Petition
Alarmed by statements by European leaders gratuitously portraying Russia as a threat to all of Europe if it is not stopped in Ukraine, professionals from several countries have drafted a manifesto in favor of diplomatic solutions, peace and disarmament.
While we unequivocally condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we believe that these statements, including those of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, are aimed solely at “manufacturing consensus” among citizens around rearmament.
The accelerated rearmament that they propose will certainly have a very negative impact on public services, erode the welfare state, increase public debt and, above all, in the absence of arms control agreements, make war with an atomic power such as Russia more likely.
We ask for your signature to tell our governments to work for peace and not in favor of the arms companies.
Justification
Alarmed by the Orwellian language that has taken hold in European political discourse according to which war is the road to peace while peace only leads to more war, we appeal for sanity.
We European citizens have become unwitting passengers on a train driven by rulers who, under the avowed pretext of “bleeding Russia dry”, pretend to ignore the disastrous consequences of a conflict from which we will all be losers.
On the eve of previous European conflicts, for example the First World War, courageous intellectuals of the opposing nations, among them Jean Jaurès, Romain Rolland, Bertha von Suttner or Bertrand Russell, spoke out publicly in favor of peace, although unfortunately their voices were not heeded.
Today, the silence of intellectuals, who, like the rest of Europe’s citizens, seem worryingly anesthetized, is thunderous in all countries. And when someone decides to make his voice heard in favor of diplomacy, he is immediately defamed as “Putin’s puppet”.
We unequivocally condemn, as contrary to international law, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but we are aware that this tragedy is also the consequence of the persistence of a military organization, NATO, described as “defensive” and which, far from dissolving when no longer confronted by the communist bloc, continued to expand and extended its expansion to the very borders of Russia in the face of the promises made at the highest level at the time.
The war in Ukraine has been going on for three years now; the number of dead on both sides is well over one million, although none of the warring countries gives official figures, and the number of wounded and crippled for ever is uncountable.
To which must be added the millions of Ukrainians who fled the country, some to Western Europe, others to Russia, all of them trying to escape the violence. A real human disaster.
Donald Trump’s United States, more concerned about what they perceive as the growing power of China or the situation in the Middle East, seem determined to plunder Ukraine, and incidentally also, to put Europe into debt, further weakening our social state, for the benefit of the US military industry.
And our governments, refusing to accept that, given the unequal balance of power, the war is lost, are supporting the Ukrainian president by promising to send more arms and money to keep the Ukrainian army fighting to the last man or woman.
All this while proposing to militarize our nations at an accelerated pace with the scarecrow of a confrontation with Russia.
Have our rulers thought that, since the arms limitation agreements signed during the Cold War, which contributed so much to the maintenance of peace, no longer exist, a military confrontation with a nuclear power such as Russia could lead to a third, and this time definitive, world war?
We call on politicians not to forget the two great wars that bloodied the continent in the last century and, abandoning George Orwell’s neo-language, to work actively in favor of diplomacy.
This is the only way to avoid future massacres that wipe out nations for the mere profit of the powerful arms industry.
https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/llamamiento-a-favor-de-la-paz-y-el-desarme#petition-main
Also read
Stop the War, lift the Sanctions and do it now!
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