Peace is too important to be left to the military

Take peace into your hands. Listen to your conscience and refuse war.

We are international antimilitarists and conscientious objectors coming from Spain, Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey, Finland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Britain and France ... We are at the headquarters of NATO on 15th of May- International Conscientious Objectors´ Day-because NATO is a symbol of international militarism which keeps the global domination system alive. Although they pretend to be the guardians of Peace, democracy and liberty, by so called "humanitarian" intervention, the military achieves the opposite. What we do here is taking nonviolent direct action to disturb militarism's daily work and the smooth functioning of the military machine.

We believe that no army defends Peace; because their own nature feeds the violence as the way to solve conflicts, and increases the militarisation of society. It wastes people's taxes on military expenditure. It keeps the arms industry and arms trade going. It imposes negative values on society such as hierarchy, blind obedience, sexism, homophobia. The military is using every opportunity/tool to militarise societies. This process of militarisation was accelerated after the events of 11 September 2001. We can not just be the audience of our own lives anymore. Peace is more than just the absence of war. It needs people´s active resistance against militarism. There is no Peace without social justice, equality, liberty … To create Peace we need forms of action in coherence with the kind of society we want to build: nonviolent solution of conflicts, civil disobedience, and education for Peace - not violence-. Every human has a conscience, all we need to do is to use it and find our own ways of resistance.

That's why we don't collaborate with war and its causes and why we call on other people not to collaborate. We ask for solidarity with all those who resist. Many people in different parts of the world are resisting with their money, their bodies and minds. On International Conscientious Objectors´ Day with this action here, we express our solidarity with conscientious objectors in South America, the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. They need our support because in many of these countries the expression of conscientious objectors is severely repressed. We condemn such repression.

Today on 15th of May, we especially highlight the repression and imprisonment of all conscientious objectors.

We are taking Peace in our own hands and are asking you to do the same. Peace is too important to be left to the military.

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