On the International Day of Peace

On this day, September 21, the International Day of Peace, it is for WFDY important to underline the true value of the word “peace”. In a world ever more marked by injustice, inequalities, misery, hunger, war, occupation, increase of military budgets and proliferation of imperialist military bases and high technology weapons, it is important to denounce those who, taking as excuse “peace-making”, are actually the roots of war and terror. On this day, where so many times the world peace will be emptily said and written by the imperialists and those who work in their favor as their puppets, WFDY calls upon its member and friend organizations to come to the streets and deepen even further their efforts for the mobilization of the peoples, in general, and youth in particular, for a true path for lasting peace.

When, on this day as in the others, the imperialist governments and their puppets use the world peace, may we struggle even more strongly to show that there can only be peace when:

- the construction of all new imperialist military bases is stopped and the more than one thousand existing (most of them from the USA) are dismantled;

- all occupations and maneuvers of provocation are stopped and the peoples’ rights for independence, sovereignty and self determination are finally respected, starting with the respect for the peoples of Palestine, Western Sahara, Cuba, Cyprus, Korea, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan

- there is a true commitment for worldwide disarmament, starting with nuclear weapons, that is based on equity of obligations for all countries, with no exceptions, and the political-military blocks such as NATO are dismantled ;

- all the political prisoners are released and the freedom of speech and political activism is ensured, unlike the unfair situation lived by thousands of people in our world as the Five Cuban Heroes, Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Saadat, and many many others;

- the relations between states is done within the principles of mutual cooperation, solidarity and full respect for the International Law, with implementation of the UN resolutions.

Without the accomplishment of these goals, mankind can celebrate many International Days of Peace but will never truly live in peace! Therefore, more than ever, it is important to continue our struggle, resisting the imperialist attacks and fighting back, putting in practice the slogan for the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students that will take place in South Africa, next December: “Let’s defeat imperialism, for a world of peace, solidarity and social transformation!”