Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards

Military Families Speak Out

Military Families Speak Out emerged in November 2002 as a forceful voice opposing the Iraq war. The organization now comprises more than 1,500 families across the United States with loved ones in the military. In addition to their continuing activism against the war, Military Families provides support for families who have lost loved ones. The network has inspired the modern peace movement with their deeply personal opposition to the war, as well as with their courage. In breaking the customary silence of military families, the group's members have risked ostracism from their own communities and support networks at their time of greatest need.

Seymour Hersh

Seymour M. Hersh is one of the world's most recognized and respected investigative journalists. He made his name in 1969 by revealing the My Lai massacre, reporting that earned him a Pulitzer Prize and has been credited as a catalyst for ending the Vietnam war. Hersh most recently made headlines with his explosive investigation of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. He is the winner of four George Polk awards, the author of eight books, and currently writes for The New Yorker. He is a particularly apt recipient of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award because of his reporting on Henry Kissinger's deep involvement in the CIA's role in the Chilean coup.

Sheridan Circle Memorial Service
Sunday, September 19, 2004, 10 am
23rd Street & Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Please share in our tribute to Orlando and Ronni's commitment to justice, peace, and human dignity.

In 1963, the Institute for Policy Studies opened its doors with the belief that progressive thought, advocacy, and action can build a better society. Ten years later, Chile's democratically elected government, led by President Salvador Allende, was overthrown by a military coup. These two histories became inextricably linked on September 21, 1976, when agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet detonated a car bomb that killed former Chilean diplomat and director of the Institute's Transnational Institute, Orlando Letelier, and IPS development associate, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in Washington, DC.

Each year since the murders, the Institute for Policy Studies has honored these fallen colleagues while celebrating new heroes of the human rights movement from the United States and elsewhere in the Americas with the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards. (This year's international recipient has had to postpone accepting the award until 2005.)

Letelier-Moffitt Selection Committee

Fred Azcarate, Jobs with Justice
Marie Dennis, Maryknoll Office on Justice and Peace
Karen Dolan, Institute for Policy Studies
Joe Eldridge, Chaplain, American University
Jill Gay
Adam Isacson, Center for International Policy
Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive
Isabel Morel de Letelier
Joy Olson, Washington Office on Latin America
Barbara Shailor, AFL-CIO

For more information, contact: Tammy Williams, 202/234-9382, ext. 235, tammy@ips-dc.org

List of Honorees, 1978-2004

Learn more about Letelier, Moffitt, and the past honorees with the book Light Among Shadows: A Celebration of Orlando Letelier, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, and Heroes of the Human Rights Movement, IPS 2001