Warmongers not welcome!

Call from the Action Alliance against the NATO Security Conference 2024

Demonstration and protest chain on February 17, 2024 in Munich

Why we protest against the Munich "Security Conference" (SiKo)

For the past 60 years, state representatives, military personnel, and arms corporations have been gathering in February 2024 for the Munich "Security Conference" (SiKo) at the Bayerischer Hof. This private event, financed in part with taxpayers' money, has never been about security, but always about the power interests of NATO and its member states - particularly those of the German federal government, which has initiated a militaristic "turning point" and now aims to make the entire country "war-ready."

Today, the German government is organizing the largest armament since World War II and sending weapons to areas of conflict. This means an arms race, confrontation, and war - even nuclear war. At the SiKo, this spiral of violence is being marketed as "security."

The SiKo should not take place undisturbed. We are organizing our protests with a protest chain through the pedestrian zone and a demonstration that symbolically surrounds the luxury hotel (Stachus - Odeonsplatz - Marienplatz).

For education and social welfare instead of tanks and wars!

According to the NATO and the federal government, at least two percent of GDP should be allocated to armament and war expenditures starting in 2024. This would currently amount to around 85 billion euros. Together with the defense expenditure planned in the 2024 budget (52 billion euros), the "military aid" for Ukraine (11 billion euros), and the planned expenses from the "Special Fund for the Bundeswehr" (20 billion euros), almost every fifth euro of the total budget is allocated to the military.

In comparison, every fifth child in Germany grows up in poverty. Only two billion euros are allocated for child basic security in the 2024 federal budget, while social organizations estimate a need ten times higher.

The only budget item that is being increased is the military budget. The money the federal government is investing in the preparation and execution of wars is lacking in securing even the most fundamental needs of children.

The organizers of the SiKo find the "still insufficient new defense expenditures" not extensive enough. We protest against this unprecedented squandering of money in the face of social hardships in Germany and around the world!

For international law instead of the law of the jungle!

Instead of addressing global challenges with peaceful means, the creators of the SiKo rely on violence. However, to overcome global challenges, humanity needs the willingness to cooperate and a strengthening of the United Nations (UN) and other forums that facilitate dialogue. These forums, however, are undermined by propaganda events like the SiKo. Even before the exclusion of Russia and Iran, the motto of the SiKo, "Peace through Dialogue," is a farce. Agreements are made without scrutiny and without international legal legitimacy, circumventing international agreements and institutions. Instead, international decisions such as the Paris Climate Agreement or the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals are undermined at the SiKo, away from public scrutiny. The weapons sold here and the military exercises, collaborations, and interventions planned here destroy the climate, environment, and human lives.

Combat the causes of migration, not refugees!

In Europe, there are more walls today than ever before. Military force is employed at the EU's external borders to confront refugees fleeing the deprivation of their livelihoods. The EU has turned the Mediterranean into a mass grave.

The majority of those who succeed, in spite of all deadly adversities, in submitting an asylum application in Germany come from regions where NATO states are at war: Syria and Afghanistan. The 'values-led' West evades its responsibility for the crises it has caused, the consequences of post-colonial exploitation, climate change, and an imperialist global economic order.

This is also why we take to the streets against the SiKo because, for the SiKo, refugees are merely a "bargaining chip in the politics of (major) powers." Contrary to the ongoing racist debates surrounding expedited deportations and detention centers at EU external borders, we demand the eradication of the root causes of migration. For war is the primary cause of displacement!

For cooperation instead of confrontation!

The power dynamics in the world are changing, shifting away from the dominance of the "West" towards the strengthening of oppressed countries aligning themselves around the "systemic rival" China (see Germany's China strategy).

However, the old-fashioned ones refuse to give up their outdated claim to world domination. Economic sanctions are intended to break competitors and rally the old camp in the conflict with the emerging powers. Because, in terms of military and political cohesion and the preservation of NATO's power, there can be no peace.

That is why conflicts and wars like those in Ukraine or Taiwan are accepted and even fueled – until they escalate!

Instead of further exploiting countries in the Global South, instead of proxy and civil wars, instead of new bloc formation and confrontation, we demand worldwide peaceful and solidary cooperation on an equal footing.

For a future-oriented and human-friendly policy!

We stand for all that is being withheld or ignored at the SiKo! The challenges facing humanity are climate change, species extinction, environmental destruction, and famines. Wars are not the solution. And the Munich Security Conference is not a place where serious efforts are being made to find solutions to these problems; quite the opposite.

We demand a livable future, not its destruction. We demand the cessation of wars, civil wars, and violent conflicts – including those that do not receive media attention, such as in Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Kurdistan.

We stand with people worldwide who are fighting against oppression, exploitation, inequality, and the establishment of new borders.

Our demands:

Disarmament instead of rearmament!

Tax funds for social systems, healthcare and education, climate, biodiversity, and environmental protection, public transport, refugee and global hunger relief, rather than tanks and bombs.

Negotiate instead of shoot!

No participation in wars and the end of all foreign missions of the Bundeswehr!

Closure of US and NATO bases in Germany for (drone) warfare!

Right to stay for all people!

Stop EU asylum reform! Abolish the EU "border protection" agency Frontex!

Acceptance of refugees and the granting of the human right to asylum with equal treatment regardless of country of origin, including conscientious objectors and deserters!

Stopp aller Waffenlieferungen und Rüstungsexporte!

Stop all arms deliveries and arms exports! End all exports by the German arms industry!

No military prolongation of the Ukraine war!

Withdrawal from "nuclear sharing"!

Join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!

US nuclear weapons out of Germany!

Strengthening of the United Nations (UN) and international law!

Circle Around the Warmongers

Please support our protests (including financially) by signing this call to action!

Please note our consensus within the alliance.

The Action Alliance against the NATO Security Conference works on an anti-fascist basis and strongly opposes nationalist, militaristic, ethnocentric, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, or right-wing populist-Islamophobic content. Groups that regularly and systematically collaborate with organizations promoting the aforementioned content cannot be members of the alliance. The struggle for peace and against war and armament is inherently international. Therefore, we strongly reject tendencies and expressions in line with the ideological directions mentioned here, and we exclude individuals and organizations that propagate the aforementioned content in speech, writing, and/or imagery from our assembly. Additionally, we request that national flags not be brought to our gatherings. Our protests are supported by people of various ethnic backgrounds, skin colors, philosophical, political, cultural, and sexual orientations. None of them should face discrimination.

Action Alliance against the NATO Security Conference.

www.sicherheitskonferenz.de or www.antisiko.de
Translation: Heinz Michael Vilsmeier

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Link to the call: Site, or as PDF.