards the work. We made 100 thousands of plastic bags that when burned do not emit the toxic smoke. Made of calcium carbonate, they had our message 'Make the Earth beautiful and peaceful' printed on them. We also printed posters and made appeals to people through out Japan. Those were good old memories. 11 years after, the activity has been diffused around Japan but only few people know that the JEAN office was formed on the occasion of the Gulf War. Although I am one of the initiators of this activity, I haven't contributed much towards it since and normally only help with the annual registration. Nonetheless, today, I held a moment of silence during the opening ceremony for the victims of this terrorism. People gathering in the early morning, full of energy, did not expect such thing at all and looked flabbergasted by the news. The thoughts and viewpoints against the terrorism issue of those who had gathered there hoping to make the ocean clean with fond of the ocean could be diverse. I was wondering how deep my thoughts reached to that group of adults and children eager to start the clean-up campaign. However, with a moment of silence, I could hear the sounds of waves and felt my heart beat and the rhythms of waves synchronize Then, I realized it should be OK. I would like to recommend this to you all. When you feel insecure and disquiet at heart, go to the sea, the forest or somewhere else. Put yourself into nature and breathe quietly so that you can be greatly comforted. After the clean-up, when I was about to leave the sort out works to the others, Azusa Kojima, co-representative of JEAN, put a small envelope in my hand. Later when inside the car on the way to the airport, I opened ii and found 30 thousands yen and a letter: Dear Yumi-san The end of road toward true peace seems far away under these harsh conditions. What we can do may be contributed in very small part for the purpose, but I have decided not to give up but to continue the work. I don't feel good for doing this. This money is a donation from me. I'll transfer the money to the account of Open Japan separately. I hope this money will be used for your own activity. Love from AZUSA My reckless actions always gives people around me much concern and worry. I cannot imagine how much trouble I have given her over the more than ten years we've worked together. I could not thank her enough and could not stop crying. Just after the series of attacks, I rang the person whom I had worked with on the Y2K issue. I wanted to provoke him to act against the terrorism together. After normal formalities, I asked him what he thought about these attacks. He said dispassionately,'Yumi-chan, terrorism cannot be justified or forgiven. As they have done such a thing, striking back by force cannot be avoided.' I was a little shocked although understood his view might be commonly shared. I believe that there is no other environmental destruction than war. I didn't know what percentage of the budget of as much as 4 trillion yen, already approved in the U.S. Congress, will be used for weapons. However, considering the Earth stands at the edge of the environmental balance, I have no idea what effects will be felt on the Earth by the utilization of the weapons. Even if a person such as my friend, who had been active for environmental protection, has such an opinion, what about that of other Japanese people? When Prime Minister Koizumi was at the great height of its support, I felt somewhat horrified. I even felt overwhelmed by this conversation should this be conversion) with him, who proclaims environmentalist and established many environmental businesses. I surely admit that these acts of terrorism could not be supported but, what about the war? Isn't war one of the biggest acts of terrorism? I was most depressed by his words that the strike back by force could not be avoided since he has always had a high consciousness of the environment and held great influence on the others. My belief is in the minority, isn't it? It is said that every event that has happened on the Earth is the realization of our consciousness. Then, it is potentially probable that a similar war to the Gulf war or wider-scale and longer-term war will happen at this time unless the power of people who want peace breaks that of people who want war. What should I do then? There was no clear answer to this question. I believe that I will do what I can do to the full extent of my power. I stayed in Wakamatsu, Shinsaibashi, Osaka tonight
	Press Conference on Sept. 21th I have arrived safely at a friend's house in Kamakura after the press conference in Tokyo. The road to Tokyo from Kamogawa was very congested. So when I arrived, the press conference had already begun. CHANCE(http://give-peace-a-chance.jp/ ), the organizer of the press conference, said it had notified all the media. But only the Asahi Shinbun and Kyodo News Agency sent reporters. To the conference held at the CHANCE office on the 19th, came reporters from TBS, Mainichi Shinbun, and Tokyo Shinbun. Hopefully, they will report our movement toward peace, and give their readers an impression that not all the people in the world are supporting the retaliation. On the way to Kamakura after the press conference, I was listening to the radio in the car. When the speech by president Bush started, my two babies who had been fast asleep suddenly started crying. This upset me very much. My heart ached. Children all over the world, or even babies who have not learned to speak,,, they must be sensing the mounting tensions in the world,,,they must be so scared that something terrible is going to happen. It is our responsibility as adults (and as parents)to maintain the peace in society. We must be big-hearted to understand people with different opinions. What can we do to make sure that there will be no more suffering? I patted the screaming children gently, saying 'it'll be alright, it'll be alright' After the speech, they fell asleep again. My friend's house is in a quiet residential area near Shonan beach. She is Taiwanese. She welcomed us with her homemade dishes, which was a great relief as I had hardly ate or slept over the past few days. On the table were two Chinese teacups placed side by side. The tea from the teapot was to be poured into another teapot, then into one of the teacups. The tea was again to be poured into the other teacup so that we could smell the fragrance emanating from the emptied cup.After then, we would start sipping the tea. I really appreciated the peace and serenity of this evening. When tensions are rising in the outside world, it is even more important that we take a deep breath, and stay unaffected by mounting calls for violence. I thank my friend for this inspiration. Tomorrow is a day for Clean-up Campaign. Hope rain will stop. Good night. Yumi Kikuchi