THE SEVILLE STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE

"The same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace"

 Support Network c/o David Adams, Wesleyan Psychology Dept
Middletown, Connecticut, USA, 06457

NEWSLETTER � VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2, OCT, 1987

--- The AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION endorsed the Seville
statement at its annual meeting in New York on August 27. An account
of the process leading up to the endorsement is enclosed from the
October issue of THE MONITOR, which is mailed out to 100,000 members
and associates of the Association. In addition to the credits given
in the article, special credit is due to PSYCHOLOGISTS FOR SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY who supported the process after endorsing it themselves
at their annual steering committee meeting last December. THE SOCIETY
FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDV OF SOCIAL ISSUES also played a major role
after they, too, had endorsed the Statement in March, 1987. And finally,
credit is due to the INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF PSYCHOLOGISTS who have
also endorsed the Statement and encouraged its adoption by the American
Psychological Association. All of these organizations were represented
at the August 31 press conference described in the Monitor article,
along with the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION and the INTERNATIONAL
SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH ON AGGRESSION.

--- In addition to the press conference, for which over 400 invitations
were issued, letters were sent by the participants to Science, Nature,
and the New York Times. So far the only response has come from Science,
whose representative wrote to say "I regret to say that we are not able
to publish it. A copy of the letter is enclosed. Efforts to obtain
publicity in the mass media will continue.

--- The Statement was presented (in English, French, and Spanish) to
the 150 national delegations to the United Nations Conference on the
Relationship Between Disarmament and Development. In the cover letter,
which is enclosed, it was stressed that the Seville Statement is
especially appropriate to be used along with the UNESCO Statements on
Race. The former demonstrates that there is no biological inevitability
of the arms race, while the latter indicates that there is no biological
inevitability of uneven development.

--- The list of endorsing organizations and publications of the Seville
Statement continue to grow, and so we have prepared a list of these which
is as up-to-date as possible (enclosed). No doubt there are some that
have been missed - please write to me as soon as possible to include
them in the next newsletter, Also, I will be pleased to send the reader
a copy of the Statement in any of the following languages in which it has
now been translated and published: French, Swedish, Finnish, Greek,
Italian, and Spanish.

--- The most effective work to disseminate and teach from the Seville
Statement continues to come from individuals around the world. whose
motivation is best expressed by Dimitra Papadopoulou, the Greek psychologist,
in her letter which is enclosed: "The Statement on Violence will
continue his life in this part of the world, in Greece, because I love
it." Dimitra's two letters give us all many ideas For ways that we