by the Workshop, “Another World is Necessary”
We, academics and activists from various countries of the world, gathering at the Center for Global Justice in a Workshop on “Another World is Necessary” in the city of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, from the 19 th to the 26 th of July of 2006, having witnessed in recent days the violence loosed in the Middle East, declare,
- The military invasion of a sovereign country by Israel , targeting the innocent civilian population, especially women and children, and also targeting Lebanon ’s civilian infrastructure, is ethically unjustifiable and politically reprehensible.
- Equally reprehensible is the pressure exercised by the imperialist powers of the world to defend their economic and military interests in the area.
- The pretexts launched by the powerful countries to justify the war against Lebanon , in the name of combating terrorism, must be understood as the criminilization of resistance by the dominated peoples of the Mid-East and the world.
- Israel ’s military intervention in the Mid-East, with U.S. government complicity, is in reality itself a form of state terrorism, a tactic used in a broader project of invasion, mass murder, and conquest.
- The violence against Lebanon violates world peace and affects the world community, threatening it with a major extension of the conflict.
For all of these reasons, we demand:
- The immediate cessation of the aggression by Israel against Lebanon and Palestine.
- The use of peaceful negotiation as means for settling the historic conflicts in the area.
- The energetic intervention of the United Nations and the world community to negotiate an immediate ceasefire and establishment of peace negotiations.
- That leaders of Israel and of complicit imperialist powers be held to account for war crimes.
- That Israel pay all damages due to the invasion.
- An immediate ceasefire by all sides.