Anti-NATO protest sparks growing movement

A new generation of activists has grasped the central, repressive role of NATO on a world scale. They will join the protest in Chicago on May 20 against a NATO summit scheduled there. Their involvement in this and further actions will strengthen the movement against U.S./NATO wars of aggression.

In April, a broad layer of churches, peace organizations and labor unions endorsed the May 20 protests. They have also asked for “teach-in” type discussions to learn more about NATO and its role.

Workers World learned of these developments while speaking to some of the anti-war leaders organizing the Chicago protest. The United National Anti-War Coalition and the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) were the first groups to call the protest.

“Something is happening with this protest that is really remarkable. The administration’s decision last year to hold a NATO military summit and a G8 economic summit in Chicago during the same week, even though they later reversed it, educated everyone by linking NATO and G8,” said Joe Iosbaker, a key CANG8 organizer.

“The new Occupy movement already saw the G8 Summit as representing the 1% richest people internationally. Now they see that NATO’s military agenda is set by the same superrich who set the G8's economic agenda. Even after the administration pulled back and moved the G8 meeting to Camp David, many of the Midwest’s Occupy movements decided they would still focus their protest on Chicago and NATO.

“There are many reasons to oppose war,” continued Iosbaker. “People die, the money spent could be used for human needs, but many in the Occupy movement have grasped the most important reason: because NATO launches the war to protect the interests of the same 1% who are the enemy of the 99%.”

NATO threats against Syria

Sara Flounders, International Action Center co-director and an organizer of the May 20 action from New York, said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s threats against Syria and the United Nations’ approval for observers there created “a new emergency.”

“It is urgent to protest NATO aggression,” said Flounders. “Clinton threatened to increase sanctions. Now the U.N. has its foot in the door with so-called observers. This can be used, as it was last year in Libya, to open that door to NATO military intervention.”

Iosbaker said that UNAC and CANG8 had from the beginning opposed any NATO or U.S. military or other intervention against Syria. The Bush administration had included Syria in its “Axis of Evil” a decade ago. “The U.S. and Israel don’t want any government in place that speaks out against their military and economic domination in the region.”

Abayomi Azikiwe, an organizer with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, said, “We in MECAWI are outraged about the NATO summit being held in Chicago. Both Chicago and Detroit have been devastated by the world economic crisis that in part was caused by the enormous Pentagon and NATO war budgets. We will be in Chicago to express our solidarity with the other victims of NATO around the world, the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya.”

Burgeoning support

Iosbaker spoke of the protest’s growing support: “Rev. Jesse Jackson endorsed at an Occupy rally. The Chicago teachers’ union voted to endorse. First one, then all of the large Service Employees locals are supporting. The [United Electrical Workers] endorsed. We’re hoping to attract even more labor support.

“We’re planning a press conference with Jackson and other ministers. One invited us to a Town Hall meeting to educate the community. This church is in the shadow of the summit. Its board invited protesters to camp on the church’s lawn. There’s a snowball effect.”

The protesters have a permit from the Chicago authorities to march to the block of the NATO summit. “We still have to talk to the Secret Service,” said Iosbaker. “We have a meeting with them on April 24.”

The Chicago media have said that the planned protest caused the administration to move the G8 meeting to Camp David. The Occupy movement’s focus is now on May 20 in Chicago. That movement is still growing. The organizers are looking forward to a strong national protest, said Iosbaker.