The real crises for us is not simply that NATO has ruled that all non-NATO nations are no longer sovereign within their own borders; the crises for us is that NATO had ruled that even those nations which belong to it are no longer sovereign. NATO has ordered Canada to violate its own constitution, and the Prime Minister has felt compelled to obey. NATO has silenced not only the Canadian Parliament, but also the British Parliament and the American Congress. Contrary to the laws of all three nations, their parliaments have not been allowed to debate the aggression against Yugoslavia. More shocking still, all three parliaments have passively accepted this usurpation of their prerogatives and obligations. By this very fact, even the Parliament of Canada has accepted the erosion of the national sovereignty of Canada.

NATO, a clearly aggressive military alliance, has become a supergoverment which usurps the authority and obligations of elected Parliaments, dictates the foreign policy of its constituents states and expects obedience from the heads of government of its members. NATO has arrogated to itself the right to determine which nations are sovereign and which are not, and in so doing, it has deprived the Parliaments of its member states of the authority of legislatures of sovereign nations. NATO is a supergoverment and increasingly, Canada is being governed by foreign powers, and especially by a pannational military-industrial complex which has loyalties neither to any nation nor to the human race.

Our protests, therefore, are not merely about Yugoslavia and the Serbian and Albanian victims of NATO. They are not only protests against war, against armed aggression as a means of attempting to resolve problems. Our protests are for the sovereignty of nations. Since individual rights cannot be defended without the sovereignty of nations, nor can charters of human rights and freedoms or constitutional systems be maintained without the sovereignty of nations, our protests are about very fundamental ideas and concepts of humanity itself.