IAWM Press Statement, 27 August 2015
PROTEST AT EU COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT OFFICES, DAWSON STREET, DUBLIN, 5PM. TODAY THURSDAY 27 AUGUST 2015.
REFUGEES ARE VICTIMS OF WAR – LET THEM IN!
END THE WESTERN-LED WARS AND PLUNDER THAT CAUSE THE REFUGEE CRISIS
Speakers include:
Ruth Coppinger TD, Socialist Party
Cllr. Brid Smith, People before Profit
Cllr. Sarah Holland, Sein Féin, Mayor of South Dublin County Council
Rev. Patrick Comerford, President Irish CND
Caoimhe Butterly, Anti Racist Network
Representative from Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre KRAC
Memet Uludag, IAWM (audio link from island of Kos, Greece)
A Syrian refugee
“The huge investment in war and the arms industry by the US and EU should be diverted to assist a formal programme of organised assistance and settlement of refugees throughout Europe, an Irish Anti-War Statement noted today.
The organisation is holding a protest at 5pm this Thursday evening, 27 August, at the EU Offices on Dawson Street in Dublin to highlight the plight of the war-weary refugees and the shameful response of the EU to the crisis.
The IAWM statement claimed that the UN has noted that the overwhelming majority of people are refugees fleeing from wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and beyond. All of these countries have been devastated by wars in which western imperial powers have played a central role. The Irish Government has supported these wars by facilitating the US Military at Shannon Airport and through involvement in the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, the statement noted.
Memet Uludag, IAWM Steering Committee member, speaking from the Greek island of Kos said:
IAWM Press Statement, 27 August 2015
PROTEST AT EU COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT OFFICES, DAWSON STREET, DUBLIN, 5PM. TODAY THURSDAY 27 AUGUST 2015.
REFUGEES ARE VICTIMS OF WAR – LET THEM IN!
END THE WESTERN-LED WARS AND PLUNDER THAT CAUSE THE REFUGEE CRISIS
Speakers include:
Ruth Coppinger TD, Socialist Party
Cllr. Brid Smith, People before Profit
Cllr. Sarah Holland, Sein Féin, Mayor of South Dublin County Council
Rev. Patrick Comerford, President Irish CND
Caoimhe Butterly, Anti Racist Network
Representative from Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre KRAC
Memet Uludag, IAWM (audio link from island of Kos, Greece)
A Syrian refugee
“The huge investment in war and the arms industry by the US and EU should be diverted to assist a formal programme of organised assistance and settlement of refugees throughout Europe, an Irish Anti-War Statement noted today.
The organisation is holding a protest at 5pm this Thursday evening, 27 August, at the EU Offices on Dawson Street in Dublin to highlight the plight of the war-weary refugees and the shameful response of the EU to the crisis.
The IAWM statement claimed that the UN has noted that the overwhelming majority of people are refugees fleeing from wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and beyond. All of these countries have been devastated by wars in which western imperial powers have played a central role. The Irish Government has supported these wars by facilitating the US Military at Shannon Airport and through involvement in the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, the statement noted.
Memet Uludag, IAWM Steering Committee member, speaking from the Greek island of Kos said:
“The current EU policies do not try to deal with the ever growing refugee crisis in a humanitarian way. The EU is making the situation worse in places like Kos by not allowing free, safe and legal passage for people to seek asylum. One thing is certain, refugees are not going to Europe as a life choice or just because it is easy to live in EU. They are fleeing from war, conflict and trauma.”
Jim Roche, PRO IAWM said that:
“The Noble prize economist, Joseph Stiglitz, estimated in 2008 that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost $3,000,000,000,000. A tiny fraction of this amount would re-settle a lot of refugees. What a shocking human and financial waste these wars were and what carnage they created for the people living in the Middle East, of which the most recent iteration is this refugee crisis.”
He continued:
“The US and EU have a clear obligation to help these refugees but they should also be forced to invest in peacemaking instead of war and plunder that has led directly to the refugee crisis. We see the see the same thing being repeated with Yemen now where the richest countries in the regions, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, logistically supported by the US and Britain, are bombing civilian areas, causing a huge humanitarian crisis. The UN estimates that there are already eight million children in Yemen in need of humanitarian assistance already. This carnage has to stop”
The IAWM statement concluded by noting that the western imperial powers should immediately cease prolonging the civil war in Syria by covertly arming rebel groups through its proxies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and instead call for an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of a major peace conference to include all the parties involved in the conflict. In Syria an estimated apocalyptic figure of 11.6 million people have been displaced, 4 million of these externally. Refugees are fleeing Syria because between 150,000 and 330,000 of their fellow Syrians have died at the hands of Assad’s regime, rebel groups and latterly Islamic State, in a brutal civil war that is being prolonged by the US, the EU and Russia.
END
Contact:
Jim Roche, PRO, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 647 2737
Michael Youlton, Chair, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 815 9487
John Molyneux, Secretary, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 735 6424
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
For more information on the IAWM see:
Website – www.irishantiwar.org
@IrishAntiWarMvt https://twitter.com/#!/IrishAntiWarMvt
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/25608030879/
