Today 11 March all the ideals of peace and independence, neutrality and non-alignment so frequently displayed as a pretext in the recent past have been formally betrayed. Our country is officially delivered to the political and military control of the US superpower through NATO.
The new Czech bourgeoisie has thought it a good idea to couple its unsolid power to the vagon of the most powerful.
There must have been no shortage in "ideal" reasons: didn't Mr. Clinton give a quite recent proof of the humanistic spirit breathing in the "big western democracies" when he expressed the sincere "regret" for the murder of 200.000 Guatemalans with the decisive contribution of the CIA and the US military?
Unfortunately we will have to wait for a while to be able to listen to a similar "regret" about the present shameless interventions in the Balkans or about the bombing of Yugoslavia that the US is so eager to start as soon as the government of that country will prove guilty of not accepting even a single word of their ultimatums.
Even for the genocidal starvation of the Iraqi people during the last ten years, and for the daily air and missile strikes against that country, we will have to be patient and wait for a while.
To enjoy one's place on the vagon of the most powerful, one has to be equipped with a strong stomach. One has to adjust oneself to the ideas on democracy of today's Turkish generals or former (but unforgotten) US sponsored Greek Colonels.
Regarding Greece and Turkey, two countries on the brink of war although both members of NATO, some never-satisfied fault-finders might observe that being a member of NATO involves no security guarantee from one's mighty neighbours, even when they are partners in the same alliance. But this is only a minimal part of the picture ...
One has to be equipped with a strong stomach!
The more so because there are people around, like the former Italian communist D'Alema, promoted at present NATO ambassador in Prague, Budapest and Warsaw, who let you believe that by being a member of NATO one can hope to influence its decisions.
D'Alema must have rapidly forgotten his being "upset" for the acquittal of the Rambo-top-guns of Cavalese and perhaps he did not remember that in Italy it has been impossible until now to know which Italian authority was responsible for granting a nuclear facility to the US navy, like the one located in La Maddalena (Sardinia). Perhaps D'Alema was also absent- minded when the US not a long time ago was threatening to bomb Libya with nuclear weapons from the Italian base of Aviano. And maybe he had no time when he was a leader of the communist youth to be thoroughly informed about the clandestine fascist army organised by the US secret services in Italy and its operations (now the US secret services will be in a position to watch over Czech security in the same paternal way they have shown when they bombed the Italians into following the right course).
But this, one might say, is an old history: there were two conflicting blocks and the Italian Communist Party was the enemy. Let us look then at more recent events: three months ago in December Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair unchained a huge war operation against Iraq completely ousting the UN (now openly undermined by the US as the Society of Nations was by the fascist regimes). Well, no other European government was even forewarned. But be sure that next time Mr. Clinton will not forget to previously consult with his friend Mr. Havel!
Those who try to portray NATO as a kind of democratic forum where respectable governments and institutions take majority decisions are shameless liars. They are betraying the most elementary duties engraved in the charters of all states. In other words they commit the crime of high treason.
These things have been well-known for a long time by all honest persons. Now, however, they are becoming even more clear. The annexion of the Czech Republic to NATO, together with Poland and Hungary occurs at a time when a dramatic turning-point is reached and war is being prepared on a much larger scale than in the past.
In the midst of the celebrations for its fiftieth anniversary, NATO will officially adopt its new military doctrine of intervention everywhere in the world. The net of US military bases has been widened and strenghtened in Europe as well as in Asia. Many countries have prepared special rapid deployment forces with professional personnel (the Czech Republic too will now be in a position to send some cannon fodder to win the high esteem of the masters). The stubborness shown in fueling the Kosovo crisis is a clear sign of the plans to deploy large military units in the Balkans and break the slightest resistance to the achievement of strategic military goals unthinkable some years ago. In the space of months the military units deployed in Macedonia (FYROM) under the pretext of defending the OSCE observers have become a threatening and heavily armed bridgehead for the invasion of Yugoslavia. The whole area from the Balkans to Central Asia is the object of special attention by the US military. It is the area where the present and future big pipe-lines run. It is not by chance that the establishment of US-Turkish military bases in Azerbaijan is now on the agenda and NATO secretary Solana expands the horizon of NATO operations as far as Kazakhstan. US-NATO military doctrine still involves the possibility of the first nuclear strike (just to underline how hypocritical the pretensions of nuclear non-proliferation are) and military expenditure becomes sky-high both in quality and quantity, well beyond the already astronomical levels of cold war climax years (the Czech too now will be allowed to tighten their belt to pay their part of the bill!).
On the background of these facts, the admonitions coming even nowadays by high western personalities not to let Russia feel isolated resound rather pathetic. What they really mean is let us be sure that the Russian government may delay as long as possible any meaningful reaction to the impending threat and confine its protest to a harmless and pathetic mumbling and blaming for internal wear and tear.
The fact is that ten years after the crisis of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist regimes, the days of reckoning are approaching. In Russia particularly, there has been no such thing as a reconversion of the economy from socialism to capitalism. What has taken place is rather the large scale destruction of productive forces and the embezzlement of social wealth like in a robbery committed by the few new rich who transfer the spoils abroad. The tragic consequences resemble the effects of a foreign invasion of the kind of the nazi invasion of 1941.
The western powers know but too well that they have nothing to offer to the peoples of the world, neither eastward nor southward, but misery and oppression.
Tremendous economic crises with catastrophic consequences for the life of the masses have swept over in a short time not only the republics of the Soviet Union but also the capitalist "paradises" of South East Asia and the dependent economies of almost all countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The winds of a recession crisis with catastrophic proportions can be perceived with threatening frequency not only in Japan, where they have been blowing already for a long time, but also in the remaining major centers of world capitalism.
The speeding up of large scale war preparation can be easily understood on this background and finds in it its nourishment and receives a very strong impetus.
In these tragic days for our country - and notwithstanding some generous demonstrations by some groups of young people, in the background, however, of the deafening silence of all those who could and should stand up and speak - we all feel a great sense of impotence and inadequacy to stop and reverse the course of these events.
War cannot be stopped with words or appeals. The situation however is so serious that we feel the duty to speak up, not only to bear witness in view of the future, but also to gather immediately all the people who, though conscious of their limits, are willing to work resolutely against the war.
Let us immediately create a bridge between East and West. We call all those who are engaged against the war to take part in a sincere discussion to be held in Prague in the days 8 and 9 of May (i.e. during the anniversary of the liberation from fascism). The purpose should be to establish a European East-West coordination against the war and immediately plan a common activity for information and possibly common actions of struggle.
Prague, 11 March 1999.
International Nino Pasti Foundation