The speech of the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, on important topics about the developments in Greece, the near region and the world
ICP, 22 September 2017
While the political and cultural events of the 43th Festival of the communist Youth of Greece (KNE) and its newspaper ‘Odigitis’ are continuing, on 16th September, the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, gave a speech in Thessaloniki where he touched certain important topics about the developments in Greece, the near region and the world.
Koutsoumpas called on the youth saying that ‘from tomorrow, with the impetus of the successful festival, more workers and young people should come with us on the path for revolutionary change’.He stressed that they are struggling ‘for a society that cultivates initiative, creativity and conscious thinking, which liberates all the potential of the young people... for a society where the working class will have the power’. He especially called on the youth to learn, to ask about, to study the days that shook the world, about the response that the Bolsheviks gave 100 years ago in October 1917.
The GS of the CC of the KKE denounced the SYRIZA-ANEL government for the harsh anti-worker and anti-people measures that is implementing. He called on the workers to join forces with the KKE and with the labour-people’s movement.
In his speech, Koutsoumpas, made detailed reference to the developments in the Balkans, to the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradicitions in the region. He mentioned that the relations of Greece with the neighbouring Balkan countries, and also Greek-Turkish relations and the Cyprus issue are intangled in the competition between not only the strong powers of the global capitalist world but also of other smaller ‘links’ and of the plans of the region’s bourgeois classes.
He emphasized that, ‘The multifaceted disputing of the sovereign rights and borders of Greece by the Turkish bourgeois class, and also by the bourgeois classes of other neighbouring countries, where nationalistic chauvinism is re-emerging, such as for example, in Albania, is taking place at a moment when in our wider region the war in Syria is being conducted, when the ‘cauldron is boiling’, not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Europe, in Europe, in Ukraine, all along NATO’s border with Russia’.
‘This is why the decision of the SYRIZA-ANEL government to renew the U.S.-Greece mutual defense cooperation agreement is not a ‘routine’ act but a move that entangles our country even deeper in the plans of USA and NATO, which seek the reinforcement of the already very significant role of the naval-air-force of Souda, a powerful ‘tool’ in their war plans in the Mediterranean, as well as for a wider scope of operations’ stated the GS.
He also informed that, the maintainance and modernization of the base at Araxos is taking place so that it is ready to receive the transit of nuclear weapons, increasing the danger for the people of the country while the government is concealing all this from the Greek people.
Koutsoumpas also mentioned that, this summer’s NATO military exercises in the Balkans, naval exercises in Bulgaria and military exercises in Romania were very indicative of the inter-imperialist contradictions in the wider region. He strongly denounced the Greek government for making the country a ‘tool’ in the Euro-Atlantic plans against Russia, sometimes by inviting NATO into the Aegean in the framework of the war in Syria and other times as a transit route for NATO forces. While, ‘The bourgeois class of Russia which is seeking to benefit from any fissure inside the opposing NATO alliance, signed an agreement with Turkey to sell it the modern Russian s-400 systems’. D. Koutsoumpas stessed that, ‘such moves only contribute to intensifying the arms race between the bourgeois classes’ and that, ‘the sale of weapons, even when they are considered to be ‘purely defensive’ reinforce and strengthen the aggressiveness of the Turkish bourgeois class at the expense of Greece and other countries, like Syria, whose borders Turkey is disputing’.
He reiterated that, ‘NATO cannot safeguard a resolution for issues amongst the Balkan coutries, as it has not ensured a solution between Greece and Turkey for 65 years or in the relations between Greece’. About the relations between Greece-FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) Koutsoumpas stated that, ‘the rekindling in the recent period of discussions about the issue of the ‘name’, the involvement of various mediators in order to resolve this issue is also integrated in the framework of further assimilation of the neighbouring coutry in the Euro-Atlantic imperialism’ and reminded the biggest base of USA in the world, Camp Bondsteel, which is located on the borders with Kosovo.
Finally, on the ‘alleged’ solution to the Cyprus issue, GS Koutsoumpas stressed that the KKE consistently expresses its solidarity with the Cypriot people against the Turkish invasion-occupation and every kind of dichotomous ‘solution’.