Peace March, Three Thousand Parade in Assisi. Conte and Fratoianni: “Enough Weapons”

At least three thousand people set out to Assisi, on a sunny day, to demonstrate “against war and against rearmament”. The occasion, the traditional march for peace and brotherhood opened for the first time by 300 children from various schools in Italy, to shout no to the conflicts that have been bloodying Ukraine for 940 days “and after 350 days of massacres in Gaza”. On the soundtrack of Imagine many young people “armed” only with the rainbow flag, associations and political exponents of the centre-left, led by the leader of the 5 Star Movement Joseph Conte and the leader of the Italian Left Nicholas Fratoiannithey made their way through the river of people next to the mayor Stefania Proietticandidate for president of the Region for the broad field and several parliamentarians of the Democratic Party, including the coordinator of the national secretariat Marta Bonafonirepresenting Elly Schlein.

The reasons for the march

“Today we are so many. So many people who have their eyes open to the world instead of gazing at their own navel and who realize the enormous danger that is advancing. We are here to sound the alarm, we are here to call our society to open its eyes to the gravity of the moment, to the dangers that loom, to the need to react”, he says Flavio Lottipresident of the Fondazione PerugiAssisi per la Cultura della Pace, as the procession approaches Assisi. “It is one of the most important marches we have ever held because the moment is truly dramatic. There are forces that want to drag us into war and we are not responding: there is no policy that protects us. That is why we are here”, adds Lotti, explaining that he has invited politics to a discussion, asking them “to come to terms with their own responsibilities to avoid reaching the point of no return”.

From M5S to 5S: Stop the increase in military spending

“The ongoing wars, the strategy of military escalation, demonstrate that there is a deficit of politics, with a capital P, not the politics of talkers”, attacks Conte, fresh from the vote against in Strasbourg on the resolution for support to Ukraine in which restrictions on the use of weapons to strike also in Russian territory are eliminated. “Politics means dialogue, building the foundations for a diplomatic initiative that embraces the horizon of peace and security for all the populations involved and not one-way, according to the logic of the primacy of those who have more weapons, produce and use more weapons, of the primacy of oppression”, insists the leader of the M5S. Convinced that in Ukraine “a negotiating turning point must be imposed” and that in Gaza we must say “stop the extermination, the illegitimate occupation in the West Bank”. In perfect harmony with Fratoianni: “It is time for governments to say enough with the escalation of weapons that brings us closer every day to a global war on European territory. “Let them say enough to the arms race and the crazy increase in military spending, which distracts resources from people’s primary needs”, insists the leader of Si. Launching an appeal to Conte and the dem Bonafoni: “Can we all in the progressive camp say that spending 2% more of GDP on weapons in Italy is madness and act accordingly in parliament? I’m not interested in planting the flag of the first to arrive, of the most pacifist among pacifists, but I am keen to find solutions to the inability of politics and institutions in diplomatic action. An initiative capable of stopping barbarism is urgently needed”.