200,000 Italians march for peace and human rights..

I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it with my own eyes..but here it is..from CommonDreams.org:

ASSISI, Italy – About 200,000 people marched from Perugia to Assisi Sunday calling for “all human rights for all” and the end of wars.

The 24km “peace march” between the two towns in central Italy concluded a “peace week” featuring some 400 initiatives on peace and human rights. These included the 7th assembly of the United Nations of the People in Perugia Oct. 5-6.”Peace and justice walk together” and “Water for all” were among some of the banners at the march. Many carried the famous “peace flags” that marked Italian protest against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Participants also joined the “Stand Up!” action in line with the United Nations’ “No Excuse” campaign to promote the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight goals agreed in 2000 to cut poverty and to improve health and education. People in the rally sat and then stood up to urge the Italian government to allocate the 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) to foreign aid.

The march, the 17th such, was started by peace activist Aldo Capitini in 1961. It is organised by Peace Roundtable, a coalition of Italian NGOs, unions, church groups and local administrations working for peace and solidarity.

The march is the big event for the Italian peace movement, and is a sort of barometer of civil society activities. To mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be celebrated in December, the theme of the march shifted this time from peace to human rights.

“It is a way to make clearer which peace we want to build: not just absence of war, but also respect for human rights,” Peace Roundtable coordinator Flavio Lotti told IPS. “We still march for peace, but making more explicit the objectives we are struggling for.”

A call for action issued at the march says human rights are “the legal, political and moral compass to face the current world crisis…Promoting ‘all human rights for all’ means rejecting the idea that the rights of some people can be sacrificed in the name of security, development or the interest of the richest, strongest, the most aggressive.”

For the rest of the writeup click the link at the top of the post. It is about more than peace..its about human rights. I think the Italians got it right..why can’t we ‘get it right’ over here in the U.S.?

Guess what? I can’t find ANY media reporting on this march either. I googled the hell out of Italy, peace, march..and nothing. That is so friggin wrong.