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leaflet at Spanish embassy protest in Edinburgh

leaflet_give_away | 12.03.2003 02:48

leaflet handed out at the protest and attempted occupation at the Spanish embassy on Tuesday 11th of march in Edinburgh.

NO MORE WAR

The US president George W. Bush has decided to go to war by any means necessary. Last August 6th 2002 an anonymous member of the US Administration declared to the Washington Post that “the way to reach the Middle East goes through Baghdad“. The US, having its troops in Iraq, Turkey, in the old Soviet Union (the North of the Middle East) and in Afghanistan (the East), will be able to control Iran, the “heart of the Axis of Evil“, totally. Moreover, a change of regime in Iraq will also benefit enormously the US's and UK's oil companies, as they will secure their control over Iraq's Oilfields (Iraq is the second more important world oil reserve). What this means is that this is again a war for profit and not an Humanitarian Action as they want us to believe.

We all know the results of war: the death of thousands of civilians, the displacement of thousands of people, hunger, illnesses, huge ecological disasters leading to environmental unbalances… and of course profits for the ruling classes. Iraqi people have been already affected enough by the government of ruthless Sadam Hussein, by the last Gulf war and more than ten years of US sanctions (mainly food and drugs) which followed it. An estimated of 50,000 civilians died during the last Gulf war, 22,000 of these after an US lead air strike (28 February 1991) over the so called “road to hell“. It is therefore difficult to see how this war would benefit the Iraqi population. As we know, most of the victims of war are usually civilians.

The government of the Spanish State together with the UK government are the main supporters of the US government pro-war approach. Aznar (Spanish State Prime Minister), with his servant attitude, has submitted both the Spanish State population and the government to the US mad war machine. By mimicking the US brain washed model, the Spanish State government has built up a web of lies and disinformation through which it links this war with the fight against what they call the International Terrorism threat. But they have not managed to provide evidence of this yet. The invasion of Afghanistan was the first step to gain or geopolitical and economic control of the main Oilfields of the planet. In that occasion the Bush Administration did not doubt at all about using weapons of mass destruction.

Over the last months about 80% of the Spanish State population has shown its opposition to this war by taking the streets during many huge demonstrations and by organizing various other actions. In order to overcome this overwhelming reaction, the Spanish State Prime Minister, J.M. Aznar, has launched a campaign of lies and circulated leaflets and pamphlets with the slogan: “Safety measures for peace“. He has also released interviews where information has been manipulated to justify this war and to view it as part of the “war against terrorism“.

The Spanish State government is known for having a long list of Human Right abuses. Freedom of speech is repressed and persecuted in particular when it comes to leftist political dissidents. These people are arrested, accused and segregated under the Antiterrorist Bill even when evidence is not provided. In various occasions Amnesty International has denounced (and still does) that prisoners and political dissidents are tortured in the Spanish State. The government of the Spanish State allows the police to coerce, arrest, imprison, harass, terrorise, spy… political dissidents. It also allows the police to criminalize these people and their actions (including non-violent actions). With the excuse of links with terrorist groups many news papers, news letters and radios putting forward a view different from that shared by main steam media have been closed or banned (although no evidence is ever been provided of these links). It also negotiates with other governments (as undemocratic as them) the exchange of citizens in order to frame them up and to show to the rest of the population that they are very efficient in the fight against terrorism. This government also promotes and allows so called antiterrorist groups and other groups and companies from the far right to do whatever they want (it is important to remember that police, workers of far right security companies, people of fascists political parties and nazi skin-heads have killed, abused, beaten up, and harassed many people without facing any legal action). Moreover, by taking advantage of the war on terrorism the Spanish State continues its persecution and its plan of extinction of political dissidents, of people from the Basque Country and of “illegal“ immigrants. All this with the approval of the US. The Spanish State is also used by the US as storage for weapons of mass destruction. In addition, only few months ago when the Prestige shank in the Galician coast, the Spanish State government silenced its inefficiency to deal with the problem. This has cost thousands of animal lives (and many others are still affected by the oil spillage), an environmental disaster that will take a long time to be resolved and a damage to the Galician population that will have consequences also in the years to come.

Having said all this some questions arise (and these are borrowed from someone else). Is it not our responsibility to demand the stop of this (and all) war? Is it not the time for us to stop this/ese government/s playing at sorting out other countries problems and to start looking locally and thinking globally? Should we not write to the UN exposing all these facts and asking for an immediate inspection and therefore invasion of the territory we live in to free ourselves from those tyrants who hold the power?

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
NO MORE WAR
SOLIDARITY AMONG PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
FOR THE RECOGNITION OF THE HUMAN RACE

leaflet_give_away


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