Peace campaigners protest against NATO

Pat Sanchez, Pauline Devine, Andrew Wastling and Patricia Gilligan holding the Peace Group’s giant ‘No to NATO’ placard.

Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group urged people in Rochdale town centre to think seriously about NATO.

Peace Group members handed-out leaflets to shoppers on Yorkshire Street which accused NATO of contributing to a new ‘cold war’ and to a new nuclear arms race.

The Peace Group spoke of their belief that hundreds of US nuclear weapons are kept at bases under cover of NATO, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Philip Gilligan urged people in Rochdale to support the counter conference and international demonstrations which will be taking place in Strasbourg from 3 to 5 April, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the military alliance.

He said: “NATO has become the key vehicle for the US and its allies to pursue their wars. The push for NATO expansion was the main cause of the conflict in Georgia last year and NATO is taking the lead in the disastrous occupation of Afghanistan.

"The international events in Strasbourg at the beginning of April will be giving a clear message to NATO and to our own government that the people of Europe and Britain will not accept NATO’s aggressive military and nuclear policies. They will assert, instead, our vision of a just world free of war and nuclear weapons.

"Like most people, the Peace Group wants a peaceful world. We reject military responses to global and regional crises and refuse to live, silently, under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Instead, we call for a decrease military expenditure, so that resources can be redirected to meeting human needs. We need nurses not nukes. We need social care not nuclear weapons.”