Rae Street and Pat Sanchez
joined hundreds of other peace campaigners for two days of
protests and a counter-summit in South Wales on Saturday (30
August 2014) and Sunday (31 August 2014). Their messages for
Barak Obama, David Cameron and other heads of government who
will be meeting in Newport was very clear: "No New Wars. No to
NATO".On Saturday, Pat and Rae marched alongside the General Secreatary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Kate Hudson, friends from Greater Manchester and District CND and CND Cymru. On Sunday, they participated in workshops at the counter summit which included sessions on how to combat the spread of military drones, how to stop the increasing militarisation of the European Union and how to achieve the closure of all military bases.
Pat Sanchez said "We were joined in Wales by people from throughout Britain and from other NATO member states, especially Germany, France, the USA. We all agreed that far from being a guarantor of stability, NATO and its aggressive policies present a major threat to peace in the world. Not only is NATO is dogged by its disastrous and misguided military adventures in Afghanistan and Libya, it is also morally tainted by its declared policy of 'first use' of nuclear weapons. This means that it would be prepared to take the first steps towards a nuclear war. Next week's NATO summit will, unfortunately, not be discussing how we create a just and peaceful world. David Cameron and the other leaders will not be considering matters such as how to end hunger across the world or how to bring justice to the Palestinians. Instead they seem intent on developing ways of spreading instability, rekindling the Cold War, obliging governments to spend ever increasing amounts of their citizens' money on arms - which they will, of course, insist on being bought from the same US weapons companies. We are resisting increased spending on weapons which we do not need and which threaten all our futures. We are telling the NATO leaders to 'talk; don't bomb'. We need no more wars".
