3rd Statement of the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE)
We, the Anti-imperialist Camp, welcome the wonderful revolt of the Greek youth and express our utmost solidarity. It comes at the right time as a harbinger of a generalised popular revolt against the global capitalist oligarchy bearing the responsibility for the upcoming devastating social crisis. It brings back life to Europe.
We fully support the attempts of the antagonist forces to gather the popular masses for an onslaught on the government in order to topple it. Tomorrow’s general strike is a further step in this direction.
The big challenge will be to hinder PASOK to reap the fruits of the struggle just to save the system as they did so many times before. At the same time we call upon the Greek Communist Party not to stay aside and watch but to throw all its power into the struggle. Otherwise the struggling masses will remember the shameful episode of 1989, when the KKE entered a government with Nea Demokratia, the party of the capitalist elites which is being fought today.
Anti-imperialist Camp
December 9, 2008
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We call upon the progressive and revolutionary forces all over the world:
Express your active solidarity with the revolted youth and the people of Greece!
Spread the news of the protest everywhere; oppose the lies of the bourgeoisie!
Condemn the criminal, murderous, neoliberal government of K. Karamanlis!
Long live the internationalist solidarity!
The state terror cannot stop the fully justified and generalized protest
(a) Monday 8 December
Yesterday was a day of protests all over the country. The secondary education pupils gathered in their schools and then headed to the centre of the cities in their dozens of thousands. They demonstrated their anger in front of the Athens Police General Headquarters. They threw eggs and stones to the Special Forces in front of the Parliament. They reversed police cars in Pireaus. They attacked police stations all over Greece. The whole day the youth and the masses made clear their anger against the government of murderers. The government answered by unleashing a huge wave of state terror. Dozens of people were arrested and wounded by the Special Forces. In many cases the cops kept beating and torturing barbarously 14 and 15 year old boys and girls after arresting them. But this only increased the masses’ wrath.
Yesterday afternoon in Athens took place one of the bigger and most combative demonstrations of the last years, called by the Left parties and organizations: 40.000 people got to the streets. Younger and older, students and working people marched in the centre of the city for hours, shouting slogans against the murderers’ government. The demonstrators bravely resisted the repeated attacks of the Special Forces, which unleashed tons of chemicals, gas bombs etc. against the people in a (failed) attempt to break the march. For the second consecutive day the repressive forces attacked directly the massive block of the Communist Organization of Greece, throwing chemicals right in the middle of it; but they failed to break the block, which regrouped rapidly and continued the march.
More and more people are coming in the demonstrations prepared to face the repression, “armed” with masks and liquids that limit the chemicals’ effects. Similar was the situation (massive participation, combative spirit, huge repression) in the other demonstrations all over Greece. The government and the mainstream Media are vainly trying to focus on the “destruction of public and private property” and divert the attention from the murder and the popular will to bring down this government.
(b) Tuesday 9 December
Today is the day of the funeral of the murdered boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos. It will take place this afternoon. Before that, in midday, will start in the centre of Athens the new demonstration called by the secondary education pupils and the teachers. The protests and marches continue all over the country. In the neighborhoods we are in the streets, calling the people to participate actively in the General Strike that will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 10 December.
The Communist Organization of Greece and the Coalition of Radical Left condemned the sold-out “leaders” of the trade-unions, who decided to change the place of tomorrow’s central meeting in order not to make a demonstration. This attempt to break the unity and the combativity of the movement, undertaken by the “liberal” and “socialist” central leaderships, will fail. We are calling upon the youth and the working people to gather in the initially fixed place and to march towards the Parliament. The sold-out bureaucrats will not be able to gather even themselves.
(c) The character of the protest, our orientation
The people are for the fourth consecutive day in the streets. They are punishing this criminal government, the government of the bankers, of the big business, of the reactionary church, of the corruption and of the state terror. The youth are punishing this criminal government that kills their future and privatizes the education. The working masses are punishing this government that generates poverty and unemployment, sells-out the national richness and provocatively offers billions to the bankers and the big business.
The Communist Organization of Greece says: It is not enough that the Left participates in the protest. The Left must lead the people! Now it is not time for hesitation and “institutional” politics. We must transform the generalized anger and the combative spirit into a popular revolt. It is time that the popular outcry “Down with this government of thieves and murderers” becomes a sea that will drown the criminal government of K. Karamanlis.
For this reason, each and every member and sympathizer of KOE all over Greece goes over the top in order to bring even broader masses to the streets and to punish the government. We are organizing and supporting the strike in schools, in universities, in working places, in neighborhoods. We unite our action in order to chase away the government of the rich and of the murderers. We work to transform the General Strike into a Popular Condemnation of the murder, of the poverty and of the corruption.
Everyone to the streets! Everyone to the struggle! We shall prevail!
Athens, 9 December 2008
Communist Organization of Greece (KOE)
PS: We are obliged to condemn the shameful position of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which takes “equal distances” between the government and the “rioters” and dares to accuse the Coalition of Radical Left and the Communist Organization of Greece that we “cover the provocateurs”. They should be ashamed by the fact that Ms. Petralia, Employment Minister of the criminal government of K. Karamanlis, yesterday evening congratulated them for their “responsible” attitude… One more time, the “big revolutionary words” go hand-in-hand with the “realistic responsibility” and, again, they tend their helpful hand to the government of K. Karamanlis.
Communist Organization of Greece / Kommounistiki Organosi Elladas (KOE)
International Relations Department
Email: laokratia@yahoo.com * aristera@tellas.com
Web: www.koel.gr * In English: international.koel.gr
