Women unite against NATO and ‘toxic militarism’

“The latest consequence of the decisions taken by NATO since 1991 is the new Strategic Concept, agreed in Madrid in 2022 and elaborated on at the Vilnius Summit, which has raised global stakes. An offensive reconfiguration in which the Alliance goes far beyond its original – declared – defense purposes and contradicts the desire for peace among the population as well as with the various constitutions of the member states.”

This can be read, among others, at Global Women for Peace united against the NATO Declaration) open to the largest number of signatures internationally, on the way towards the 75th anniversary – in 2024 – of the Atlantic Treaty. 120 assemblies from 36 countries declared a commitment to “world peace, non-military security, and a new world order that abolishes war”.

In Brussels, headquarters of the alliance, anti-NATO women (men not excluding) have gathered in recent days over three intense days, face-to-face and online, with reports, demonstrations and meetings. Even with one NATO diplomat, “who told us fantastical stories about a commitment to freedom,” reported Ola Klotzer, a Finn.

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environmental damage, and the social, health and economic consequences of “toxic militarism” and the trillion-dollar military-industrial complex (spending to destroy) with its global network of bases and forces, added to the consequences of direct and proxy wars waged by an alliance that was considered obsolete at the end of the Cold War and instead managed to expand. By multiplying its members, to disguise itself as a champion of rights by means of bombs, to develop alliances with non-member states (Partnership for Peace). And even to give herself green paint talks about decarbonization, when the contradiction between fossil-based militarism and the global re-transformation of climate protection is apparent (Tamara Lorenz, expert and activist for the International League of Women for Peace and Freedom-Welpf).

Shinako Oyakawa, a militant mother of a “people without a nation” in Ryukyu, remembers the ten-year struggle against the American base in Okinawa, Japan. Women for Peace in Brussels has called for a peace alliance between the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Latin American islands the bases occupy. Guam (also a frontline victim of climate change, as Monica Flores recalled), Diego Garcia, Puerto Rico, Sardinia… places where abiding by clear bases matters.

And sometimes win. As Hulda Guerrero, a young Colombian activist, explained, the progressive government of Gustavo Petro blocked a project for a US military base on Gorgona Island. And let’s remember the closure of the American base in Manta, in Ecuador by Rafael Correa, years ago.

There are 160 countries that are not members of NATO and many of them hold a neutral (albeit often contradictory) position. The Non-Aligned Movement seems to be regaining strength and the so-called Global South is showing willingness for international mediation, consider the Ukrainian case. Activists from Africa and people of African descent have accused the West of adding to colonial debt and stealing raw materials the heavy continental effects of the “unified protector,” seven months of bombs in Libya in 2011. Medea Benjamin of Codepink Ua Some have sparked divisions within the coalition, given The public statements of several candidates in the 2024 US presidential election, and the negative impact of sanctions against Russia on Europe.

A conviction for sending and using illegal weapons in Ukraine such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium bullets was rejected three days later in Brussels. Raja Virgau, Belgian, and Tore Nyland, Norway (of Bike for Peace), stressed the importance of showing the victims of these bombs, as well as the victims of the bombing and military occupation of the territories.

In short, although the world of pacifism is in crisis after the peak of 2003, the moral is: «We cannot disappear because we are right».