Global Network for Nonviolence

Greetings to all our friends on the UN's designated International Day of Peace!

Several GNN members around the world had planned to mark the International Day of Peace with activities and events designed to inject a strong "pro-nonviolence message" message into the commemoration. We are awaiting reports of those activities, to post news of them here.

Meanwhile, though, two sets of these plans have had to be suspended or postponed due to the very challenging events in the regions in which our members work:

(1) A GNN member working in Kisai Occidental province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had to postpone the plans there because of an outbreak of the very lethal Ebola virus in the province, that he reports has been "spreading like wildfire," and

(2) The Secretary of our Steering Committee, Sagar Gurung, wrote us from Kathmandu, Nepal that,


the events planned by GNN in partnership with Photo.Circle, scheduled for 28 Sept- 2 Oct. 2007, have been cancelled in the wake of uncertainties ushered by new political developments here in Kathmandu. This decision was reached with thorough assessment of the implications of the nationwide street agitation program announced by the Maoists on the 18th Sept. 07.

Nepal is currently struggling to escape from many years of deeply-rooted political violence. Sagar had done a lot of preparations for the "International Day of Peace" events in Kathmandu-- and will certainly be working with his circle of contacts to keep the flame of nonviolence alive for the future.

In the meantime, he advises us that to follow the developments in his Himalayan country, we can visit these websites:

www.ekantipur.com
www.nepalnews.com
www.nepalitimes.com

Regarding the very serious Ebola outbreak in DRC, our friend there writes:

Dear friends,

I am sorry, I have not been able to communicate with you all this while. You must have heard the sad news: Kasai Occidental is seriously affected by the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever. So far over 380 cases including 172 deaths have been reported in two endemic areas of the province. My Office is located some 250 km from those areas, and in the last two weeks, I have been very busy with the enforcement of precautionary measures... We are still far from the dangerous zone but we can only be safe if we restrict movements of people and goods from the affected areas to the provincial capital. Experts of the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control arrived here yesterday to conduct rapid diagnoses for suspected cases, which can spread like wild fire at any time.

Medical and security advisories have reduced all [activities.] ... We must quarantine ourselves in order to avoid the epidemic. As a result, there won’t be any International Peace Day celebrations in this region this year... As you know, it is really sad because 21st September is my birthday. Imagine what it means to be quarantined on a birthday. Even my leave plans have been cancelled. We had planned a series of interesting events with several local NGOs. They have been postponed sine die.

Dear friends,

Please pray for us as we continue our difficult job ... in this country. We have been through a series of hurdles including war, but death has never been so close in the last four years or so. You just have to shake hands with an infected individual to catch the deadly disease. You will find a lot of information on this very contagious disease on the Internet...

Take good care of yourself as you celebrate International Peace Day.

Peace!

If readers would like to send messages to our friend in DRC and his colleagues, or to Sagar in Nepal, please do so through the "Comments" section here.