Letter sent to Food Not Bombs cofounder Keith McHenry by the people that sabotaged the Food Not Bombs global coordination office and the Taos Peace House and Infoshop. Keith started the Taos Peace House and Infoshop in 2007 and hired Nyna as an assistant a year later to help file nonprofit status, support the 30th Anniversary Food Not Bombs Tour and fill all the Food Not Bombs t-shirt and book orders. Keith obtained a grant of $14,500 from the Ben and Jerry's Foundation to rent a Food Not Bombs global coordination office. With the economy in crisis and the 30th anniversary in the future we thought it would be good to have an office. Keith and the other Food Not Bombs volunteers opened the office to all Taos Peace groups to help organize protests and educational events to implement a strategy for peace, social justice and a sustainable future. Keith installed a phone, wifi and collected literature for the infoshop. He also bought and designed the website, painted signs, designed the literature and helped furnish the peace house. When the money from the grant ran out Keith provided funding through the honorariums he received for speaking at colleges, paying Nyna $1,200 a month for 20 hours of work and provided much of the money for rent of $750, utilities of $200 per month and printing. At times a gift of $400 was provided by a local supporter and additional funds were raised through memberships. Proceeds from World Peace Week paid for a few months until that ran out and Keith was thrown out.

On December 7, 2009 the person staffing the Taos Peace House was seen beating up a guest. After striking, punching and pushing the guest the care taker explained he had to do it because the visitor had been at the Taos Peace House a week before and his friend had put a red hat on her head taken from the hat stand. That same day the Taos Food Not Bombs banner was found smashed into stained mess at the bottom of a bin full of garbage. The literature for the infoshop was also in the trash.

He decided to stop funding the house at that time and the people disrupting the project failed to continue the lease. The people that sabotaged the peace house never organized a single action since May 2009. They sponsored the Vagina Monologue and claimed to have raised $10,000. Still not another protest, film showing or other activity since May 2009. At the same time the Taos Peace House and Taos Food Not Bombs has provided meals every week on the Taos Plaza, Organized a Think Outside the Bombs video presentation and supports the Change We Knead Now! Tour.

We have no idea why it was decided to sabotaged this very positive project. We believe more information will be discovered showing who was influencing the disruption. It could be just personality problems or as we have discovered in the past that intelligence community used people they understood could be manipulated. Time will tell but while this cost Food Not Bombs much money and wasted time it has not been able to slow down the movement.

Print out a pdf of the letter here. (Legal Size Paper required)
Letter from Nynas boss
What Happens When A Peace House Engages In Democracy?
Looking for Hugh The strange, sad disappearance of an activist.
Hugh was the man that mailed Keith a letter of official censure in 2002 that was almost word for word the same as the letter above.