Richard Becker
Western Region Co-Director
International Action Center
(Ramsey Clark, National Chairperson)
2489 Mission St., Room 24
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 821-6545
iac@actionsf.org
Richard Becker is the Western Region Co-Director of the International Action Center (IAC), which was founded in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Becker was a leading activist in the movement against the Gulf War in the Bay Area, and an organizer of the January 19, 1991 march of 200,000 in San Francisco. Following the war, he helped coordinate the International War Crimes Tribunal. The Tribunal held hearings in 20 countries and 30 U.S. cities on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace committed by the U.S. government before, during, and after the Gulf War.
In January 2000, Becker was co-leader of the third Iraq Sanctions Challenge, made up of 51 people from five countries which delivered life-saving medicines valued at more than $2 million to Iraq. Becker first traveled to Iraq in February, 1994 with an IAC fact-finding delegation headed by Ramsey Clark on the third anniversary of the war, and represented the IAC at an international meeting to oppose the sanctions on Iraq, in Baghdad. Upon return, he was co-producer of the video: "Blockade: The Silent War Against Iraq," documenting the catastrophic effects of the U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Becker co-authored The Children Are Dying, a book published by the IAC (1996) documenting the effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people, and was also a contributing author of the book, Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq Live (1999) which documented the movement against the U.S. war and sanctions in Iraq. Becker was co-producer of the award-winning video, "Genocide by Sanctions" (1998).
Becker led an IAC fact-finding delegation to Palestine in October-November, 2000, delivering medicine to Palestinian hospital and bringing back an eyewitness report on conditions in the occupied territories. His eyewitness accounts of Israeli rocket and tank attacks on Palestinian residential areas and unarmed demonstrators were carried by may U.S. media. From 1984-90, Becker served on the National Board of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and was part of a fact-finding delegation to Jordan, Syria and the occupied West Bank and Gaza. In 1988, he traveled to Athens, Greece to be an international observer on the Al-Awda Ship of Return, carrying illegally expelled Palestinians back to their homeland. The ship was destroyed by explosives before sailing. Becker frequently writes and speaks on the subject of Palestine, Israel, and U.S. policy in the Middle East.
In 1992, Becker helped to initiate the international Peace for Cuba Appeal (IPCA), which launched an international campaign to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba and normalize relations between the two countries. IPCA held mass rallies in New York and San Francisco the same year, the largest ever held in this country against the blockage. IPCA has since organized many demonstrations, forums and other activities calling for an end to U.S. hostility toward Cuba, and has sent more than $5 million in medical aid to the island nation. Since its beginning in 1992, Becker has been active in the U.S.- Cuba Friendshipment Caravans organized by Pastors for Peace.
Becker is co-author of the IAC book, NATO in the Balkans (1998) and was a founder of the Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War (1999). He spoke at many teach-ins, forums and other events on the 1999 U.S./NATO war in Yugoslavia.
Becker has represented the IAC at many national and international events. Among these were the Gensuikin annual conference commemorating the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in Japan in 1991, and the Fete L'Humanite in Paris, Francis in 1993. In August 1995, Becker attended and was a founding member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions in London. The Commission issued an International Appeal to End the Sanctions, signed by many prominent individuals and organizations. In September, 1998, he participated n the first independent U.S. delegation to investigate the U.S. bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant and was a producer of the video, Eyewitness Sudan. The destroyed facility had supplied 50% of the Sudan's medicine needs.
Becker was member of the Bay Area Anti-Apartheid Network Steering Committee for many years. He has written many articles and commentaries on Middle East affairs, and has been interviewed by numerous national and international media, among them the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, CNN, BBC, Asahi Shimbun, Pacific National News, KPFA and KPFK radio, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, Los Angeles Times and others. He has represented the IAC as a speaker at hundreds of campus and community forums in the United States, Canada, England, Japan, Greece, Yugoslavia, Jordan and other countries.