« Digital Tyranny: Unmasking Facebook, Google, Bing, & YouTube Censorship Indoctrination, and Geopolitical PuppetryAI and Human Freedom: The Global Battle for Control Over the Mind and Free Will »

Demand to Close Military Bases Heard Around the World

February 26th, 2025

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War

On February 23 and surrounding days, individuals and organizations around the world took coordinated action in their communities to call for the closure of all military bases as part of the Global Day of Action to Close Bases. Details about plans for the day, participants, motivations, and goals are at DayToCloseBases.org.

A sampling of reports, videos, and photos from a variety of locations has been posted online here.

Over 60 events took place in Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Finland, Germany, Guam, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Malawi, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden, United States, Venezuela, Wales, plus online events from Argentina, Bolivia, and Italy.

Over 70 organizations endorsed the day of action.

Events included a public demonstration in Malawi, petition deliveries to embassies in Cameroon, a march and protest on Jeju Island in South Korea, vigils and demonstrations at bases across Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Germany, the United States, and Canada, and much more, including actions on five continents and Pacific islands. There were protests of U.S. bases in Sweden and of Russian bases in Belarus.

"The combined efforts of so many thousands of people today should alert us to the physically massive yet remarkably hidden problem of military bases," said David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War, one of the organizations involved in planning the day.

"The impact of military bases on their surroundings are significantly underplayed and wide-ranging, from environmental and noise pollution, to creating an economic vacuum, to generating a hostile dynamic with local communities," added Sean Conner, Executive Director of International Peace Bureau, another organization that planned the day of actions. "The proliferation of military bases and facilities has not made communities or nations safer, instead contributing to the growing military-industrial complex and straining relations between nations and peoples."

The coalition of groups that created this day of action listed five reasons to demand the closure of bases:

  1. Bases often perpetuate colonialism, removing Indigenous people from their lands. From Panama to Guam to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations across the world, militaries have taken valuable land from local populations, often pushing out Indigenous people in the process, without their consent and without reparations. For example, the entire population of the Chagos Islands was forcibly removed from the island of Diego Garcia by the UK so that it could be leased to the U.S. for an airbase.

  2. Bases cost an exorbitant amount of $$. The cost of U.S. foreign military bases alone is estimated at $80 billion a year, money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, renewable energy, and so much more.

  3. Bases exacerbate environmental damage and the climate crisis. Military emissions are exempted from climate agreements, like the Kyoto Protocol. The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment for endangered species in Henoko, Okinawa. Furthermore, it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever chemicals” (PFAS/PFOS) into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities.

  4. Bases can have violent and harmful impacts on local communities. Militaries have a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls in nearby communities. Yet troops stationed at foreign bases are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the so-called “host” country. Bases can also bring a rise in property taxes and inflation in areas surrounding them which has been known to push locals out.

  5. Bases heighten tensions and provoke war-making. The presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, massive arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe facilitates war-making and promotes an arms race. Additionally, bases make locations into targets for attack. And foreign bases implicate countries in the crimes of foreign militaries.

Core mobilization organizers of this day of action were:

International Peace Bureau

No to War – No to NATO Network

Pace e Bene

RootsAction

Veterans For Peace

War Industry Resisters Network

War Resisters’ International

World BEYOND War

For more information on the Global Day of Action to #CloseBases, see https://daytoclosebases.org

-###-

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include his latest: NATO What You Need to Know with Medea Benjamin. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org. He hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and U.S. Peace Prize recipient. Longer bio and photos and videos here. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook, and sign up for: Activist alerts or Articles.

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • By Fred Gransville Where the Rich Raped, the Justice System Genuflected The Girls Were Not Collateral Damage. They Were Targets. They were people’s daughters, sisters, granddaughters. Before the girls were trafficked to an island, misused and scrap…
  • By World BEYOND War A new report by the global peace group World BEYOND War finds that military bases used by foreign militaries are growing in number, as are public protests and advocacy against those bases. Of 1,247 foreign military bases in the…
  • By Sally Dugman I like the citizen arrest process, although never tried it out. It means that you go up to a wrongdoer and cart him or her off to jail if you don’t fear that your head will be blown off with a gun by the perpetrator in the process … Who…
  • By World BEYOND War The global peace organization World BEYOND War has announced the awardees for its fifth annual War Abolisher Awards: Ralph Nader, Roger Waters, and Francesca Albanese. The awardees will accept their awards in an online event on July…
  • By Mark Powell They bomb children, rob the treasury, cover up Epstein's client list, and term it democracy—what they're running is a pathocracy, and it's happening today. American Pathocracy/Kleptocracy history and current news, untainted by Google,…
  • By Mark Aurelius “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… “ It’s that time again, actually way past due, as the lists of grievances are even fatter…
  • Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic The 2018 Skripal Attack Case The current orchestrated Western policy of total Russophobia, directed by Collective West, can be recorded to start by the British Cabinet of Theresa May – the focal servant-dog to US global…
  • By Sally Dugman This proactive Palestinian Pulverizers of humans, D. Trump who is indirectly responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Palestinian people of all ages, has no standing to say something like this utterly stupid statement about Putin:…
  • Tracy Turner When the Republic Betrays, the Body Must Answer Protest is not a right—it is a judgment passed upon power. A corrupt state standing above law and beyond justice forfeits its legitimacy, and we, the people, are compelled to answer—not with…
  • Tracy Turner The Reclamation of the Republic When, in the Course of human events, it shall become absolutely necessary for the People to dissolve the political ties which have united them to a government that has betrayed its trust to obtain their…
Censorship is not safety. It is authoritarianism in disguise. Bing is not just a search engine—it is an information gatekeeper. Click the red button to email MSN and Bing.com executives. This message challenges their censorship of ThePeoplesVoice.org and demands transparency, algorithmic fairness, and an end to suppression of free expression.
July 2025
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

  XML Feeds

Secure CMS
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi