Our comrades in Munich are co-organizing next weekend a demonstration against the annual Munich Security Conference (short SiKo). We share with you the general call and a call by Ende Gelände which focuses on the debate on safety and climate justice. See you on the streets of Munich!
From 14th to 16th of February 2020, international representatives from politics, military and (arms) industry will meet at Hotel Bayerischer Hof for the Munich Security Conference in order to „counter the world’s most pressing security risks.“ While various power blocs are competing for political influence and the access to resources and markets, remaining barriers to an economic exploitation of the world are to be removed. Therefore, instead of security for human beings – be it from unmediated physical violence or social immiseration – the MSC is about the legitimization and worldwide enforcement of capitalist rule. War here, increasingly authoritarian police laws there and militarized borders between them: the repressive administration of social contradictions – if by political or military means – is enacted as „Security“. The choice between various variants of the same is being presented as as „without any alternative“ so that it is impossible even to imagine a completely different future. Where humans are taking their destiny in their own hands, resisting the violent logic of this order, highly armed despots counter these projects with all their cruelty without having to reckon with serious opposition from other actors of the security conference. The defense of human rights appears at most as a legitimizing story for the next obnoxious event, but is as little a real issue for the MSC as the destruction of the ecological foundations of life on earth.
Whether as a contact exchange for the armaments industry, as a simulation of world politics or as a propaganda event for the status quo – the MSC not only stands symbolically for global rule and violence and is therefore the most appropriate occasion to take our radical hostility towards these conditions to the streets. We fight for a world beyond patriarchal and racist opressions as well as beyond state, nation and capital.
Join us at the protests against the Munich Security Conference on the 14th of February and let’s collectively demonstrate that there is no security for global power relations. For an end to violence!
No safety without climate justice
call by Ende Gelände Munich
Federal Call for demonstrations against the Security Conference in Munich
Come to the Climate Justice Block at February 14th | 18.30 | Gaertnerplatz, Munich
The hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich is going to host an international war politics debate for the 53rd time. Behind closed doors of splendid halls and a wall of thousands of police officers, representatives of politics, economy and military will negotiate conflicts and the economic interests of the richest countries in the world. In times of flight, drought and other consequences of the climate crisis, the Munich Security Conference is a symbol for the absurd conditions of our system.
War as a legitimate climate killer? You are insane!
Warfare and war preparations during so called “times of peace” immensely contribute to the human-caused climate crisis. War planes and war ships have an enormous fuel consumption. A Eurofighter without an afterburner uses up 70-100 litres of aviation fuel per minute. That is without talking about kerosene and fine dust, ultrafine particles and nitrogen oxides which are being emitted into the air. You cannot even compare a diesel to that.
The US military alone used up 42,6 million litres of oil every day in the year 2017. That means that more than 25 million tons of carbon dioxide were emitted. More than half of the world’s helicopters are used for military purposes and around a quarter of the usage of fuels come from warplanes, of which most are inefficient, carbonintensive and harmful to the environment” according to a study by IMI from 2019 [i]. The US ministry of defence is responsible for around 80 percent of the US energy consumption. That makes is a bigger carbondioxideemittent than Portugal, Sweden or Denmark [ii].
Still, high emissions and air pollution caused by military equipment is not the whole problem. There are also military bases that valuable biotopes get sacrificed for. Rare moors, forests and nature reserves must make room for military infrastructure. This happened when US Air Base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate got extended to be the biggest airline hub of US Air Force in Europe [iii]. Floors are sealed, sensitive ecosystems destroyed and Co2 binding trees exterminated. Floors and groundwater are poisoned through industrial accidents or wrong waste disposal of toxins. On top of that, the production of radioactively enhanced Uranium, which is essential for the production of nuclear weapons, has a catastrophic impact on the environment. Poisonous arrears coming from ammunition – just like enhanced Uranium, Phosphor and Dioxins – that are used on exercise fields during manoeuvres and, in war areas, do the rest.
The fossils beneath the war
Politicians around the world do not talk about the catastrophic environmental consequences of warfare. Neither the Kyoto Protocol 1997 nor the Paris Climate Agreement from 2015 talk about military activities. However, the 20% of the world population who use up about 80% of the world’s resources are the same who profit from humanitarian crises. In order for us to keep our privileges, wars are waged, people killed and the environment polluted. This has nothing to do with democratic intervention as the Western Powers have argued sometimes.
According to IPPNW, it’s proven that oil, gas, other resources and transport routes were the reasons for most of recent western wars. Human rights are just the official justification and used as an excuse [v]. However, economic interests are obvious and no secret. Germany’s Defence Policy reads: “Free trade routes and a secure raw material supply are essential for Germany’s and Europe’s future. That’s why trade route and energy safety and following questions will play a growing role for our safety” [vi]. It is out of question that those raw materials are fossils like oil, gas and coal. Problematic: These resources come from regions with little infrastructure and/or countries of the Global South.
Resources for everyone – Climate Justice now!
Wars – with their high consumption of fuel and energy – destroy the bases for life of people in the Global South in a twofold mode. Forced displacement of indigenous people, civil war, mass extinction, flight and hunger is accepted in order for us to secure our privileged way of living. The Global North reacts with walls and securing external borders. Instead of taking responsibility for the causes of flight, the military increases its arms. The neo-colonial exploitation of the Global South is not only a question of human rights, but also of climate politics.
In our opinion, the solution is a new justice of distribution which means an immediate switch to 100% renewable decentralised energies. Prosperity for all means overcoming the exploitative capitalist system logic. We demand the immediate end of all neo-colonial wars and the end of negotiations in Munich serving one-sided economic power interests. We are striving for a world where everybody has access to vital resources – without being dependent on states and corporations.
Come to Munich on the 14th of February and join the Climate Justice Block. Let us take a stand for just conditions worldwide!
Ende Gelände Munich
Ende Gelände Bamberg
Ende Gelände
SOURCES (German)
[i] https://www.imi-online.de/download/IMI-Studie2019-7-US-Klima-Web.pdf
[ii] https://theconversation.com/the-defense-department-isworried-
about-climate-change-and-also-a-huge-carbon-emitter-118017
[iii]http://umweltmilitär.
info/userfiles/downloads/Archiv/2008_Luftpost_Auswirkungen_von_Militaerbasen.pdf
[iv]https://www.imionline.
de/2019/06/21/krieg-ist-der-groesste-klimakiller/
[v] http://www.ippnw.de/frieden/energie-krieg-frieden/artikel/de/deutschlandund-
die-rohstoffkriege.html
[vi] www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/975292/730634/383a8886aaa1d1774920562ded11600d/
verteidigungspolitische-richtlinien-download-bmvg-data.pdf?download=1