Some 200 peace campaigners took part in a three-stage "Stations of the Cross" event in Dublin yesterday to question NATO's tactics in the Balkans and to oppose Irish involvement in the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace programme.
The justice and peace project Afri and the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi organised the event as "a reflection on war and institutions of war such as NATO and its `acceptable face', Partnership for Peace".
Participants first gathered at the Department of Foreign Affairs at Iveagh House and walked to the Dail and then to Government Buildings. The three stops were to commemorate the three falls on the road to Calvary, according to the organisers.
The keynote speaker, Ms Clare O'Grady Walshe, said the title of Partnership for Peace was itself a lie. "In truth, this initiative which emerged in 1994 was a cynical exercise by NATO, the nuclear military alliance, to ensure its continuance.
"After all, its purpose was as obsolete as the Warsaw Pact at the end of the Cold War. That it did not also disband is one of the most regrettable things of this century, as we see the last year of the millennium being played out in horrific violence."
She said the only alternative to violence was peace. "This is the disarmament we seek today. It is the only way to disarm Milosevic. NATO's bombing of Milosevic has only served to increase the legitimacy of his despotic rule and the means by which he maintains it."
Ms O'Grady Walshe called for a referendum on whether Ireland should join Partnership for Peace, saying the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, himself had called for one when in opposition.