FIR for a new international policy of peace

20. August 2009

September 1, 2009

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the aggression of Hitler’s Germany on Poland on 1st September 1939 which marks the beginning of the Second World War the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) – Association of Antifascists, the umbrella association of organizations of former resistance fighters, partisans, members of the anti-Hitler coalition, persecuted by the Nazi regime and anti-fascists of today’s generations from over twenty countries in Europe and Israel’s takes the initiative for a new international policy of peace.

We remind of the fact that 35 years ago by political action of peoples and states in the CSCE-process it has been successful to eliminate in Europe the danger of war. Such a social process is also today necessary. We see that conflicts primarily are militarily solved in the world. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military escalation in the Middle East and growing non-state forms of violence (terrorism and piracy) shape the reality.

At the same time the NATO military alliance claimed for a global use of space – ostensibly for “defence of Western values”, injuries of human rights, even mass murders are evaluated before the background by interests of raw material.

It is not the point to create a “new world of the peace and the liberty”, as the survivors, the resistance fighters, deported and interned peoples, wanted 1945. Reserves of raw materials and the penetration of interests of power are the only stakes. The right of self-determination of peoples is ignored thereby.

As a “peace-messenger” – appointed by the United nations – we call the UN, the international organizations and social forces to support initiatives for a new international policy of peace. These include the recognition of the right of existence of all states and the enforcement of an equitable world economic order. Also the states of the European Union can make their contribution in addition if they reject the militarization of the foreign policy, as it is to be found in the Lisbon Treaty.

In this sense we appeal to peace forces, parties, trade unions and critics of the globalisation, to be active in actions, in votings and explanations for a new international policy of peace. The FIR calls its member federations to take part with their historical experiences in it.