------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 3, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EVEN ON A REMOTE GREEK 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.
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