A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism

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RICHARD BECKER

WESTERN REGION COORDINATOR, A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION

Richard Becker is the Western Regional Coordinator of the International A.N.S.W.E.R.-Act Now to Stop War and End Racism-Coalition and member of its National Steering Committee. A.N.S.W.E.R. has organized numerous mass protests from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of people against the war in Iraq, since 2002. Becker has been a central organizer and keynote speaker at, many West Coast mass mobilizations in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In October 2006, Becker was a presenter at the fourth In Defense of Humanity Conference in Rome, speaking on the subject of The Lebanon War and the “New Middle East.” In December 2005, Becker traveled to Damascus, Syria to address a conference on Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return. One of the few U.S. activists to visit Syria in recent years, Becker has spoken out in opposition to the U.S. campaign for regime change in that country at numerous public forums and media events. He was a key organizer of the August 12, 2006 protests against the U.S.-Israeli war in Lebanon and in defense of the Lebanese and Palestinian people. Becker writes regularly on U.S. policy in the Middle East and other subjects for the journal Socialism and Liberation (www.socialismandliberation.org).

In January 2000, Becker was co-leader of the third Iraq Sanctions Challenge, which delivered life-saving medicines to Iraq. Becker first traveled to Iraq in Feb. 1994 with a fact-finding delegation headed by Ramsey Clark. Becker co-authored The Children Are Dying, published in 1996, which documented the effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people, and was also a contributing author of the book, Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq Live (1999). Becker was co-producer of the award-winning video Genocide by Sanctions (1998).

Becker led fact-finding delegations to Palestine in May 2002 and October 2000, delivering medicine to Palestinian hospitals and bringing back an eyewitness report on conditions in the occupied territories. His eyewitness accounts of Israeli rocket and tank attacks on Palestinian residential areas and unarmed demonstrators were carried by many U.S. media. Becker  produced the video Palestine Fights for Freedom (July 2002) based on the experiences of the May 2002 A.N.S.W.E.R. delegation’s trip to the area. Becker has visited the Middle East on numerous delegations since 1986. In 1988, he traveled to Athens, Greece to be an international observer on the Al-Awda Ship of Return, carrying illegally expelled Palestinians back to their homeland. The ship was destroyed by explosives before sailing.

Becker was presenter at the first En Defensa de Humanidad International Conference of Artists and Intellectuals held in Caracas, Venezuela in December 2004. He has participated in numerous Pastors for Peace Caravans challenging the U.S. blockade of Cuba, and been a representative of the ANSWER Coalition at solidarity gatherings in that country.

Becker co-authored the book, NATO in the Balkans (1998) and traveled to the former Yugoslavia on a fact-finding mission following the 1999 NATO war. In September 1998 he, along with Ramsey Clark, comprised the first U.S. delegation to investigate the U.S. bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and produced the video, Eyewitness Sudan. Becker was a long-time member of the Bay Area Anti-Apartheid Network Steering Committee in the 1980s and 1990s..

Becker has represented the U.S. anti-war movement at many national and international events. Among these were the Gensuikin annual conference commemorating the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in Japan in 1991, the Fete L'Humanite in Paris, France in 1993, the European Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal in Berlin in 2000, the Japan Peace Forum in 2002, and the Asia Wide Coalition Anti-War Conference in Tokyo in November 2003. In Aug. 1995, Becker attended and was a founding member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions in London.