MdN-Madrid

This phrase is one of the proposals that emerged from the XVII International Gathering of Women in Black against War, which took place in March of 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa. Under the title of “Displaced Lives”, the objective being to confront the inheritance of racism, hate and class.
Women have been displaced by the patriarchy and now it’s a matter of returning this shame to the patriarchal system – shame that extends to all the injustices of displacements. The violence of displacement is a situation in which we refuse to see ourselves.

South Africa welcomes refugee families arriving from Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Nigeria, Malawi… In Mandela’s time, the country welcomed those who solicited asylum fleeing from dictatorial and corrupt regimes, a country with unemployment at 45% and in which one-fourth of the people receive subsidies.

South Africa has a multitude of stories about displacement, repression and slavery, and also numerous stories about collective resistance. At present, its main cities are suffering from the new legal apartheid: neoliberalism, gentrification, expulsion to outlying areas and isolation of the working classes, the poor and the black population.

Displacements in Africa have multiple causes: flight from eternal armed conflicts; economic emigration; migration motivated by sexual identity, repression and assassination of lesbian women; unemployment; taking of land, natural resources, and appropriation of water, even for suffering from mental illness or for fleeing from a forced childhood marriages.
There is a strong relationship between women and displacement because gender violence has not decreased one iota and this promotes disempowerment of African women.

The Network of Women in Black against War denounces forced displacement. We are embarrassed by the policies of Europe and demand:

♀ Opening the borders to those displaced for any reason.
♀ Right to a home. Camps for refugees are not homes.
♀ Right of return for refugees; not forced repatriation.
♀ Right to dignity.
♀ Peace is a right, peace understood as a home, health, food and dignity.
♀ Opposition to and prevention of the use of weapons and commerce in weapons.
♀ Right to practice civil disobedience and boycott against unjust laws and oppressive policies.
♀ Special protection for women and young girls who are victims of gender violence, persons persecuted for the sexual identity, women who fight for their rights.
♀ Combating stereotypes and manipulation, not forgetting that we were immigrants, too.
♀ Solidarity with the refugees, accompaniment and listening to them.
♀ Calling on feminist alliances to resist displacements.
♀ Rejection of fascism, its violence and its practices of hate and xenophobia in Europe.

Commemorating 5 June, World Environment Day, Women in Black of Madrid against war, focus our attention on the relationship between environmental destruction and violation of human rights.

We are adamant that the causes for war are bound to the exploitation of natural resources. Even without declared wars, armies and paramilitaries use violence to defend the interests of transnational enterprises above those of the security of the planet. The Environmental Justice Atlas lists more than 2400 socio-ecological conflicts around the world. In 2016, 200 persons were assassinated for defending their habitat, 60% in Latin America. In 2017, 312 defenders of human rights were assassinated.

In the last decade, global warming has increased, placing us in a scenario of unstoppable climate change, and at the same time increasing various types of contamination. Economic inequality is on the rise (1% of the world population has amassed 82% of the wealth). It is the poorest communities that end up being displaced, becoming environmental refugees because of the degradation of their surroundings.

In armed conflicts, the situation becomes critical, as has happened in Iraq after 30 years of wars, where contamination of water sources has been used as a weapon. Voluntary contamination, scarcity or unhealthfulness of water resources is one of the great global dramas from South Sudan to Latin America.

We want to make visible the work of the ecologist groups and indigenous communities who defend life as they confront the economic and militaristic interests of the great transnational enterprises. We highlight the involvement of women in these initiatives. They assume the responsibilities of providing food and health to their families for which they give deserved value to the protection of their surroundings and the entire planet.

Spain also participates in this global phenomenon. The transnationals of Ibex35 generate significant social and ecological impacts, including the violation of human rights, as detailed in the report of Ecologistas en Acción (Ecologists in Action) “El Ibex35 en guerra contra la vida (Ibex35 at war against life)”.

Women in Black against war – Madrid:

♀ We support the direct nonviolent actions that help to redirect this situation. We point out as an example the action of “ACS against life” confronting the board of stockholders of the ACS group (Actividades de Construccion y Servicios) by requesting binding mechanisms that will establish obligatory regulations for transnational companies with regard to human rights.

♀ We demand that all governments guarantee the health and security of the people and the planet.

♀ We invite the civil society to join in alternatives for responsible consumption that create more just and ecological relationships (groups dealing with consumption, ethical banking, electricity cooperatives, etc.).

♀ We defend life in the face of economic and militaristic interests.

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA – Yolanda Rouiller, WiB Spain

The student demonstrators shouted “They are spewing out real bullets!!

It is not 1926 when Augusto Sandino began a revolution against the North American occupation and the presidency of Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

It is not 1972 – 1991 when in Nicaragua there were 65,000 dead, owing to the intense civil war between the Sandinistas and the Somocistas.

These are 2018 bullets, at a time when there is a right to demonstrate, where 85% of the people are poor and will no longer be able to cope with just their social security payment, and retirees will lose 5% of an already miserably low amount, which is the only income for the family. The Movimiento Campesino Anticanal (Peasant Anti-Canal Movement) has also suffered their right to demonstrate regarding the wrongful expropriation of land and repression of the government.

The number of dead is over 60, among them the disappeared and found dead and tortured, yes, tortured by the Ortega dictatorship; even more have been arrested and wounded.

“They took away so much from us that they took away our fear”, is one of their slogans. Through social networks they have informed the international community about their protest. The students are considered “the moral reserve of the country” in the protests.

The government of Nicaragua has ordered beating, robbery, torture and assassination and continues to do so without asking for any forgiveness. The country is in mourning and lacking justice, suffering for those who have been assassinated and disappeared. If the government wishes to return to “normalcy”, it should assume the consequences, because if it doesn’t, that will leave a precedent for IMPUNITY.

Women in Black:

♀ Demand that the government of Spain cease sales of weapons to Nicaragua.

♀ Support the demands and nonviolent protests of the people of Nicaragua.

♀ Ask that the government of Spain and the international community demand of the government of Nicaragua justice and reparation for the victims.

WE REQUEST PEACE, RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR NICARAGUA

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA – Yolanda Rouiller, WiB Spain

Pictures here