German Greens split in vote on Afghanistan occupation

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from Christine Buchholz
Dear comrades and friends,

I just want to inform you that the german parliament voted on the prolongation of the ISAF-mission in Afghanistan last friday.

All 51 MPs of the Left Party parliamentary group that where present on that day voted against the ISAF mission. 7 green MPs voted against, 15 voted in favour of ISAF, 28 abstained - by this many green MPs ignored a resolution passed by a party conference in September demanding a no-vote.

In the SPD parliamentary group 13 voted against, 13 abstained.

There is a total of 453 yes-votes, 79 no-votes, 48 abstentions.

From the beginning Germany is part of operation enduring freedom and ISAF. In March 2007 the governement sent Tornado airplanes to Afghanistan to deliver pictures of reconaissance flights to NATO. There is a constant 2/3 of german population against the war. In a current survey 52% demanded the immediate withdrawl of all troops from afghanistan.

During the last years the movement wasnt able to mobilise on a bigger scale against the annual prolongation of the mandate for afghanistan war. Now the mood started to change.

There was a national Demonstration of 10.000 people in Berlin on September 15th. The demo was the biggest mobilisation against afghanistan war since five years.The peacemovement collected 50.000 signitures against the war within few weeks.

The governement argues, that ISAF is a humanitarian intervention to build schools and help the women in Afgahanistan, and ISAF has to be protected by OEF.

The movement argues that this is not true: ISAF is to protect the corrupt puppet-regime of Hamid Karzai and that we have to reject all the missions in afghanistan.

It is obvious that there will be no peace in Afghanistan if the foreign occupation will last and that more civilians and more german solidiers will die. This ist he reason why people are against the war. The peacemovement and the left feel encouraged to keep on mobilising. There is also the plan to organise an international Afghanistan-conference in May next year.

The ruling class in Germany is very eager to maintain the troops in Afghanistan. It is crucial for the ruling class that germany is a reliable partner for the US and NATO, because Germany alone is not able to protect its economical and geostrategical interests. Afghanistan is ment to prove this "reliability".

We want to challenge this, we want to force the government to end this bloody war. We have to have patience to build the movement, win more people from the greens and the SPD and root the movement in the localities.

On November 14th there will be a vote in german parliament on the prolongation of Operation Enduring freedom. We hope to get more MP to vote against it.

for more Information:
Bundeswehr raus aus Afghanistan (Die Linke page against the war in Afghanistan)

All the best,
Christine Buchholz