2007-02-14
Call to Action: June 5th, 2007, at Rostock-Laage Airport (Germany)
Against Militarism, War and Torture
The Rostock-Laage Airport is part of the infrastructure of the G8 Summit Conference and the militaristic policies of the G8 governments. Here the next war is being prepared with Eurofighter military jets. From here the military jets will soon fly to the "Bombodrom,” and here is where the participants in the G8 conference plan to fly in. But we, too, will be here in large numbers, because they can’t land here with their war policies. We will express our opposition to war and to the G8 through many forms of protest and active resistance.
Behind many wars being waged every day in places all over the world are the G8 governments. Germany is a direct participant in ten wars worldwide and supports other wars by, for example, providing supplies or intelligence. Rostock-Laage Airport is part of the militaristic policy of the G8 governments and their Summit Conference in Heiligendamm.
The participants in the Summit Conference represent the world’s eight mightiest governments, which help create the problems -- for which they then decide upon the so-called solutions. They speak of "global governance" and of "humanitarian intervention", of "strengthening civil society" and of "steps to peace", but in reality they mercilessly use “might makes right” methods to make a world order serving the continuation of their own power and their capitalistic profits - as can be seen today in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the logic of war does not begin when the bombs fall and the shooting starts. Usually suppression and exploitation can be maintained without using weapons. It is sufficient to threaten exclusion from world trade or cuts in "development aid." A worldwide network of military bases adds to the perceived threat. In neo-colonial and imperial systems of dependency, there are few choices: often, to the national elites, it seems better to open up their countries to foreign investors and to let the oil wells flow – even to the disadvantage of their own people – rather than to risk being considered a member of “the axis of evil.”
All over the globe, in the North and in the South, militarization begins in everyday life. Everyday war in the South is neo-conservative restructuring by the IMF and the World Bank; in the North, it is gradual militarization of the domestic policy: camera surveillance of inner cities coupled with comprehensive collection of private data; military surveillance from the air, as during the World Soccer Championship; militaristic guarding of borders against would-be immigrants; the calculated promotion of culturally manipulated images of “the enemy” - all this is promoted as being in the interest of "our security.” The real sources of the conflicts – having to do with injustices, with a worldwide imbalance of power, with attempted cultural domination – are never addressed. While the apparently simple solution of "the war against terror" was supposed to provide security in the North, instead it produces terror and insecurity, whether in Iraq or in the London subway.
The Bundeswehr (the German Military) is taking advantage of the growing economic insecurity, poverty, and the pressures on the unemployed. Working together with employment agencies, the Bundeswehr ever more aggressively advertises the benefits of the soldier’s “job.” Precisely those who are excluded from our economic system are the ones designated to enforce the same economic relations globally.
Militarization and war (re)produce patriarchal gender relations in both the " allied countries" and the "enemy countries.” The supposedly “male” virtues are promoted by military institutions. Sexist exploitation, violence and (forced) prostitution escalate wherever the Military goes, on so-called "peace missions," in which they aggressively intervene in people’s everyday lives. The self-chosen "fighters for freedom and democracy" also create lawless places all over the world in the form of prison camps, torture prisons, and refugee camps. The permanent state of war in "the era of terrorism" creates the means for abolishing ever more democratic rights. The threat of torture and its increasingly open use has the goal of intimidating the opposition, creating a feeling of powerlessness, and undermining all resistance. The state of emergency becomes normal.
But what we most have to fear are the strategies for securing global power and profit opportunities. This is what the G8 politicians in Heiligendamm and elsewhere want to be able to discuss behind security fences.
Occupy the Bombodrom – Stop the War Games!
War requires practice. This is to take place, as the Military wishes, in the so-called Bombodrom in the Kyritz-Ruppin Meadows near Wittstock. Supposedly this is the only place spacious enough for sophisticated joint surface-to-air war games, practicing dropping nuclear bombs, and test-firing remote-controlled rockets. Since 1992, the initiative FREIe HEIDe (“Free the Meadows”) has been organizing regional resistance. On June 1st, 2007, there will be a Bombodrom action there, as part of the anti-G8 Action Days. The place to be used in war games will be occupied and reclaimed for peaceful purposes.
Beginning on May 31st, caravans and marches from all over Europe will arrive in the Kyritz-Wittstock Meadows to launch the beginning of the Action Days against the G8 policies.
On June 5th, we will be at the Rostock-Laage Airport in large numbers, with a multiplicity of actions, to demonstrate our opposition to the G8 Summit Conference, to militarization and war policies, and to capitalistic, patriarchal, and racist social relations.
We do not want these self-appointed rulers of the world here or anywhere else.
At this G-8 Summit Conference, they shall neither have a secluded meeting, nor will they be able to peacefully land with their planes here. Ya Basta! We’ve had it!
The Rostock-Laage Airport
The 2006 White Book of the Bundeswehr (the German Military) clearly sets forth what has been evident for a long time: the Bundeswehr has been thoroughly transformed from an army of soldiers mainly devoted to defense into a force for intervention – that is to say, aggression.
In the insignificant-looking Rostock-Laage Airport, a key military logistical center is in the making. The civilian use of this airport began in 1992 via a treaty with the Bundeswehr, which had taken over this military air base from the East German air force. This type of civilian use of a military air base is unique in Germany. The civilian firm that manages the airport even advertises that it has higher than usual security standards in this era of “the global threat of terrorism.” Rostock-Laage Airport is the “home base” of the Eurofighter military jets, which are armed with the medium-range AMRAAM rockets: this is in fact the only air facility in Germany which trains Eurofighter pilots. Also stationed here is the fighter squadron 73 "Steinhoff,” since 1994 the Bundeswehr’s contribution to the NATO Response Force (NRF) and thus participating in international attacks and wars. Johannes Steinhoff (1913-1994) was a highly decorated fighter-pilot in the Nazi Luftwaffe (Air Force) and later played a prominent leading role in building up West Germany’s Luftwaffe as well as the air forces of NATO.
Rostock-Laage Airport Grounds
are near the Autobahn junction of A20 (Hamburg-Sczecin) and A19 (Berlin-Rostock). They encompass an area 5 kilometers long (east-west) and 3 kilometers wide (north-south). The grounds are situated between A19 and Bundesstrasse (Federal Route) 103. The military part of the airport is to the north; the small civilian air terminal is to the south.
In August, 2006, the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) received here a high-tech mobile fighting facility, the so-called DCRC (Deployable Control & Reporting Center). Used for the military surveillance of the air space and for "tactical strike guidance," it was developed by DaimlerChrysler/EADS and the Frequentis firm in Vienna. With this equipment, the Luftwaffe is for the first time able to support and guide air attacks outside the borders of Germany. Rostock-Laage Airport thus is of great importance in the war plans of the Bundeswehr (the German Military) and of NATO.
[http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/751]
