by Joe Lombardo, June 28, 2022
During the weekend before the NATO meeting in Madrid, Spain, on June 28 – 30, thousands rallied in the streets and meeting halls of the city in opposition to the NATO summit. Protesters include people from the United States including Joe Lombardo, coordinator of UNAC and other UNAC members along with Ann Wright, Paki Weiland of Code Pink and others. People also came from many other countries around the world. Two meetings were held in Madrid to counter the NATO summit, one called the Peace Summit and the other the Counter Summit. Both recognized the aggressive character of the US led NATO alliance. The Peace Summit’s final resolution can be found here, and rough translation of the Counter Summit’s final resolution can be found here.
UNAC people attended both conferences and Joe Lombardo spoke at the Counter Summit, which had the perspective of organizing an anti-imperialist movement and was organized mostly by Spanish, anti-imperialist organizations. Joe Lombardo’s talk can be found here. UNAC also distributed a statement on NATO and Ukraine at the two meetings in both Spanish and English that can be found here and a flyer from the Sanctions Kill coalition with a bar code to a very important report on sanctions authored by members of the coalition. Spanish and English version of the flyer were distributed and the English version can be found here.
The NATO summit is happening at the same time that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia is waging in Ukraine. Therefore, it is important that the peace movement has shown a strong opposition to NATO at this time. NATO is set to revise its orientation and to become more of a world-wide tool for US imperialism. It is proposing a new alignment that will see it spread its aggression to Asia and around the world. According to information that can be found on the NATO web site, they will project Russia and China as their main enemies. This means that we will see further aggression against major military and nuclear powers that will put the entire world at risk.
Only a few months after the US/NATO defeat in Afghanistan, they choose to conduct another war, this time with Russia, a major nuclear power. They hoped to fill the coffers of the military industrial complex by providing weapons to fight a major war in Europe. The US also hoped to break the strong trade relationship between Europe and Russia and Europe and China to allow US companies to fill the gap. They also hoped that the strong sanctions applied against Russia would cause the Russian economy to collapse, causing a crisis in the country that might lead to collapse of the governement, and allow for a more US/NATO compliant government in Russia. Possibly this would foreshadow a breakup of Russia and allow the US and its NATO allies to more easily dominate it. With a defeated Russia they hoped to be able to further surround China – which is challenging US hegemony around the world – and be in a better position to eventually defeat China, economically and militarily.
But their plan is failing as Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. Instead of having its economy fail, it is the Western economies that are in trouble with both recession and inflation, while the ruble is rising against the dollar, the Russian economy is growing, and the Russian people are showing strong support for their country’s fight against the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
But despite this reality, the NATO summit is set to double down and move forward with its aggression towards Russia and China. This will affect every person on the planet in a negative way and so we must continue to build our movement to bring about a world of peace not war and to oppose the US/NATO aggression around the world.
- No to NATO expansion!
- No to NATO!
- No weapons to Ukraine!
- No to war!
- Hands off China!
Note: After the protests, members of UNAC attended a meeting of the No to NATO group where plans were started for future work including webinars, more focus on the climate crisis and a commitment to organize for the next NATO summit, which appears to be planned for 2023 in Lithuania.
*Featured Image: Joe Lombardo and Pippa Bartolotti at the No to NATO protest in Madrid, June, 2022