Europeans protest NATO's eastward march
By Bill Cecil
Prague, Czech Republic
"The frontier of freedom has expanded." That's what U.S.
President George W. Bush told 50 heads of government assembled
here for the Nov. 20-22 summit of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. The meeting expanded the U.S.-dominated military
bloc to include Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Slovakia and Slovenia.
This brings NATO deep into Eastern Europe and onto the soil
of the former Soviet Union. The Czech Republic, Hungary and
Poland joined two years ago.
At Bush's bidding the gathering formally changed NATO's
"mission" from "combating Communism" to acting as an appendage
to Washington's "war on terror"--which can be better described
as Bush's scheme to pump up oil company profits with mass
murder in the Middle East.
The U.S. president failed to mention the decades when the
people of East Europe lived in terror of obliteration by NATO
nuclear missiles aimed at Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw, Budapest,
Bucharest, Sofia, Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn and other cities of
the region.
To partake in Bush's war, the NATO leaders voted to set up a
European Rapid Reaction Force. For the recently impoverished
East European countries, joining NATO will mean arms purchases
from such U.S. firms as Boeing and Northrup Grumman, both
financial sponsors of the Prague meeting.
Unemployment in the Czech Republic is officially 18.8
percent. Homeless people now live on the streets in once
prosperous Prague. Yet the NATO big shots were wined and dined
on endangered species of fish in luxury hotels behind walls of
police.
What 'freedom'?
Bush's remarks notwithstanding, this 1,100-year-old city of
castles and cobblestones did not feel particularly free last
week. It was more like a city under occupation.
The Czech government had ceded responsibility for the
country's security to the Pentagon for the duration of the
summit. U.S. Air Force F16s circled over the city while Czech
Army helicopters hovered above and armies of police patrolled
its streets.
Whole areas of Prague were declared off limits to its
people. Police snipers were visible on rooftops. A Kazakh
civilian jetliner was forced to land by the U.S. Air Force.
These measures were ostensibly taken to "prevent terrorist
attacks," but many felt they were meant to stifle political
protest. Many Europeans, east and west, don't feel that NATO's
growth will bring any kind of freedom.
Dozens of political activists were detained at the Czech
border to prevent their participating in anti-NATO rallies. The
"Czech" media, now mostly owned by U.S. and German companies,
created an atmosphere of fear with constant reports that
anti-NATO protesters were planning violence.
In spite of state and media intimidation, chants of "NATO,
no pasaran" and "Drop Bush, not bombs" rang through Prague's
streets Nov. 20. Some 2,000 workers, students and retirees took
part in a protest rally and marches called by the Communist
Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM). The day before 150
delegates from around Europe had attended an anti-NATO
counter-summit the KSCM organized.
Also on Nov. 19, over 1,000 mostly young people joined an
anti-NATO march called by the Czechoslovak Federation of
Anarchists, the Feminist Organization of March 8 and the
Organization of Revolutionary Anarchists.
At a Nov. 20 news conference, Russian activists pelted NATO
Secretary General Lord Robertson with eggs, shouting, "NATO is
worse than Gestapo."
'Free Milosevic, don't attack Iraq'
Most of the marchers on Nov. 20 were Czech. But activists
came from Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Belgium, Slovakia and
Poland. Marchers carried portraits of Yugoslav children
murdered by NATO bombs and signs demanding the liberation of
kidnapped and imprisoned Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic.
Other signs denounced U.S. plans to attack Iraq, a major
topic at the "North Atlantic" meeting. A banner called NATO the
"North Atlantic Terrorist Organization."
Peter Shuster, a student, came from the Czech city of Brno
to march against NATO. "We are free people," he said, "and we
don't want to be cannon fodder for the U.S. power elite that
wants to take over the world."
Edo Bango, an 18-year-old Roma man, came to the protest from
Slovakia. He wore a shirt with a picture of Che Guevara. His
brother, Mario Bango, is in prison for defending himself
against a racist attack in which the attacker died. There has
been an epidemic of violence against Roma people in Eastern
Europe since capitalism was restored there.
Edo Bango scoffed at the idea that NATO is bringing freedom.
"Capitalism has made everything worse, especially for the Roma
people."
Marcin Adam, a student from Poland, did not take part in the
demonstrations. He and a group of friends were detained at the
border and did not get to Prague until after the protests. He
said: "NATO is a pact to unite all the richest countries so
they can control the world resources. We know the U.S. and
Great Britain have more weapons of mass destruction than any
other country, and they used chemical weapons against Vietnam
and Iraq."
Adam said the return of capitalism to Poland is a "success
story only for the capitalists, but most workers think it was a
catastrophe. Now we have a really high unemployment rate in
Poland, and most workers and peasants live in appalling
conditions."
KSCM General Secretary Miroslav Grebenicek opened the rally.
He said, "Prague has become a meeting place for people who are
responsible for war crimes and crimes against peace." He
denounced NATO's expansion as part of Washington's drive to
conquer the "heartland of Eurasia" with its vast energy
resources, as outlined in former U.S. National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard." He said,
"Our citizens must have housing, schools and hospitals, not
tanks, warplanes and cannons."
Communist Youth Union leader Zdenek Stefek denounced NATO as
the "world's largest terrorist organization, which it proved
with its aggression against Yugoslavia and now by its
preparations to attack Iraq." He said that "reforming NATO is
not possible" and called for the pact to be abolished and its
leaders put on trial.
The rally and the Nov. 19 counter-summit were also addressed
by leaders of Communist and workers' parties from Austria,
Belarus, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece,
Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia,
Sweden, Turkey and Yugoslavia as well as the European Peace
Forum and the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
Workers Party of Belgium General Secretary Nadine Rosso
Rosso called for solidarity with Colombian, Filipino and
Palestinian freedom fighters. She reported that the Belgian
port of Antwerp was now under U.S. military occupation but that
Belgian activists would try to block arms for the attack on
Iraq from being shipped through the city.
The counter-summit adopted a declaration called the Prague
Appeal that denounced the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the
Anglo-U.S. attack on Afghanistan and the U.S. war against Iraq.
It called the Bush regime's planned invasion of Iraq an
"attempt to solve U.S. economic problems at the expense of
other nations" and called on people of the world to mobilize
against war.
Reprinted from the Dec. 5, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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