Subject: Help Polish Green Brigades Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 12:09:15 -0800 From: Peter Bein Please sign the petition at http://www.most.org.pl/zb/gbnfos.htm and circulate this message through your networks. Background below. Thank you. Peter (Piotr) Bein piotr.bein@imag.net ================================================= February 1, 2000 Vancouver/Canada and Cracow/Poland Polish "Green Brigades" need help Grassroot publications denied government funding Withdrawing public funds from a country's leading independent magazine does not contribute to freedom of information. For publishing alternative information on NATO war in Yugoslavia, depleted uranium weapons, and the hypocrisy of some European Greens re human rights in Kosovo, the "Green Brigades Ecologist Magazine", a Polish environmental bi-weekly, received a death sentence from the government-run fund for the protection of the environment. Well-read "Dzikie Zycie", "Kropla" and many other small, independent publications shared a similar fate. Andrzej Zwawa, the chief editor of the Green Brigades Publishing House is trying to rescue the magazine, despite government decision. He issued a petition to the government in Polish and English, which supporters can sign on the Internet at http://www.most.org.pl/zb/gbnfos.htm. The punishment was dealt under the pretext of withdrawing funds from small publications. With a circulation of only 1,000 copies every 2 weeks, Polish "Green Brigades" serves as an information exchange forum for the country's environment and community movement, as well as the general public. The bi-weekly appears on the Internet, where it enjoys far greater readership. The staff, facilities and equipment are basic. Often 3-5 people work on less than adequate computers in a cramped space, equivalent to half the area of a plushy office in the government or its fund. All texts in "Green Brigades" come from volunteer authors, who are proponents and opponents of diverse religions, political and military alliances, organizations, ideas and worldviews. Although an unfair 1998 article in respectable "Polityka" weekly unfairly labeled it "sectarian", the environmental bi-weekly remains one of Poland's few non-bigoted publications. Access to the records of the granting decision was denied, but well-informed sources maintain that the commission refused the funding because texts of "...anarchists, leftists, opponents of bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO..." have appeared in the condemned publications. The grassroots activists wonder how much influence sectarian hysteria exerts on the funding decisions. A recent book by two Catholic clergy, professors Slipko and Zwolinski, titled "Rozdroza ekologii" (cross-roads of ecology) manipulates original statements of environmentalists to make them look sectarian and dangerous to society. According to the professors in cassocks, vegetarianism is a religion, and Greenpeace "...have no idea what is really harmful and hazardous for the environment... while promoting technologies that are lethal for the environment." Using the book as court evidence, the mayor of Bielsko, the seat of "Dzikie Zycie", refused city funding for this publication. Zwawa's bi-weekly featured numerous authors from Western Europe and North America on topics ranging from deep ecology, through deforestation, organic farming, agrotourism and global climate change, to the use of depleted uranium weapons in Yugoslavia. "Green Brigades" held an interview with Niaz Dorry of Greenpeace USA, the 1998 "Time" magazine 'Hero of the Planet'. It also presented: the North American solar aquatic method of treating sewage; a community sustainability project downtown Vancouver, British Columbia; the controversy over Makah whale hunt off the coast of Washington state; the clear-cutting of old-growth rainforests in Canada; the risks from marine aquaculture and overfishing worldwide; the struggle of American Indians to retain their lands; the warming up of Alaska; and many other topics. The articles presented to the Polish reader international organizations, such as Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Norwegian Environmental Protection Agency, Sierra Club, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Raincoast Conservation Society, Forest Action Network, People's Action for Threatened Habitat, Raging Grannies, Eco-Cafe, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Climate Coalition, US National Fisheries Service, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Georgia Strait Alliance, Makah Tribal Council, Worldwatch Institute, International Whaling Commission, World Council of Whalers, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, American Ocean Campaign, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ocean Voice International, Harvard Medical School - Health and Global Environment Centre, Ecological Action Centre in Halifax, Hatfield Marine Sciences Centre, and many other. Sample articles (in Polish) can be viewed on the web at: http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/131/morze1.htm (marine life) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/131/morze2.htm (interview with Niaz Dorry) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/131/wieloryb.htm (whale hunts) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/133/nato.htm (NATO, militarism) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/133/prezenta.htm (European Union politics) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/133/nowoczes.htm (eco-philosophy) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/135 (eco-philosophy) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/139/military.htm (militarism) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/140/klimat.htm (climate change) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/141/euroscep.htm (European Union politics) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/141/dzikie.htm (deforestation) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/142/dzikie.htm (deforestation) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/143/military.htm (depleted uranium weapons) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/143/nato.htm (NATO controversy) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/144/nato.htm (European Greens and NATO) http://www.most.org.pl/zb/zb/145/zwierze.htm#schronisko (animal rights) Contact information: Andrzej Zwawa, chief editor of "Zielone Brygady" Wydawnictwo "Zielone Brygady" (Green Brigades Publishing House) Slawkowska 12/24, PL 31-014 Kraków, Poland telephone: +4812 422 2147, or 422 2264, or 429 5332 extension 30 fax: +4812 429 5332 extension 26 or 22 SMS: 48603363721@text.plusgsm.pl e-mail: zb@zb.most.org.pl http://www.most.org.pl/zb Piotr Bein, contributing author Vancouver, Canada telephone and fax: +604 228 9437 e-mail: piotr.bein@imag.net