Appeal for Peace and Disarmament

The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation is pleased to support the ‘Appeal for Peace and Disarmament’ and urges others to sign and share. Click HERE for more information and to sign.

Alarmed by statements by European leaders gratuitously portraying Russia as a threat to all of Europe if it is not stopped in Ukraine, professionals from several countries have drafted a manifesto in favour of diplomatic solutions, peace and disarmament.
While we unequivocally condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we believe that these statements, including those of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, are aimed solely at ‘manufacturing consent’ among citizens around rearmament.
The accelerated rearmament they propose will certainly have a very negative impact on public services, will erode the welfare state, will increase public debt and, above all, in the absence of arms control agreements, will make war with an atomic power like Russia more likely.
We ask for your signature to tell our governments to work for peace and not for arms companies.

Reason

Alarmed by the Orwellian language that has taken hold in European political discourse—where war is seen as the path to peace, while peace is said to lead only to more war—we call for sanity.
We, the European citizens, have become involuntary passengers on a train driven by leaders who, under the declared pretext of "making Russia bleed," choose to ignore the disastrous consequences of a conflict in which we will all be losers.
On the eve of past European conflicts, such as World War I, courageous intellectuals from the warring nations—including Jean Jaurès, Romain Rolland, Bertha von Suttner, and Bertrand Russell—publicly spoke out for peace, though sadly, their voices were not heeded.
Today, the silence of intellectuals across all countries is deafening. Like the rest of European citizens, they seem worryingly anesthetized. And when someone dares to raise their voice in favour of diplomacy, they are immediately slandered as a "puppet of Putin."
We unequivocally condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law. However, we also recognize that this tragedy is partly a consequence of the persistence of a military organization, NATO, labelled as "defensive," which, far from dissolving after the fall of the communist bloc, continued expanding right up to Russia’s borders—despite high-level promises made to Russia at the time.
The war in Ukraine has now lasted three years. The casualties on both sides far exceed one million, including the dead, wounded and permanently maimed, though neither country provides official figures.
On top of that, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country—some to Western Europe, others to Russia—all seeking to escape the violence. A true human disaster.
Donald Trump's United States, more focused on what it perceives as China's growing power and the situation in the Middle East, seems determined to exploit Ukraine while also indebting Europe, further weakening its social welfare systems for the benefit of the U.S. military industry.
And our governments, refusing to accept that, given the imbalance of forces, the war is lost, continue to support the Ukrainian president by promising more weapons and money so that the Ukrainian army can fight to the last man or woman.
All of this while they push for the rapid militarization of our nations under the spectre of an impending conflict with Russia.
Have our leaders considered that, since the arms limitation agreements signed during the Cold War—so crucial in maintaining peace—no longer exist, a military confrontation with a nuclear power like Russia could lead to a third, and this time final, world war?
We call on politicians not to forget the two great wars that bloodied the continent in the last century. Abandoning George Orwell’s newspeak, they must work actively in favour of diplomatic solutions.
It is the only way to prevent future massacres that devastate nations for the mere profit of the powerful arms industry.