The War and Peace Assembly
6. ESF – İstanbul – 03.07.2010
The war an
d peace assembly denounces that at a time of economic crisis, European states are increasing their military budgets and trade of weapons. The European Union is not the “soft power” it meant to be. To protect peace and social needs, we call peace and antiwar movements to join the trade unions protest on the 29th of September.
We support the Week of Action against the NATO summit of 15-21 November 2010 in Lisbon in order to oppose the new NATO strategy that is a major obstacle to achieving world peace. We call for an immediate end of the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of the troops, and we are ready to mobilize for the tragic anniversary of the invasion on 8-9 October.
The assembly strongly supports the mobilization of Kurdish and Turkish movements for a peaceful and democratic solution of the Kurdish issue, there is no military way out of the conflict. We stand in solidarity with the Kurdish elected representatives that will be on trial on 18 October for simply defending human rights of their people.
The military occupation of Cyprus should come to an end, to allow peaceful life on the island.
We urge for a peaceful Caucasus and invite everybody to participate in the peace conference in June 2011 in Tbilissi.
We mourn the loss of those killed by the Israeli military while trying to break the illegal siege of Gaza and call for accountability of those responsible. This assembly stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Israeli movements for justice for Palestinians and endorses the Palestinian civil society call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with Palestinian rights based on international law. We call for an escalation of coordinated campaigns against institutions and companies complicit with Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, of the complicity of European governments with Israeli impunity and the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The whole region needs to be denuclearized, as stated again in the NPT conference, and Mordechai Vanunu deserves freedom and honour for his courauge to reveal the Israeli nuclear arsenal.
The European Social Forum, that was a fundamental space to organize the huge 2003 mobilization against the war in Iraq, does not forget the suffering of Iraqi people and supports its human rights groups, unions and social movements through the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative that will meet in Paris in the first week of December.
The assembly supports actions and campaigns to stop private military and security companies, and campaigns against the militarization of European borders, such as the week of mobilization against Frontex on 27-31 August in Greece and actions in Bruxelles on 24 September – 3 October.
All these causes and campaigns will be celebrated in the International Day of Peace, 21 September, for the global demilitarization of economies and societies.