UNAC meeting to discuss slogans for May action

Chicago authorities announced March 20 that the city had rejected a permit for anti-war groups to protest at the NATO summit meeting in Chicago on May 20. Anti-war organizers in Chicago say they are confident they will again win the permit struggle and the right to protest within sight and sound range of the generals.

The next step toward the anti-NATO action is a conference of the United National Antiwar Committee in Stamford, Conn., on March 23-25. This conference will discuss the direction of the anti-war movement in the U.S. for the coming period.

Along with regional organizers in the Midwest, including those from the Occupy movement in Chicago, UNAC has been preparing for a major spring anti-war action as the summit of top NATO generals and government leaders takes place in May.

In the past year, NATO carried out the bloody bombing of Libya and the overthrow of that North African country’s government. NATO has official responsibility for the mainly U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, and is threatening intervention against Syria. In other words, NATO has affirmed its role as an instrument of worldwide counterrevolution.

Internationally, anti-war forces in Europe have called a “No to NATO” protest on April 1 in Brussels. Also, on May 17-19 in Frankfurt, Germany, the group Libertad has called actions “against the policies implemented by the European Central Bank, European Union and IMF, also called the Troika, under the pretext of fighting the so-called financial crisis of the European Union.”

Imperialists retreat

Until the first week in March, the G8 countries — the most powerful imperialist countries plus capitalist Russia — were also planning a summit in Chicago during the same weekend as the NATO summit in mid-May. The imperialist countries had planned the NATO and G8 summits much earlier, before the workers’ revolt in Wisconsin and the Occupy movement showed the potential for an impressive, militant protest demonstration.

Washington revised its plans to hold both meetings in Chicago on March 5. By then it had dawned on them that having both at the same time showed openly the connections between the world’s most unpopular bankers and industrialists — the 1% of the 1% — and their top hired guns in NATO. So President Barack Obama opted instead to invite the G8 bankers to Camp David, Md., thus separating the two summits and keeping the hated billionaires apart from any population center.

The Coalition Against NATO and the G8 then decided to move its demonstration from May 19 to May 20 to coincide with the NATO summit. CANG8 had won a permit to demonstrate on the earlier day after a long struggle with the Chicago government.

Meanwhile, UNAC is holding a conference starting March 23 where hundreds of activists will gather to discuss slogans and positions on the current and possible future wars led by Pentagon and NATO aggression.

UNAC established its credentials as a broad anti-war coalition with a conference of 800 people in Albany, N.Y., in the summer of 2010, followed by anti-war protests of thousands in New York and San Francisco in April 2011.

The list of speakers and participants at the UNAC conference shows once again that UNAC remains the broadest, most activist of existing U.S. anti-war coalitions.

For more information about the Stamford conference, including a list of speakers and the conference schedule, see nepajac.org. For information about the May 20 Chicago demonstration, see cang8.wordpress.com.