Kate Dewes Ph.D. O.N.Z.M, (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit) has coordinated the South Island Regional Office of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Peace Foundation from her home in Christchurch for 27 years. She has taught
Peace Studies from 1986- 1997 and from 1999-2006 part time at the University of Canterbury. Between 1988-90, she served on the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control, and was reappointed in 2000 and 2004.   From 1992-96, she was an International Peace Bureau (IPB) Executive member, and became a Vice President in 1997. A pioneer of the World Court Project (WCP), - an international campaign by a network of citizen organisations which led to a legal challenge to nuclear deterrence in the International Court of Justice - she was on its International Steering Committee from 1992-96. Her doctoral thesis documents the evolution and impact of the World Court Project (WCP). She co-authored Aotearoa/New Zealand at the World Court with her partner Robert Green and they have published several articles and chapters on the WCP. She has been a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Aotearoa) for 30 years.  Kate was the New Zealand government  expert on the United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education from 2000-2002. She was the main instigator in the successful adoption of the proposal to have Christchurch declared as New Zealand's largest Peace City in July 2002.

Robert Green, Commander, Royal Navy (Retired), served in the British Royal Navy from 1962-82.  As a Fleet Air Arm Observer (Navigator), he flew in Buccaneer carrier-borne nuclear strike aircraft (1968-72), then in anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth-bombs (1972-77). On promotion to Commander, he spent 1978-80 in the Ministry of Defence in London as Personal Staff Officer to the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Policy), an Admiral who was closely involved in recommending the replacement for the Polaris nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine force.  In his final job, he was Staff Officer (Intelligence) to Commander-in-Chief Fleet at Northwood HQ near London, in charge of round-the-clock intelligence support for Polaris as well as the rest of the Fleet.  Having taken voluntary redundancy in 1981, he was released after the Falklands War.

Mrs Thatcher's decision to replace Polaris with Trident was one reason he left the Royal Navy.  The unsolved murder of his aunt Hilda Murrell, an anti-nuclear energy campaigner in 1984, led him to challenge the hazards of nuclear electricity generation.  The break-up of the Soviet Union followed by the Gulf War caused him to speak out against nuclear weapons.  In 1991 he became Chair of the UK branch of the World Court Project (WCP), an international campaign by a network of citizen organisations which led to a legal challenge to nuclear deterrence in the International Court of Justice in 1996. As a member of the WCP International Steering Committee, he met Kate Dewes. After they were married in 1997, he emigrated to New Zealand in 1999, and in 2001 became a New Zealand citizen. As Co-Coordinator with Kate of the Peace Foundation’s Disarmament & Security Centre, he is now working closely with the New Zealand government on nuclear disarmament issues.  He is also using his military experience to promote alternative thinking about security and disarmament. He is the author of the books Fast Track to Zero Nuclear Weapons, The Naked Nuclear Emperor: Debunking Nuclear Deterrence and many related articles. 

For more on his conversion from operating nuclear weapons to campaigning against them...

Pauline Tangiora Q.S.O. Q.S.M.  is a Maori elder from the Rongomaiwahine Tribe on the East Coast of the North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. She also has affiliations to many other tribes. She is a Justice of the Peace, a former President and currently Vice President of WILPF Aotearoa, the former Regional Women's Representative for the World Council for Indigenous Peoples,  Earth Charter Commissioner and a member of the Earth Council. She is a life member of the Maori Women's Welfare League and a Patron of the Peace Foundation. She has represented Aotearoa at many international fora and was a Consultant to the International Steering Committee of the World Court Project. To know more about her life and work click here

Alyn Ware is an International Consultant for the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Disarmament and Security Centre, was on the International Steering Committee of the World Court Project, an NGO observer at the negotiations for an International Criminal Court, and was the NGO representative on the New Zealand delegation to the 2000 NPT Review Conference. He co-authored Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention with Merav Datan.

He has worked closely with the Peace Foundation since the early 1980s, coordinating the Mobile Peace Van from 1984-89 and 1991-92. He was the UN Representative for the Gulf Peace Team (1990-91) and worked as a researcher for the World Federalist Movement in New York (1988-89). He is presently co-ordinating the Peace Foundation's UN Year of Culture of Peace Schools Outreach Programme and helped establish the Peace Brigades International East Timor-Indonesia Project. He is a Vice President International Peace Bureau, and is on the International Steering Committees of the Middle Powers Initiative and Abolition 2000. He is the International Coordinator for the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament.

Anna Hunter works as Peace educator and archivist with the Disarmament and Security Centre. Her role includes tutoring the peace studies course at the University of Canterbury, sorting and preparing of documents for archiving as part of the peace collection project, coordinating DSC’s three photographic exhibitions “Children of the Gulf War”, “Gandhi” and “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” and taking part in the co-ordination of community education projects like Peace Week. She is involved with a variety of local peace groups such a Peace Action Network Otautahi, Depleted Uranium Education Team (DUET), Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the youth peace network. In 2004, she was part of “The International Peace Pilgrimage” which walked across Australia and Japan to promote a nuclear free future - No weapons, No more waste, No uranium mining. When not working for peace, she is studying part-time towards a Law degree.


 

Updated Oct 2005