Like us, you are probably noticing similarities between early 2003 and early 2006 on the international scene, except that this time the country in the frame is Iran.

Like you, we joined millions of people worldwide on February 15th, 2003 to march against going to war in Iraq. That war went ahead.

Like you and many others we will go on the march on 18th March against going to war over Iran. That war must not go ahead. Marches are necessary and let’s add a new strategy to stop wars and build peace.

Alarmed by what we have been hearing and reading about the situation over Iran/US, ministry for peace has been talking via conference calls with the other organisations around the world working for Ministries for Peace/Departments of Peace on this. We set up the People’s Initiative for Departments of Peace last October at the First People’s Summit for Departments of Peace here in London. They are also gravely concerned about the situation.

Here is the Statement that we have all signed up to.

In response to the call in this Statement for people to take action, ministry for peace hastily organised a meeting on the Iranian situation in Parliament on March 1st. We had three excellent speakers, two Iranian women - Dr. Elaheh Rostami-Povey from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London University), and Roya Kashefi from Iranian Researchers International - who talked about the situation in Iran, and Paul Ingram from the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) who looked at the international situation.

At the end of the meeting we launched a "unique citizens' peace initiative - Negotiate Peace. We want this campaign to be the 2006 version of Make Poverty History using the internet to spread the message around the world that we, the citizens, demand that our governments use proven non-violent conflict transformation methods to resolve this and all future international conflicts.

There were about 80 people at the meeting and after we had outlined the reason for this campaign, and read them the Statement, we asked who would support this new campaign. All the hands shot up!

Here is a brief description of this unique citizens’ peace initiative. We are proposing a one year massive, worldwide call to all governments to use only proven conflict prevention/transformation methods to resolve this crisis. We hope that this call will strike a chord with thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people around the world via the internet. We hope that you and they will all want to join us in choosing this non-violent approach.

Let's create a positive, speed of light internet virus – tell everyone we know and they tell everyone they know and so on, to organise petitions, letters to governments, letters in the press, phone ins on radio shows, etc saying that we, the citizens of the world demand that this looming conflict between Iran, the US, the UK etc be settled only using proven non-violent conflict resolution processes.

We have created this new website for this Negotiate Peace campaign with:

• The Statement from the Peoples' Initiative for Departments of Peace - please print it off and send to your MP, to Tony Blair, to local newspapers
• On-line petition – please ask all your networks to circulate the url - www.negotiate-peace.org and go along and sign online.
• A downloadable petition – please print off and take it to all the local places that allow petitions, health food shops, libraries, your workplace, friends and family
• There are lists of other activities you could consider
  
• There are stories about successful conflict prevention for those people who don’t believe conflict prevention is possible
• There are daily stories from the alternative press about the Iran/US situation
• There is a Persian (Farsi) section because we want to reach out to Iranians in the diaspora and in Iran and show them that we support a peaceful resolution of this crisis

I mentioned the People’s Initiative for Departments of Peace. The call to governments by citizens for a non-violent solution to this current crisis is the first step in this international campaign in relation to this threat of war.

The second step will be to commission a high level delegation, including, if possible, the founder of conflict prevention studies, Johan Galtung, to visit Iran, the US and other western governments to put this non-violent conflict prevention strategy into action.

Other Negotiate Peace activities

• March 18th demonstration - Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square
  
  
  We will be marching behind the Negotiate Peace banner and we invite you to join us (see attached image so you'll recognise it!)
  
  We will also stake out a place with Negotiate Peace posters at the end of the march, just where it comes into Trafalgar Square and there will be petition forms to sign and to take away for signing.
  
  
  
• Second ministry for peace meeting on the Iran situation on 26th April in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House starting at 7pm.
  
  
  This meeting will bring us all up-to-date on crisis in the first hour, with lots of time for questions from the floor. In the second hour Kai Brand-Jacobsen from Transcend will show how conflict transformation methods have successfully prevented international conflicts elsewhere and how these can be applied to the Iran situation. Again, with time for questions from the floor. To receive an invitation to this meeting
  
  Please write to: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
  
  
• Building a Negotiate Peace coalition.

We want to reach out to other organisations to build a broad coalition for this campaign. We need your help to bring together the hundreds of organisations it will require if Negotiate Peace is to be taken seriously by government. If you can help with this please contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or ring 07795 217701.

If you are a member of an organisation, would you be willing to put a small banner on your site with a click through to the Negotiate Peace site for people to sign the online petition and join the campaign? We would email you the html for the banner.

Would you be willing to send an invitation to like-minded people to send this email out to their lists?

• Local groups

• Training on conflict transformation methods

These are the plans so far, many more activities will take place during the Negotiate Peace year. If you would like to take an active part in working on this campaign either at a national or a local level we would love to hear from you.

Just imagine, if this citizens' initiative - working worldwide - is able to prevent this war, how could governments ever go to war with one another again? We would have proved to them and to the world that non-violent conflict prevention is possible, that it resolves conflicts more cheaply than war - without the death, suffering and destruction - and is, of course, morally superior to war; in short, that it is the only rational answer to international conflict.

This is an opportunity to change the course of history. Join us.