Dear comrades and friends,

Greetings to everybody, I am here on behalf of the Serbian Committee against the war and imperialism. I feel this is very important gathering in this critical historical moment, and I would like to extend my gratitude to comrades from the German liaison committee against the war for organizing this European conference, getting us all here and providing space for the debate and further coordination of our anti-war activities.

Ruling classes around the world are continuing to push humankind towards new World war. From Ukraine and Gaza, over Yemen and other locations where the conflicts are going on, to something that potentially could be most horrifying – war between NATO and China in Taiwan. Hundreds of thousand of people have already lost their lives in these conflicts, and if we do not stop ruling classes in their intentions, millions more will die.

The region from which I come from, The Balkans (known around the world by the conflicts that happened in it) is now totally integrated into NATO imperialist block. And while ruling cohorts in the region and in the world are trying to scare population with talks about new possible conflict in the Balkans, they are all involved in arms trade and armament of the comprador ruling classes in the region. Good example of this is recent development with France, which several times voiced its „concern“ about Balkan being next „hot spot“, while selling fighter jets to both Serbia and Croatia. It is clear from this that these lies about possible conflict are being jolted with the intention of rising nationalism and using it for the control of the local population, while armament is being organized with the intention of sending that same population in the meat grinder of the next world war, on the NATO warring side. This goes not only for countries in the Balkans that are openly part of the NATO block, but also for the countries that are pretending to be neutral, such as Serbia, from which I come from. What I have reported on the first meeting of the European liaison committee again the war that was held in Paris is continuing: Serbia, while pretending to be neutral, is producing and selling huge amounts of arms and ammunition to Ukraine and Israel, and thus showing in practice that it is firmly on the NATO side in this world war in the making. When talking about creating new meat for the war meat grinder, in whole of our region draft is being reintroduced, in line with the tendency and announcement to do that in whole Europe. But, as we are capitalist periphery we are the first ones to get into the line for slaughter. We are giving our best to fight these tendencies in the Balkans. We are organizing with comrades from ex-Yugoslavia and whole region against the war. Balkan antiwar conference, that was held in July this year in Belgrade, is good example of these activities of ours. But we have also started with concrete activities, such as first aid and ham radio trainings, that we know, from the experiences of the antiwar movement during Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, will be useful when next world war comes swinging to us again.

Anti-war movement has to be wide and gather people from different backgrounds to be successful. Among others, we have heard here speeches of the comrades who are coming from parliamentary orientated political parties, and we have people of the similar political profile also in our Committee. But I am coming from different background, I am coming from anti-parliamentarian, anarchist tradition, like many comrades in our Committee but also in the anti-war movement in Balkan region. This is why it is important for us that European liaison committee against the war is organized in a direct-democratic and federalist fashion, and that it is self-financed and independent from States. What I think we all share as position, and this is something that European committee is trying to articulate, is that only wide masses of population can stop the war! And that even anti-war orientated politicians can not do anything without the huge pressure that only movement of the masses against the war can exercise on the streets. Thus, I feel that our primary goal is activation of the masses in this existential fight for peace. Thank you all!