Canada pledges more war aid while activists call for peace in Ukraine
Watch video address by Noam Chomsky
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Ukraine last week to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, pledging a half-billion dollars more in Canadian aid. This brings Canada’s total to $8-billion including $1-billion in weapons since the start of the Russian invasion early in 2022.
Meanwhile over 300 peace activists who had gathered in Vienna, Austria were discussing a way to end the bloodshed and avert a potential nuclear conflict.
“We are firmly united in our belief that war is a crime against humanity and there is no military solution to the current crisis,” said the conference statement.
The two views of prolonging the war or ushering peace could not be farther apart, set against a backdrop of renewed fighting that is measured in only hundreds of meters of territory recaptured by Ukraine each day in the hottest areas of fighting, and deadly flooding caused by the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Celebrated scholar Noam Chomsky's opening address
https://youtu.be/T-IZY0VUQ0s?t=4
In Vienna, peace activists grappled with the prospects for peace, and as American long-time peace advocate Medea Benjamin writes in CommonDreams, there were plenty of disagreements.
“Some people believed that we should continue to send weapons while pushing for talks; others called for an immediate end to weapons transfers. Some insisted on calling for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops, while others believed that should be the result of negotiations, not a pre-condition,” writes Benjamin. “Some put more blame on the role of NATO expansion and the interference of the U.S. in Ukraine’s internal affairs, while others said the blame belongs exclusively at the doorstep of the Russian invaders.”
What united activists was the need for further action.
Former IPB Director Reiner Braun, one of the conference organizers, stated, “We need more days of action, more gatherings, more outreach to students and environmentalists, more educational events. But this was a great beginning of global coordination.”