War Criminal Speaks In Bristol

bristol | peace | announcement Wednesday May 14, 2008 17:56 by info@bristolstopwar

Join the protest against John Bolton speaking in Bristol - May 29th 7pm, Watershed

John Bolton, one of the major figures behind America’s aggressive foreign policy, is speaking in Bristol on Thursday May 29th as part of the ‘Bristol Festival Of Ideas’. See http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/john_bolton.php It’s worth following the link to their rather bizarre ‘Freedom Of Speech’ policy as well. This appears on no other speaker pages except Bolton’s which suggests the organisers are fully aware of the likely reaction to his invitation.

Like other American neo-conservatives, Bolton advocates a strategy of pre-emptive wars to establish uncontested US power across the world. Against fierce opposition, George Bush appointed him as US ambassador to the United Nations despite his long-standing hostility to the UN. He was forced to resign in December 2006. See: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/972.html for more info on him.

John Bolton was one of the architects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As such he is guilty of:

• Helping invent and spread the lies on which the invasion was based
• The deaths of hundreds of thousands resulting from the invasion and occupation
• Undermining international bodies such as the United Nations, International Court of Justice and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

The failure of the occupation of Iraq hasn’t made him change his tune. Earlier this month he called for military attacks on Iran! See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1931520/John-Bolton-US-....html

Rather than be invited to Bristol as a respectable speaker on issues like the United Nations he should be on his way to the International Criminal Court as a war criminal.

Bristol Stop The War Coalition is organising a protest outside the meeting – meet at the Watershed, 7pm, Thursday 29th May. A flyer for the protest can be found at

http://www.swindonstopwar.org.uk/docs/20080529-bolton.pdf

Please download and distribute as widely as possible

For map of Watershed: http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=GB|bs1%205tx

In addition to the protest on 29th May we are encouraging all our supporters to contact the organisers and sponsors of the festival to object to Bolton being invited to speak. Contact details for organisers and (some) sponsors are below. Please try to email some/all of them and let them know what you think of Bolton being invited to speak. It is likely that the sponsors were signed up before knowing who the speakers were going to be, so if enough people email them it could be possible to persuade at least one of them to publicly dissociate themselves from the event.

Please pass all this information on to as many interested people as you can. The more objections we can make before the meeting the better. The more people who turn up to the protest on 29th May the better. Bring friends, placards, banners. See you there.

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The ORGANISERS of the Festival Of Ideas are BRISTOL CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP.

Email Andrew Kelly on Andrew.Kelly@gwebusinesswest.co.uk

They also have a FaceBook page where comments can be left.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Festival-of-Ideas/10538865933

The SPONSORS of the Festival include:

TRIODOS BANK – they are an ‘ethical’ bank. Their ‘mission statement’ includes

• To help create a society that promotes people’s quality of life and that has human dignity at its core.

Email their Head of Communications & Marketing (James Niven) on james.niven@triodos.co.uk.

In a reply to an earlier email Triodos has said they are only sponsoring the film ‘The 11th Hour’ and not the rest of the festival. However Tridos’ name appears among the list of sponsors/supporters on the back of the festival brochure and on the front page of the festival web-site. Most readers would assume that Triodos were sponsors of the festival as a whole. It is well worth trying to get Triodos to make a public statement that they aren’t sponsoring the Bolton meeting. Perhaps even ask them to get the organisers to put a statement to this effect on the festival website.

It’s worth asking them how appearing to sponsor a meeting where Bolton speaks ties in with their ‘ethical’ aims.

UWE

Email the Vice Chancellor (Steve West) on Steven.west@uwe.ac.uk

And Head of Marketing & Communications (Keith Hicks) on Keith.Hicks@uwe.ac.uk

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

Email the Communications & Marketing Director (Barry Taylor) on barry.taylor@bristol.ac.uk

BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL

Email the leader of the council (Helen Holland) on helen.holland@bristol.gov.uk

WATERSHED

Email the Head Of Programme (Mark Cosgrove) on mark@watershed.co.uk

ARNOLFINI

Email boxoffice@arnolfini.org.uk

Arnolfini has a MySpace page. Not sure how this might be used to make protests. If you know how to, then use it

http://sads.myspace.com//Modules/Search/Pages/Search.as...lfini

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