Friends,
In preparation for COAT's "No to NATO: Festival of Creative NonViolence"
(on Oct. 6, in Ottawa), I've produced a tentative list of "REASONS TO
OPPOSE NATO." Please feel free to suggest additional reasons or ways to
improve the list. This is a draft.
Richard Sanders, Coordinator,
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
P.S. Perhaps another reason to oppose NATO is that activists like us
have to waste so much of our lives opposing it!
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24 REASONS TO OPPOSE NATO:
(1) NATO is a creature of the Cold War and should be abolished, not
expanded.
(2) NATO's official military doctrine reserves for itself the right to
use nuclear weapons despite the fact that in 1996 the World Court made
such use, or threat, illegal. NATO's "first use" nuclear weapons policy
means it is willing to use nuclear weapons even when none have been used
against them. The use of nuclear weapons contravenes International
Humanitarian Law because civilian deaths would be massive and
indiscriminate. NATO's nuclear weapons also pose the risk of
environmental catastrophe, including the global holocaust of "nuclear
winter." NATO's nuclear weapons policy also contravenes the
Nonproliferation Treaty (to which all NATO members are
signatories) that requires all states to press quickly to abolish
nuclear weapons. NATO member states (US, UK and France) now have more
than 9,000 nuclear warheads in active service, about 60% of the world's
nuclear arsenal. These three NATO states have committed some of their
nuclear weapons to NATO for its use in war. NATO itself maintains
between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons at airbases in Western Europe.
NATO's nuclear weapons and the threat of their use are a means of
coercion and intimidation, especially against states that do not possess
these weapons.
(3) NATO's powerful core members (the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany,
Holland, Belgium and Spain) have a long history of controlling vast
empires. Former colonies of these NATO countries -- today's Third World
-- still suffer from tragic economic inequalities resulting from
hundreds of years of imperialism imposed by nations that are now members
of NATO. Transnational corporations controlled by economic interests in
NATO countries continue to dominate these former colonies under a
neoliberal economic system now labeled "corporate globalization."
(4) According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
about 80% of the world's total military equipment was produced by NATO
members in 1996. The following NATO members are among the world's top
ten military producers: the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and
Canada. The U.S., U.K. and France alone contributed about 70% of world's
total arms production for that year.
(5) After the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact,
NATO became increasingly irrelevant and needed a reason for its
continued existence. NATO therefore escalated its efforts to foment
ethnic wars in the Balkans in order to create excuses for its own
military interventions in the region. NATO's interventions -- so-called
"humanitarian wars" -- were then sold to the public as a means of
settling conflicts between ethnic groups. NATO's real purpose is to
expand the colonial spheres of influence of its member states and their
corporate allies.
(6) NATO waged a war of aggression against Yugoslavia that was illegal
under its own Charter and various international laws.
(7) NATO forces used 1,200 warplanes and helicopters to fly 35,000
combat missions against Yugoslavia. It dropped 20,000 bombs and
missiles containing 80,000 tons of explosives on that country. Contrary
to international law, NATO targeted civilian infrastructure, including
over 1,000 targets of no military significance, such as: schools,
hospitals, farms, bridges, roads, railways, waterlines, media stations,
historic and cultural monuments, museums, factories, oil refineries and
petrochemical plants.
(8) NATO's illegal bombing campaign severely impacted the health of
Yugoslavia's civilian population. Thousands of civilians were killed,
at least 6,000 were injured and countless others, especially children,
suffered severe psychological trauma.
(9) According to the UN Environmental Program, NATO's bombing campaign
triggered an ecological catastrophe in Yugoslavia and the surrounding
region.
(10) In its war against Yugoslavia, NATO used weapons that are
prohibited by the Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Nuremburg
Charter, such as depleted uranium missiles that are radioactive and
highly toxic weapons with long-term, life-threatening health and
environmental consequences, and anti-personnel cluster bombs designed to
kill and maim (that contravene the "Ottawa Process on Landmines" because
many "bomblets" do not explode during initial impact). NATO continues
to stockpile these prohibited weapons for use against civilian
populations in future wars.
(11) After its bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO refused to disarm the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) as required by United Nations resolution 1244.
Instead, NATO converted the KLA into the Kosovo Protection Force
supposedly to maintain peace and order in NATO-controlled Kosovo. Under
the watchful eye of 40,000 NATO troops, the revamped KLA terrorists
ethnically cleansed the area of 250,000 people who were not of Albanian
heritage (as well as some ethnic Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia). During
NATO's occupation, 1,300 citizens have been killed and another 1,300
have been reported missing. Kosovo's remaining minorities have no
freedom of movement, live in ghettoes and face frequent terrorist
attacks and property destruction.
(12) NATO appointed Agim Ceku, an alleged war criminal, as commander of
the Kosovo Protection Force. Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar, led the Croatian
army's "Operation Storm" that ethnically cleansed the Serbian population
from their ancestral lands in Croatia. If the Hague were to pursue an
indictment of Ceku, and other such terrorists, it would be a major
embarrassment to their NATO bosses.
(13) As an occupying colonial power, NATO forces helped to enforce the
cancellation of election results in Bosnia, shut down the offices and
transmission towers of media stations that were critical of NATO's
presence and seized the assets of political parties that refused to
cooperate with them.
(14) The exploitative behavior rampant in military culture is
exemplified by the actions of NATO troops based in the Balkans. For
example, NATO troops fuel the demand for prostitution in both Bosnia and
Kosovo. The women who service NATO troops live in deplorable conditions
and are frequently held against their will by local captors. When
evidence of UN or NATO involvement in this trade has surfaced,
implicated officers have been discharged and sent home but no criminal
proceedings have ever been initiated against them.
(15) NATO has been a prime source of destabilization in Macedonia by
giving military assistance to Albanian terrorists there. The London
Times (June 10, 2001) reported that NATO's appointee to the Kosovo
Protection Force, Agim Ceku, sent 800 KLA troops to Macedonia to aid the
nascent Albanian insurgency there. This June, NATO troops intervened to
evacuate KLA fighters when Macedonian forces closed in on the rebels
near Aracinovo. German media reports state that NATO's evacuation was
ordered because 17 former U.S. military personnel -- hardened by years
of Balkan fighting and working for a private U.S. mercenary group --
were among the KLA terrorists. NATO has also used diplomatic means to
pressure the Macedonian government to succumb to Albanian demands.
(16) NATO's aggressive policy of expansion into Eastern Europe severely
threatens international stability. With NATO's annexation of the Czech
Republic, Hungary and Poland now complete, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia,
Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have declared
an interest in joining the NATO juggernaut. NATO has also set its
sights on penetrating even further into former Soviet spheres of
influence by trying to encompass Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and the
Ukraine. NATO's intention to press beyond the former borders of the
Soviet Union is dangerously confrontational and risks provoking war with
Russia.
(17) NATO's expansion into Central and Eastern Europe is a means of
integrating the military forces within those countries under NATO (and
largely U.S.) control. As military units within NATO, the armed forces
of new NATO member states must submit to demands for standardization of
military training, weapons and other military equipment. Requirements
that new members standardize their military equipment to NATO's exacting
specifications is a tremendous boon to U.S. and European military
industries that profit greatly from these expanded export markets.
(18) New NATO member states may also lose sovereignty over other
important aspects of their armed forces, such as the command, control,
communications and intelligence functions, which also risk being
subsumed under the auspices of NATO standardization.
(19) The reasons for NATO's expansion eastward are largely economic.
For instance, NATO's military access and control over Eastern Europe
helps Western European corporations to secure strategic energy resources
such as oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. The U.S. and Western
European corporations will greatly benefit from NATO's control of the
oil corridor through the Caucasus mountains. NATO wants its troops to
patrol this pipeline and to dominate the Armenian/Russian route to the
Caspian Sea. The Caucasus also link the Adriatic-Ceyhan-Baku pipeline
with oil-rich countries even farther east, in the former Soviet Central
Asia republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Billions of dollars in oil
may someday flow through these corridors to Western Europe for the
benefit of Western-based oil companies.
(20) NATO's growth is not only a provocation to Russia, it also
threatens the security of China and other Asian states that may respond
in kind by increasing their military spending, thus diverting resources
from the essential needs of their citizens. NATO's expansion may
eventually provoke an anti-NATO alliance in Asia, further destabilizing
peace and leading to possible future wars.
(21) As part of the "NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative," NATO member
states have committed themselves to increase their military abilities
for "power projection, mobility and increased interoperability." This
will require significant additional military expenditures. European
NATO countries have already increased their expenditures for military
equipment by 11% in real terms since 1995. Meanwhile, military budgets
in the U.S. and Canada have also increased over the past two years. The
military budgets of NATO countries amounted to about 60% of the world's
total military spending (US$798 billion) for the year 2000. Rather than
focusing on such genuinely humanitarian priorities as providing food,
housing, health care, education, environmental protection and public
transportation for their populations and the rest of the world, NATO is
intent on increasing their military budgets for future interventions
even farther afield.
(22) The testing and training conducted by NATO to prepare for war, also
has numerous negative impacts on people and the environment. NATO's war
preparations include military exercises, the training of pilots and the
testing of weapons and warplanes. For instance, low level flight
training areas and bombing ranges in Nitassinan threaten the traditional
lifestyle of many in the Innu Nation. Their unceded territory in Quebec
and Labrador is being turned into a military wasteland by NATO test
flights. NATO nations also carry out dangerous bombing practices on
Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico.
(23) In the late 1940s-early 1950s, at the bidding of the CIA, NATO
helped to set up secret paramilitary, anti-communist cells in at least
16 European states. Originally called Operation "Stay Behind," this
network of guerrilla armies was created to fight behind the lines in
case of a Soviet invasion. It was codified under the umbrella of the
Clandestine Co-ordinating Committee of the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Powers Europe (which became NATO). These clandestine armies were
condemned by the European Union in a resolution (Dec. 22, 1990) that
blamed the CIA and NATO for their 40 year role in overseeing this covert
operation. Widely known by the code name for the Italian campaign
(i.e., "Operation Gladio") these organizations, which the EU feared may
still have been operating in 1990, were accused of illegal interference
in political affairs, conducting terrorist attacks, jeopardizing
democractic structures and other serious crimes.
(24) Key NATO representatives have interfered with internal
electoral/political developments in Europe. Although recent elections
in Albania were fraught with irregularities and fraud (ballot box
stuffing, ghost voters, selective disenfranchisement) NATO General
Secretary George Robertson pronounced the election fair and legitimate.
Earlier this year, another NATO spokesperson openly threatened that if
the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (the party of former premier
Vladimir Meciar) entered a coalition government, Slonakia would not be
welcomed into NATO or allowed early European Union membership.
FREE SAMPLE COPY OF OUR MAGAZINE EXPOSING NATO'S CRIMES
The next issue of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade's quarterly
magazine, Press for Conversion!, will elaborate on the above list of
reasons to oppose NATO. We'll gladly mail a free sample copy of that
issue upon request. This offer is applicable to folks in Canada who
haven't previously received a free issue. If you're interested, email
us your street address in Canada before September 15.
(If you're outside Canada, send US$5 to COAT at the address below, or
buy an annual subscription for US$17. Folks in Canada can also buy a
copy for Cdn$5, or subscribe for Cdn$20.)
Richard Sanders
Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
A national peace network supported by
individuals and organizations across Canada
541 McLeod St., Ottawa Ontario K1R 5R2 Canada
Tel.: 613-231-3076 Fax: 613-231-2614
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Web site: <http://www.ncf.ca/coat>
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