The 26th Triennial Congress of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, August 1-6, 1995 in Helsinki, Finland:
The 26th International WILPF Congress calls on the United Nations to declare 6 April the International Day of Nonviolence.
Background: From 6 August 1995 to 6 August 1996, the Indian cooperation for Peace (Shanti Sayog) has launched a campaign for nonviolence inspired by Gandhi’s philosophy. In his efforts for peace, Gandhi would not listen to violence, riots or terrorism. His philosophy was based on the equality of all human beings, be they friends or enemies, and conflicts should be solved in a way that is advantageous to all sides in order to meet be able to meet without feelings of shame. A good conflict resolution makes all parties winners. By the Salt March of 6 April 1930, Gandhi proved to the English authorities that they could not for ever prevent people from using the resources of their own country. In spite of attacks, the Indians marched in thousands to the sea to take salt and defeated the English salt monopoly. Shanti Sayog’s international campaign for nonviolence 1995‐1996 wants to reduce the sums of money spent for weapons. They demand to have one day of national military expenses allocated to NGOs working for nonviolence, to legalize nonviolent civilian‐based defence everywhere and give to tax payers the legal option to divert their defence tax from military defence to nonviolent defence.
Actions:
(a) International WILPF to send the statement to the UN Secretary‐ General; and
(b) National WILPF sections to write to their governments urging them to support the proposal and introduce it at the next session of the UN General Assembly. 3 Disarmament