NO TO THE WARS DROWNING THE PEOPLES IN BLOOD! NO TO NATO AND WARS! YES TO PEACE, COOPERATION SOLIDARITY!
NO TO THE WARS DROWNING THE PEOPLES IN BLOOD!
NO TO NATO AND WARS!
YES TO PEACE, COOPERATION SOLIDARITY!
Address by Chrystalla Antoniou, member of the Political Bureau of AKEL and Secretary of AKEL Larnaca District Organization, at the mass event against the forthcoming NATO Summit in Poland
AKEL C.C. Press Office 3rd July 2016, Nicosia
We stand just A few meters from the coast washed by the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, the sea that we love so much. Some 150 km from here, the same sea washes the coast of Syria, where the children have stopped enjoying playing games with the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. They have stopped doing so because war abruptly cut short their right to life, their right to the future.
A family doesn’t simply decide one day to take its children and leave with just one backpack, to get into a boat that may lead them to death. It decides, or rather it is forced to decide, when it no longer has a roof over its head, when it has lost relatives and neighbors, when its town no longer exists, when there is no work around, and bread on the table. It takes the decision to leave when the country is being destroyed and an entire people is being sacrificed for the sake of the economic and geostrategic interests of powerful imperialist powers, that is to say, the United States and their NATO allies, but also regional powers – Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel…
We have seen the same pictures of orphaned children crying in ruins in our neighboring Lebanon, Palestine, Libya,.. but also in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Congo, but also in Yugoslavia in the past… and much earlier in our Cyprus too. The same war machine has caused all this suffering and pain. The same powerful interests who are always aiming to control the rich natural resources, as well as to control sources and energy transport routes, in order to remain dominant and to decide the fate of the peoples and our planet.
As AKEL, we congratulate the Pancyprian Peace Council for organizing this event, on the occasion of the forthcoming NATO Summit – this criminal alliance – which will take place next week in Poland. The main purpose of this meeting is to “address the challenges in the eastern and southern borders of the Alliance”.
What are these challenges?
Russia?
Or are these challenges the refugees who are drowning in their attempt to reach Europe?
This Summit marks a new step in NATO’s aggression and in the dramatic militarization that is developing in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. For some years now NATO forces have been concentrating their forces facing Russia.
NATO’s military presence is being reinforced and strengthened in a multitude of ways in our volatile region of the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, NATO naval forces are patrolling the Aegean to intimidate those refugees trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.
The European Union, especially after the Treaty of Lisbon, is deepening its synergy and coupling with NATO.
Instead of turning to its neighbors peoples with solidarity, with policies promoting growth and cooperation, the EU is supporting interventions and repressive policies; policies which have led to chaos and the destruction of countries; policies that are violating International Law. And it subsequently faces the consequences of its own actions and policies.
Instead of the EU reaching out to refugees who hope for a future for them and their children far from wars, disasters, and poverty – the result of the neo-colonial policies that undermine every opportunity of growth and development – it firmly shuts its gates. The EU is being transformed into a Fortress leaving thousands of souls to be lost in the Mediterranean Sea.
The EU then sheds hypocritical tears…
We Cypriots, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, victims of NATO, who have experienced the pain of war, the uprooting of our people, the loss of relatives and beloved ones, are not fooled.
We say no to the ongoing imperialist wars that are slaughtering the peoples!
We say no to NATO! We denounce its crimes! We oppose its decisions and we condemn them to the peoples.
As AKEL, we demand the dissolution of NATO.
The look of despair of thousands of parents and their children, in the open sea and on the beaches, the photos and footage with dead bodies of small children washed up by the shores, do not leave any progressive person indifferent.
We therefore refuse to compromise with what is unjust and inhuman.
We reach out the hand of solidarity to the refugees as the hand of solidarity is stretched to our Cyprus.
We say yes to peace.