Based on the article of David Swanson, World BEYOND War.
An international group of military, lead and composed mainly by the U.S. army had threatened to use the mountains of Sinjajevina as a training ground between May 22nd and June 2nd, together with other troops under the banner of NATO. Instead, the troops went to other locations in Montenegro but never to the mountains of Sinjajevina.
Milan Sekulovic, President of the Save Sinjajevina Civic Initiative credited local and international pressure — including from the International Land Coalition and the Land Rights Now— for this latest success in the ongoing campaign to protect Sinjajavina from being turned into a military training ground. It also may have helped that Montenegro has parliamentary elections on June 11th, and in “democracies” governments prefer not to do highly unpopular things, breaking past promises, immediately before elections.
People had most recently turned out to oppose military exercises in snowy February, but have been nonviolently preventing the planned destruction of their mountains for years.
World BEYOND War also recently sent messages of solidarity from New York City. They are also working to make sure that americans know what the so-called Maine National Guard is doing in Montenegro.
The place to sign the petition or make a donation is https://worldbeyondwar.org/sinjajevina
Background of the Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina
Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina (Građanska inicijativa Sačuvajmo Sinjajevinu in Serbian) is a popular movement in Montenegro that has prevented the implementation of a planned NATO military training ground, blocking military expansion while protecting a natural environment, a culture, and a millenary sustainable way of life. Save Sinjajevina remains vigilant to the danger of ongoing efforts to impose a base on their treasured pasturelands.
Opposing military bases is very difficult, but absolutely crucial to abolishing war. Bases destroy indigenous people’s and local communities’ ways of life and healthier ways to make a living. Stopping the harm done by bases is central to the work of World Beyond War. The Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina is doing the educational and nonviolent activist work that is most needed, and with stunning success and influence. Save Sinjajevina is also making necessary connections between peace, environmental protection, and local community promotion, and between peace and democratic self-governance. If war is ever fully ended, it will be because of work like that being done by the Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina.
sinjajevina.org 