PEACE & PLANET NETWORK

CALL FOR DEC. 10 HUMAN RIGHTS DAY/SYRIA ACTIONS 

We are all the victims of state and non-state terrorism. Ending such calamities as the Paris and Beirut massacres requires a struggle against the forces of destruction emanating from the Middle East and from the imperial wars of the US, NATO and allied states.

The U.S. and its allies are fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine and Somalia. Worse, in Syria and Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the two major nuclear weapons states, the U.S. and Russia, are fighting on opposite sides of the conflicts. There, U.S. nuclear-armed allies, Britain, France and Israel, are also involved. An accidental or intentional military incident, could send the world spiraling into a disastrous nuclear confrontation. The bombing attacks on neutral hospitals remind us that in the chaos of war such mistakes are all too common. 

US allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have fueled the wars in Syria and Iraq with foreign fighters, weapons, funding and porous borders. Without this massive and fundamental support ISIS and the other jihadist fundamentalists could not carry on.

To add to the potential conflicts, the U.S. and China, another nuclear-armed nation, are facing off against each other in the seas bordering China and other Asian nations. Here again potentially dangerous military incidents could trigger war as China responds to the U.S. bases, military alliances and military “exercises” to reinforce its regional dominance, with disputed claims to 80% of the South China Sea and rival military exercises. 

The Obama administration has recently announced that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan, are being reintroduced into Iraq and will be introduced into Syria, thus further escalating the conflicts. The recent introduction of Russian forces into Syria, invited by and supporting Assad, challenges Obama’s goal of regime change, but further contributes to the violence the people of Syria have to face.

Many Middle Eastern and European states now face a crisis of accepting millions of refugees, most of whose flights can be traced to the devastation of their communities by the region’s wars. The vast majority of these refugees come from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. 

December 10^th is International Human Rights Day. The human rights of the refugees and those who still remain in areas of violent conflict are daily being violated. 

How can we celebrate Human Rights in the midst of such suffering and violence?

How can we celebrate Human Rights when the world is under threat of far greater catastrophe? 

All of these wars have been preventable. All have peaceful, diplomatic alternatives. 

The Human Right to Peace Must Be Honored. Families, villagers, citizens have the right not to be violated by war. Our only planet itself has the Right to Peace. The enormous and irreplaceable resources spent on war are far better spent to address desperate human needs. 

Let those countries that created the crises rapidly accept and provide for refugees. 

Let us demand the Human Right to Peace. 

For December 10, International Human Rights Day we call all our friends who cherish peace to join us, to engage in creative peaceful, militant actions in towns and cities throughout the world calling for ceasefires, an end to these wars, peaceful, inclusive negotiations.

We call on the International Peace Movement to:

• Mobilize public meetings 

• Create vigils, rallies and demonstrations

• Generate church sermons

• Engage in nonviolent Civil Disobedience

• Contact Members of Congress, Parliaments, Foreign Ministers and Heads of Governments

• Call our brothers and sisters in the other mass movements to join us

With these messages to our governments: 

• Pursue diplomacy and negotiations to end the wars in Syria, including the governments of Iran, Russia and Syria. 

• Remove all foreign troops from and pursue diplomacy and negotiations to end the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine and Somalia, including the relevant governments. 

• Honor the commitment not to move NATO a centimeter closer to Russia from Western Europe. Remove all NATO troops from the Russian borders.

• Retire the Cold War NATO Alliance

• Accept and abide by the human rights of the millions of refugees created in these wars.

• Support peaceful negotiations among nations bordering the South China Sea (East Sea) based on the UN Charter and the Law of the Sea.

For more information about Peace & Planet see: www.peaceandplanet.org