PROTEST THIS THURSDAY EVENING 5.30pm, 24th FEBRUARY AT DÁIL EIREANN
NATO AND RUSSIA – HANDS OFF UKRAINE
RUSSIAN FORCES MUST LEAVE UKRAINE
NO FURTHER EASTWARD EXPANSION OF NATO
NO TO WAR – YES TO PEACE, DIPLOMACY AND NEUTRALITY
STOP THE WARS, START THE PEACE, FEED THE STARVING
The Irish Anti War Movement is holding a protest this Thursday 24th February at 5.30pm at Dáil Eireann to call on both NATO and Russia to recoil from the relentless warmongering over Ukraine and to send solidarity to those people in Ukraine and Russia who are against war and for peace.
Speakers include Richard Boyd Barrett TD (PbP), Roger Cole from the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), Glenda Cimino, US Citizen (IAWM) and others.
We condemn the recent escalation including the recognition by Russia of the self-declared breakaway enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk and the sending of Russian troops to these areas. These should be withdrawn immediately and diplomacy pursued to seek a peaceful resolution to this crisis. Despite the predominance of Russian speakers in these areas and thus a majority of people who may identify more with Russia than with Ukraine, we condemn this escalation by the Russian Government in the same way that we condemn any occupation by a foreign power of a sovereign territory, such as the occupation and settlement of parts of the West Bank or the Golan Heights in Syria by the Israeli military. All these examples are against international law and the UN charter but it must be noted that Palestinians and Syrians are long waiting for sanctions against Israel by the major world powers. The hypocrisy is galling.
The IAWM regards the dispute over Ukraine as a dangerous power play between NATO members (particularly the US and Britain) and Russia. It is a direct result of the abject decades long failure of NATO’s foreign policy. This brinkmanship has been unfolding over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s with the relentless expansion of NATO into Easter Europe right up to the Russian border. This expansion, coupled with NATO’s disastrous wars of aggression in so many arenas of the world which have undermined international law and the United Nations, is the context in which the current Ukraine must be understood.
The recent military deployment by NATO to Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia, the talking up of war and the deriding of diplomacy as appeasement by western Government and much of the western media, has seriously contributed to escalating this crisis. Should it escalate further into a major military conflagration it is the ordinary citizens of Ukraine who will suffer the most while western and Russian arms manufacturers will profit.
There must be a return to peace negotiations. The Minsk-2 Agreement already signed by both sides, and now under serious threat, may offer the best draft for such negotiations.
While we call on Russia to remove its military from Eastern Ukraine we also call on the US and British Governments to declare that there will be no further eastward expansion of NATO. This will immediately address Russia’s alleged security concerns. The Irish Government should defend our neutrality and support this call, instead of acting as an echo chamber for the NATO powers. A new architecture of security must be developed throughout Eastern Europe that recognises the integrity and security of all states. This should have occurred with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact at the end of the Cold War.
It is beyond belief that the threat of escalation into full warfare is happening in Europe in the wake of the withdrawal last August of NATO forces from the disastrous escapade in Afghanistan and the continued war on the people of Yemen that is fully supported by the US and Britain. Millions of Afghans are under threat of starvation as a result of the war and the freezing of Afghan assets. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children have died in the last seven years of a brutal war waged by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and millions may die through famine.
We call on the US, Britain and other NATO powers to stop the march to further war, to stop supporting the ongoing war in Yemen and to help instead save lives by organising massive humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
We call on supporters of peace to join us at Dáil Eireann this Thursday evening at 5.30pm.
NO TO WAR – YES TO PEACE, DIPLOMACY AND NEUTRALITY
Contact:
Jim Roche, PRO Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 6472737
Marnie Holborrow, Member, Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 9889244
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
Sara O Rourke, Member, Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 6024821
Michael Youlton, Chair Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 086 8159487
PROTEST THIS THURSDAY EVENING 5.30pm, 24th FEBRUARY AT DÁIL EIREANN
NATO AND RUSSIA – HANDS OFF UKRAINE
RUSSIAN FORCES MUST LEAVE UKRAINE
NO FURTHER EASTWARD EXPANSION OF NATO
NO TO WAR – YES TO PEACE, DIPLOMACY AND NEUTRALITY
STOP THE WARS, START THE PEACE, FEED THE STARVING
The Irish Anti War Movement is holding a protest this Thursday 24th February at 5.30pm at Dáil Eireann to call on both NATO and Russia to recoil from the relentless warmongering over Ukraine and to send solidarity to those people in Ukraine and Russia who are against war and for peace.
Speakers include Richard Boyd Barrett TD (PbP), Roger Cole from the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), Glenda Cimino, US Citizen (IAWM) and others.
We condemn the recent escalation including the recognition by Russia of the self-declared breakaway enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk and the sending of Russian troops to these areas. These should be withdrawn immediately and diplomacy pursued to seek a peaceful resolution to this crisis. Despite the predominance of Russian speakers in these areas and thus a majority of people who may identify more with Russia than with Ukraine, we condemn this escalation by the Russian Government in the same way that we condemn any occupation by a foreign power of a sovereign territory, such as the occupation and settlement of parts of the West Bank or the Golan Heights in Syria by the Israeli military. All these examples are against international law and the UN charter but it must be noted that Palestinians and Syrians are long waiting for sanctions against Israel by the major world powers. The hypocrisy is galling.
The IAWM regards the dispute over Ukraine as a dangerous power play between NATO members (particularly the US and Britain) and Russia. It is a direct result of the abject decades long failure of NATO’s foreign policy. This brinkmanship has been unfolding over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s with the relentless expansion of NATO into Easter Europe right up to the Russian border. This expansion, coupled with NATO’s disastrous wars of aggression in so many arenas of the world which have undermined international law and the United Nations, is the context in which the current Ukraine must be understood.
The recent military deployment by NATO to Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia, the talking up of war and the deriding of diplomacy as appeasement by western Government and much of the western media, has seriously contributed to escalating this crisis. Should it escalate further into a major military conflagration it is the ordinary citizens of Ukraine who will suffer the most while western and Russian arms manufacturers will profit.
There must be a return to peace negotiations. The Minsk-2 Agreement already signed by both sides, and now under serious threat, may offer the best draft for such negotiations.
While we call on Russia to remove its military from Eastern Ukraine we also call on the US and British Governments to declare that there will be no further eastward expansion of NATO. This will immediately address Russia’s alleged security concerns. The Irish Government should defend our neutrality and support this call, instead of acting as an echo chamber for the NATO powers. A new architecture of security must be developed throughout Eastern Europe that recognises the integrity and security of all states. This should have occurred with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact at the end of the Cold War.
It is beyond belief that the threat of escalation into full warfare is happening in Europe in the wake of the withdrawal last August of NATO forces from the disastrous escapade in Afghanistan and the continued war on the people of Yemen that is fully supported by the US and Britain. Millions of Afghans are under threat of starvation as a result of the war and the freezing of Afghan assets. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children have died in the last seven years of a brutal war waged by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and millions may die through famine.
We call on the US, Britain and other NATO powers to stop the march to further war, to stop supporting the ongoing war in Yemen and to help instead save lives by organising massive humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
We call on supporters of peace to join us at Dáil Eireann this Thursday evening at 5.30pm.
NO TO WAR – YES TO PEACE, DIPLOMACY AND NEUTRALITY
Contact:
Jim Roche, PRO Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 6472737
Marnie Holborrow, Member, Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 9889244
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
Sara O Rourke, Member, Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 087 6024821
Michael Youlton, Chair Steering Committee, IAWM, Tel. 086 8159487
