OPEN LETTER FROM VENUS RE; CANADA AND SPACE WARFARE, READ BY VENUSIAN VENESTA LIBINIUS CARBORUM, OCTOBER, 2001, OTTAWA

 

Greetings. Laurel was unfortunately not able to make it to this event, so she asked me to come in her place. My name is Venesta Libinius Carborum, and I am from the Planet Venus. First, I would like to greet you with the common salute of my people (plugs nose and pinches face), and ask that whenever you see me do this, it is not because I think earthlings stink. It is common for creatures on Venus to do this as a sign of respect and peace. I did this to Richard earlier today, even though he forgot to include the Venusian People's Front as an endorser of this event.

But this is okay, because I know how busy you earthlings have been trying to end the causes of violence. I am here today to not only lend our support to your efforts, but to share my grave concerns over something being developed just a few kilometres from this church: you know it by the name, Star Wars.

On Venus, we are watching with great fear the way in which you have not only militarized your planet, but are now planning to colonize space with your weapons of war. Through our interplanetary monitors, we have watched with trepidation the research and development for the star wars space warfare system. And it is with great sorrow that we have discovered that the Canadian is part of this destructive enterprise, through its research and development arm, just down the road from here, a place known as DREO or Defense Research Enterprises Organization, in, I believe you call it, Nepean.

We on Venus have long been admirers of one of the great earthlings of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King. In 1967, Dr. King said he could not speak out for peace without first recognizing that his own government was the greatest purveyor of violence in the history of humankind.

King declared that nations - and I assume he also meant planets - which continue to spend ever greater amounts on war at the expense of programs of social uplift are approaching spiritual death. He also declared that the gaping chasm between proclamations of peace and the practice of war must be closed.

On Venus, we have taken his words to heart and have worked hard - like you folks here today - to end the causes of war: the economic inequities. I am pleased to report that within a very short time, the diverting of Venusian funds from objects of war to the sustainability of peace is indeed being accomplished.

I hope you don't feel I'm being presumptuous, as a visitor to your country, but I believe that King's words should also challenge the view about Canada's role as peacemaker. In our view, the facts do not bear this out. For example, Canada spends well over $15 billion annually on war and armed enforcement of injustice, or almost 800% more than is spent on affordable housing programs.

Note the following equation which your UN recently described: as the richest 20% of the earth, North Americans consume 86% of the planet's resources. The lowest 20% consumes just 1.35% In human terms. This translates into the perverse result of the failure to address the ultimate violence of global racism: the starvation to death every day of some 35,000 children, and thousands of their parents and grandparents, almost all of them people of colour. I'm here to tell you today that this situaion is preventable, and can be reversed.

Which brings us back to DREO and the Canadian government's complicity - and secrecy - in the development of space warfare. Billions of dollars are now being spent - in your name - on the development of what will turn out to be the most lethal weapon in earth's history. And yet, the Canadian government continues to tell the people that Canada is not involved in Star Wars. This is greatly confusing to us.

Our research has uncovered the following question: "Will technology allow us to fit 70 tons of lethality into a 20 ton package?" This question, whose sickness defies words, comes from a Canadian government document describing the work done at Defence Research Establishment Ottawa, DREO, in Nepean. At DREO, the research and development crucial for the star wars and space warfare plans, is proceeding quietly, in good orderly fashion, guaranteed both by your tax dollars - and by your silence.

On earth, space warfare is about the ability of rich nations to completely dominate earth by planting weapons platforms in space. As the Pentagon admits, U.S. control of space is crucial, because "the gap between the haves and have-not nations will continue to widen, creating regional unrest."

For we Venusians, of course, the threat is that one day these weapons will be turned on us.

We have unearthed a copy of the Canadian government's 2000 technology investment strategy which states: "Space soon will by the fourth medium of warfare. It sill not only bind all war fighting forces together but will become strategically critical to the survival of warfighters. For future coalition warfare, space superiority will be fundamental."

So I have come to earth today to issue a warning that the development of space warfare must stop, to ensure the safety of all life on earth and indeed throughout the galaxy. I'm here today to plead with all earthlings: do not put your money into war, but into mechanisms for sustainable peace and social justice. It is only through a commitment to social justice that security for all is ultimately guaranteed.

On November 9th, I will be returning to earth with some of my sisters to Ottawa in the hopes of persuading the scientists and engineers who work at DREO to stop building weapons of war, and to start creating the conditions for peace.

On the morning of Friday, November 9, we invite you to join us with Homes not Bombs in a nonviolent action and festival of life at what we might accurately describe as DREO, the Canadian Department of Death.

We will be there not to cause violence or damage, or to take anyone's jobs away from them, but to transform the evil genius which would make a desert of this world and call it peace. We want to transform the tools of terror being developed there into the implements of inspiration that will help solve the ravages of pollution, poverty, inequality here on earth while we still can.

The work of DREO is to create the tools of mass violence and terror that will maintain the gross inequality on this planet. On November 9, join us in uncovering Canada's best kept, most dangerous secret, and put an end to this country's role in an armageddon that will make the great crimes of your 20th century pale by comparison.

I asked my Ottawa friend, Brian Edgecombe, what people in this city do for fun on a Saturday night, and he informed me there is a meeting to discuss the star wars action tonight at CUPE headquarters, at 7 pm, at 20 James St. Since I am a long way from home and looking for some fun, I will be there, and I hope you will too.

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