Demonstration against militarist conference in Munich, Germany

Anti-militarist demonstration against conference in Munich, Germany

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Monday, February 19, 2018

Thousands protest against Munich security summit

OVER 2,000 demonstrators braved driving snow to demonstrate against the Nato summit in Munich on Saturday.

Peace campaigners carried banners saying: “No to War” and “Peace not Weapons” at the rally, which saw flags from socialist and anarchist groups fly alongside those of Pax Christi and Kurdish solidarity campaigners protesting at the Turkish invasion of Afrin.

They were outnumbered two to one by police officers surrounding the summit in a ring of steel.

The demo was called by the Alliance for Action against the Nato Security Conference (though the conference is not technically a Nato event), which demanded “an immediate halt to all arms exports, the withdrawal of Germany from Nato and the EU’s military structures and the dissolution of all Nato and US bases in Germany.

“War must never again be launched from German soil”, the organisers said in a statement. “But the federal armed forces are now participating in 13 foreign interventions.”

Nato demands that Germany spend more on arms were unjustifiable when funds were “urgently needed for education, health, public housing, municipal infrastructure, environmental conservation and the integration of refugees”, they said.

Munich Security Conference threatens war on all fronts: here.

France and Germany called for unified EU military at Nato summit: here.

The interventions of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel at the Munich Security Conference reveal what the central task of a future grand coalition government will be—namely, the return of Germany to militarism and great power politics, which led in the last century to two world wars and the most terrible crimes in human history: here.

Report by German armed forces commissioner prompts calls for rearmament: here.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen made clear in a recent interview with the Passauer Neue Presse what the central tasks of Germany’s incoming government would be. A new instalment of the grand coalition will launch a major rearmament programme and press ahead with the return of German militarism to the world stage: here.

Barely in office, the grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats is pushing ahead with its military upgrade plans. Eighteen major contracts, each exceeding the €25 million hurdle, and which must therefore be approved by the Parliamentary Budget Committee, should be awarded this year to the defence industry: here.