No weapons for Ukraine
Thousands demand a negotiated solution during Easter marches
4/8/2023 6:02 p.m
In around 70 cities, thousands of people demonstrated at the traditional Easter marches for an end to the war in Ukraine and called for negotiations. At the same time, they appealed to the federal government to stop the delivery of heavy weapons and the rearmament of the Bundeswehr.
At the traditional Easter marches of the peace movement, thousands of people demonstrated nationwide for negotiations to stop the Ukraine war. According to the Peace Cooperation Network, there were campaigns in around 70 cities, including Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Duisburg, Hanover, Leipzig, Munich, Stuttgart and a number of other places. The rallies also called for an end to German arms exports to Ukraine, which had been attacked by Russia, and for the announced upgrade of the Bundeswehr to be abandoned.
According to estimates by the organizers, who did not yet have a final nationwide overview by the afternoon, around 2,000 people took part in Berlin alone, around 1,200 in Hanover and several hundred in Bremen, Munich, Cologne, Mainz and Leipzig. The police spoke of 1500 participants for Berlin. Banners and placards there read phrases like “Peace, heating, bread instead of weapons, war and death” and “NATO is the aggressor – peace with Russia”. In the capital, the Vitsche association, which is mainly supported by Ukrainians, organized a counter-demonstration to the Easter marches. Several hundred demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate under the motto “No freedom, no peace”.
The central Easter march office in Frankfurt am Main spoke of a “good” participation in the demonstrations. “This shows the stable organizational structure of the peace movement, which is able to organize internal and external actions for peace and disarmament against militarization throughout the country,” said spokesman Willi van Ooyen.
“We are not a Putin-understander demo”
The evangelical theologian Margot Käßmann spoke in Hanover. According to the manuscript, she condemned the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, but at the same time criticized the German arms deliveries to Kiev. In the call for the Rhine/Ruhr Easter March, for example, it was said that the federal government and the EU had to make serious efforts to “peace negotiations without preconditions”. They also said no to the supply of tanks and other heavy weapons, which further escalated and prolonged the war. The Bonn appeal said: “Even if Ukraine has the right to defend itself, more and heavier weapons are not a solution, but fuel this war.” Russia attacked its neighbor at the end of February 2022.
In Leipzig, co-organizer Torsten Schleip said: “For us, an immediate ceasefire and the start of negotiations are the better alternative to further arms exports and escalation to the point of a nuclear exchange of blows.” There are critical words in all directions, Schleip emphasized: “We are not a Putin-understanding demo.”
According to the Peace Cooperation Network, more than 120 actions have been planned nationwide since Thursday and until Monday. Left co-leader Martin Schirdewan said with a view to the Easter marches that despite the controversial discussion about the conflict, there must be a clear positioning of the peace movement as a whole. That means “international solidarity” with Ukraine, which has been attacked in violation of international law, and a “clear condemnation of the Russian war of aggression”. At the same time, the left-wing politician criticized the federal government’s “unilateral focus” on arms deliveries and the training of Ukrainian soldiers.