Political declaration of the XV regular congress of FIR

The International Federation of the Resistance fighters (FIR) - Association of Anti-fascists has a moral order as "Ambassador of peace "of the United Nations to use itself for non-military conflict solutions in the world.

• We do demand from there in particular related to the current conflicts in the Middle East not to permit an escalation and to withdraw foreign troops from these regions.
• This concerns in particular the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we must experience daily that the presence of intervention troops does not contribute to the stabilization of peace. We welcome the decisions e.g. of the Netherlands government to withdraw their troops and see herein a correct way for a civilian solution of the conflicts. We warn in particular against an escalation of the conflict around Iran. A foreign attack would solve none of the problems of this country and it would bring neither in the region nor in the world a more of security.
• Such solutions only try to enforce imperialistic interests, they are new attempts to arrange geopolitical interests of power and easier access on raw materials.
• We appeal urgently to the warring parties in Israel and Palestine to look for a peaceful solution on the basis of the UN-resolutions. Missile attacks on civilians or surface bombardments on closely settled populated areas do not bring strategic advantages, they promote only individual and national terror impacts debited to humans in this region.
• We welcome the important decision of the Security Council to the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The delimitation of the number of the nuclear weapons possessing states is not enough, in fact the world-wide proscription and actual disarmament of these weapon arsenals must be achieved.

With large concern fulfills to us also the world-wide financial and economic crisis, by which large parts of the population were fallen into economic uncertainty. The crisis consequences may not be shifted on the shoulders of the working population, the pensioners and socially weak ones. This would be a dangerous fertile soil for nationalistic and extremely right demagogues.

With large concern we see actually the increase of extremely right forces, from violent neo-fascists to right wing populist groups, which could achieve mandates in the election campaign to the European parliament in different countries of Europe. These are not national single features. We experience an increasing networking of the neo-nazis on the European level with Nazi marching-up, conferences and demonstrations.

Against these tendencies we set our anti-fascist internationalism. Together the anti-fascist federations countered in the past years e.g. in Cologne, Dresden or Budapest such neo-fascist provocations. FIR and its member federations work for civilian alliances as broad as possible, which include trade unions, social organizations, churches, political parties, artists and prominent ones as well as anti-fascist activists. We co-operate with all democrats and anti-fascists, who are honestly ready to oppose actively the advance of extremely right organizations and their ideology.

For the FIR and its member federations retaining the memory of the anti-fascist fight of the peoples remains an indispensable task. On different political and social levels we experience today attempts to falsify the anti-fascist history perspective. Monuments of the anti-fascist fight are destroyed.

In particular in Middle and Eastern European countries there are efforts to play the SS and its crimes down and to reinterpret the earlier collaborators of fascism to "heroes of the national liberation". In Bulgaria the government refuses recognizing the fight of the anti-fascists against the authoritarian governance from 1923 to 1944 as resistance. Partly even partisans and other anti-fascist fighters are accused 50 years after the end of fascism as "criminal ones ".

Such scandalous history falsifications may not be accepted. In particular we underline the fact that May 8/9, 1945 has been and will be forever the day of victory of the peoples over fascism and thus the day of liberation from fascism and war. All attempts to establish an "anniversary against totalitarianism" on August 23 are to be rejected as historical revisionism.

The task of FIR and their member federations remains to retain the historical memory of the resistance of the peoples, of the women and men, who gave their life, who fought in the ranks of the anti-Hitler coalition or who became victims in the concentration and extermination camps because of their conviction or for other reasons of fascist exclusion. To pass on their experiences to today's and future generations is one of the most distinguished tasks, our organizations are confronted with. We cooperate in particular with memorial places of the camps, with archives and historical institutions as well as anti-fascist initiatives of historical work.

The appreciation of this fight contains also to secure the social acknowledgment of the fighters against fascism. It is a moral and social obligation of all democratic states in Europe, those women and men, which risked lives and health in the anti-fascist fight for the freedom of Europe, to grant them today the means for existence protection and financial compensation.

FIR and its member federations stand together against racism, Antisemitism, xenophobia, neo-fascism, nationalism and extremely right wing populism. In solidarity with the today's generations we retain the liability of the fighters and the victims of the nazism and fight for democracy, social justice and "a new world of peace and freedom".