Mike Ferner, executive director of Veterans for Peace and author of “Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran for Peace Reports from Iraq” will speak at “Voices for Peace from Afghanistan” at Eastern Michigan University.

The free event will start at 7 p.m. today in 207 Pray-Harrold Hall.

Vietnam veteran Ferner, who was a participant in one of the 2010 peace delegations to Afghanistan by Voices for Creative Non-Violence, will speak about his experience as part of the peace delegation.

According to the Michigan Peaceworks’ website, “It will give you a perspective you won’t see on television.”

Jen Chapin-Smith, administrative director at Michigan Peaceworks, said Ferner is expected to present a slideshow of pictures he took of Afghanistan.

“So for those of us who have been reading the newspapers, you don’t always get many pictures because it’s dangerous for reporters to go in Afghanistan,” Chapin-Smith said. “But since he’s actually been there, we’ll get to see what it really looks like there.”

Other experiences he’ll share pertain to meetings with citizens, victims of war and other non-violent activists, including members of the Afghan youth peace movement.

“[Ferner] has been to peace delegations in Afghanistan, on top of meeting with
peace activists and a lot of youth activists in Afghanistan,” Chapin-Smith said, “so he obviously has knowledge of how the people of Afghanistan feel about the war.”

The event is sponsored in part by the Michigan Peaceworks Association and EMU’s Muslim Student Association.

“We are sponsoring this event because it has been 10 years of the Afghan war, which is the longest war of the American history, and it does not look like it will end any time soon,” said Umer Sultan, a board member of EMU’s MSA. “It is important for us to understand how the Afghan people perceive this on-going invasion and what they think is the way to bring an end to it.”

Additional sponsors include EMU’s Amnesty International, Center for Multicultural Affairs, the University of Michigan’s Muslim Student Association, the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice and United Nations Association and Huron Valley Chapter.

This event is LBC credit approved by the CMA. Students of EMU can go to the check-in table to fill out the LBC slip. For more information, visit: www.michiganpeaceworks.org/?p=1252