Rochdale Peace Campaigners Join Protest at NATO summit

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".

Wool Against Weapons - 9 August 2014

Remembering Hiroshima 6 August 2014

100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1

‘Pedal for Peace and Disarmament’ says Peace Group as it welcomes Le Tour de France

Peace campaigners from Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group joined the thousands on Blackstone Edge on Sunday (6 July 2014) to welcome the Tour de France and to promote their slogan, ‘Bikes not Bombs: Trikes not Trident’. They displayed banners and flags from the moor near the junction of Turvin Road and the A58 and distributed leaflets headed ‘Pedal for Peace and Disarmament’. The group asked, ‘How could we spend £100billion, if we scrap Trident?’ and answered with the messages ‘Jobs Not Trident’, ‘NHS Not Trident’, ‘Homes Not Trident’, ‘Education Not Trident’.

  

Philip Gilligan, on behalf of the Peace Group, said,

“It was great to see the cyclists and to have an opportunity to thank the Tour de France for sponsoring last month’s special race in Sarajevo marking the anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In Sarajevo, in June 2014, Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour told Reuters that the Tour de France “is an event which gathers and unites the people, and the message we are sending from here is the message of peace and unity" (see http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/22/us-ww1-anniversary-sarajevo-idUSKBN0EX0H620140622 ). Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group is committed to promoting that same message and to urging all political parties to recognise that the Trident nuclear weapons system is an unnecessary waste of public money which exposes us and the whole world to danger. Nuclear weapons threaten peace and unity and divide our world. We need to scrap them now.”

“In 1914, the Tour de France began on the same day as Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, but was called off as Europe descended into a horrific and disastrous war. Forty-eight of the Tour's former participants, including three who had been winners of the event, were among more than 10 million soldiers who would die in WW1. In the twenty-first century, we need no more wars and no more unnecessary deaths”, he added.rochdaleandlittleboroughpeacegroup