Even on a remote peninsula
Capitalist leaders can't escape mass protest
By John Catalinotto
Leaders of the capitalist world are having
problems finding a meeting place that isn't beset by angry
demonstrators. Their latest try was the European Union summit
in Greece June 20-22. Even at the far southeastern end of the
European continent, 100,000 people came out to protest.
The summit had first been set for Greece's second-largest
city, Salonika. Fearing popular protest, the Greek government
decided to move it 50 miles east to the seaside resort of Porto
Carras. This town, like the mountain town of Evian in France
where the G-8 countries recently met, was more easily sealed
off, this time with 16,000 Greek troops.
Called together by Action Salonika 2003, some 10,000
demonstrators in 172 buses arrived at the town of Marmara on
the Halkidiki peninsula, the closest town to the summit site.
Police barricaded the road to the summit site at the far end of
Marmara with concrete blocks and a police bus on a small
bridge.
Greek government workers also held a general strike on June
20, the day the sum mit began. Then, on June 21, tens of
thousands of people in three separate marches joined to hold a
rally of 100,000 people in the central square of Salonika.
Though they had come from all over Europe, the large majority
of those present were Greek.
The June 23 Berlin daily Junge Welt reports that the
marchers' central slogan was "Stop NATO, the EU and the USA."
They targeted Washington's wars of aggres sion and the EU's
support for these wars through NATO.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators filed past the heavily
guarded U.S. Consulate in Salonika, they demanded an end to
these aggressive policies. They also demanded that the rich
countries give debt relief to developing nations and impose
controls on transnational corporations.
The two major marches were organized by the Social Forum and
by Action Salonika 2003, a broad movement grouping together
unionists, students, farmers and others, including the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
The EU was discussing a draft constitution in preparation
for its expansion from 15 to 25 countries in 2004. The 10 new
countries include Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and Cyprus. All
except Poland have relatively small populations and eight were
formerly part of the socialist camp led by the USSR.
These countries are economically and politically subservient
to the major EU countries and some--the Czech Republic, Poland
and Hungary, for example, which are NATO members--have already
assigned part of their military to Pentagon-led adventures.
Greek workers anti-war
Though Greece is a long trip for many north Europeans, it
has been a hotbed of anti-war and anti-imperialist activity,
especially since NATO's war on Yugo slavia. Then it was the
only NATO country where a militant, mass anti-war movement
developed. In Salonika itself, Greek anti-war forces were able
to hold actions that delayed military deliveries to NATO forces
poised to invade Yugoslavia.
This movement expanded during the buildup to the war on
Iraq. It involved trade unions, high-school and elementary
school students and had the support of the vast majority of the
population.
In an interview in the Belgian weekly newspaper Solidaire on
June 17, George Havatzas, spokesperson for Action Salon ika
2003, described the political reasons behind the protests.
He said the goal of the EU summit was to "impose new
anti-democratic measures and confirm or even reinforce some
reactionary decisions taken previously. The West European
leaders want to block social rights, launch new attacks against
social security and the income of farmers, diminish national
sovereignty and reinforce the role of the EU at the core of its
member nations."
"The EU is an imperialist structure," Havatzas continued.
"Deep contradictions divide the EU and the United States. But
the great powers have a common objective: to serve the
interests of the transnational capitalist monopolies, to
exploit the workers at both the national and international
level while forcing them to submit. NATO is nothing other than
a military alliance of the imperialist powers, which enters
into action when they deem it necessary.
"The people of the world can only free themselves by
struggling against these imperialist powers and against their
military alliances. That's why Action Salonika 2003 has
participated very actively in demonstrations against the war in
Iraq."
Is the EU 'pacifist'?
Regarding the idea that some of the European governments
were "pacifist" because they opposed the U.S.'s war on Iraq,
Havatzas said the following: "No European government was
fundamentally opposed to the war in Iraq. There were
contradictions among the imperialists and these disagreements
continued regarding how to split the spoils.
"This led to what seemed to be resistance to military
intervention within the so-called Paris-Berlin axis. But this
did not at all stop the governments of these countries from
allowing the use of facilities for those troops leaving to make
war on Iraq."
The European army now under discussion, said Havatzas, "is a
weapon in the hands of the imperialists and the Euro pean
transnationals. It was conceived in order to crush resistance
in the heart of the European Union and to intervene anywhere in
the world to force the peoples to submit."
Statements from EU countries at the summit and during the
weeks before backed Havatzas' analysis. While the EU leaders
called on the United Nations to play a leading role in Iraq,
they pledged to contribute to Iraq's "reconstruction,"
something asked by the U.S. and Britain.
The EU summit also repeated "serious concern" about Iran's
nuclear program. The U.S. accuses Iraq of preparing to make
nuclear weapons and has threatened Iran.
EU countries, with Italy and Spain taking the lead, have
also taken steps to punish socialist Cuba for that besieged
country's actions against U.S. agents in its midst, and have
criticized the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In
addition, France and Germany have sent troops into Africa under
UN cover.
Italian President Romano Prodi announ ced at the summit that
the EU would not finish its expansion until the Balkan
countries were included, referring to the countries of the
former Yugoslavia, with the exception of the already accepted
Slovenia. No dates were set, however, and the EU leaders
advised these countries to clear up their instability and
organized crime.
The same European countries, under Germany's leadership,
encouraged the breakup of the former Yugoslavia by supporting
the secession of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia soon
after. This helped give impetus to a decade of civil wars.
Finally the U.S./NATO bombing and intervention destroyed
Yugoslavia, leaving a handful of unstable and corrupt
mini-states in its place.
The EU countries jumped right in behind U.S. imperialism to
wage that reactionary war against Yugo sla via, just as they
are now looking for a way into Iraq.
Reprinted from the July 3, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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