Caravan Voyage to the Middle East in Iraq and Palestine

An enormous movement throughout the world has expressed before and after the attack on Iraq the profound refusal of all that war, in its modern form—global and permanent—brings with it. The motives that they have brought to us to replenish the city squares are many never confirmed also today that formally “the war is over.”.
The images, and the political prospectives that present themselves in Iraq, as in Palestine and Afghanistan, are those of a world designed with the force of military arms. Energy resources, and economic interests from a commanding order would be the imperatives of a future story that tramples humanity, dignity, and real democracy.
Overall, we expound that this situation is not a limited episode, nor concerning only the drawing of a specific piece of land afar, but as the horizon of our future lives together. This dimension of war makes itself international law and brings with it internally the drawing of international institutions like the UN and looks to annihilate the voices of dissent.

We are mobilized against the war to affirm that another world is possible, and to not be astonished spectators to a end scenario of destruction and death.
For this we propose a caravan to the territories of the Middle East on the same days in which disputes are resolved by one of the actors of world control the vertices of the G8 at Evian.

-TO REAFFIRM A DIPLOMACY BASED ON THE MOST PRINCIPAL BLOCK OF HORIZONTAL RELATIONS BETWEEN COMMUNITIES.

-TO REFUSE ANY MILITERIZATION WITH SOLIDARITY.

-TO SAY THAT IN PALESTINE, AS IN IRAQ, PEACE WITH JUSTICE AND DIGNITY COMES FROM SELFDETERMINATION AND THE DIRECT PROTAGANISMS OF THE CITIZENS.

-TO SUSTAIN REAL COOPERATION PROJECTS AGAINST THE DIVISION OF THE PROFITS OF WAR AND OF RECONSTRUCTION.

The program for the initiative that we propose assumes valor for the times and the locations in which it will develop itself.

Some suggestions and a program in movement:
On the first, second, and third of June 2003 the G8 will be held in Evian, France in the heart of Europe, but will be blinded by an enormous red zone. The first meeting of the G8 since the “postwar” period of Iraq will be the opportunity to divide the profits between the world powers. Meanwhile people will come from all of Europe to cross borders, to protest, and to refuse the legitimacy of the G8 as the caravan simultaneously reaches Amman.
From Jordan we will enter into Iraq to sustain, with an active and visible presence, the cooperation and solidarity projects that come from civil associations and NGOs and that begin with the Iraqi social network outside of the partnership with the occupying forces. With the American-English presence, Iraq is at risk of becoming a territory of limited sovereignty where the distribution of power comes from above and not accompanied by any real democratic process.
The Italian government, with the consignment of a military body from which the CCs from the department of Toscana (the same that were sent also to our demonstration at Genoa), want to secure a place for themselves in the division of the cake of reconstruction, covering reality with smoky operations of “protection” and “humanitarian missions.” After the “humanitarian war,” it insists on the hypocrisy of “military solidarity.” For this we would like that a particular space in the caravan is dedicated to the protagonisms of administrators and of local entities that come from an experience of opposition to the war and that today are able to be among the most real protagonists interweaving a net of possible relations with the Iraqi civil society.

We will go to continue moving forward, to not leave the only colors accepted the green and gray of military flags, but also the flags of peace; to recount with GlobalProject a reality different from the thoughts of the “victorious.”

After having seen in public and collective form the projects of solidarity we will go from Amman to Palestine.

The government of Sharon that in these weeks,. With the killing of Rachel, the severe wounding of Tom and Brian, and the execution of the English journalist James, have given a clear message: we will not accept the presence of “foreigners” in the events of Israel that are not those of the strong international powers that disturb the process to peace dedicated to the impractical and mysterious Road Map.

We are citizens of the world and for this we vindicate as our collective right the protection of the Palestinian civilian population. We will go to Palestine together with international activists because also in this torn land there remains the hope of another possible world remains, there is not security for Israel without an end to the occupation and because we refuse the stabilization of apartheid in a piece of the world on the Mediterranean coast.

We want to be in movement between Iraq, Palestine and Evian because we are European citizens and we think that an active space of Europe in the world is not to be measured as a “European Supernation” –the sum of the worst limits of the nation-states of which it is composed—but that instead comes from the citizens, from the local communities, and from the networks of civil society.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)