COMISO WOMEN SAY NO TO CRUISE

An imaginary thread linked Comiso to Greenham Common on December 12, 1982, as Sicilian women held a sit-in at the proposed Cruise missile base at Comiso. Comiso is due to receive 112 Cruise missiles in 1983. A feminist collective in Catania (Coordinamento per I'autodeterminazione della donna) has been active in the peace issue since September 1981 when they drew up their own document which was then translated into English and French and taken to Amsterdam to an international meeting of women for peace. The most important points of their statement are: "The violence of war equals the violence of rape; this is the historical memory that women have of all wars. It is not by
chance that war goes through the same stages as the traditional relationships between the two sexes: aggression, conquest, possession, control. Of a woman or of a land —
it makes little difference." And again, "For women, ourselves, the war has already begun: the raising of military expenditures means cutting expenditures for social services."

Links with Greenham Common were established when two Greenham women visited Sicily and showed slides of their peace camp and women's actions. This reinforced the will of the Catania group to work separately and to hold the women-only action on 12 December, 1982. On that day they sat in a circle in front of the Magliocco airport
with other women, some of whom were from Comiso itself. Magliocco has since had a web woven across its gateway on 4 January 1983 by 30 women from the Peace Camp, from European countries and the USA, which blocked the entrance from 6 am to midday. The women also distributed leaflets to explain why they were there.

March 8th, 1983 - International Women's Day - will see an international women's action at Comiso. Messages of support would be welcome. The address is: Anna Vio, Via
Landolina 12, Catania 951991, Sicilia ITALY.