WAR OR PEACE?

We deplore Russia’s military aggression in the country of Ukraine, whilst we are aware of the multiple economic and political interests that paved the way for and that are driving the conflict.

Our priority is to stop the war, save human lives and avert an economic disaster whose price will inevitably be paid by the poorest and most vulnerable.

We want peace. And peace is achieved by means of dialogue and negotiation, not by fuelling a conflict with shipments of ammunition and troops. Human life is what has most value and there is no geopolitical or economic reason, no alleged war for freedom, that can be put before human beings.

Truly saving the Ukrainian population from disaster means laying down arms. For this reason we condemn the recklessness of all those institutions that are fanning the flames of the conflict by sending weapons to Ukraine: European governments, the United Kingdom, the United States government, the European Union…

We beseech the UN to perform its role with conviction in order to uphold peace and global security.

We implore all governments not to aid and abet this war with money, soldiers or guns as this will only serve to make it bloodier and more prolonged, leading to even more death and suffering. We urge that sanctions which might make peoples’ lives worse not be imposed anywhere in the world.

We appeal to the European Union to strengthen peace, an aim written into the Treaty of Rome, and to be a neutral party in this conflict. We exhort it to use diplomatic mediation and talks, heeding the demands and concerns of both sides in order to reach an agreement that might put an end to hostilities.

The threat of nuclear war is looming over all of us. It could even be triggered by accident. For this reason we entreat all governments to immediately sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force on the 22nd of January 2021.

Nuclear weapons must be decommissioned now, before it is too late.

We are angered by all those leaders who, despite having considerable economic and technological resources at their disposal, fail to create a fair and truly human society.

We do not wish to be accessories to such recklessness.

Let us assume responsibility for our future and invoke our loftiest aspirations, which link the hearts of all human beings, in order to change this destructive course of events.

We will use all non-violent forms of protest to reach this goal:
war is a catastrophe, let us bring about peace.

8th March 2022
Europe for Peace

War is a disaster. Let’s build peace

The conflict situation in Ukraine, which affects a population already marked by years of suffering, has reached a breaking point and the risk of a war without winners and losers is becoming more tangible and real.

With every hour that passes, hopes of avoiding a full-scale conflict are diminishing and there is a sense that the involvement of the whole of Europe in this war is only a matter of time.

The urgency is to stop the war, but European governments are busy chorusing Atlantic (NATO) positions, worrying only about sanctions. They rightly condemn the entry of Russian armed forces into Ukraine, but they willfully forget to denounce NATO’s senseless expansionist policy which is at the heart of this conflict, whose battleground is Europe, but which is really between the United States and Russia.

The time has come for ordinary people, associations, progressive movements, the whole of European civil society to contribute to giving a very clear and unequivocal signal to their governments. It is the ordinary people who will really pay the price for this absurdity.

The time has come to put aside our differences, to hold hands and make our leaders understand, with one voice, that if they want to send us to war, they will be on their own.

We will not allow anyone to play TEC with our lives and those of our children.

The only way out of this nightmare is for Europe not to put a single euro, a single man and a single base into war actions. On the contrary, there is an urgent need to start a dialogue with all the actors involved to find a peaceful solution acceptable to all.

The time has come to return war to its only rightful place: prehistory.

Europe for Peace.

#Ukraine #EuropeForPeace

Ukraine: Let’s give Peace a Chance!

Tensions between the US and the Russian Federation are evolving in a worrying way. Russia is deploying its troops while NATO expansion is threatening an already unstable balance. And Ukraine, already torn apart by civil war, finds itself at the centre of this dangerous vortex.

For its part, Europe is aligning itself with US policy and going against its own interests. Russia is not only important for gas but is an essential market for Europe. True cooperation within a Eurasian region would bring prosperity and great advancement, not only economic. But this is precisely what the United States does not want, and so it fosters divisions in Europe, not only between East and West, but also within the Western countries themselves. The US does not want to accept that the world has become multi-polar and is feeding a Cold War atmosphere.

Europe can play a decisive role, geared towards progress and peace, but it must have a unified and independent foreign policy, as called for in the Europe for Peace declaration.

Today, Europe must make every effort for a diplomatic solution to the conflict by opposing any armed intervention. Russia must withdraw its troops from the border, but NATO’s non-expansion into Ukraine must be guaranteed.

Are European politicians, lost in electoral polls and partisan interests, up to the task that history demands of them? Do they understand the catastrophic consequences of a war between nuclear powers? Do they realise that the future of humanity is at stake here?

And do the Ukrainian people really want a disastrous war on their own territory to serve the interests of a foreign power?

It is time to respond to the clamour coming from the future! It is time for the peoples, the ordinary people, the invisible people, those who do not participate in the negotiations and do not appear on the talk shows, to make their voices heard against war and in favour of peace. It is time to wake up from media hypnosis! It is time to take to the streets, it is time to act! Even small gestures in this direction are important to give ourselves and our children a future, a human future where we will finally laugh at the misfortunes we are forced to live through today.

Let’s reclaim the future.
Let’s give Peace a chance!
Europe for Peace
#HumanistsForPeace

Europe for Peace. Stop the war in Ukraine

The escalation of the conflict in Ukraine between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and the Russian Federation, on the other, must be stopped immediately. The consequences of a conflict in Ukraine would be disastrous.

That is why I am publishing the Europe for Peace Declaration, which we and other humanists wrote in 2007. Noam Chomsky and Mikhail Gorbachev, in Italy Giulietto Chiesa, Dario Fo, Angelo Baracca, Beppe Grillo, Margherita Hack, Alex Zanotelli and many others endorsed this declaration.

The campaign spread around the world, helping among other things to stop the installation of a US military base in the Czech Republic. This declaration can be a moment of reflection for a pacifist and non-violent campaign for peace in Ukraine.

A EUROPE FOR PEACE

A Europe free of nuclear weapons

All over the world, scientists and artists, soldiers and pacifists, women and men, young and old say: war is a disaster!

For many, Europe is an aspiration, an economic model, a cultural reference, the very idea of welfare and social security. The European Union is growing and more and more countries are asking to join it.

Europe wants to “promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples”, but this desire clashes with a reality that has changed rapidly in recent years: international terrorism, the Iraq war, the use of violence to resolve international, regional and local conflicts, the strategy of pre-emptive war and, above all, a new and insane nuclear arms race.

The declarations of the United States and France about the possibility of being the first to use the atomic bomb against terrorism, the declarations of Japan about the possibility of entering the world of the atomic bomb for defensive purposes, the intention of Iran and North Korea to continue with their nuclear programme, leave the whole world dismayed.

All over the world, scientists and artists, soldiers and pacifists, women and men, young and old say: war is a disaster!

Europe, abdicating its role as a world economic and cultural power, fragmented in its national governments and subordinated to the political-military strategy of the United States, accepts the installation of new bases, favouring the escalation of international tensions.

On the other hand, the peoples of Europe are demanding: give peace a chance!

Europe must not support any policy that drags the planet towards catastrophe: the lives of millions of people are at stake; the very future of humanity is at stake. Nuclear weapons must be dismantled today, before they are used. Politicians must rise to the occasion or step aside. Europe has a historic opportunity to be a positive role model and driver for all those countries moving towards regional integration in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Europe has the opportunity to initiate an international policy of détente and peace, which can open up new horizons and new paths that human beings need to travel. Europe has the opportunity to lead an epochal change as the vanguard of the Universal Human Nation.

We demand that Europe opt for a resolute and non-violent policy of peace. We demand as urgent and indispensable measures:

– a Europe free of nuclear weapons: demand from the USA the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons from US and NATO bases for dismantling, and the elimination of the nuclear arsenals of France and Great Britain, as first steps to initiate the programme of global nuclear disarmament under UN supervision.
– outlawing nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1996 International Court judgement.
– the annulment of any agreement to install or expand military bases of foreign powers on the territory.
– the withdrawal of troops of European countries from the occupied territories.
– the search for diplomatic mediation and dialogue to resolve conflicts.

In the streets of the great metropolises and their suburbs, in the small urban and rural centres of Europe, something new is being born: a gentle but powerful symphony, which like a hurricane sweeps away all injustice, all abuse, all violence. No one will be able to silence it, because it is the deepest hope of the human being.

Friends from all over Europe, let us build a Europe of peace with the power of non-violence!

All nuclear weapons states must be condenmed, especially the United States and their NATO allies

World without Wars strongly condemns the news on the 6^th of January, 2016 of a successful nuclear weapon test carried out by the government of North Korea.

This underground test will inevitably lead to radioactive material escaping into the environment and unnecessarily increases tension in a region of several nuclear weapons states and other states supposedly protected by a “nuclear umbrella” courtesy of the United States.

Yet, despite our condemnation of the North Korean government for threatening its neighbours with nuclear destruction and unbearable humanitarian consequences, we recognise that this act has not occurred in isolation of other facts.

The Korean peninsula is still in an official state of war. South Korea has a reported military strength of 630,000 active soldiers, and North Korea 1,190,000. In addition the USA also has over 30,000 soldiers on the peninsula.

Having been labelled a country in Bush’s “axis of evil”, the North Korean regime has seen how other countries such as Iraq and Libya have suffered, with their leaders brutally murdered. In this light they see their nuclear weapons as the only means of survival. North Korea holds onto its doctrine of deterrence just as all other nuclear-weapon-states do the same.

It is in this context that it is not enough to condemn North Korea, it is necessary to condemn all nuclear weapons states, and the worst perpetrator of nuclear bullying: The United States and their NATO allies.

The USA is the only country to have used nuclear weapons on an innocent population. They entered into a nuclear race with the Soviet Union which several times brought the planet to the edge of complete destruction and despite Gorbachev’s offers to enter into mutual nuclear disarmament, they refused to do so. Now, with their NATO allies, they spend 11 times more than Russia on military spending and have continually moved the borders of NATO right up to the Russian border despite an agreement between Gorbachev and Bush that this would not happen upon German reunification.

Expecting the nations of the world to refrain from developing nuclear weapons when their very existence is threatened by the world’s biggest nuclear bully is stupid. Both China and Russia feel increasingly under attack from the United States’ military doctrine.

The only solution to the increasing threat of nuclear detonations either intentional or accidental is for the nations of the world to rapidly advance in proportional and progressive disarmament of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

These efforts need to be driven forward by those who spend most on their military budgets.

In the meantime all nations of the world need to advance in measures that make nuclear weapons illegal and provide a plan to eliminate them. Such measures should include; the negotiation of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons and make them illegal; the ratification and signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by the eight countries necessary for the treaty to come into force; and the negotiation of a treaty to control the production of fissile material, among other things.

Other measures such as all nuclear weapons states taking their nuclear weapons off high-alert status so that no country can annihilate another country in a matter of minutes can help create the conditions for international relations to improve and trust to develop.

It goes without saying that reduced military budgets should lead to an eradication of poverty around the world and the development of an equitable global economic system that allows all human beings on the planet to live a dignified life with full access to good quality health, education, employment, leisure time and security in one’s old age.

This position statement is published in the name of World without Wars, Hungary.

Paris Attacks: Violence is the problem, never the solution

The terrorist attack that took place on November 13th in Paris is another act of violence against civilians, another act of violence against all Humanity. It clearly shows that anyone and in any place in the world can become the victim of brutal violence powered by hatred, intolerance, discrimination, fanaticism and vengeance.

This new massacre cannot be treated in isolation because it is connected to others of a similar nature; those carried out a few years ago in New York, London and Madrid, among others; nor can we say that these events are unrelated to the invasions and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria where the dead and those affected can be counted in the hundreds of thousands. Today it is being demonstrated that the responses to these wars, mainly caused by western countries, cannot be limited to the conflict zones themselves because globalization means that these responses can appear in any point of the planet. Today, there are no longer any “safe” places in front of this escalation of violence.

We absolutely denounce the hypocritical behaviour of those who feed the culture of war and violence; those who, on the one hand, sell weapons and invade countries, while on the other one, invite our support for the victims of the terrorist acts which they themselves finance (even if indirectly); those who put more attention on the victims of their own region, and who forget those they create in distant lands…

Violence can never be the solution to violence. Violence is the problem, and there is only one way to solve it: place human beings and our basic needs (education, culture, equal opportunities and a fair distribution of wealth) in the centre of our actions and our politics.

It is more than clear that humanity cannot bear any more violence and needs a real culture of peace and nonviolence.

That’s why in World without Wars and Violence we express our solidarity not only with the families and friends of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris but also with the families of the terrorists, those young people who felt that they have no future and who are turned into puppets in the hands of dark interests.

We call on all human beings to learn to resist the violence in oneself and in human society by practicing active nonviolence and nonviolence by any means. From World without Wars and Violence we shall therefore continue to organise forums, events, workshops of awareness and training in all possible points of the planet and in all cultures to help to create a nonviolent consciousness.

We call on governments to stop their escalation of institutional violence, which is outside the bounds of national and international law: provoking, invading, interfering and, promoting coups d’état in other countries with cynical attitudes in defence of the “freedom”, “democracy” and “human rights”.

The temptation to enter an increasingly hard spiral of actions/reactions will open the path towards disaster. From many places, we are starting to hear that a third World War is on the way. If we have governments that are so stupid and irresponsible as to add fuel to the fire, it is down to us, the citizens, to make them see reason.

It is time for human beings to finally emerge from prehistory to start our true humanization, and the only way is through nonviolence!

Our support and solidarity for all the victims in Paris!

Our support also for all other victims of the barbarity of terrorism and of wars in the world!

World without Wars and Violence
World Coordination Team
November 14th, 2015