Tag: nato

GLOBAL SOUTH, RESIST NATO!

by justpeace87

Article by ILPS Secretary General Azra Sayeed

Read and sign the Resist NATO Unity Statement here

As a Pakistani, I have borne daily witness to relentless exploitation by Western imperialism. The lives of Pakistani workers and farmers, like those of millions across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, are defined by misery, hunger, landlessness, under-employment and untreated illness by imperialist design.

Imperialist powers, led by the U.S., have ensured that our nations remain shackled to debt, dependency, and violence. And now, as NATO extends its tentacles into the Asia-Pacific under the guise of “security,” we must recognize this for what it is: a recolonization project, dressed in the language of “democracy” and “stability”.

US-NATO has spent decades plundering our lands, propping up puppet regimes, and waging wars—both hot and cold—to maintain their stranglehold over our resources and our futures. NATO’s 2030 initiative seeks to dramatically expand the alliance’s global reach while designating both Russia and China as existential threats. The plan calls for deepening military ties with US states far beyond the north Atlantic, from Colombia to Kuwait, militarizing space, maintaining aggressive forward deployment of forces, expanding nuclear capabilities, and conducting increasingly provocative war games in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Iran-Israel conflict, the genocide in Palestine, the military buildup in the South China Sea, the US troop deployments in the Philippines, and the NATO summit itself are all part of a coordinated imperialist strategy led by the United States and its allies to crush liberation movements and preserve a dying global order.

From the beginning, the U.S. orchestrated this war, arming “Israel” to the teeth, green-lighting its attacks, and intervening when it found a smokescreen to finally launch a direct aggression on Iran. The US is repeating the same move that it made in 2003 when it falsely claimed that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. What followed was a brutal US invasion and occupation that tore the country apart, killed close to one million people, devastated the infrastructure including hospitals and schools, and has left the country’s people in political chaos and dependency to US oil and development companies to this day. The US wants to see Iran and its people suffer the same fate.

But as with Iraq, the US has committed an act that will drag it further down in its own spiraling collapse. The US under Trump is mired in a deep political and economic crisis from being overstretched and engaged in endless wars. This attack on Iran exacerbates the crisis, as the US will pour even more money into waging war, either directly or by continuing to arm Zionist “Israel” to do its bidding.

This brings us to NATO’s expansion and influence in the Asia Pacific. In 2011, Hillary Clinton, then U.S. Secretary of State, openly declared the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” framing it as an embrace of the region’s “strategic importance.” But we know what “strategic importance” really means: domination. The U.S. does not engage with the Asia-Pacific as equals; it seeks to control it. The so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” is nothing but a blueprint for militarization and resource extraction.

The very term “Indo-Pacific” is a calculated insult. It binds together two fascist allies—the U.S. and India—under the banner of containing China. India, a state that massacres its own people in Kashmir and brutalizes indigenous communities in mineral-rich regions, is now Washington’s favorite enforcer in the region. Meanwhile, the U.S. demands that North Korea denuclearize while it stockpiles thousands of warheads and has conducted 192 nuclear tests in the Pacific alone. The hypocrisy is staggering.

France, a self-proclaimed “Pacific nation,” has no business in our waters, yet it maintains a permanent presence in colonial military outposts like New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and wages war games in Asia Pacific like RIMPAC in Hawai’i, Balikatan in the Philippines and La Pérouse across 9 pacific nations. The U.S., for its part, has turned the Pacific into an armed camp, with installations from Okinawa, to the Philippines, to Guahan, to Palau, to Diego Garcia. This is evidence that NATO has no interest in defence, but represents a bloody marriage between the US and European imperialists and the puppet governments of countries in the Asia Pacific, doing the bidding of the West.

Last year, NATO took its most brazen step yet: the formal inclusion of the “Indo-Pacific Four” (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) into its summit. It was the culmination of years of creeping militarization, now codified in the 2024 Washington Declaration, which explicitly labeled China as an “enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This is not diplomacy, it is a declaration of war against national liberation movements and anti-imperialist nations.

Of the three major conflict fronts in the world today, two are in the Asia-Pacific: the U.S.-China cold war and the genocide in Palestine and assault of the US on the sovereign nation of Iran. And yet, Western leaders speak of “stability” while fueling arms races and backing apartheid regimes.

US-NATO’s expansion is about plunder of our resources, especially minerals. In 2023, NATO publicly identified 12 critical minerals essential for its war machine. Who controls these minerals? Not the West. China produces 69% of the world’s graphite; bauxite, the main mineral used in aluminum metal production, is concentrated in Australia, China, and India.

This is why indigenous lands in India are being seized. This is why Adivasi communities and Maoist rebels are slaughtered—not because they are “terrorists,” but because they stand in the way of corporate theft. The same logic applies to deep-sea mining, the next frontier of ecological destruction. The Pacific Ocean, already scarred by nuclear testing, is now being carved up for its mineral wealth. The U.S. will drown entire ecosystems in pursuit of profit.

The need for global resistance

The cracks within NATO—over Ukraine, over Israel—are real, but they will not dismantle imperialism on their own. The people must force them open. We have seen glimpses of this power: the millions who marched against the Iraq War, the workers’ strikes in India, the Palestinian resistance that refuses to die. But posters and protests alone will not save us.

We must organize and we must fight, linking arm-in-arm with oppressed and exploited people around the world. The colonizers will not relinquish power willingly. If history has taught us anything, it is that empires only fall when they are broken by the masses.

The choice is ours: Submit to a new century of colonial horror, or rise up and reclaim our future. The time for resistance is now.

Signed,

Azra Sayeed, ILPS Secretary General

Peacebuilding and Social Development!

by justpeace87

To: Media Relations Office, Global Affairs Canada 

Reply of Just Peace Committee to the Joint Statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers published on March 14, 2025

PEACEBUILDING AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR THE PEOPLE!

Upon studying the Joint Statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers of March 2025, Just Peace Committee is stunned by the foreign ministers neglect of people’s needs and commitment to warmaking. We object because it ought to address climate change and renewable energy, economic security for the poor and sustainable economic development, women’s security, and peacebuilding through de-escalation, negotiations and demilitarization.

The Foreign Ministers’ Joint Statement is dishonest, arrogant and belligerent, particularly in its positions on the Ukraine War, Haiti, the Middle East, China, Venezuela and North Korea. You talk about peaceful intentions and efforts when you have been engaged in military interventions and provocations. You talk about the G7 as a factor for peace when it is clearly a factor for war.

Ukraine

You say you want prosperity, security and independence for Ukraine, yet you as NATO members and allies have interfered, stirred up conflict and played a large part in the destruction of Ukraine. Led by the US, you backed a coup against a Russia friendly president to install one who was not, encouraging fascist entities along the way. You did nothing about the attacks and exclusionary policies against ethnic Russians that went on for many years. You pushed NATO forces to encircle Russia, endangering its security and provoking it, after several warnings, to attack Ukraine. When there have been opportunities to negotiate peace before, you prevented a resolution and kept funding and supplying Ukraine against ethnic Russians and Russian intervention forces. Even now as the US and Russia are arranging a ceasefire to eastern Ukraine, the UK, Germany and Canada want to keep militarizing Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have perished and around two million have fled in the three years of war. Today, as a ceasefire is being discussed between the US and Russia, you expect the dominant force, Russia, to give concessions.

West Asia (“middle east”)

We oppose the state of Israel’s merciless assault on civilians in Gaza over the past 18 months, which has killed 10’s of thousands of children and defenseless elders, women, infants and hospital staff as well as journalist and aid workers. Self-defense in response to the Palestinian resistance’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, was justified. Their continued cry of self-defence is false, however, because of their vicious and blanket assaults on civilians. We call for the release of all captives. We thoroughly condemn, however, the daily mass slaughter since then. We contest Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, as you should. We thoroughly condemn the US and its allies supplying arms and funds to the Israeli government; without this massive support, the genocidal campaign could not have been waged for long. The US and Canada should remove their forces from the area (Canada’s Operation Proteus). You are complicit. There is no negotiating such terrible crimes. The US and allies among you simply could have stopped assisting the slaughter if you had wanted to end it.

We express our support for the people of Syria and Lebanon, as both countries work towards peaceful and stable political futures. At this critical juncture, we reiterated the importance of Syria’s and Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We call unequivocally for the rejection of terrorism in Syria. Israeli and Turkish forces should leave Syria. Stop supporting these actors in Syria! We condemn strongly the recent escalation of violence in the coastal regions of Syria and call for the protection of civilians and for perpetrators of atrocities to be held accountable. We stressed the critical importance of an inclusive and Syrian-led political process. We welcome efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. As for Iran, the belligerence and provocations must end. Foreign meddling, espionage and assistance to criminal and anti-government elements in other countries must stop.

We are aware that most of the G7 states possess nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons capable equipment, which makes you all great security threats. All parties should withdraw and dismantle their nuclear weapons. You and all states should sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Venezuela

You took part in attempts to stage coups in 2002 and 2019. The US illegally took control over Venezuela’s state petroleum enterprise, CITCO. You refused to recognize the elected leadership and presented an imposter, Juan Guaidó, whom you allowed to steal Venezuelan wealth. Canada led a hostile contingent they called the Lima Group. You spread lies. Rather than trying to support a democratic process and help the Venezuelan people, you are trying to destabilize the country and your sanctions are causing great hardship.

Haiti

The US, France and Canada have been actively meddling in Haiti, propping up unelected and anti-people leaders and training armed forces, some of whom are criminals, to suppress the people’s just movement for democracy (free and fair elections) and socio-economic development in the name of fighting gangs.

The G7 statement to “restore democracy, security and stability” in Haiti is beyond disingenuous and outrageous. It was the US, Canada and France that overthrew the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 2004 that has led to the political crisis and gang violence in Haiti today where there are no elected officials in the country. There has been no accountability on our countries for causing this regime change and ensuing immense suffering to the people of Haiti over the past twenty years.

China

The G7 foreign ministers’ statement demonizes China, which has not started any wars in 40 years and has the Belt and Road program that developing countries are signing onto in the desperate hope of development something that the G7 countries have denied them by blocking the New International Economic Order for fifty years. China is seen as a trust partner in development and has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the country, for it is helping many countries with infrastructure and building high speed rail, public transit systems, health clinics, universities, etc. China is the world leader on renewable energy technologies. While China has repeatedly called for win-win solutions, it is the G7 countries that are militarizing the Indo-Pacific and constantly provoking China by sailing our warships right on their coast and arming Taiwan! Imagine if China were arming Quebec to violently separate from Canada. It is the G7 that is expressly militarizing the Indo-Pacific with the aggressive U.S. and Canadian Indo-Pacific strategies, AUKUS, NATO partners in Asia, more US bases in the region etc. It is the US that has repeatedly called China a threat and an enemy.

North Korea

At the same time, the G7 countries and their partners have been encircling North Korea and constantly conducting war maneuvers, even mock invasions. You keep the region destabilized and pose a threat with your high degree of militarization and anti-North Korea propaganda, rather than promoting peace on the peninsula and working towards a peace treat between North Korea and the US. North Korea is no threat; it has to maintain military defense because of your threats. You should contribute to demilitarizing the region.

Africa

As for Africa, the US and NATO must shut down AFRICOM and stop the interference in African countries to put and keep favoured political figures in power and have access to African assets. The US and NATO presence does not help or defend the African people.

The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network, a collection of some 50 groups interested in just peace across Canada, rejects the Joint Statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers. It fosters militarization while posturing as pro-peace. It denies your own responsibility for destabilization, war and global insecurity. It is self-centered and alien to international law. It completely disregards the peoples’ needs. In fact, it ignores the destruction to societies for which you are in large part responsible. We, like so many others in Canada, do not want to continue on the same path. We want de-escalation and de-militarization, increased social spending, a ban on nuclear weapons and peaceful global relations for mutual gain without ideological imperatives. We want negotiated resolutions with local people involvement that help the affected people. You must begin peacebuilding and serving socio-economic development, not military development.

Justpeace.blog/           www.facebook.com/jpVancouver

No to NATO!

by justpeace87

NO TO NATO! CWPJN Statement on NATO’s 70th Annual Parliamentary Assembly

in Montreal Nov. 22-25, 2024

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S.-led, nuclear-armed, military alliance that was founded by twelve countries, including Canada, in 1949, is holding its 70th Annual Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal. In the last 25 years, NATO has left a trail of death and destruction from its military interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Ukraine. These interventions have led to failed states, environmental and climate damage, violence against women, and humanity’s largest refugee crisis. NATO allies have wasted trillions of dollars on wars and weapons to enrich the (mainly US) arms industry while exacerbating conflict around the world.

NATO DRIVES MILITARY SPENDING, IMPOVERISHES CANADIANS, WIDENS WARS

In 2014, NATO allies pledged to increase their military spending to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP). According to NATO’s latest Defence Expenditures report, over the past ten years, Canada’s military spending has increased 100% from $20 billion in 2014 to over $40 billion in 2024, which is 1.4% of GDP. It now wants to spend $41 billion a year. Military spending diverts crucial resources away from public needs putting more Canadians into poverty and homelessness. NATO bureaucrats are trying to establish the 2% ceiling as a floor and raise the ceiling to 3%, which the media trumpets.

NATO weapons prolong the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. Since 2022 alone, Canada has committed a staggering $17 billion CAD in financial and military aid to Ukraine to prolong a NATO proxy war against Russia, while rejecting negotiations to end that war. NATO calls Israel “its vital ally in the Middle East”, conducts military exercises with Israel, and has a robust trade with it in arms and weapons research. Canada and all NATO members continue to oversee contracts for weapons for Israel, a nuclear-armed state, despite its genocide against the Palestinian people, its illegal and merciless bombardment of Lebanon, and its recent attack on Iran. At the same time, however, a survey by the Institute for Global Affairs found a majority of people inside NATO countries want negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

NATO’S RECKLESS NUCLEAR GAMBLES IN UKRAINE & WEST ASIA

Humanity today is facing its most perilous nuclear threats since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in two theatres of war. NATO has recklessly escalated the stakes in its proxy war with Russia over Ukraine. Three NATO countries – the US, UK, and France – recently announced intentions to install in Ukraine long-range missile systems capable of striking deep into Russia. NATO’s new Secretary-General, Mark Rutte, approves their use. Because targeting for these missile launches would be done by the U.S. and NATO allies, the Russian government considers such attacks acts of war against Russia and has threatened to retaliate onNATO targets. NATO leaders are thus gambling – with our lives – that the Russian government is bluffing. Trudeau recently endorsed the gamble. However, if Russia does retaliate, NATO will immediately invoke Article 5 for a collective reprisal, which puts the world at the brink of nuclear war. The stakes could not be higher!

In West Asia, NATO continues to support the State of Israel whose attack on Iran is likely to ignite a wider regional war and might also lead to a nuclear confrontation between the great powers. We are poorly served by the Trudeau government, the opposition parties, and mainstream media, none of whom has adequately warned Canadians of the existential danger of NATO’s nuclear brinkmanship in Ukraine and West Asia. Prime Minister Trudeau himself has never called President Putin to find out what it would take to end the Ukrainian conflict, nor has he exerted any serious pressure on Israeli PM Netanyahu or on US President Biden to stop the war in West Asia. As well, it is because of our membership in NATO that Canada won’t join the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

WE NEED PEACEBUILDING AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, NOT NATO

Canada can pull back from nuclear brinkmanship by supporting negotiations to end the wars and joining the nuclear ban treaty. As well, Canada must also create a two-way arms embargo against Israel, support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and a lasting political solution between Palestine and Israel. The Trudeau government must condemn Israel’s illegal invasion of Lebanon and suspend diplomatic relations with Israel until it withdraws from that country and ceases to attack other countries in West Asia. Canada must cooperate and build peace with all countries, so that humanity can achieve the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Only 32 Western countries are part of NATO. We can build peace and trust through diplomacy, international law, conflict prevention, and disarmament. It’s time for Canada to withdraw from NATO and work cooperatively with all countries.

SUPPORT THE COUNTER SUMMIT IN MONTREAL !

The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network is organizing the Counter-Summit (to NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly) in Montreal with the participation of local antiwar and social justice organizations on Sunday, November 24th. To register for and support the Counter Summit, click here: tinyurl.com/StopNATO . To join the Canada-Wide Weekend of Action vs NATO, contact the Canada-Wide Peace & Justice Network: peaceandjusticenetwork.ca @CanPeaceJustice

Canada Out of NATO

by justpeace87

STATEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEOPLES’ STRUGGLES (ILPS)—CANADA, July 10, 2018
CANADA OUT OF NATO! JUST PEACE FOR THE PEOPLES EVERYWHERE!
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Canada is a member state, is holding a Summit of Allied Heads of State and Government chaired by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on July 11 and 12. Prime Minister Trudeau is attending. The ILPS-Canada opposes this military alliance as it operates to defend the richest states and the global ruling class, maintain the oppressive and exploiting global system, deter peoples’ movements for liberation and just peace, and interfere in the internal affairs of many countries, causing genocide, fratricide, crises and instability. It engages in nation-destruction rather than nation-building.
Prime Minister Trudeau claims that, “For more than six decades, NATO has proven itself to be a major contributor to international peace, security, and stability – essential for economic growth and prosperity.” His government has increased military spending, adopted an aggressive stance, deepened its partnership with the US and made greater commitments to NATO.
The ILPS argues, on the contrary, NATO has been an aggressive force and a factor for instability and insecurity for most of those years. NATO is intensifying and increasing militarization. It is demanding that more of the peoples’ treasuries pay for it. This is good for arms trade, military-industrial complex, and various repressive and aggressive states. However, it contradicts principles and norms of sovereignty, social justice and human rights and the just aims of peoples’ movements fighting for their and liberation.
NATO is an alliance of 29 states in Europe. Based on the North Atlantic Treaty signed in 1949, it was constituted as a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
The role and function of NATO has been evolving to meet the developing political and economic aims of the most powerful states and the wealthy elites they serve, with the US at the head of the pack. State-to-state conflicts absent, it was mobilized for forcefully managing political developments in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union: the UN authorized NATO interventions in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and it bombed Bosnian Serbs in the Bosnian War and Belgrade in the Kosovo War. NATO intervened in Afghanistan later, Canadian forces leading the mission. Today Eastern and Central Europe are focal points for NATO, where there are several candidates for membership including the Ukraine. The number of NATOs bases and armaments in those regions is rising, and the presence of Canadian forces there is growing. Lately, for instance, a lot of effort has been put into backing the Ukrainian state against internal dissenters in the Crimea, resulting in increased tensions with Russia. The Canadian PM states: “Leaders will also address Russia’s aggressive and illegal actions, and Prime Minister Trudeau will reaffirm Canada’s support for Ukraine.”
Clearly, NATO does not operate only in case of a real threat or attack against its member states. News casts have broadcast its aggressive language with terms such as “pre-emptive strike” and “deterrence” for years. It has circulated suspicions and speculations about its enemies. It has provoked or exacerbated terrorist activity in the name of Islamism, and continually deployed to interfere in internal conflicts, as the member states pick sides and work to sustain one faction while suppressing another. The 2018 Summit aims to increase cooperation and security measures among member states.
This is an ever-more dangerous situation for the peoples of the world. It is in the best interests to condemn NATO and the bloody state politics that supports it. The ILPS is working to support and build peoples’ movements for just peace, sustainable economic security, social and national liberation, and human rights. We call for solidarity and unity among the peoples and more cooperation in struggles for our common aims. This is what must be done to enhance peace and security in the world.
Canada, out of NATO! Oppose militarization and aggression!
Just and Lasting Peace!
Ilps-canada.ca http://www.facebook.com/IlpsCanada/

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