The Unity Tour:
For India-Pakistan Peace


18 April - 24 April, 2002

Featuring special guest speakers direct from India and
Pakistan:

Achin Vanaik, author and leading Indian peace activist, just returned from fact-finding mission to Gujerat

Muhammad Tahseen, human rights and peace activist from
Pakistan

The Unity Tour is a unique opportunity for people in
Britain to hear first-hand reports and analysis on the unfolding South Asian crisis.

Achin Vanaik and Mohammed Tahseen will discuss:

The danger of war and the struggle for peace between
India and Pakistan

How the US-led war against terrorism is fuelling violence across south Asia

The menace of communal violence in Gujerat and elsewhere

Our guests from India and Pakistan - an inspiring
India-Pakistan alliance will speak at public meetings up and down the country (details below), and will also be available for interview by the media.

They will be the special guests at a Stop the War Coalition evening to celebrate international opposition to the war against terrorism on Saturday 20 April, in solidarity
with that day's major national anti-war demonstration
in Washington DC.

The Unity Tour is being jointly organised by the Stop
the War Coalition, The National Civil Rights Movement and the Socialist Alliance.

Unity Tour programme, 18 April-24 April

Thursday 18 April, 7:30 pm, Birmingham Sports Centre,
201 Balsall Heath Road (opposite Central Mosque), Birmingham. For more information contact Ger Francis 07949 028362.

Friday 19 April, 7:30pm, Sheffield Library Theatre,
Sheffield. For more information contact Simon Nelson on 07752 627753.

Saturday 20 April, mid-day, the guest speakers will
join Bruce Kent outside the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square, London,
where he is holding a vigil in solidarity with the US anti-war demonstration in
Washington DC.

Saturday 20 April, 6-11pm, SOAS Student Union Common
Room - an evening to celebrate international
opposition to the war against terrorism, hosted by the
Stop the War Coalition. Doors open at 6; speeches at
8pm; bar, food, music; live link-up to protest in
Washington DC. Entry: ?5/?2. For more information call 07951 235 915.

Sunday 21 April, 3pm-7pm, Reception and Public Meeting
at Featherstone High School, Montague Road, Southall. Organised by The Monitoring Group. For
More information contact Suresh Grover 07903 931365.

Monday 22 April, 7pm, Media Workers Against the War
public meeting; a Chance to interrogate our two speakers in detail. 7pm, University of London Union, Malet Street, London W1. For more information call Dave Crouch 07801
789297.

Tuesday 23 April, 7:30pm: North West England Public
meeting, Unity Community Centre, Shepherd Street, Preston. For more information call Tony Reid 01772 732313

Wednesday 24 April - Noon: the guest speakers will
speak at the protest against Henry Kisssinger's appearance at the Institute of Directors, outside the Albert Hall, London.

Wednesday, 24 April, 7:30 pm: Public meeting at
Highfields Youth and Community Centre, Leicester.

For more information about The Unity Tour or to
arrange interviews or further meetings, please email  mikemarqusee@aol.com or call John Fisher on 07733101588.


NOTES ON SPEAKERS:


Achin Vanaik is one of India's leading political
authors and activists. He has written 'The Painful Transition' (1990), 'The Furies of Indian
Communalism' (1997), 'New Nukes: India, Pakistan and
Nuclear Disarmament' (wirth Praful Bidwai, 2000), as well as numerous essays and articles on Indian foreign policy for newspapers and journals all over the world.

Vanaik is currently Visiting Professor at the Academy
of Third World Study at Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi. He is a founding member of
MIND (Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament) and
sits on the coordinating committee of The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (India). He is also a founding member of the Coalition for Peace
and Democracy, set up in the wake of Sept 11 to oppose the war on Afghanistan, its extension elsewhere and the brinksmanship that India has practised against Pakistan
after the 13 December attack on the Indian Parliament.

Vanaik has just returned from a fact-finding mission
to Gujerat. He was one of four members of a team of inquiry which will submit an official report to an eminent public tribunal. The report, published on 9 April, indicts the
Gujerat state government and its allies for complicity
in an organised pogrom against Muslims.


Muhammad Tahseen is a founding member of the Citizen's
Peace Committee in Pakistan, and a long-time active champion of friendship between India and
Pakistan. He was one of the organisers of the secular
anti-war demonstrations held in Pakistan in recent months -
demonstrations which have brought together activists for human and women's rights, trades unionists, intellectuals, environmentalists and ordinary Pakistani citizens opposed
to the US attack on Afghanistan and any prospect of
war with India.

Tahseen is Director of the South Asia
Partnership-Pakistan, a major independent NGO and proponent of sustainable and participatory grass-roots
development. A veteran of numerous campaigns for
human, women's and minority rights and against war and dictatorship, he has spoken at forums on democracy and development around the world.