Mass Protest Planned for Shannon on October 12th

clare | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Thursday September 11, 2014 23:24 by shannonwatch

Shannonwatch are calling on peace and anti-war groups as well as other organisations and individuals around the country to join together in a mass protest at Shannon on Sunday 12th October. Thirteen shameful years of support for global warfare is more than enough. We want our integrity and our neutrality back.

The attached photograph of an Omni Air International airplane was taken at dawn on Sunday 17th August. It was almost certainly taking US troops on their way to or from military operations in the Middle East, just like thousands of other aircraft that have passed through Shannon in the last 13 years. What started on the basis of an unjustified US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and was continued in support of the catastrophic, illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq is now being presented as the norm by the airport authorities and the Irish government. It is, they would have us believe, "in the DNA of Shannon".

After 13 years of government lies, obfuscation and refusal to engaged in discussion about our support for a failing, destructive US foreign policy, it's time to call an end to this US military use of Shannon Airport. We've supported enough invasions, occupations, drone attacks, war crimes, and torture. We've turned a blind eye to the human suffering for too long. Its time say STOP.

To send this message loudly and clearly, Shannonwatch are calling on peace and anti-war groups as well as other organisations and individuals around the country to join together in a mass protest at Shannon on Sunday 12th October. Thirteen shameful years of support for global warfare is more than enough. We want our integrity and our neutrality back.

In the last 13 years we've had whistleblowing, formal complaints to the Gardai, the presentation of wheelbarrows full of information and evidence, 100,000 people marching in on the streets of Dublin, direct action, monthly protests, court cases, imprisonments, fines, presentations to the European Parliament and Oireachtas Committees, and more. It is now time for action to reinforce all this talking and walking, to tell the government that Irish people do not want to be cheerleaders for a pro-war agenda.

We would like to see large numbers of people arriving at Shannon for the demonstration on October 12th.

The airport at Shannon is the embodiment of Irish governmental sell-out to a system that promotes global warfare at the expense of humanity. The greed of an elite few is built on the suppression of democratic solutions in Iraq, Gaza, Libya, Egypt - anywhere there is a threat to their vested interests - and on the silence of people in places like Ireland. Violent reactionary forces have been created around the world, often by the same elite that attack them, and as a result the cycles of war continue.

Given that the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East have been facilitated by the US military use of Shannon Airport, it's important that there is a visible opposition to this at Shannon. Bus transport is being organised from Dublin on October 12th by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) and the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM). Galway support is being coordinated by Galway Alliance Against War (GAAW).

There is no legal, moral or economic justification for the continuing breach of Irish neutrality at Shannon.

Reclaim our neutrality. Promote peace. Demand respect for human rights.