Civil disobedience against NATO

Press Release - 20 November 2010

NATO GAME OVER! With this message peace activists from all over Europe are today blocking the NATO summit in Lisbon.

About 50 activists from Portugal, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland blocked one of the access roads for participating delegates and government officials to the summit. With chains and locks attached to their bodies they try to delay the summit from taking place in order to disturb NATO' s future planning.

Jorge Paulo Antunes from the Portuguese group CAGA explains: ''we are using civil disobedience to highlight the violence committed by NATO in Afghanistan. They are meeting here today to perfect their arsenal of destruction. It is important to demonstrate, but we believe that demonstrating is not enough. With our action, we put our bodies on the line, to obstruct their injust war machine.”

By approving the new Strategic Concept NATO is deciding about its future. This future seems to consist of continuing and extending the old recipes like military intervention and nuclear weapons. Old recipes which do not bring security but are rather a source of insecurity. NATO brings no solution but is part of the problem. NATO keeps Europe catched in a military approach of international relations. Europe would be better of without NATO.

Josune García of the Spanish group AA-MOC: “thanks to NATO, European countries are fighting already for 9 years in a hopeless war in Afghanistan. And they continue to do so. Thanks to NATO there are still nuclear weapons in Europe 20 years after the end of the Cold War. And they stay here. And thanks to NATO, Europe is investing in a useless missile defence project. NATO has no future any more, it merely can prolong the past. If Europe wants more security, it can better give NATO a burial: NATO GAME OVER''.

More pictures from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56205446@N08/sets/72157625431343840/