January 18th- Cheri Honkala arrived late in France for her connecting flight to India. Running to catch her flight, she was held up by security forces aftersomeone had placed a pair of scissors in her brief case while she was from her traveling from New York. With tears and anger, she watched her plane take off without her. Cecilia Garza from the KWRU then prepared to speak at the World Court of Women on US War Crimes on Cheri's behalf.

Statement prepared by Garza, Galen Tyler, and Tara Colon:

My name is Cecilia Garza and I am a proud member of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. We are a multi-racial organization led and organized by poor and homeless families that is working with all different sections of the population to put an end to poverty and homelessness in the United States of America. I'm speaking on behalf of Cheri Honkala, founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, who regretfully cannot be with all of us today. Her connecting flight from Paris left the ground without her, along with others who were also planning on being in Mumbai with us today. She is heartbroken that she cannot be here now, but she is happy that she arrive in time to participate in the Women in Black vigil with all of us tomorrow.

Cheri's address today was going to be about the war against the homeless in the belly of the beast. Well the KWRU has been around since 1991 and has been dealing with the fight and the plight of homelessness not just in Kensington, but throughout the world by building a national movement called the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. We have done national bus tours and national marches to make the poor and homeless visible in the richest country in the world, where constant downsizing and a lower standard of living is being forced on us all daily. We are tired of being made to disappear in America and throughout the world.

I don't have that much time to speak, but I do want to talk about two of our most recent struggles where we have been made criminals for speaking out against these injustices we're forced to live with. One happened on this past July 4th, on the opening day of our national constitution center in Philadelphia. On this day we held a march and two of our key leaders were falsely arrested for assaulting an officer and faced 22 years in prison for ensuring that on this day of our nation's independence, we talk about articles 23, 25, and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- the right to a job at a living wage, the right to food, housing, education, and healthcare. Had it not been for video coverage of the entire event, we would have lost these two valuable leaders.

Secondly, and more recently, during our Homes for the Holidays campaign, over a dozen of our members were arrested in City Hall for trying to house 10 homeless families. For this simple act of survival, our members were held in jail for over 36 hours and given a stay-away order from City Hall.

These are just a couple out of many situations we've been dealing with since the beginning of our organization and especially since September 11th. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, our former governor of Pennsylvania, is very familiar with our organization and has continued to target us for carrying out these necessary acts of survival.

In 2000, in Philadelphia, on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, 10,000 people participated in an unpermitted march led by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. This August, in New York City, we plan to have an even bigger march to put an end to the Bush Administration.

And so in closing, I want to ask you all for international solidarity on that day so that we can defeat Bush, and I want to invite you to visit our website, kwru.org, to find information on how you can join our efforts.