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Appeal received from the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (SKOJ).
Appeal to progressive forces worldwide: let’s stop the big capital puppet regime exterminate communism in Serbia!
With capitalism on the brink of global collapse and with people in Serbia rising their voice against the capitalist system, the Serbia’s puppet regime with its dirty campaign of lies and deceit is poised to seize the offices the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ) uses since 1991 and regularly pays for.
As the owner of the building in Nemanina 34 where on the third floor NKPJ has its offices, the bourgeois government, with the help of the media, such as the daily newspaper Press controled by the pro-imperialistic Democratic Party, wants the communists thrown out on the streets. They are not offering us any relocation to some new premisis.
The reason for removing the NKPJ out of the premises where they are legal residents for the last 18 years is the desire of the regime to destroy the leading factor of the national workers movement. The capitalists know very well that the NKPJ is integral part of the struggle against the pro-imperialistic and neo-globalistic policy.
Let it be known that the League of Yugoslavia Communist Youth (SKOJ) shall fight back! As on the October 5th 2000 counter-revolutionary coup, we shall be defending with our bare hands our rooms from all enemies, whatsoever!
SKOJ shall keep you informed about this new attack against our party.
We invite all progressive organizations and people in Serbia to support our struggle and help NKPJ !
Bourgeois hands off of the NKPJ!
Please send protest by email on predsednikvladesrbije@srbija.sr.gov.yu or fax 00381113617471
Secretariat of the SKOJ
Belgrade, December 30, 2008.
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Via the KOE.
Athens, 29 January 2009
An Appeal for Solidarity
Dear Friends and Comrades,
We urge you to read the following information and to express your solidarity:
Konstantina Kouneva, today 44 years old, is a Bulgarian immigrant living and working in Greece in order to support her family. She worked for many years as a janitor-employee of the private firm “OIKOMET”, which rents its employees in public sector’s enterprises. This firm is owned by Mr. Ikonomakis, old cadre of the social-democratic opposition party PASOK, and its legal councillor is Mr. Tzanis, former vice-minister of Interior Affairs (when PASOK was in power). The last years, Konstantina was cleaning the installations of the “Athens Piraeus Electric Railways (ISAP)”. The sector of janitors is one of the most exploited, as many employees are immigrants and subject of blackmailing by their bosses, while the state services and the trade-union bureaucrats do nothing in order to apply even the most basic and insufficient labour legislation.
Konstantina is an immigrant; a woman; a janitor. But she is much more than that: she is also a conscious unionized worker, and she became one of the most active leaders of the All-Attica Union of Janitors. This Union is one of the most combative, despite the fact that the trade-union bureaucrats (most of them belonging to PASOK and to the actual government right-wing party) do nothing to assist them in their hard struggle for the respect of the most elementary rights of their members and of the janitors as a whole. Konstantina soon became the soul of the Union: she was always in the first line of the struggle, unionizing her colleagues and demanding the respect of the labour legislation, despite the increasing threats and discrimination against her.
Konstantina is an example to us all. She is a model unionist, a personification of workers’ dignity and of belief in the rights of the working class. Konstantina is “stubborn”: she did not yield to the bosses’ threats. She was characterized as “the epitome of cheekiness” by her employee: “How can SHE, an IMMIGRANT single mother, a JANITOR, dare to challenge the system?” The initial blackmail and the transfer to night shift (so she could not take proper care of her child) did not intimidate her. She kept on fighting. So, anonymous death threats followed. She still did not yield. Until…
On midnight of 22 December 2008, while she returned from work to her home in a poor neighborhood of Athens, Konstantina Kouneva became the victim of murderous attempt. The goons of the bosses immobilized her and threw vitriol on her face. Then, they opened her mouth and threw the acid down her throat. Since that night, Konstantina fights for her life in the Intensive Care Unit in Athens. She has lost one eye and her face is burned; but the worst is that her digestive system does not exist anymore, burned by the acid. The doctors are struggling to save her life and her condition remains very critical. Her mother and her son Emmanuel (who suffers from cardiac decompensation) survive and take courage thanks to the active solidarity of hundreds of workers.
The “justice” and the police did nothing until today in order to find the perpetrators of this murderous attack against this valiant and genuine representative of the workers. The bourgeois Media did not find time and space to report her case. But her colleagues, all the honest workers, and the Radical Left organizations, did not let this crime to be covered by the guilty alliance of government, bosses, Media and “justice”. Today, despite the imposed silence of the mainstream Media, the whole Greece knows the case of Konstantina Kouneva. Many mobilizations of solidarity with Konstantina and with the militant trade-union movement took place since 22 December, including attacks against the ISAP installations and marches with the participation of thousands of people. The militant spirit of December’s Revolt gives life to this extraordinary flow of solidarity.
The Communist Organization of Greece is active part of this movement of solidarity, which moves under the slogan “Konstantina you are not alone”. We address an appeal to all the progressive forces to express their solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva, with the All-Attica Union of Janitors, with all those most exploited and “anonymous” militant workers who save the honor of the trade-union movement and continue its best militant traditions, bravely facing the attacks of the bosses and the hostility of the state and of the “official” trade-union leaderships.
The Union of the Working People, which is active in the movement of solidarity with Konstantina, would welcome your support and the support of trade-unions from your country. Please send solidarity messages to the Union of the Working People, which will transfer it to Konstantina and to her Union: enosiergazomenon@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (please send a copy to our email too). Also, consider the possibility to address the trade-unions and other workers’ organizations in your country and ask them to contribute financially in the fund-raising organized by the Union of the Working People for Konstantina. The details of the bank account opened by the Union of Working People for Konstantina are the following:
Bank Account Number (IBAN): GR3401106640000066474762649
Bank International Code – BIC: ETHNGRAA
Bank Branch: National Bank of Greece, Branch 664
Branch Address: Spyrou Patsi 2, GR-10441 Athens, Greece
Branch Phone Nr: +30-210-5224016
Account Holder: Papageorgiou Marriana (Union of the Working People representative)
In case you participate in the fund-raising, please inform the Union of the Working People and/or KOE.
We thank you in advance for any action you may undertake in order to express your solidarity and to condemn the murderous crime against the militant worker and unionist Konstantina Kouneva, who is always fighting for her life and for the rights of the most oppressed and exploited workers!
In solidarity,
Communist Organization of Greece (KOE), International Relations Department
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Via The Guardian
Under the banner of the EU, and without parliament’s consent, the Home Office is taking data from children entering the UK.
Two months ago, the UK Borders Agency began fingerprinting foreign
children over six years old, from outside the European Economic Area and resident in Britain. At the time Jacqui Smith was congratulated for her tough line on issuing identity cards to foreign residents and no one, not even parliament, noticed that the biometric requirements applied to children of six. And parliament didn’t know because it was never asked to approve the policy.
Nowhere in the world are you more powerless than at a border. As a foreigner you also enjoy far fewer rights than locals. Do you think these children or their parents dare to speak up against the bureaucracy of the UK Borders Agency? In fact, no one has called the Borders Agency to account. Home Office officials I have talked to outside the agency were shocked that official government policy is now to fingerprint children.
When asked why (question 226407), the Home Office itself offers a much more solid defence: that the EU requires it. What it does not admit is that the British government is almost alone in pushing the EU to ensure that the age when fingerprinting can start is so low. Home Office officials pushed the EU to establish a standard age of six, despite opposition within other European governments. The next time you hear a government official support the EU, it is not just because it is a vehicle for “peace, prosperity and freedom”, but also because it is a vehicle to push through policies that the UK government would prefer not to pursue through the legislature at home.
The Bush administration rejected the contemplation of fingerprinting children, even within the controversial US-VISIT program that fingerprints visitors to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security is prohibited from fingerprinting children under 14, though it may well consider lowering it.
The Bush administration and the UK government have both pushed bad
policies through international bodies over the last eight years. The UN was compelled by the UK and the US to adopt shared standards to monitor foreigners and travellers around the world. In turn, when the government wanted to justify ID cards, it pointed to the international obligations to adopt biometric passports. When it collects information about British citizens’ travel habits, it will use “international standards” as a justification.
The bitter irony is that when the Bush administration tried to do exactly what these international standards propose – through collecting all travel information and other data about individuals to develop a risk score that they cannot correct – there was international condemnation. When the UK government wants to push exactly the same measures, and in fact collect even more data than the US, there is absolute silence because everyone in Britain thinks the UK government is just following international obligations.
Even if the Obama administration reverses course on treating entire populations as suspected criminals, the UK government will continue to hawk bad surveillance policy. Yet some of its most invasive practices and plans will never be reviewed by parliament. Just as Britons are powerless at the border of another country, they are also powerless within their own country.
Paradoxically, the European parliament pushed back against the European governments’ attempts to lower the fingerprinting age of citizens for their passports to six years old. Instead, the European parliament gained a “victory” recently by getting the standard raised to 12. So now the EU is requiring that teenagers across the EU be fingerprinted for their passports. Indeed, the UK government will now probably argue that it has to follow suit. The government has promised, however, that ID cards (which are based on passports, which are in turn based on EU “obligations”) would only be issued to people aged 16 or over. Will that pledge hold? Or will the fact that foreign residents in Britain have been forced to accept it and international standards, of course, be used as an excuse to issue children with compulsory ID?
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Support the uprising of workers and young people in Greece
At the time of writing, the mass-scale political unrest in Greece shows little sign of slowing down. This series of demonstrations, occupations and strikes erupted when, on 6 December, a 15-year-old student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was murdered in the streets of central Athens by police guards. Although the police have implied that Alexandros was engaged in “deviant behaviour” (not that this would warrant being shot through the heart), all eyewitness reports stated that the police officers involved were not attacked by Alex and his friends and were not in physical danger at any time. The shooting represents an increasingly authoritarian and repressive approach being taken by the Greek state, in particular towards young people.
Within a few minutes of Alex being pronounced dead, young people, students and workers came out onto the streets of Athens in protest. Huge demonstrations took place, spreading quickly from Athens to many other cities, including Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Komotini, Kastoria, Petras, Tripoli and more. Over the following days, thousands of high school students marched against local police stations, students occupied university campuses, pupils occupied schools and workers went on strike. At the time of writing, dozens of universities are still being held under occupation by students and professors, including the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the National Technical University of Athens and the Athens University of Economics and Business. The teachers’ unions estimate that around 600 schools are under occupation by pupils. Some actions have been particularly daring: according to Kathimerini (an English-language newspaper in Greece), a “group of around 30 protesters forced their way into the headquarters of state broadcaster ERT and interrupted a news broadcast featuring Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. For about a minute, the protesters stood in front of the camera holding banners reading ‘Stop watching, get out into the streets’”.
A one-day general strike on 10 December, called before the shooting of Alexandros in response to the government’s handling of the economic crisis, gained momentum and brought the country’s economy to a standstill.
Solidarity actions have taken place in dozens of countries around the world, particularly in Europe. In Austria, thousands of demonstrators protested outside the Greek Embassy in Vienna; in France, some 3,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Greek Embassy in Paris; there were demonstrations in over 20 German cities; and hundreds protested in Dublin, Istanbul, Seville, Madrid, London, Copenhagen and many other cities in solidarity with the workers, students, youth and unemployed people of Greece. Clearly, the bourgeoisie worldwide is shaking in its shoes as a result of the uprising in Greece and its international significance. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned there was a risk of social unrest spreading unless the global financial sector shared wealth more evenly (See ‘Greek police teargas youths in 2nd week of protests’, Reuters, 15 December).
Brutal response of the Greek state
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis quickly vowed to put an end to the work of “the extremist elements who exploited the tragedy”. (‘New protests planned after looters rampage in Athens’, AFP, 8 December), and indeed police forces were deployed in huge numbers against every demonstration and occupation.
According to the Telegraph of 12 December, Greek police had in the preceding five days released 4,600 canisters of tear gas – so much that they were having to appeal to Israel and Germany to provide fresh supplies. (‘Greece “runs out of tear gas” during violent protests’). It should be noted that tear gas is not as innocuous as it might sound. It is a chemical compound that irritates the cornea and conjunctival membranes, resulting in a severe burning sensation in the eyes, streaming tears, severe skin irritation, irritation of the upper respiratory tract (leading to breathing difficulties) and panic. It can induce temporary blindness, nausea and, in the case of allergic reaction, anaphylaxis and death.
Arrested demonstrators have been tortured, and people around the world have been shocked to see the images of Greek police beating peaceful demonstrators. Even Amnesty International, hardly an agency of proletarian insurrection, have issued a statement saying that its members have witnessed “officers involved in policing the riots engaged in punitive violence against peaceful demonstrators, rather than targeting those who were inciting violence and destroying property … In this context, [Amnesty] is concerned about the ill-treatment of two of its members, who were beaten with batons by the police.” (‘Greek police use punitive violence against peaceful demonstrators’).
In an effort to justify the extraordinary brutality employed by the state forces, the government has been painting the protesters as “a small group of hardcore anarchists”; however, even the international imperialist press admits that the number of protesters runs into the hundreds of thousands. The government and the right-wing media have been trying to scare the Greek population with stories about ‘hooded youths’, condemning protesters for coming to demonstrations with masks. In our humble opinion, if state forces are likely to use tear gas, it is a sensible protester that wears a mask as this offers some protection from the state’s chemical assault.
It is almost certainly the case that there are agents-provocateurs involved at some level on the fringes of the Greek uprising, just as agents-provocateurs are involved at some level on the fringes of every important mass movement. However, it is crucial that we do not join with the bourgeois press in overstating the importance of such groups and individuals; they must not distract from the struggle that is taking place, and the state must not be allowed to use them as an excuse for its brutality. Take the example of Iraq: there are agents-provocateurs in Iraq who try to divide Iraqis by planting bombs in market places and the like. The imperialist press tries to paint the actions of these small organisations as reflecting the will of the Iraqi resistance as a whole. They try to accentuate their role and use them as an excuse for the most brutal acts of repression. We are not, and have never been, fooled by these games, and they certainly do not stop us from calling for victory to the Iraqi resistance. Similarly, such games must not detract from our support for the legitimate popular struggle that is taking shape in Greece.
Alienation of the workers and young people from capitalism and social democracy
The protests in Greece indicate very clearly that the masses of the Greek population are deeply at odds with the Greek state. On the economic front, there is increasing unemployment (especially among young people) and poverty pay. Social welfare is under attack, especially in the areas of education and healthcare. Minimum needs are not being met, but the government is set to inject 28 billion euros to ‘save’ the banking system.
Concurrent with the reduction in living standards has been a visible increase in political repression by the state. This year, dozens of demonstrators have been arrested and tortured by police, and Greek police are becoming notorious for their use of torture and excessive use of force, particularly towards workers and young people.
The workers and youth have stopped believing in the benevolence of the state, and are starting to understand – albeit at a relatively primitive level – that capitalism is the cause of their problems.
At the same time, there is growing alienation of the Greek masses from social democracy. It is telling that one of the buildings occupied in recent weeks was the central office of the country’s main labour union, the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE). This would appear to indicate a certain antipathy between the disaffected Greek workers and the trade union bureaucracy, whose role in recent decades has been to consistently undermine workers’ struggle and to support the perpetuation of capitalism (not unlike the main elements of the trade union bureaucracy in Britain).
Workers in Britain and elsewhere must support the uprising in Greece. Whatever its immediate results, its long-term significance will be the re-awakening of the Greek workers, students and peasants. Huge swathes of the population are increasingly falling outside the sphere of influence both of the state and its agent in the working class movement, namely social democracy.
The developments in Greece are making the capitalists and social democrats in all countries tremble. For too long have the European working masses been passive victims, or active co-conspirators, as the imperialists have ruthlessly grabbed and exploited the world’s land, mineral wealth, markets and labour. The current capitalist crisis of overproduction will not only expose the decadent, parasitic, moribund nature of the capitalist system, but will again reveal the means to effect a cure – not by “enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” but rather, through concerted mass action, “to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them”.
Alexandros Grigoropoulos and all the nameless, faceless victims of imperialism will then not have died in vain.
