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.
