Hundreds take part in Swiss march against war

Hundreds of people take part in the Easter March against war Keystone-SDA

Several hundred people demonstrated in the Swiss capital of Bern on Monday against war and oppression.

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The Easter March expressed solidarity with the victims of violence around the world and called for a greater commitment to peace.

Around 40 organisations, mainly from left-wing and religious circles, had called for the demonstration. The Bern March takes place every year on Easter Monday from the outskirts of the city to the cathedral square.

Rainbow flags fluttered in the procession and banners called on Switzerland to recognise Palestine, a Keystone-ATS journalist observed on the spot.

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Wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing and violence have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, according to the March’s official appeal. “Many people feel powerless in the face of this violence. We are part of a long chain of people resisting war and violence.”

Not naïve

“We are inundated with information about bombings, massacres, famines. And the most frightening thing about all this is not the violence itself, but the speed with which we have become accustomed to it”, Virginia Köpfli, president of the Frieda women’s peace movement, told the crowd.

Peace work is often presented as naïve. But the naïve are those who believe that more weapons bring peace and that security is guaranteed by separation, she added.

Easter marches have been held in Switzerland since the 1960s. In Bern, the tradition ran out of steam towards the end of the Cold War, but was revived in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq.

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Adapted from French by AI/mga

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