Around the world, the people of several countries find themselves engaged in fratracidal warfare, killing others in the name of various conflicts, usually created by those in power. Those who have interests to fight do so to gain or to serve an ideology or national hatred stoked in the people. These armed conflicts are distractions meant to draw attention away from real forces of oppression.

In Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Ethopia or Myanmar, despite differing circumstances, the results are the same. Thousands of victims senslessly slaughtered at great social and economic costs; young people forced to pick up guns. While thousands of Russians with the economic means fled the country to avoid this war, the army drafted the poorest from other ethnic groups in Russia and recruited the desperate poor from Nepal. While millions of Americans go without basic health care and cannot afford the basic necessities of life, the tax dollars of the working class goes to fund genocide in Gaza. These are just two very clear examples of how the working people of these countries are being forced to pay for or participate in a war that is not in their interests.

The International Workers' Association is clear that the working class has nothing to gain by these wars or by fake national diversions that divide people for somebody's benefit. It calls on all workers around the world to take a stand against these wars and, where possible, to take anti-war actions.

As our statutes state „... (anarcho-syndicalism) demands the boycott and embargo of all raw materials and products necessary for war...” and „...anarcho-syndicalism advocates the preventive and revolutionary general strike as a means of opposing war and militarism.”

On May Day we defend the rights of working people in various ways, but, on this May Day, let's not forget the rights of working people to live without the threat of war, without fear of conscription, without the funneling of public money into killing.

IWA General Secretary