MADRID-Thousands march to demand NATO disbandment and peace in Ukraine. It is happening in Madrid,…
where the next Atlantic Alliance summit, scheduled for June 28-30, will open in a day. A long procession made up of left-wing activists, anti-capitalists, no-globals, ecologists, feminists, communists and movements such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion marched under tight police surveillance. Absent were the radical leftists who participate in the governing coalition with the sole exception of communist Enrique Santiago, secretary of state for Agenda 2030 (responsible for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals).
Among the slogans chanted by the protesters: “No to war, no to NATO!” Several helicopters flew over the procession on one of the capital’s main avenues. On the placards, “Make peace, not war,” “No more military spending, give to schools and hospitals” alongside an image of a weeping woman from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica painting, one of the world’s most famous, became an anti-war appeal. Still others proclaimed, “We don’t pay for your wars,” or extolled “Dissolution of armies, Degrowth, No war between peoples, No peace between classes.” According to organizers, 30,000 people took part in the demonstration while the Madrid prefecture mentioned only 2,200 people. Host of next week’s NATO summit, Madrid will be subjected to a massive deployment of law enforcement with a total of 10,000 officers.
