CICOPA Congress statement on peace in Northern Syria

Kigali, 13 October 2019

CICOPA, the International organisation of Cooperatives in Industry and Services, meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, on 13 October 2019 for its Congress sends our warmest greetings to the cooperative movement in Syria.

We honour the unbroken commitment of the cooperative movement to the cause of peace around the world.

We note the extraordinary achievements of the cooperative movement of northern Syria in collectively building a new society based on principles of popular democracy, ecology, women’s liberation and solidarity, where cooperation plays an important part in rebuilding civil society during the past years of armed conflict and displacement, meeting the needs of the people without discrimination on the basis of nationality or religion.

We are shocked and saddened by the latest upsurge of violence threatening the towns and villages of northern Syria that are the cradle of some of most inspiring experiments in civic and economic democracy in our time.

We call on cooperatives, cooperative associations and people of goodwill around the world to respond to our call for solidarity with our cooperative sisters and brothers, with the people of Syria, and those suffering in conditions of conflict everywhere; and to use their best endeavours to work for a lasting peace based on the values of mutual aid, equality and economic democracy.