On the 3rd of this month, Hope Bird, a musical troupe that sings about the reunification of Korea, performed an anti-war performance in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Brussels has great symbolism as it is home to NATO headquarters.
The emcee introduced the event, “Today, the possibility of expansion of war in Eastern Europe and the possibility of opening a war in East Asia are both increasing.”, “The root cause of all wars is imperialism. In this critical current situation, the World Anti-Imperialism Platform, together with South Korea’s representative anti-imperialist and anti-US cultural activities, a music troupe, will tour Europe for a month, starting from Belgrade, where the NATO bombed in 1999, and including Austria, Belgium, Germany, the UK and France.”
Hope Bird performed “Song of May”, “Turn the earth and the sky over”, “Do you hear the people sing?”, “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido”, “Listen Yankee”, “Bella Ciao”, “Hope Bird” and “Trail”. It was very enthusiastic atmosphere.
At the subsequent demonstration, Youth member of the Communist Party of Belgium(PCB-CPB) spoke about the evils of Europe, the United States and the West, saying “Europe, the United States and all their allies have been the greatest evil in the world, and today this still rings true. This evil mainly manifests itself today in the NATO.”
“This evil is clear for all those in destroyed countries: Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on”, he added.
He emphasized the spirit of internationalism and brotherhood among all peoples and called for “Let us not cause another genocidal war, as we have done so many times before.”
The Political Secretary of the Communist Party of Belgium welcomed the World Anti-Imperialist Platform and the HopeBird, saying that “Belgium, where we are pleased to welcome you with open arms, is a small and important country which has the misfortune of hosting the headquarters of NATO, the main international military organization set up by US imperialism, whose main mission is to ensure world domination of a political and economic system that claims to be unique.”
“NATO is harmful, it only brings war, destruction, desolation, considerable expenditure that is to the detriment of humanity’ s development needs, particularly social needs”, he added.
He ended with the chant, “Long live peace and solidarity between peoples, long live Youth, long live Socialism!”
The speaker from the World Anti-Imperialist Platform pointed out that “The meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Brussels, on the 75th anniversary of NATO’s foundation, is no other than a meeting for plotting a war. It is a war alliance of imperialist aggressive forces, led by US imperialism.” and that “Its aggressive nature was fully revealed by the war in Ukraine.”
“As we know, the imperialist aggressors are trying to escalate the war in Ukraine into the war in Eastern Europe along with the outbreak of war in East Asia in 2024 in order to accelerate World War 3, which began with the war in Ukraine in 2022 and intensified with the wars in Palestine and the Middle East in 2023.” she continued.
“Above all, the US imperialist aggressors are manipulating the Asian-version of NATO and planning a war in East Asia, just as they did in Europe with NATO.” she added.
At the end of the speech, she powerfully remarked “The World Anti-imperialist Platform will stand firmly in solidarity with the people of the world who hate imperialism and love peace. As forming and strengthening the global anti-imperialist united front, the Platform will end the US imperialist and NATO, which is the common enemy of the people of the world, and the fascist puppets.”
With singing “The International” together, the performance and the demonstration were ended. Participants chanted “Disband imperialist war machine NATO!” “Stop the imperialist drive to war!” “Withdraw all US foreign bases!” and “The people united surly win!”
The video for the full performance
