Anti-war groups meet in Berlin
By John Catalinotto
Berlin
Representatives from anti-war groups in 22
countries met here April 25 to discuss how to continue the
movement that arose over the past year to challenge
Washington's endless war on the people of the world.
It was the first meeting of the European Coordination since
the U.S. military blasted its way into Baghdad and began the
imperialist occupation of Iraq.
The Coordination is the part of the European Social Forum
that called for Feb. 15 demonstrations. Those protests brought
more than 10 million people into the streets of 600 cities
worldwide to try to stop the U.S.-British war of aggression
against Iraq.
The group consists of different political tendencies in
diverse countries that came together to stop the war before it
began. Its success stemmed from worldwide revulsion against the
Bush administration's open aggression.
The Coordination followed up with more limited calls for
international protests on March 15, March 22 and April 12 to
protest the ongoing war and then the occupation of Iraq.
At the Berlin meeting, almost all of the nearly 100
participants--representing groups from most of Western Europe,
Iran, Turkey, Philippines, the United States, Canada, Costa
Rica, Egypt and Lebanon--called for continuing the fight
against the occupation of Iraq.
Larry Holmes of the International ANSWER coalition opened
the Berlin meeting. He set the tone--the need for continued
struggle--in his report on the April 12 demonstration in the
United States.
Holmes stressed the need for solidarity with Iraqis
resisting imperialist occupation.
He appealed to the rest of the world, and especially to the
European movement, to continue their struggle--which he
described as vitally important to the development of the
movement within the United States.
A number of groups from oppressed countries noted that the
existence of a strong anti-war movement in Europe and the
United States made a positive impression on the masses of
people in their countries. It helped the population
differentiate between the governments of the imperialist
countries and the people, they said.
While all groups pledged to continue the struggle, the next
concrete act was limited to a June 1 mobilization against the
G-8 summit meeting at Evian, France. There the Coordination
will hold a meeting to protest the occupation of Iraq and
continue the discussion about what to do next.
Other suggestions included a call by the Greek delegation
for a future international day of struggle on Sept. 27, to
coincide with the date the Intifada started in Palestine. A
Turkish delegation stated it was ready to organize a Peoples'
Tribunal to try U.S. and British leaders for war crimes. And
there was also a call to boycott U.S.-made goods.
The fact that no further specific actions could be agreed
upon during the Berlin meeting may have reflected that not
enough time had passed after the U.S. military conquest for
people to assess the impact of the changed situation on their
movements.
Reprinted from the May 8, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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