Appeal by the Italian network of women in black for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan

Italy is at war

There is no combat in our territory, but the mechanisms of war are in action with all that implies: rising military spending, militarisation of territory and of minds.

The involvement of Italy in the military intervention in Afghanistan started and the end of 2001 when Italy joined the ISAF mission to provide “security support” and sent 350 military personnel.

It was supposed to last “at least six months” and cost “a few tens of billion lire”.

And now, it's almost 10 years later

The “peacekeeping “ mission has become a war, and leadership has passed from the UN to NATO in 2003 . We moved from light weapons to assault weapons, from light rules of engagements to ever more aggressive rules, from 350 soldiers to 1000 in 2003, 3900 in 2010 and 4200 now.

Since the start of the mission, the cost has been 3 billion 100 million Euro, and costs continue to be 65 million Euro a month.

The refinancing of the military intervention happens every six months with bipartisan support (with a few exceptions), in violation of article 11 of the Constitution, without ever discussing the objectives gained in Parliament. The same happened again in February.

410 million Euro (2.26 million a day) has been budgeted for the Afghanistan mission for the first six months of 2011, while the budget for reconstruction and assistance gets ever tinier (just 16 million for the six month period).

While we are facing ferocious cuts in education, culture, research, health, local government, and the environment, we see that the arms sector and military spending are not suffering any reduction - contrary to what is happening in other European countries.

Since 2006 there has been a 28% rise in military spending in Italy, and this is set to rise by a further 8.4% in 2011. To this we must add money assigned to the Ministry of Development, which have been improperly used to fund new arms systems, and a sum of 1.5 billion Euro for military missions abroad.

The total is therefore 24.3 billion Euro. Among the projects being funded is the purchase of 131 F35 fighterbombers at the cost of 16 billion Euro and of ten frigates at teh cost of 5.6 billion Euro.

The war in Afghanistan fits into the NATO strategic concept, defined at the Lisbon summit 20th November 2010, while consists of bringing in more and more countries and in intervening wherever their interests are "threatened", exercising a form of world dominion and representing a continual threat to peace.

We women in black have always been against the war, and so also against the military intervention in Afghanistan.

In the light of the current situation, we state that all declared objectives have failed; the fight against terrorism, bringing democracy and security, liberating Afghan women.

In reality, the Taleban have retaken control of two thirds of the country. Karzai was reelected fraudulently, the conflict has spread to Pakistan, warlords and druglords are in control, almost 80% of the population is living in poverty, the production of opium has increased to a point where it represents 93% of world production, corruption is widepread, the lives of women have worsened to the point that suicides have increased to unprecedented levels ( women between 18 and 35 set fire to themselves to escape the intollerable violence of their fate).

The Karzai government has reintroduced the “Ministry of Vice and Virtue” and has enacted a law according to which Shiite women cannot refuse sexual relations with their husbands, cannot go to school, cannot go to the doctor or to work without being accompanied by a male relative.

Now they are promulgating a law that brings refuges for mistreated women - up to now run by Afghan NGOs) under direct government control. To go to a refuge, women will have to be accompanied by a male relative and be handed over to the family on request.

If such political deals involving the bodies and lives of women are still happening, it is also the responsibility of the "liberators" among them Italy, which from the start took on the task of rebuilding the Afghan justice system. If this is the result, we must question the millions invested.

We, women in black, during these years have formed relationships with Afghan women's associations (RAWA, HAWCA, OPAWC) who have been a valuable source of testimony and who have made known to us the couragious capacity for unarmed resistance of the women and the Afghan population as a whole.

These women and the many different voices of civil society make up the democratic, nonviolent resistance of the Afghan people and they ask for our support in bringing the military occupation to an end, which would mean for them, as a first step, an end to aerial bombardment - the principle (though by no means the only) cause of the deaths of over 40,000 civilians since the war started.

There is no peace without justice.

• We call for the trial of all the war criminals and war lors who are currently present in the Afghan government.
  


• We call on all who identify themselves as feminists or pacifists to join us in identifying practices, instruments, and forms of opposition to bring about the withrawal of troops from Afghanistan.


• Do not allow Afghanistan to become yet another NATO military base


• Support the democratic forces, starting with the women.
  


• Support the reconstruction of the country outside the logic of militarisation.
  

"Humanitarian" military intervention by governments involved in arms sales

In recent weeks we have watched the rising violence in Libyia with anguish: unarmed civilians killed and injured with weapons sold by our country, and with growing unease we have once more heard the arguments for a "humanitarian war". Now there's a UN resolution that authorises the use of military force, including "all necessary measure". The Wall Street Journal quotes Pentagon officials who speak of using Cruise missiles. We know only too well the price that will be paid in "collateral damage" for this type of strategy.

We reject any military intervention by NATO or any country which has the pretext of of resolving this conflict by military force.

We maintain that states and organisations that have up to now supported interventions against civilian populations, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnia, etc or who have trafficked in arms and negotiated with dictators do not have the moral authority to act as "saviours" in the Libyan conflict. We consider these countries jointly responsible for the crimes against civil society.

The wave of civil resistance that has mobilised the Mediterranean basin from Maghreb to Machrek is sending the world a message that goes beyond a protest against dictatorial regimes supported up to now by the western world. Now they are shouting "We've had enough of hypocrisy and interventions for economic and strategic interests!"

For this reason the Women in Black call on the European governments and our own government to change their policy to peace, a policy of peace that no army should be sent to defend. We call for a policy that brings social justice and democracy and that is free from the pressure of other governments and multinationals. It should include the sovereignty of the pople and Esso dovrebbe includere anche la sovranità del popolo and avoid any discrimination against any woman or man in the society. It means a policy of peace without weapons.

Only the women and men of Libya should play the leading role in determining their present and future. It is they who must decide if mediators are needed to end the conflict.

We know from experience that only aid without intervention can be useful. For this reason, we invite all governments, implicated in in the sale of arms to Ghaddafi, Ben Ali and Mubarak to immediately send humanitarian aid to all refuges who are now fleeing Libya, when it is asked for by the population.


Last but not least, we ask that our mass media should show full respect and transparency when dealing with the complex reality of the civil resistance movement and the situation of the civilian population. We ask them to avoid the tendency to present news from the militaristic standpoint and from the standpoint of western interests.

Violence generates more violence. Let's avoid a military intervention that could generate more violence!

No Act of Resistance Should Kill Children

We add our voices to this statement released by Luisa Morgantini, spokesperson for the Association for Peace.

We strongly condemn the murder of a family of settlers in the settlement of Itamar, close to Nablus.

No act of resistance can justify the killing of children. Not only because it is illegal, but because it is not human.

This action can only result in more violence and will certainly not bring the freedom to which the Palestian people have a right.

Israel has responded to this criminal act, sealing off the city of Nablus, once again using a reprisal and the collective punishment of an entire population - a population that already lives under a brutal military occupation that impedes freedom of movement, confiscates land, demolishes homes, uproots trees, holds the population of Gaza under siege, represses the non-violent popular resistance and supports the settlers who attack Palestinian civilians including children, like those of At Tuwani, on a daily basis.

The Israeli authorities are trying to place the responsiblity for the action on the Palestinian Authority, but the responsiblity of this criminal act belongs to those people who committed it.

This is the poisined fruit of the Israeli policy of colonisation and of the complicity of the international community which has failed to prevent Israel from continually violating international law and human rights.

We declare our condolences for the death of the Israeli children, our solidarity with the Palestinians affected by the Israeli reprisals, and our commitment to continue in the non-violent struggle together with the Popular Committees who have also condemned the attack on Itamar and restated their choice of non-violent resistance to the wall and the Israeli military occupation - a struggle that they are carrying forward together with Israelis who refuse the colonial policy of their government and with internationals who show their own governments the road of affermation of rights and of international law.

In the popular committes, we commit ourselves to non-violence and civil disobedience in our struggle to put an end to the Israeli occupation. Even though the crime was committed on colonised land, we see the killing of children as a disgraceful crime, whatever their nationality, sex, colour, race or religion.

Taking back our indecorous, free lives

There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of our minds

On February 13th, we women made a stand against the policies that are stifling our lives and that have brought about a progressive restriction of our rights and our freedom. We made our way through Piazza del Popolo, invaded the streets of Rome and pushed through to Montecitorio to "return to sender" the antiwomen lawas that have been passed in recent years by both centre-right and centre-left governments: undated resignation letters that new employees can be forced to sign, the law on assisted procreation, the raising of the pensionable age, the security package, and many others

On March 8th, we returned to the streets with the same message of placing at the centre of discussion the restribution of wealth among thouse who make profits and those who are paying for this crisis, among those who own real estate and those who have no home, between those who are paid millions and those who have no job.

We want to answer those who are trying to take away our autonomy filling public structions with "conscientious objectors" limiting the distribution of the moring after pill or supporting the privatisation of health care structures such as family planning clinics (see the proposed Tarzia law for the Lazio region) , structures which we would like to reform to meet our present needs.

We want to rebel against a culture that is used to control our bodies and our sexuality. From work to health, in fact, the only legitimate role for women is seen as that of wife and mother - though women are often forced to sign an open-dated resignation letter when they enter employment so that this can be used if they become pregnant.

We are living in a country of double standards, where the only model to be accepted and promoted is the heterosexual family, that very family in which, according to official statistics, most acts of violence against women are committed by husbands, partners and fathers. This is another reason to reject a precarious labour model - because it forces us to depend economically and culturally on a model of relationships that prevents us from choosing where, how, when and with whom to become or NOT to become mothers.

The same family-centred rhetoric that promotes and supports parenthood puts obstacles in the way of lesbians, single people, gays, transsexuals and all those who don't fit into the heterosexual, Catholic model.

It's the very same logic that on one hand stigmatises and criminalises sex workers, using the security package and moralistic campaigns and on the other promotes the use and imagery of women's bodies for male pleasure within the circles of power and elsewhere.

On March 8th we also took to the streets to unmask the racist policies of this government that takes advantage of the work of care providers, for the most part immigrant women and at the same time transforms them in "dangerous" protagonists of the "immigration emergency" or deprives them of their libery and makes them victims of violence within the centres for immigration and expulsion (CIE).

For all these reasons we were on the streets on March 8th, to make a stand for rights and freedom, because our desires don't have family or nation. We are not "decent Italians". We are casual workers, students, lesbians, trans. We are women who refuse the model of family-based, nationalist, Catholic, heterosexual welfare-

We want to reclaim our own voices and our own bodies, the streets, the night, our relationships. We demand rights, welfare, and autonomy..

For Freedom and Justice. Against Repression and the Death Penalty

For more than a month, we have been hearing news of uprising, multiplying and extending from Tunisia to Egypt, from Algeria to Yemen, from Libya to Bahrein. What we're seeing are enormous popular demonstrations againsgt despotic and corrupt regimes. Women and men, young and old are calling for bread and freedom, dignity and justice, social equality and democratic participation. .

As Women in Black against war, we feel the drama of the bloody repression that is causing hundreds of victims in these countries. Violent powers are waging a war against unarmed people.

The Iranian people, too, after thirty years of difficult life under the repression of the theocratic islamic government, are calling for democracy with the pacific action of the Green Movement. The response of the government has been bullets, prison, torture, and death sentences.

The recent terrible increase in death sentences and the establishment of unfair tribunals are, every day, causing the death of innumerable political prisoners. Based on reports coming out of Iran, from 1st to the 27th January 2011 106 executions have been carried out, that is, an average of 20 executions a week. Many more are awaiting execution.

For many months, a group of courageous mothers have been protesting, calling for the abolition of the death sentence, the freeing of political prisoners, punishment of those responsible for crimes committed in the last 31 years. The mothers meet every week in Laleh Park, in Teheran. (http://www.madaraneparklale.org/p/about-us.html). They are mothers in mourning - mothers of the martyrs of the last 32 years. They refuse to close their eyes to the loss of their children and demand the punishment of those who ordered and those who carried out mass executions, executions of individuals, torture and attacks on student residences since the 80s. In response, the regime has set its sights on them, detaining and arresting women to stifle their demands for justice.

The Italian network of Women in Black has known and supported this struggle for some time. On February 25, together with Amnesty International, we particpated in a press conference held at the International Women's House in Rome with Luisa Morgantini, Sabri Najafi and Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel peace prize laureate - women how have always fought for human rights despite the risks that this brings.

Together with the Mothers of Laleh Park, we call for:

• The freeing of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
  
• An end to the executions which in January and the first weeks of February alone have taken the lives of more than 100 people.
  
• The abolition of the death sentence.

We support the non-violent struggle of the mothers of Laleh Park and of the Iranian civil society. We will give voice to these women and make known their situation and their courage which is completely ignored by the media