Cynthia Cockburn is reporting from WILPF's Centenary Conference in the Hague on 'Women's Power to Stop War', 27-29 April.
By the time Hitler attacked Austria in early 1938, the membership of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was already deep in disagreement as to appropriate, and effective, strategies against such armed aggression. The dilemma had already been sharply posed by Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1934, and Japan’s incursion into China in 1937.
From its 9th Congress in 1937 WILPF had issued a statement that recognized the situation as involving aggressors and victims. Notwithstanding, it affirmed ‘neutrality’, and stated a ‘firm and uncompromising’ position against arming or financing either side. Instead it urged that ‘every moral, diplomatic, political and economic means – except a food blockade – be applied to the aggressor’. But what, exactly, many Wilpfers were asking themselves, does that mean? Do we suppose that a reasoned appeal will succeed? Do we urge negotiation, and if so with what incentives? Should we call for sanctions – an oil embargo for instance?
