"Avante!" Article by Pedro Guerreiro, member of the CC and of the International Department
We are at about two months ahead of the NATO Summit taking place, in Lisbon, on the 19, 20th November. The peace movement in Portugal, together within the “Yes to Peace! No to NATO!" Campaign, begins its last preparation phase of the initiatives which will demonstrate the repulse for this Summit’s taking place and its objectives, such as the announced national day, on the 6th October and the demonstration, set and organized by the Campaign, which will take place on the November 20th, at 3PM, from the Marquês de Pombal unto the Praça dos Restauradores, in Lisbon. Meanwhile, the PS Government carries on unraveling its deep responsibilities and complicities' intricacy.
After taking into account Madeleine Albright's report (remind the Clinton Administration ex- secretary of State, responsible for the Yugoslavia NATO bombardments) which is the foundation of the re-development of NATO's strategic concept as " highly developed", the PS Government rushes to offer its services.
Placing the country, unacceptably, at NATO's service, the attentive and obliging PS Government, alerts, the report “does not pay" enough attention to the South Atlantic, highlighting this must be a NATO’s” strategic objective for the next decade". The PS Government expects this concern will be considered in the NATO's secretary-general's bidding, which ought to be disclosed at the end of September and discussed during the NATO's Defense and Foreign Affairs Ministerial meeting, on October 14th.
For the PS Government this is “the contribution, countries such as Portugal, might add to the debate, explaining that” countries such as Portugal add to the transatlantic debate, the potentiality of knowing how to dialogue with the South and look towards the South". This is, once more, the PS Government subordinates, submits and conditions the Portuguese foreign policy unto the imperialism's strategy.
The Portuguese armed forces' increasing commitment to the NATO service and its interference strategy, of international relations' growing militarization and the war against peoples - that is, at the service of the USA's and the great European Union powers domain interests and ambitions - , has been the right-wing policy prerogative, pursued during the last three decades, as demonstrated in the Yugoslavia dismantlement and aggression and the subsequent Kosovo's occupation, the Afghanistan's and Iraq's aggression and occupation or the interference and active military presence within the Middle East and in Africa.
In its recent constitutional revision bidding, the PSD aims at, among other inadmissible pretensions, to withdraw from the Article 7, of the Portuguese Republic Constitution, the consecration of the " general disarmament, simultaneous and under controlled" and the " political - military blocks' dissolution" as fundamental principles which ought to guide the Portuguese foreign policy, which the PS, along its political practice, ignores them.
As referred in the " NATO: an imperialism aggression and war instrument" file, published in the last " O Militante", " once again, our country will host the lords of war, in a clear outrage towards the Portuguese people's aspiration of a friendship and peace relationship with all the peoples of the world. A proved and conquered aspiration in the 25th April 1974 and consecrated in the Republic Constitution".
Therefore, just as in the past, the Portuguese communists will rise to the occasion on their responsibilities, engaging through their own initiatives on condemning NATO and its aims and appealing for the participation amid the whole protest initiatives and struggle, which the " Yes to Peace! No to NATO!" Campaign will carry out in the weeks to come.
