The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded 60 years ago by a coalition of Western capitalist countries, led by the U.S., as an organization of military encirclement, aggression, attack and war against the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies.
NATO was conceived as an instrument of aggression of the imperialist camp that was trying to reconstruct its forces under United States leadership, to apply its aggressive policy in all spheres: Economically by means of institutions like the IMF and World Bank; politically through different regional organizations, the Western alliance was lined up in battle order and fortified its system by founding NATO militarily. Contrary to what is generally stated and accepted, NATO was not created against a possible threat by the USSR, but it was founded with aggressive aims six years before the formation of the Warsaw Pact.
NATO’s objective was one of militarily encirclement, aggression and subversion, without excluding the use of force against the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc; at the same time it would serve to repress the internal opposition in the Western capitalist countries.
The most concrete example is the clandestine creation in almost all the NATO countries of (counter-guerrilla) organizations such as Gladio, several of which still exist. Those forces, which have organized provocations, sabotage, assassinations and coups d’état in the European countries to prevent the development of a workers and popular opposition, have done it under the shelter of NATO and the U.S.
NATO was formed in 1949 by 12 countries as a “regional defense organization”. It spread quickly among other Western countries, and after the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern bloc, it was transformed into a “global” organization of 26 countries, including former states of the Eastern bloc.
In a document entitled “Strategic Concept for the 21st Century”, approved in 1999 in a summit on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of NATO, it clearly says that NATO is “a global military organization”. That is, the fifty-year-old great lie was acknowledged openly when NATO stated that the organization had a clearly fixed objective, which was the destruction of socialism and the Soviet Union. This was in contradiction with the fundamental principles of the UN, and therefore it was not “a regional and defensive organization.”
Today NATO is the armed branch of the global war of the capitalists and imperialists, an enormous war machine with a budget of 1,500 billion Euros, 22,000 employees and an army of 60,000 men prepared to intervene at any time; NATO organizes operations and interventions beyond the region established at its foundation (Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and indirectly, Iraq, Sudan, etc.).
Presently NATO has dozens of military bases established in different countries, hundreds of bombs and nuclear warheads, weapons of mass destruction, both biological and conventional, etc. They are trying to extend this organization and thus permanently impose their order by force,
The financial, economic and social crisis that is shaking the world, and that is getting worse day by day, is increasing tensions and leading to an increasing militarization: the threat of war is palpable.
Worldwide military expenses have risen to $1,335 billion dollars in 2007. Clearly, these weapons will not be allowed to rot in warehouses. Therefore the idea of getting out of the economic crisis by means of war is being raised seriously.
The summit that the imperialist powers organized on the 60th anniversary of NATO debated its expansion towards the East, deploying anti-missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic; plans against the workers, peoples, oppressed nations, and even against rival imperialist forces.
We, the members of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO), call on the progressive forces and workers of the world to participate in the protests organized on this 60th anniversary of NATO, and to take part in the common demonstration planned for April 4 in Strasbourg, France.
Stop the militarization, reduce the budgets for arms and use that money to satisfy the needs of the peoples and youths!
- Dismantle the military bases, destroy the nuclear arms!
- Withdraw the NATO occupation forces!
- Dissolve NATO, a military organization for aggression!
International Conference of Marxist-Leninists Parties and Organizations
March, 2009
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