First online consultation on organising a cross-border peace march to and on the former border in the middle of Europe and Germany. We call for people to come together on Easter Sunday where the world was divided by NATO and the Warsaw Pact until 1989 on Friday 18 February, 7pm, via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3216854044 for Germany in German.
For those, who want to take part in the peacemarch on April 17.from other countries we will organize a meeting in English, when we have got enough interested persons and organisations (and later may be also in other languages). Please write us, if you want to joinin such a ZOOM-Meeting to prepare the peacemarch: Internationale-friedensfabrik-wanfried.org.
With this march we want to remember the decision in the Charter of Paris in 1990 to build a common European house with Russia with equal security for all: This was supposed to banish cold and hot wars from the world forever.
And now the danger of war and even nuclear war in Europe is real again. The construction of the common European house was stopped shortly after it began. Europe has been divided again: Only today the border runs further to the east, on the border of the countries that are now in NATO or closely linked to it to Russia, Belarus and in the middle of Ukraine.
With the Easter March, we want to contribute to a new momentum to continue the construction according to the construction plan of the Charter of Paris and the recent Minsk Agreement, which was decided in 1990. Let us try to come together from East and West Germany for this and also invite people from Western and Eastern Europe and beyond.
With the march at Easter, we place ourselves in the long tradition of peace marches in Germany. It began in the 1950s as a protest against nuclear death in foreboding of the mortal danger we were in at the time: three years later, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, humanity really stood on the precipice of nuclear war. At that time, it escaped the catastrophe only by luck.
Let us come together, let us get involved in our countries, regions and cities: Gorbachev's warning still applies: those who come too late are punished by life.
The place we have in mind on the border: we are thinking of a path in the middle of Germany and Europe between Wanfried in Hesse and Treffurt in Thuringia. In Großburschla, the village once belonged to Warsaw Pact territory, and the village railway station belonged to NATO territory. In the event of war, fighting would have taken place here.
The next step is the webinar. We invite you to join us. Friday 18 February, 7pm, via this link in German, or we invite you to an zoom-meeting in English another time.
PS: If you like the idea, talk to your friends, acquaintances, in your organisations before the consultation about whether you want to come and who is willing and able to organise it and let them know at the consultation or earlier: Info@internationale-friedensfabrik-wanfried.org. Maybe a local and regional network already makes sense to travel together to this East-West meeting. Perhaps we could also interest people in and from other countries in coming and suggest people as speakers who can make important contributions. We see this action as a supplement, by no means as an alternative to the many Easter marches in many places, in which we should urgently participate, because at the proposed place we will not be able to reach many people, but above all we can strengthen and network and send a signal to the world. Here you can find the dates of the Easter marches in your region: All information about the Easter marches 2022 of the peace movement | Netzwerk Friedenskooperative
Wolfgang Lieberknecht for the International Peace Factory Wanfried (IFFW)
