SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 27 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Parliamentary Group Sí Podemos Canarias has shown its “firmest” rejection of the Archipelago becoming the base of NATO’s South Flank and actively participating in the allied deployment in a manner equivalent to that of the East Flank, as is currently the case with Ukraine.
Sí Podemos Canarias thus distances itself from the position of the president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, who last Tuesday announced the support of his Executive for the deployment of NATO against Africa that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will propose at the summit that the Atlantic Alliance will celebrate in June in Madrid
“Everything that means greater security for the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands will be supported by the Government,” Torres stressed in the control session to the Government at the question of the Popular Group, stressing that President Sánchez’s request was already processed without success on Government of the PP in 2014 and it was reiterated again in 2017, 2018 and 2021.
Manuel Marrero, spokesman for the Sí Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group, wanted to recall the anti-war and anti-Atlantic vocation of the Canary Islands, which on March 12, 1986 “pronounced with a majority ‘no’ to Spain’s entry into NATO and in 2003 and 2007 mobilized massively against the war in Iraq”, for which he has reiterated that the Canary Islands “has always been a land of peace that is against any type of violence”.
Manuel Marrero has insisted that the citizens of the Islands “have always positioned themselves against the war and in defense of the people, and the mobilizations against the radar of El Hierro or in defense of the Saharawi people will go down in history.”
Marrero affirmed that from Sí Podemos Canarias they are in “total disagreement” with the position of President Pedro Sánchez both regarding the process of decolonization of the Sahara and his support for the Moroccan theses as well as with the proposal that there be deployment in the Canary Islands of the forces of the NATO.
The Parliamentary Group has requested several times that the Canary Islands be declared a neutral territory without manoeuvres; In this sense, Marrero emphasized that both in non-law proposals and in the proposals for the reform of the Statute of Autonomy, they proposed to consider the Canary Islands a ‘zone of peace’, considering applying the status of Territory of Permanent Neutrality.
They have also repeatedly urged the Government to adopt the legally binding international treaty that guarantees the insular territory as a zone of peace, committing itself to include in said norm that the State will not establish troops, military bases or build fortifications of any kind in the area or on the basis of any European or international alliance.
“In short, that our land is not used as a platform for attacking anyone, since a greater militarization of the borders is never an option, and even less so using the excuse of the war in Ukraine and the change in position of President Pedro Sánchez regarding to the Sahara,” said Manuel Marrero.
At this moment in which a process of negotiations is opening between the Spanish State and Morocco on the possible establishment of the median, from Sí Podemos they demand the presence of the Government of the Canary Islands in that negotiation process, which “must be produced from the respect without accepting blackmail and defending International Law with respect to the Saharawi people”.
Manuel Marrero has insisted that they do not believe that the deployment of NATO in Africa will imply greater security for the Archipelago and they are committed to a new system based on the concepts of human security, reduction of violence and the non-use of force as means of conflict resolution between countries.
“To achieve peace, we must work for it through diplomacy, dialogue and consensus,” he concluded.
