Greek protests stop Clinton
'War criminal stay away!'
By John Catalinotto
President Bill Clinton boasts that the U.S.-NATO bombing
assault on Yugoslavia, while killing thousands of Yugoslavs,
suffered no losses. Now the Greek anti-war movement is making
Clinton himself the first U.S. casualty, as they force him to
postpone a trip to Athens. The U.S. president is discovering
his war crimes won't go unpunished.
A series of anti-U.S. protests in Greece, most directed at
Washington's Balkan policy, has forced the White House to
shorten his visit, which was originally planned to start Nov.
13 and last three days. Now the White House has announced
Clinton will stop by on Nov. 19 for less than 24 hours. U.S.
officials hope this will give the Greek authorities time to
control and suppress any anti-Clinton demonstrations.
Washington made this announcement after the Greek government
of Premier Costas Simitis said it would not block protesters
from assembling outside the U.S. Embassy or the nearby concert
hall where Clinton was scheduled to make an address Nov.
13.
On Nov. 7 anti-imperialists pumped six pistol rounds at the
building housing the Greek-American Union cultural center. A
bomb also damaged the Athens office of the U.S. clothing firm
Levi Strauss. No one was injured.
The latest round of mass protests began Nov. 8 with a
people's trial of Clinton for crimes against humanity at
Athens' central Syndagma Square. It was followed by a march to
the U.S. Embassy by some 2,000 people, according to Reuter.
Particularly riling to the Greek people was Washington's
intention to send Clinton just before the Nov. 17 anniversary
of a 1973 student uprising that was crushed by the
U.S.-supported military junta then in power.
A popular movement to try Clinton and other NATO political
and military leaders for war crimes has already held hearings
in the United States, Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Germany and
Italy. More are expected in other European imperialist
countries that either belong to NATO or collaborate with
it.
The International Action Center told Workers World it was
sending a representative to Athens in solidarity with the Greek
organizations protesting Clinton. The IAC is the U.S. anti-war
group whose founder--former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark--brought 19 charges of war crimes, crimes against
humanity and crimes against peace against Clinton and other
NATO leaders at a hearing in New York last July 31.
It's not only in Greece where people have taken to the
streets to protest the U.S. campaign to destroy Yugoslavia. In
Oslo, Norway, protesters in early November battled police
outside the U.S. Embassy on the same issue.
And in Vienna on Nov. 6, members of the Yugoslav-Austrian
Solidarity Movement protested outside a forum that featured
presentations by Hashim Thaci, a leader of the U.S.- and
German-backed "Kosovo Liberation Army," and the former Austrian
ambassador to Yugoslavia, Wolfgang Petrisch. Petrisch had
delivered to Belgrade the Rambouillet ultimatum, which NATO
used as the basis for launching the bombing on March 24.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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