The threat of armed conflict involving the governments of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela has mobilized anarchists and anti-militarists across the continent, in words and in action, to repudiate what would be a monstrous aggression by state powers against our peoples.

We don’t need another war. We, conscientious objectors and antimilitarists from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean together, categorically refuse to participate in belligerent escalades that will lead to a war that, again, will attempt to divide us. We have enough with hunger, corruption, rampant militarism, the obscene military budget, insecurity, the continuous violations of human rights by our governments, for them to give us yet another armed conflict.

War will only strengthen nationalism in the countries involved, increasing the xenophobia already existing in our countries. It will empower the armed forces giving them another excuse to increase their budgets and will hide the problems that plague us even more as Latin American and Caribbean peoples: the out of control exploitation of our resources, the ever so high levels of unemployment, discrimination and gender-based violence, corruption and the mafias in power, whole communities displaced because of war or single crop agriculture, racism and class discrimination, etc. None of these can be solved by war. On the contrary, war will mean that these problems will increase just as they have in every dictatorship and in every civil war.

A war among Latin American states is also a civil war among brothers, driven to slaughter by militarist governments, either of the right or of the left. The only winners in a fratricide war are the global arms merchants who in the United States or in the Russian Federation build their laboratories of war and oppression in our countries under the euphemism of “Plan Colombia”.

We say no to war and its preparations. No to empowering the military, either of the left or of the right. Yes to people’s autonomy and their struggles. Yes to Latin American brotherhood.

We call for massive action against militarism and war, we are committed to working together for justice and solidarity, outside the barracks, in each of our countries.

Latin American and Caribbean Antimilitarists / Antimilitaristas de Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Organizations & persons:

– Internacional de Resistentes a la Guerra - IRG/WRI
– Grupo de Afinidad Antimilitarista de Asunción GAAA (Asunción-Paraguay)
– Pelao Carvallo, consejero IRG
– Yeidy Luz Rosa Ortiz, Casa Feminista de Rosa - Quito, Ecuador
– Periódico El Libertario - Venezuela
– Xavier León, Grupo de Objeción de Conciencia del Ecuador - GOCE
– Movimiento Antimilitarista y de Objeción de Conciencia MAOC Chile
– Adriana Castaño Román, Red Juvenil de Medellín, consejera IRG
– Accciòn Colectiva de Objetoras y Objetores de Conciencia (ACOOC) Bogotá
– Colectivo Antimilitarista de Carabanchel, españa
– Movimiento de Objeción de Conciencia de Paraguay Moc Py
– Alicia Zárate-artista visual-SOS Tierra. Arte acción. Arg.
– Claudia Ruiz Herrera- artista visual
– Osmar Arturo Duran
– KOLECTIVO UTOPIA ACRATA LIBERTARIO (K.U.A.L.)
– Ateneo Autonomo de Contracultura y Estudios Acratas
– Elda Munch Comini, Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina.
– Laura Fernández, Argentina
– Rafael Cuesta
– Colectivo "Libertarixs-Guayaquil", Ecuador
– Violeta Franco, feminista antimilitarista
– María Luisa Rojas Bolaños, mujer, madre y abuela. Médica, profesora de la Facultad de Medicina de la UADY e integrante de UNASSE una ONG feminista y defensora de los Derechos Humanos, en Mérida Yucatán. México.
– Banda "Grito Libertario"
– Ernesto Soltero Resistencia Civil, Caracas, Venezuela

Further signatures to antimililat at gmail.com