Press Statement of KOE

[Translator’s Note: Yesterday the Cypriot parliament, surrounded by a huge demonstration, rejected, with 36 NO and 19 abstentions, the decision of the Eurogroup - which had been adopted last Friday following Germany’s demands. This unprecedented decision, to “bailout” the banks through a direct “haircut” of the citizens’ bank deposits, had initially been accepted by both the right-wing Cypriot government and the docile Greek tripartite government.]

The Communist Organization of Greece salutes the Cypriot NO and congratulates the Cypriot people, who are facing the catastrophic policy and the cynical threats of the Eurogroup’s and IMF’s loan sharks, for their Dignity. The new Cypriot NO, following the massive rejection of the imperialist “Annan Plan” back in 2004, is a proud response against the plans aiming at Cyprus’ economic devastation and pushing forward the transformation of the Republic of Cyprus into a protectorate.

The martyred Cypriot people, who have shed their blood in order to gain their Independence and are very well aware of what invasion and foreign occupation means, once again stand up and send a message of Resistance, Dignity and Hope to all the European peoples. It is in Cyprus that, for the first time, the blackmailing dilemma “Memorandum or Bankruptcy” is rejected. It is in Cyprus that, for the first time, the supposedly “almighty” Merkelist policy and the supposedly “omnipotent markets” receive a heavy blow.

Press Statement of KOE

1. The Communist Organization of Greece denounces the cynical blackmail of the Germany-dominated EU against the Republic of Cyprus and the Cypriot people. The Merkelists are testing in Cyprus an upgrade of the “tools” they have used so far, with a double aim: a) to fully dismantle the economic status of Cyprus, b) to achieve total political control on this exceptionally important, geopolitically and economically, island.

2. The Communist Organization of Greece denounces the Un-Holly Alliance of European usurers, also known as "Eurogroup", which attempts to strangle the independence of Cyprus using the Memorandum’s noose. Moreover, KOE condemns the slavish and complicit tripartite Greek government of Samaras, who had the impudence to declare that “stands by our Cypriot brothers” while obediently voted in favor of the disastrous decisions of the Eurogroup. As for the newly elect Cypriot president, mister Anastassiadis, there are no words to describe his criminal policy – especially as, just a month ago, he was reassuring the people that he will never accept any haircut on the citizens’ bank deposits, only to follow very fast his friend Samaras, who was the first to make a complete U-turn and submit to Merkel’s dictates.

The Communist Organization of Greece (ΚΟΕ) was founded 10 years ago, in the 1st Congress that took place in January 2003, after a long period of multiform preparation since the ’80s.

During this decade major social and political movements, national and international, but also popular revolts, have taken place all over the world. Huge political, economic and social changes occurred not only in the international matrix but also in our country itself. These changes altered the international balance of power and the political map of our country. The main focus of these changes has been the degree to which the Greek people have become a major factor of political change through a complex process of social struggle and political self-awareness.

All these years KOE’s approach has been to rationalize the political undergoing and the underlying causes that shape the people’s movement, and at the same time to articulate a course of political action that unifies the people’s struggle under a common perspective.

• For our organization, this has been a decade of ideological and social fermentation through participating in all new forms of struggle and the major political mobilizations of our people:
• KOE became active in the Greek and European Social Forum, the anti-globalization movement and a multitude of international meetings.
• At the same time, our organization has forged strong relations with major international movements and parties in an effort, on the one hand to make known their original characteristics in our country, and on the other to advance internationalist solidarity.
• KOE has also taken part in many solidarity missions in Palestine and elsewhere. Its members were on the first ship that defied the Israeli blockade of Gaza in 2008.
• Since 2008 KOE organizes annually the internationalist Resistance Festival, a meeting place for the ideas and the struggles represented by movements, collectives and militants.
• Recently it has strengthened its ties with various movements of the Arab Spring and has worked to enhance its position within the European Left.

Note: This is a “non paper” for the information of our international friends. Despite been all but exhaustive, it aspires to offer an updated view on the actual social conditions in Greece.

The humanitarian crisis in Greece is worsening day by day as a result of the policies decided by the IMF-EU-ECB Troika and implemented by the puppet tripartite government (composed by the right-wing Nea Dimokratia, the “social democratic” PASOK and the so called “Democratic Left”). The official data that have been published last week by the Hellenic Statistical Authority under the auspices of EUROSTAT, despite been “embellished”, are quite revealing:

UNEMPLOYMENT ALMOST TRIPLED SINCE 2009

The unemployment, which was 9,5% in 2009, before the transformation of Greece into a guinea pig by the Troika and its local lackeys, has jumped to 12,5% in 2010, then to 17,7% in 2011, and now (official data for October 2012) amounts to 26,8%. What makes things even worse is that actually, out of the 1.300.000 unemployed, less than 200.000 receive any form of “unemployment benefit” (the term is rather an euphemism: the “benefit” for the few lucky ones ranges from € 180 to € 468 per month, and is paid for a period of 5 to 12 months, depending on the wage, the length of employment, and the number of dependent members of the family).

EXPLOSION OF POVERTY

The percentage of the population living in conditions of poverty, from 12,1% in 2009 passed to 16,3% in 2010, and in 2011 jumped to 22,9%. Considering that in 2011 a series of social services and benefits (which now have been eliminated) still existed, the report of the Statistical Authority expresses “serious concern” for further explosive increase of the poverty in 2012 and 2013.

(On the left, poster for the central public meeting of KOE that took place in Athens on 26 November 2012)

As we are approaching SYRIZA’s Pan-Hellenic Conference, which will take place in Athens from Friday 30 November to Sunday 2 December 2012, hundreds of local and sectorial popular assemblies are taking place these days all over Greece in order to debate and elect their delegates. Since this process started, after the June 17 elections, SYRIZA has almost tripled its membership – despite the hesitation of certain forces within SYRIZA to adopt the orientation towards its necessary transformation into a broad, popular, democratic force of the Left. Below we reproduce large excerpts of the contribution to the pre-Conference debate, submitted by the representatives of KOE in the outgoing Executive Secretariat of SYRIZA.

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[Non translated: “Introduction”]

At a time of great unrest

Greece and, in fact, the whole region of Southeastern Mediterranean find themselves amidst an economic, political and geopolitical storm. The contradictions between the IMF and the EU (but also between the most powerful EU countries) for the management of the crisis in the South European countries, and their implications for the European banking and financial system, are in full motion. The essence of the confrontation is not whether the burden of the crisis will be loaded on the back of the peoples or not. This, to force the peoples into an unforeseen misery and catastrophe, is the only point of agreement among the powerful of the imperialist directorate. The crucial issue of the inter-imperialist contradiction is how they will make one another bear a part of the damage. In this respect, the greater damage of one side can be considered as a profit for the other.

Motivated by the economic antagonisms, politics return to the forefront. It is not simply the “markets” and the banking giants that impose solutions. The political control over the countries, in a background of geopolitical antagonisms and rearrangements, gains special importance in the planning of the enemy camp. Next to the imposition of economic restructuring, next to the experiments (for global use) carried out in order to test a people’s limits of endurance to “therapies” based on the neoliberal shock doctrine, what is also imposed are the neocolonial policies of modern type. By this, we mean the process of completely “handing over the keys” of a country (in our case, Greece) to foreign forces, which obtain the full control of this country’s productive and natural wealth and of its very geopolitical position.

[Unofficial report about the general strike and the popular demonstrations of this week; the official statement of KOE will be translated and published soon here]

The 48 hours general strike on 6 and 7 November 2012 was concluded with mass demonstrations all over Greece. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets and squares of big and smaller cities, chanting slogans against the IMF-EU-ECB troika and the “Memorandum 3”, and demanding the resignation of the tripartite illegitimate government.

In Athens alone, over 100.000 people gathered from 5:00 PM of 7 November in Syntagma Square, surrounding the Parliament for more than five hours, despite the heavy rain and the repetitive attempts of the “anti-riot” police to disperse them using scores of tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons (it is the first time after the fall of the dictatorship, back in 1974, that water cannons are used against a central demonstration in Greece).

During the demonstration, the 71 MPs of SYRIZA temporarily left the Parliament, provoking mass enthusiasm when they appeared outside the building behind a huge banner with the slogan “You are destroying the country! Leave now!” Then they marched as a bloc towards the people, chanting slogans; they crossed the police lines and joined the demonstrators on the Square in a pandemonium of applauses, slogans and acclamations.

Later in the evening, the “anti-riot” police did everything possible to “clean up” the Square before the time of the final vote. In total there were more than 100 arrests and at least 5 injured demonstrators. Inside the Parliament, after a completely anti-constitutional “fast-track process” that lasted for less than 24 hours, the pro-government MPs ratified Memorandum 3 as prescribed in 800 pages (!) without even having the “luxury” to read what exactly they were voting for (among other measures: additional cuts of 13,5 billion Euro in pensions, salaries and social services, plus a complete sell-out of the country’s infrastructure and natural ressources).

It is worth mentioning that the illegitimate government ignored the decisions of the Authorities responsible to declare whether a Law (in this case the Law that ratifies Memorandum 3) conforms or not to the Constitution. Indeed, this week ALL these Authorities (the Supreme Court of Audit, the Supreme Court of Civil and Penal Law and the Scientific Service of the Parliament) have declared a big part of Memorandum 3 as anti-constitutional! Moreover, in order to limit the danger even of partial dissent among the pro-government MPs, the ratification concerned the whole Memorandum 3 “en bloc”, with a Law composed by a unique article.

However, despite these tricks, the pro-government parliamentary bloc further shrinked: an additional score of 6 MPs of PASOK and 1 MP of the right wing “Nea Dimokratia” did not vote in favor of the ratification of Memorandum 3. From the MPs of the third government party (“Democratic Left”), who were under heavy pressure and felt the popular anger targeting them, 15 voted “Present”, and 2 of them voted “NO”. Thus, the initial pro-government majority (179 MPs out of a total of 300, thanks to the “bonus” of 40 seats offered to “Nea Dimokratia” by the antidemocratic electoral law) was reduced to only 153 “YES” during this crucial vote. This is another expression of the deep crisis that shreds apart the pro-troika bloc, and confirms the estimation that this government is trembling.

The leader of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, declared in the Parliament: “We are witnessing the agony of a parliamentarian majority that falls apart. Very soon they will be a minority in the Parliament, as they already are a small minority among the people.” And, addressing the Prime Minister Samaras, he added: “What we heard from you today was the eulogy speech in front of the approaching funeral of a government which, for 4 months now, is doing exactly the opposite from what you promised to the people before the elections, and from what you announced on your programmatic statements when you became Prime Minister.” He concluded his speech saying: “Today, ladies and gentlemen, we live a parody of democracy in this House. But, outside the Parliament, we have thousands of people who, despite the tons of chemicals thrown against them, are once again here in order to defend democracy. We welcome this stand of our People. We are proud of our People’s courage. We know that the fighting spirit of our People has panicked you. But this fighting spirit is at the same time shaking us, and obliges us to remain adamant to the end. Until the Greek People impose their will and save the country!”

INFO from GREECE (read below the statement of KOE)

Today, Tuesday 6 November, starts a new 48 hours general strike and a new round of popular mobilizations against the pro-troika government of Mr. Samaras, PM and leader of the right wing “Nea Dimokratia” party. Two days ago, Alexis Tsipras, addressing the Parliamentary Group of SYRIZA, called the people in a united non-violent revolt in order to overthrow the illegitimate government that sells-out the whole country, serving the interests of the IMF-EU-ECB troika and of the bankers. The three parties that support the actual government (Nea Dimokratia, PASOK and “Democratic Left”) have duped a part of the Greek people in the last elections advancing a program of “renegotiation” with the troika, which they never attempted. Instead, they have accepted without any “renegotiation” even new and more catastrophic measures imposed by the troika in the form of “Memorandum 3”.

The political crisis is deepening, penetrating even the three pro-troika parties, with some of their MPs already abandoning them and declaring that they will not support Memorandum 3. The international dimension of this crisis is revealed also by the contradictions now publicly expressed between the imperialist forces, with the USA and Germany quarreling about the “appropriate solution” for Greece. At the same time, the social catastrophe takes unprecedented dimensions, with the unemployment rate over 25% according to the official statistics (over 55% for the youth) and a quarter of the population trying to survive below the poverty line.

Press release of KOE about today’s general strike

Today hundreds of thousands of people participated massively and vigorously in the general strike and the mobilizations all over Greece, sending a clear message to the internal and external “troikas” that are attempting a final and fatal blow against our society and country.

The massive participation in the demonstrations in many cities shows that a new round of struggles is now opening. We are participating in a new round of action of the broad popular masses, which continue to seek political solutions and a way out of the crisis.

Despite the weaknesses and the hesitation after the last elections, despite the blackmail and the manipulations of the tripartite government, the people once more manifested its presence, reaffirming its role and its will.

As we are facing the ongoing catastrophe of our society and country, a coordinated political struggle to stop the new measures and oblige this government of subordination and sell-out to leave is necessary. These remain the goals and preconditions to completely overthrow this political system.

Today’s mobilizations, as well as the huge demonstrations in Madrid and Lisbon, prove that the peoples have the possibility to mark the events, that they can pave the way towards real change.

Stop the measures that bring misery to the people and destruction to the country!

Let’s overthrow the internal and external “troikas”!