Nieuwsbericht | 18-05-2015
Pro Concordia Labor Flag ceremony
Visitors Centre
In English:
On May 19, the purple, yellow and white Pro Concordia Labor peace flag – which was designed in 1897 by Countess Cora di Brazzà and used by peace activists in the 19th century – was raised at the Visitor’s Center at the Peace Palace. Steven van Hoogstraten, Director of the Carnegie Foundation of the Netherlands, raised the flag in a ceremony in front of the Visitor’s Center at 12:30pm.
To mark International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament May 24, 30 international women peacemakers will walk across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the world’s most heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea. The walk will bring international attention to the need to end the Korean War by replacing the 1953 armistice agreement with a permanent peace treaty. The walkers also want to help reunite families long-separated by the DMZ and ensure women are involved at all levels of the peace-building process, a requirement of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
The Pro Concordia Labor peace flag will be carried on the women’s walk and given to the women of both North and South Korea.
Exactly 100 years ago, in 1915, more than 1,200 women assembled in The Hague in an effort to initiate a process of continuous mediation in attempt to end World War 1. The Peace Palace recently installed a bust of Aletta Jacobs (a gift of the Dutch chapter of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom.), who organized this historic meeting. The women’s DMZ peace walk is squarely in that tradition, and the 1897 flag connects these two moments in the public memory.
Other locations participating in the raising of the Pro Concordia Labor peace flag include The Carter Center in Hiroshima, Japan, the former home of Bertha von Suttner in Harmannsdorf, Austria, and Central Michigan University in the U.S.A.
To learn more about the Pro Concordia Labor flag visit: http://www.proconcordialabor.com
To learn more about the DMZ Peace Walk visit: http://www.womencrossdmz.org
More information Women’s Walk for Peace Korea