A-Infos (en) Munich, anti-wef, anti-nato, Globalise Anti-Capitalism - against the NATO-policies of war

[dr.woooo@nomasters.org]

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  United struggle against WEF in Davos on 25th of January 2003
and against NATO security conference from 7th till 9th of
February in Munich

Which security? Against the terror of war and capitalism!

During the last years, the term of ?security? has become a central
slogan of propaganda in politics, economy and media. After the
attacks on September 11th 2001, public panic, especially in
western societies, was used to enforce new wars on the
international level and increasing repression on the interior level.
The US-war on Afghanistan, the escalation of the civil war in
Columbia and of Israel?s long-term occupation war against
Palestinian population and the military presence of US-, EU- and
NATO-troops on all continents stand for an imperialist version of
?international security?. Also inside societies, the propaganda
after September 11th has planted the war of the so-called civilised
world into the heads of people. Not only new laws and
investigative authorities shall guarantee more ?security?, but also
a new normality of self-control and denunciation. ?Security? is
the new big promise metropolitan governments use to insure
themselves the support of the population. No matter
if new immigration laws are created in the European Union or
in Switzerland, parties are doing their election campaigns, states
are planning wars or citizens are expected to help the police-
everywhere it?s about ?security?. Consequently, the name of the
?Munich Conference on defence issues? (Wehrkundetagung)
was changed into ?Security Conference?. This year, it will take
place from 7th till 9th of February, two weeks after the WEF
(World Economic Forum) in the Swiss mountains taking place on
25th of January.

Horst Teltschik, organiser of the Munich military conference,
head of BMW?s own Herbert Quandt Foundation and former
minder of German chancellor, explains it this way: ?What the
WEF in Davos is for the top representatives of international
economy, the Munich Security Conference is for the members of
the strategic alliance.?

?Freedom? and ?Security? discussed on these conferences by
economic leaders, politicians and generals mean world-wide war,
exploitation of people and nature, male dominance on women
and racist oppression. On a global level, they organise the security
of their production sites, of the traffic of goods, the flow of capital
and the access to natural resources and they are planning to
continue the ?long enduring war on terrorism?. The military task
plans for an attack against Iraq are publicly discussed.

We say: The Munich military conference and the WEF meeting
in Davos are two sides of the same medal - so, in Munich and in
Davos, we together will bring international resistance against war
and capitalist globalisation on the streets.


Davos
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a private institution with
office in Geneva. The members are the world?s 1000 biggest
private economic enterprises. Condition for membership is an
annual volume of at least 1 billion dollars. Since it was founded by
Klaus Schwab, who had just become professor of economy in
Lausanne at that time, in 1971, the WEF has developed from a
simple seminar of management to one of the most important
forums and networks for worldwide implementation of the
dominating system of free market economy.
In the past, for example, during the meetings organised by the
WEF, the Uruguay agreement of GATT (General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trades) from which the WTO (World Trade
Organisation) emerged and preparatory negotiations for the
creation of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade
Organisation) were initiated. These are milestones in the global
process of liberalisation, which guarantees always new and
facilitated access to markets for transnational corporations.
The annual meeting always takes place in the end of January in
Davos. On a world wide level, it is the biggest privately initiated
meeting of elites. Besides this, the WEF organises several
regional meetings on all continents, for example the European
Economic Forum in Salzburg.

Besides about 1000 bosses of companies, who represent the
members of the forum, a number of important politicians,
scientists, chief editors of the biggest media corporations, and
some few well-selected representatives of ?civil society? (trade
unions, NGOs) are invited. The global elite consists almost
exclusively of privileged men; the participation of women in the
Davos Forum is below 10%. The participants are personally
invited and the invitations are not automatically renewed. This
procedure of invitation underlines the character of exclusiveness
and gives the guests the feeling to belong to the club of global
leaders. Some of the guests are members of several clubs which
were created by the WEF: For example the ?Club of Global
Leaders of Tomorrow? or the club of ?Industry Governors?. The
club structure and the informal way of meeting at the Forum are
ideal conditions to create links of loyalty between economy, state
and so-called ?key actors? of civil society. During the
 last five years, the WEF was confronted with more and more
criticism and resistance in Switzerland and internationally. The
authorities reacted by forbidding all demonstrations during the
WEF and by totally sealing off the mountain village of Davos.
Nevertheless, the protests against the WEF in Switzerland grew
bigger and larger every year. For this reason, Klaus Schwab
rapidly had to transfer the annual meeting 2002 to New York. The
authorities couldn?t organise enough police forces to guarantee
the safety of the participants.

The annual meeting 2003 shall take place under the motto
?creating confidence?, again in Davos from 23rd till 28th of
January. The WEF wants to win confidence by improving its
policy of information and communication. Additionally, the WEF
organises public debates outside the Davos congress centre which
shall be open for all interested people. At the same time, the
Davos authorities signal to be ready to permit a demonstration for
the first time.

The ?Olten Coalition?, a broad alliance of different leftist groups
in Switzerland, calls for demonstrations and actions against the
WEF. The common platform of the ?Olten Coalition? includes,
among others, the demand for closing the WEF and refuses a
dialogue with the WEF, which would only serve to improve the
image of the WEF. The ?Olten Coalition? mobilises for a big
demonstration on 25th of January 2003 in Davos.

Munich
Like every year, the ?Munich Security Conference? (former
?Conference on Defence Issues?) takes place from 7th till 9th of
February 2003- a meeting of governmental representatives of the
NATO states and about 200 highly important military strategists,
generals and arms experts. The assembled EU- and
NATO-representatives, the ministers of war and the foreign
ministers of the USA, Germany and the other EU-states want to
make the public believe that this conference would be for
protecting peace and international security. The opposite is true:
They are planning the next war! Behind the closed doors of the
noble hotel ?Bayerischer Hof?- protected from the public- they
design new plans for wars and sceneries of wars in the whole
world.

The ?Coalition against the NATO Security Conference? also
mobilises to Munich for February 2003:
- From 10th till 12th of January 2003: anti-war-congress in the
Munich trade union?s house under the motto: ?Globalise
Anti-Capitalism- against the NATO policies of war?.
- Friday, the 7th of February 2003: rally against the municipal
welcome for the NATO-war strategists, at 5 p.m. Marienplatz
- Saturday, 8th of February 2003: Big international
demonstration, 12 o?clock, Marienplatz


This security guarantees global exploitation

For a long time, the reality of many people, also in western
European countries, has been characterised by a massive loss of
social securities: Cuts in public welfare, privatisation of health
care, pension and education system and privatisation of public
spaces. So all the social life becomes a ware. A safe existence is
only achievable for fewer and fewer people, according to racist
and sexist criteria of exclusion. Material safety is more and more
privatised and pushed back into the sphere of individual
responsibility. This creates de-solidarisation and alienation,
increases the competition between people and often leads to a
racist defence of privilege - globally and locally. Also
psychological agony increases extremely. Those who are left
behind have been ?unfortunate?. But this logic of competition
and paralyse is not without any alternative. The perspective of
collectivity, resistance and solidarity is open for all of us.

In a situation of states destroying social securities on a large level
under the circumstances of capitalist globalisation, ?security?
made by police and militarisation is the promise given by the
social elite to everybody. This promise of security shall create
identity by the construction of images of ?the enemy?, solidarity
with the system of profiteering and with the ruling classes of this
world, a broad acceptance for global wars and massive cuts in
personal freedom.

The politics of social construction of enemies

The ruling discourse on ?security? divides people and defines
who can participate in social life and who can?t. This becomes
especially obvious in the case of European states? migration and
refugee politics. Refugees and migrants are used for racist
election campaigns and presented as ?criminals?, ?illegal?
people, dealers or potential ?terrorists?. ?Security? for Europe
shall be guaranteed by new deportation camps, destruction of the
Asylum right, or the SIS (Schengen Information System) made
for quicker deportation of Asylum seekers into hunger, suffering,
torture and persecution. On the EU summit in Seville, European
governments have openly declared war on ?illegal migration?.

Military and migration control cannot be separated any longer:
From now on, several EU-states will use military aeroplanes for
mass deportations; and during international war strikes like in
Kosovo and Afghanistan, refugees of war are confined in huge
refugee camps ?close to their homes?, so that they can?t set off
for the rich countries.

The mobility of refugees and migrants, whose resources have
been robbed by colonialism and capitalist exploitation, shall at
least be controlled. Migration, which cannot be stopped totally,
shall be kept within boundaries useful for the economic interests
for flexible and rightless labour. Thousands of refugees have
already lost their lives in front of the walls of Fortress Europe.

But the social construction of ?enemies? doesn?t only affect
refugees and migrants, but all for whom there?s no place within a
social order dividing people according to their economic use: drug
users, homeless people, small ?criminals?, resistant youngsters
and poor people in general- all of them are declared a ?risk of
security?. Vast parts of inner cities are nowadays supervised by
cameras - no-go-areas for all who do not stay there for work or
consumption. The fewer the rich and powerful use to calm down
social tensions by the means of public welfare and the more
luxury and promises of consumption, which fewer and fewer
people are able to afford, are publicly presented, the more police
force rules.

And last but not least, the militarisation against so-called ?inner
enemies? is also done for repression and prevention of protest and
resistance. According to the new ?Anti Terror Packet? of the
EU-states, diverse actions, which belong to the basic methods of
social movements, shall be criminalized as ?terrorism?: forms of
occupations, blockades and sabotage. The EU-list of ?terrorist
organisations? also includes supporters of political prisoners in
Bask country, Kurdish and Turkish leftist organisations or the
Colombian guerrilla FARC. The police brutality in Gothenburg
and Genoa and the restrictions of the freedom of movement and
demonstration in Davos and Munich gave us a taste of how
European powers are going to deal with visible resistance against
capitalist globalisation in future.

World-wide un-security

It is cynical or naïve to claim that capitalist economy would make
the world a safe place. It?s the opposite. Capitalist world market
only creates economic stability and security for those who, in this
system of growing profits, become richer and richer. The majority
of people is left behind. In 1989, the collapse of the state-socialist
[State-capitalist - I.S.]
eastern block was celebrated as the ?end of history? and an age of
perpetual peace and wealth was announced- the opposite has
been established. The ?new world order? announced in 1990 by
the leaders of the western world has brought anything else to
human kind than peace and safety- millions are dying of hunger
and of diseases that could be healed and on all continents war is
raging.

The new global equality announced by the preachers of free
market only means that today, there are again sweatshops in
London and at the same time, there are islands of riches protected
by barbed wire and armed security, surrounded by mass poverty,
in Rio de Janeiro. The lawless exploitation of workers in the
infamous Maquilladores in the free trade zones are no exclusive
phenomenon of the so-called Third World. Also inside the rich
states, there exist plans for unlimited plundering.

For us, it?s nothing new that the neo-liberal remedies of IMF and
World Bank, like privatisation of public facilities (public
transports, education, water, post, telecommunication etc.),
structural adjustment programmes and export orientation lead
most of all to destruction of vital social infrastructure. And the
terror of world market most of all affects women, who, in order to
feed their kinds and families have to arrange with the shortage of
vital resources.

Such circumstances often provoke massive resistance and can
only be pushed through by using violent force against the people
concerned. Also in Europe, strikes and labour struggles are more
and more often the answer against social dismantling. In
Columbia, army paramilitary and private armed forces are fighting
a bloody war against the people and against all social movements.
In many African countries, the former colonial powers, although
talking about ?democratic changes?, still count on corrupt
dictators to guarantee neo-liberal exploitation.

Global war as international crisis management

The paradigm of capitalist globalisation has been shifted during
the last years. During the 80ies and early 90ies, the basic strategy
was de-regularisation, causing partial collapse of state structures
in countries of the so-called Third World and far-reaching
abolishment of public welfare in the rich countries. But this
process of de-regularisation has brought up the necessity of new
forms of regularisation. For some years, economic
de-regularisation has been backed by police-military
interventions. ?Political globalisation? means nothing but
militarisation of social politics as a crisis management of
exploitation.

The borderline between peace and war is disappearing more and
more: under the slogan of ?long enduring war on terrorism?, the
presence of police and military and war-interventions form a
flexible system of global control- the permanent state of
exception of war becomes an illusion of perpetual peace. The
creation of military protectorates like in Kosovo or Macedonia
belong to this flexible system of control as well as the expansion
of coalitions of war. The planned eastern expansion of NATO
stands for imperialist Colonisation by integrating a whole region
into the existing military structures.

The inner-political situation in countries of the so-called
?Eurasian Balkan? - Afghanistan, Georgia, Kasachstan, the
Caucasian countries and other states of the former Soviet Union-
are considered as ?highly unstable?. In these countries, there are
huge supplies of oil, natural gas and other resources: At the same
time future transit and transport ways between the eastern and
western border regions of Eurasia pass through this region.
Because of these material interests and because of the need of
?security? defined by NATO-states, this region gets an enormous
political and economic importance. So the eastern expansion of
NATO is another step towards further interventions in Central
Asia. Considering possible new constellations and coalitions of
power (for example the axis Russia, China and India), and the
exposed geo-strategic position, the Western countries don?t want
to give up the chance to dominate the region of Central Asia.

The present misery in Afghanistan is a result of 20 years of
foreign aid for different forces of war favourable for the respective
interests. Wars fought by NATO-states and the logic of
de-stabilisation complement perfectly one another. According to
the cynical principle of ?creative destruction?, every war opens up
new potentials for exploitation: Re-construction of destroyed
countries, new access to human labour and natural resources,
and profits for arms industry.

The hunger for even more exploitation doesn?t know any limits.
The next aggression of war is openly planned against Iraq. For
more than three decades, the Middle East has been a focus of
imperialist aggression because of its oil and gas resources. The
next step of ?war on terrorism? takes place in this
geo-strategically important region: A military strike against Iraq
involving 150000 soldiers (perhaps using tactical nuclear
weapons) is prepared and publicly discussed since the end of the
year 2001- up to now, there has been no relevant resistance
against these plans in the societies of the rich countries.

Repression and integration as internal Crisis Management

Strategies of integration and containment are also important to
protect the interests of capitalist exploitation in western societies.
Especially European social democrats and other ?reformist
leftists? are themselves a part of conservative policies, enforcing
neo-liberal conversion of societies or harbouring Keynesianist
illusion. With policies of ?we are all citizens?, they have long
given up the struggle for change and instead, they try to sell us
their wars and their social cuts as ?capitalism with a human
face?. We are not only talking about tactical criticism against a
war on Iraq or some ecological and social phrases, but about the
principal attitude towards military interventions, the daily war
against refugees, the increasing repression against the people and
the continuing exploitation. From this point of view, social
democracy is still a party of war. For this reason, we reject the
conception of ?civil Europe? as an alternative to the supposedly
more aggressive US-imperialism as well.

The conception of ?sustainable development?, which has become
fashionable during the last years, is shown as a reasonable and
softened sort of capitalism. Under this popular slogan, many
formerly critical NGOs participate in renewing capitalist
production. But every adherence to the perspective of growth
leads into the ecological catastrophe, every capitalist order means
exploitation. The conception of ?sustainable development? is no
promise for a better future, but the threatening strategy of
sustainable exploitation. Against all promises of sustainability,
the so-called new technologies in the sections of biological and
nuclear technology and genetic engineering mean even more
insecurity about the consequences of growth.

Behind the attractive-sounding phrases of renewal, there?s often
nothing but the conservation of existing relations of power. The
strategy of ?embracing? social movements, the integration of
NGO?s into far reaching decisions are no contradiction to a roll
back of previous standards on other levels. The most important
function of this integration is the disappearance of an open
opposition. The ?dialogue? propagated by the WEF in Davos is an
attempt to hide the own scandals by creating confidence without
obligation and to avoid substantial negotiations. We will not join
such strategies of integration. There?s no dialogue with power!

Imperialist competition and the dynamics of war

As we see looking at the dispute before the war on Yugoslavia or
the way the USA are planing an attack against Iraq on their own
authority, the powerful states on this earth don?t always act in
unity when they are organising control and exploitation. Their
alliances are characterised by deep breaks and competition,
finding their expression in wars between representatives (in the
wars in Ruanda and in Congo, the competition between France
and the USA played an important role; another example are the
Balkan wars), in wars of trade or in the present conflict
concerning the International Criminality Court (ICC). The refuse
of some European states against an attack on Iraq don?t have
anything to do with their ?love for peace?, but with different
economic interests and ideas of order for the middle-east.

Although the USA under the Bush administration often prefer
harder (military) methods for ?international security?, while the
EU tries to present itself as the defender of human rights, their
aims are still the same: Getting the best pieces in the global
regime of control on markets and resources. Looking at the plans
for a quick implementation of a European army of intervention,
we see that these differences are more a consequence of the still
limited possibilities of EU-states for effective military action than
a consequence of moral scruples: From 2003 on, 60000 soldiers
belonging to the EU-intervention troops shall be ready to be sent
out inside a radius of 4000 kilometres around the EU within 60
days. Inside this intervention army, the relations of power are
clear: A German general will command the troops, the biggest
contingent will consist of German soldiers. 13 years after taking
over the GDR, Germany , within the European Union, gets the
means necessary to fight for its interest to be a great power also
on the military level.

Against patriarchy and militarisation of society

Militarisation of society is always connected with an increase of
patriarchal oppression: Especially women and children are
affected of patriarchal structures of wars and militarised societies.
So our anti-war politics must put a radical focus on the
connections between war and increase of male violence against
women and children, the connections between war and rape,
between military and prostitution.

In a patriarchal society, the human relations and the division
between production and reproduction are tied to
gender-hierarchy. The most extreme expression of this is
sexualised violence committed by men using their bodies as
weapons of oppression. The history of national states and their
colonial conquests is inseparably connected with the construction
of soldier-man. In the age of modern patriarchy, there?s no more
need for biological criteria of exclusion- today?s military can deal
with the presence of women , as long as the identifications of
?blue and pink?, of who is regarded as a man, who is regarded as
a woman, still stay in power. Let?s sabotage the sexist definitions
of gender, let?s destroy the diverse constructions of
?soldier-man?!

No justice-no peace!

War is a permanent social situation: almost all aspects of society
are subjected to the logic of militarisation. War doesn?t take place
on TV, but at the borders, in the refugee camps, in land-mined
and poisoned regions. The permanent war doesn?t know any
limits of space and time- only from our privileged point of view,
war is an exceptional state of oppression. Bot capitalist
globalisation and the war going along with it are facing an
increasing resistance. People in Bolivia are fighting against
privatisation of their drinking water supply, Argentineans are
fighting against the stranglehold of IMF, Indian peasants against
patents on seeds for agro-multies like Cargill and Monsanto. The
struggles against the summits in Seattle, Prague and Genoa
organised by grassroot movements show that also here, in the
rich countries, resistance is growing. Also the mobilisation
against the G8-summit in June 2003 in Evian/France at the Lake
Geneva is already going on.
It?s the diversity and the determination of these new
internationalist struggles we are referring to and from which we
consider that today, it is more important than ever to see
worldwide exploitation and its protection by the means of war as
two sides of the same medal and to resist massively against this
system. We also say: it is not a protest movement?s job to please
the ruling and powerful classes of this world. We don?t accept
being divided into ?good ones? and ?bad ones?, but we choose
our own means of resistance. The next wars are already prepared
and protest will not be sufficient if we want to prevent them. If we
want to stop the war machine, we must name, block and
dismantle the responsible ones, the structures and their logics.

Worldwide resistance cannot be stopped: No justice- No peace!
Globalise Anti-Capitalism- against the NATO-policies of war
An other Globalisation is not only necessary, but also possible!


AJaK - Anarchistische Jugend ausser Kontrolle
and others.



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