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26/12/2023 Report of the demonstration against the presence of the army in Expojove

València, 26/12/2023

Protest against the army at Expojove at the entrance to Feria Valencia

This morning a group of twenty people from the Conscientious Objection Movement and the Valencia Popular Assembly Against Wars gathered at the main gate of Feria Valencia. Expojove. was opening today. The reason for the protest was to denounce the presence of the army in a space intended for youth and children.

With the slogans "Demilitarise education!", "War is not a game" and "Weapons do not educate", they visually and acoustically demonstrated their opposition to the display of weapons, vehicles and military uniforms in a public space, as if it were just another option for children to have fun or for young people to work. Hundreds of leaflets have also been handed out to people queuing to enter the fairgrounds.

The use of Expojove as a showcase and promotion of the army, the civil guard and the police has always been met with protests from anti-military groups in the city of Valencia. This year the municipal government of PP and VOX has expanded the space for the displays of these armed forces, in an attempt to further promote military values to young people and justify state violence.

The army's recruitment campaigns, since the end of conscription in 2001 (thanks to the success of insumision and conscientious objection), seek to find military manpower among the younger population, especially among the most vulnerable: those with low education and few possibilities of finding work, in a precarious and increasingly competitive labour market. The Spanish army spends between 15 and 20 million euros a year on recruitment advertising. But it does not make ends meet.

However, young people should not forget that the chances of finding a job in the civilian world after their military service are rather slim, and that their time in the army does not provide them with a job training comparable to that of formal studies.

Moreover, military "work" is not like any other civil job. Preparatory training to handle weapons, learn to kill and wage war is subject to the acquisition of military status and compliance with the Military Penal Code. Disobedience to comply with orders from superiors or not folow military ordinances is not only a possible loss of "job", but is a crime punishable by years of imprisonment. 

 

 

Because weapons do not educate and the army is no fun: No army in Expojove!

 

Activists from MOC-València participate in the painting of a BBVA facade to denounce its involvement in the genocide in Gaza. Bilbao, 16 March 2024

Bilbao, 16/3/2024

This morning, on the occasion of the BBVA annual shareholders' meeting held yesterday, activists from Alternativa Antimilitarista-Movimiento de Objeción de Conciencia (AA-MOC), from Bilbao, Las Palmas, Madrid and Valencia, sprayed red paint on the BBVA headquarters in Bilbao to denounce the bank's support for the violation of the rights of the Palestinian people and the financing of wars.

Between 2021 and 2023 BBVA financed, with more than €1 billion, companies that manufacture weapons that Israel is currently using in its offensive against Gaza. BBVA also invests in energy projects, such as the installation of solar panels, in territory occupied by force, which involves the confiscation of land and the forced displacement of the Palestinian population, as detailed in the report "The complicity of the Spanish financial sector in the occupation of Palestine".

The activists consider it an obscenity that BBVA, and a large part of the Spanish financial system, uses apparently environmentally friendly projects to promote the violation of human rights in Palestine. According to the report "Don't Buy into Occupation Coalition" from 2020 to 2023, BBVA ranked 11th in financing Israeli companies in occupied settlements, investing a total of $5.861 billion.

On the other hand, the record profits achieved by BBVA in 2023 are largely due to its investments in the war industry and are therefore stained with blood. In recent years this bank has allocated 5.4 billion euros to support the arms industry, including the financing of companies linked to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

War is a crime against humanity and antimilitarists pledge to continue to advocate nonviolence and civil disobedience against military spending, the arms industry and military installations in our cities.

 

Video of the action

The war starts at your ATM.

Not one person, not one euro for war!
BBVA profits from war and genocide.
Not in our name! NO TO WAR!

Chronicle of the conference: The Crossroads of War in Ukraine

Carlos Taibo: 
“No hay ninguna razón que justifique la intervención rusa en Ucrania, pero las potencias occidentales también tienen responsabilidades en la gestación de esta guerra.”

València, 14/4/2023

 

Ayer, por la tarde, tuvo lugar una conferencia, impartida por Carlos Taibo, con el título «La encrucijada de la guerra en Ucrania», en el CCCC (Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània). Con la sala Goerlich II llena y sillas en los pasillos, más de un centenar de personas escucharon a Taibo. Después desgranar las claves del conflicto en poco más de una hora, se abrió un coloquio con numerosas preguntas e intervenciones del público. La charla acabó con un llamamiento a la movilización popular por la paz y contra el militarismo. También a acoger y dar apoyo, tanto a los desertores rusos, ucranianos y bielorrusos, como a los movimientos civiles que resisten y se oponen a la guerra.

Carlos Taibo es autor de más de treinta libros sobre política, economía, sociedad, cultura y relaciones internacionales, fundamentalmente en el marco geográfico de la Europa Central, Oriental y el espacio ex-soviético. Sobre Ucrania y la guerra ha escrito dos libros recientes: “Rusia frente a Ucrania. Imperios, pueblos, energía” (Los Libros de la Catarata, 2014) y “En la estela de la guerra de Ucrania” (2022).

Para Taibo, los discursos sobre la guerra están dominados por el maniqueísmo: quien no está conmigo, en plenitud, está con el enemigo. Si uno introduce alguna crítica de lo que supone la OTAN, es un defensor de la Rusia putiniana. Y si uno critica agriamente lo que hace la Rusia putiniana, es un vendido al mundo occidental. En nuestros medios de comunicación los discursos críticos con la política de las potencias occidentales han sido proscritos. La Unión Europea, como viene haciendo desde su fundación, manifiesta un seguidismo absoluto a la política exterior de los Estados Unidos. 

Dio un rápido repaso a la historia de Ucrania y Rusia, a lo acontecido desde la disolución de la Unión Soviética en 1991, a las relaciones entre ambos países y de estos con otros actores internacionales: EEUU, China, la Unión Europea… Asistimos a un panorama, diverso y complejo -dijo Taibo- lo que nos indica que esta guerra no admite simplificaciones ni discursos maniqueos.

Una negociación es la única salida viable: todos los actores implicados en la guerra están con el agua al cuello. El problema es que Moscú y Kyiv están muy cerca de Varsovia y Bruselas, pero demasiado lejos de Washington. El negocio de las empresas armamentísticas y energéticas (el fracking está siendo rentable gracias al alto precio de los hidrocarburos) está alimentando la guerra.

Para las personas de a pie, detener la guerra, parar el sufrimiento humano que causa, debe ser nuestra máxima prioridad.

Highlights