2008-05-18
From Berlin to Kehl and Strasbourg: Block NATO!
Rally and bicycle parade May 24, 1pm
This year’s annual NATO conference in Bucharest has taken the decision to celebrate NATO’s “60th anniversary” in France and Germany in 2009. The precise date remains unclear, but it will be held in spring 2009 in the border cities of Strasbourg and Kehl. NATO strategists have already stressed the importance of next year’s summit. They have made the proposal to ratify a new strategic concept that includes nuclear first strikes to keep or get access to resources and a civil-military approach to counter-insurgency.
Europe is at war – even if the bombs are falling several thousands of kilometres away. Because of NATO, the US maintains bases for military interventions worldwide. Nuclear weapons are still deployed in Europe. NATO membership implies participation in military interventions all over the world, directly with national forces, indirectly from military bases, or through logistical support for foreign troops.
Like the G8, NATO is an important player for the “Global Security Architecture”. Together with other institutions such as Eurocorps (based in Strasbourg) NATO is the military corrollary of neoliberal globalisation. This “Security Architecture” includes the creation of an “European Gendarmerie Force” (EGF) that collaborates on military missions in several countries outside the EU. The EGF exists for riot control and to protect private property.
Many social struggles in Europe are focussing their resistance on the global wars of NATO and other military forces. Protests have taken place in Poland and the Czech Republic against “Missile Defence Shields” and activists in Romania organised against the most recent NATO summit this year. A broad movement in Italy is resisting the planned US base in Vicenza, groups in Belgium continue to scale the fences of NATO bases. People in many countries destroy military cars, planes and equipment. In Germany there will be two antimilitarist protest camps this summer.
A number of groups and organisations are already involved in the preparations against next year’s NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl. Local and international meetings have already taken place to plan a common mobilisation and protest infrastructure.
From the 23rd to the 27th of May 2008, the “NATO Parlamentarian Assembly” will meet in Berlin. This so-called “little sister of NATO” can be understood as the political representation of the organisation. We take their meeting as a starting point for a broad campaign and alliance:
Stop these war games! NATO Game Over! Block NATO 2009!
“We have shown in Bucharest that no matter how restrictive the repressions are, it will never stop our resistance. They can break our bones, but not our ideas! Anti-militarist protests will continue!” (Final declaration after Anti-NATO protests in Bucharest 2008).
Rally against the meeting of the “NATO Parlamentarian Assembly” in Berlin:
Calling:
Bundeswehr wegtreten | six hills berlin | Gipfelsoli | RüstungsInformationsBüro Baden-Württemberg e.V. | Freiburger Friedensforum | Informationsstelle Militarisierung | Seminar für angewandte Unsicherheit [SaU] | carambolage | Autonome Antifa Freiburg | resistance des deux rives / widerstand der zwei ufer | Nomadisches Antikriegscafe Berlin | il furiosi – organisiert im Antifa Kok Düsseldorf | Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen abschaffen | BUKO | attac Berlin
More Information: