On the occasion of NATO’s sixtieth birthday, we appeal to you to come to Strasbourg on April 4, 2009 and demonstrate against NATO’s aggressive military and nuclear policies in, and to take part in the Alternative Summit organised to affirm that a world of peace and justice is possible.
* We strongly affirm this: France must renounce her plan to integrate into NATO’s military command structure. She must break with policies which aim at domination and which despise the rights of peoples.
* We reject the dangerous black-and-white vision of the “war of civilizations” and we reject all military responses to global and regional crises.
* We reject the arms race and we refuse to live in fear of the use of nuclear weapons. It is inacceptable for military expenditure to swallow up the money that is needed for satisfy the vital needs of humanity; all the more inacceptable at a time when governments are wanting the people to pay for the damage done by financial liberalism.
* We demand the closure of all foreign military bases in all countries.
To build a world that is more secure and just, we wish to demilitarize and democratize the relations between peoples, and to establish new forms of solidarity and cooperation.
In Afghanistan, the military occupation is having appalling results. The peoples of Afghanistan must regain the means to decide on their own future. It is time to implement an international political solution based on emergency aid and reconstruction and that respects the rights of the Afghan people, particularly the rights of women. We demand the withdrawal of the French contingent of NATO troops.
The first organisations to sign this Appeal (24 March 2009) were:
ACCA, ACG, ACDN, Les Alternatifs, Alternative Libertaire, ANECR, ATTAC, Americans Against War (AAW), ARAC, Clubs UNESCO de l’Isère, CNCU, Collectif des Iraniens contre la guerre, Collectif Faty Koumba, Collectif la Guerre Tue, Collectif les Femmes en noir, Confédération d’action communiste, DIDF, Enseignants pour la Paix, Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), Le Cactus Gauche républicaine, Droit-Solidarité, FSU, Initiative Féministe Européenne, IPAM/CEDETIM, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF/LIFPL), Marche Mondiale des Femmes, MARS-Gauche Républicaine, MJCF, MRAP, Le Mouvement de la Paix, M’PEP, NPA, Organisation de Femmes Egalité, Parti Pour La Décroissance (PPLD), PCF, Parti de Gauche, PCOF, Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire (the “nuclear phasing-out” network), UEC, UJFP, Union pacifiste, Union Syndicale SOLIDAIRES, Les Verts (the Greens)...
- Provisional Programme of the Alternative Summit:
- Demonstration at Strasbourg on the afternoon of Saturday 4 April
- An International Conference from 2n to 5th April
- A cultural programme
- A self-managed international village
- Direct nonviolent actions
- Approaches to parliamentarians
On 17 March 2009, The French National Assembly debated France’s reintegration into the unified command structure of NATO. Unsurprisingly, the vote that ensued ratified the government’s proposal, by 330 votes to 238, out of 568 votes cast (9 UMP members did not take part).
On the website www.otan-non.org you can read the justifications given by the pros and the cons, and here is a reply which we received more recently.
Knowing the position that each MP took is not pointless and remains topical. What one vote did one day can in future be undone by another vote in other circumstances, if new elections result in a different line-up of forces.
Another key question deserves to be raised: nuclear disarmament. We invite our fellow-citizens to approach their MPs on this matter.
See the Citizens’ Commitment: ENGAGEMENT CITOYEN.
The responses we get will be published on ACDN’s website.