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Medea Benjamin to Receive 2014 Gandhi Peace Award (United States)
an article by Promoting Enduring Peace (abridged)
Medea Benjamin will receive the Gandhi Peace Award
from Promote Enduring Peace on April 16 in New
Haven, Ct. She is a co-founder of both CODEPINK
and the international human rights organization
Global Exchange. Benjamin is the author of eight
books. Her latest book is Drone Warfare: Killing
by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to
stop the use of killer drones. Her direct
questioning of President Obama during his 2013
foreign policy address, as well as her recent
trips to Pakistan and Yemen, helped shine a light
on the innocent people killed by US drone strikes.
Medea Benjamin
click on photo to enlarge
Benjamin has been an advocate for social justice
for more than 30 years. . . Since the September
11, 2001 tragedy, Medea has been working to
promote a U.S. foreign policy that would respect
human rights and gain us allies instead of
contributing to violence and undermining our
international reputation. In 2000, she was a
Green Party candidate for the California Senate.
During the 1990s, Medea focused her efforts on
tackling the problem of unfair trade as promoted
by the World Trade Organization. Widely credited
as the woman who brought Nike to its knees and
helped place the issue of sweatshops on the
national agenda, Medea was a key player in the
campaign that won a $20 million settlement from 27
US clothing retailers for the use of sweatshop
labor in Saipan. She also pushed Starbucks and
other companies to start carrying fair trade
coffee.
From 2002 to 2009, Benjamin engaged in numerous
protests involving U.S. Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld; U.S. President George W. Bush;
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, among
others. Benjamin engaged in similar protest
actions at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
and the 2004 Republican National Convention. . .
Her work for justice in Israel/Palestine includes
taking numerous delegations to Gaza after the 2008
Israeli invasion, organizing the Gaza Freedom
March in 2010, participating in the Freedom
Flotillas and opposing the policies of the Israel
lobby group AIPAC. In 2011 she was in Tahrir
Square during the Egyptian uprising and In 2012
she was part of a human rights delegation to
Bahrain in support of democracy activists; she was
tear-gassed, arrested and deported by the Bahraini
government.
Medea has also been on the forefront of the anti-
drone movement. In 2009 Benjamin began her efforts
to bring attention to the effects of drone
warfare, participating in demonstrations at United
States bases where drones are piloted and at
headquarters of drone manufacturers. On April 28,
2012 in Washington, D.C., she was responsible for
organizing the first ever International Drone
Summit with lawyers, scientists, academics, and
activists to kick off an international campaign to
rein in the use of drones in the U.S. and abroad.
She recently published Drone Warfare: Killing by
Remote Control. She also organized the first-ever
international drone summit and lead delegations to
Pakistan and Yemen to meet with drone strike
victims and family members of Guantanamo Bay
Prisoners.
Her articles appear regularly in outlets such as The
Huffington Post, CommonDreams, Alternet and OpEd
News.
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DISCUSSION
Question(s) related to this article:
Drones (unmanned bombers), Should they be outlawed?
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