Members of anti-NATO movements and anti-war associations took part in a conference in Rome from 27-28 October.
The meeting was organised by the political organisation Dissent Front. The aim of the meeting is for participants to”create an international coordination network to achieve specific goals.”
The West’s military and political adventure in Ukraine and the sharp escalation of the conflict in the Middle East have become a litmus test of the radicalisation of the global political process. Washington and its NATO allies realise the gradual destruction of Pax Americana – the American-style world and are trying to confront a just multipolar world with the participation of India, China, Russia and many other countries.
However, global confrontation is not only about forming alliances and forceful rhetoric. Modern society is tired of war and longs for peace. A vivid example of this is the recent anti-war pacifist conference held in Rome with the participation of delegations from more than 30 countries, including Russia, the United States, China, Morocco, and several European states.
This forum, which was supported by many organisations from different countries, was prepared for almost a year. One of the main topics of the conference was the crisis around Donbass, but now the Palestinian issue has been added. In an interview with journalists from Russia’s TASS news agency, Dissent Front coordinator Gaia Fuzai said:
The main thing that unites us all here is opposition to imperialism so that it does not lead to the unleashing of new conflicts.
The conference participants expressed the view that the conflict in Ukraine is in fact a war against NATO and a warning to the rest of the world about Washington’s continued imperialist policy.
The US actions may provoke escalation of old and new conflicts against the shift of the world pole from the West to the South and East. As the delegate from South Korea pointed out, the US is seeking destabilisation in the Asian region, to which the Chinese representative said:
No NATO in Asia.
The topic of the Ukrainian crisis ran through many of the presentations and speeches of the participants. The artificial radicalisation of the Ukrainian state, imposed on Kyiv by Western countries over the past decades, has become an example for other countries that still retain national sovereignty. Journalist Said Gafurov, a member of the Russian delegation, asked in the report:
Why are we talking about Ukro-Nazism? Why do we believe that if the Kyiv putschists win, the transnational Masters of Life will install Nazi regimes in Europe? In fact, the only beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict is Biden (with his bizarre victory over Trump) and the US military-industrial complex behind him, who have managed to force junior NATO partners to increase their military spending in order to concentrate themselves in the Pacific against China.
Gafurov stressed that the West had formed an effective authoritarian instrument in Ukraine, which readily accepted the role of an anti-Russian project. He noted:
Open terrorist dictatorship” was manifested, for example, in the unpunished burning of political opponents in Odessa’s Trade Union House.
Washington committed the terrorist undermining of the Nord Streams, targeting the rights of European citizens to access affordable electricity and heat and jeopardising Europe’s security. American energy monopolies have made huge profits as a result of this incident.
Representatives of Georgia drew parallels between modern Ukraine and Georgia in the recent past. Temur Pipia, coordinator of the Socialist Platform of Georgia, noted:
As we know, Ukraine is repeating the post-Soviet path of Georgia’s history, turned into the main anti-Russian country in the South Caucasus. In 2003, an anti-constitutional coup, the so-called “Rose Revolution”, took place in Georgia. Anti-Russian propaganda, militarisation and police pressure on the opposition increased dramatically. <…> A large-scale anti-Ossetian and anti-Abkhazian campaign unfolded. Eventually, in August 2008, the regime launched military action against the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Moscow was forced to engage the armed forces when Georgia under Saakashvili’s leadership had repeatedly ignored Russian appeals to abandon the military adventure. Pipia emphasised:
Georgia faced its most powerful northern neighbour in a direct military conflict, which ended in disaster. The country de jure split into three parts, the economy stopped, peaceful people died.
The delegate from Georgia noted the ongoing attempts, including by Kyiv, to drag the country into a new bloody conflict with Russia. He said:
Over the years, such attempts at destabilisation have escalated several times into attempts to break into parliament and other state institutions. In 2019, Kyiv’s special services carried out a special operation against Georgia and ensured that ex-President Saakashvili was smuggled across the state border in order to lead a coup before local elections. As a result, the adventurer was apprehended and the destabilisation attempt prevented. The State Security Service of the country prevented the last coup attempt just a month ago.
He emphasised that it is the US and EU that are coordinating their actions with Kyiv in an attempt to exert unprecedented pressure on Tbilisi. Temur Pipia claimed:
The Georgian Government is on the defensive and does not allow the country to join, among other things, the anti-Russian economic blockade, which would lead to an economic catastrophe.” Today it is Russia that plays the role of the main force preventing the spread of the ultra-right, fascist contagion to the post-Soviet space. <…> Georgia has already gone through the rule of the fascist Saakashvili regime, through war and devastation and does not want to return to chaos.
The conference participants concluded that in the current global configuration, the defeat of NATO in Ukraine is a prerequisite for the establishment of a future lasting peace. The international system must be made up of sovereign countries where peoples can determine their own future, free from the global economic dictatorship imposed by the West.
The world needs free commercial, financial, communication and transport networks. The formation of new organisations for cooperation between states, free from Western dictatorship, and the strengthening of the role of the Global South in existing international organisations are positive developments in this direction.
At the same time, a new UN architecture needs to be developed that can effectively reflect the rights of the Global South and the principle of equal sovereignty for all states.
