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Salutations from the Antiwar Anti-imperialist Committee of Karditsa (Central Greece)
at the International Antiimperialist Meeting in Thessaloniki
March 21-22, 2009

On behalf of the ANTIWAR ANTIIMPERIALIST COMMITTEE OF KARDITSA we thank you for the invitation and we salute your meeting today. We believe that every initiative that brings together militants from different countries who struggle against war and imperialism defending peace and friendship among people is an important contribution to this cause.
Comrades and friends
In the summer of 1992, a little after the end of the Gulf War and before the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the ANTIWAR ANTIIMPERIALIST COMMITTEE OF KARDITSA was formed. In these 17 years many things have happened that on the one hand justify and strengthen that decision and on the other put in front of us greater tasks.
We live in the era of the most aggressive imperialism and the most brutal capitalism that humanity has ever known. The same people, who bomb and butcher the peoples of Yugoslavia, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, who draw new borders with the blood of people, who bring annihilation and destruction, who want to enslave and subjugate the peoples under a new barbarity, these are the same who shoot at the workers’ rights, sweep away decades of victories, who bomb people with poverty and misery creating a new social Middle Ages.
The aggressive moves of the Americans for the encirclement of Russia through the NATO expansion eastwards and the installation of the so-called “anti-missile shield”, the strengthening of Russia, the breach inside the Western block, the particular aspirations of the European imperialists (French, Germans, etc), the demand for better roles by intermediate countries, all these comprise a volatile mix in the modern world. A special dimension is the conflict for the control of energy sources and their routes.
An expression of this competition is what have happened and still happens in the Balkans. The declaration of the “independence” of Kosovo is a recent episode in the imperialist interventions in the Balkans. Americans and European imperialists continue the work they have started at the start of the 90’s with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the creation of their first protectorates (Bosnia, FYROM). In the spring of 1999 they shed the blood of the Serbian people through ruthless bombings, they continued with the carving up of Yugoslavia and imposed their domination by creating yet another protectorate, Kosovo. Territorial integrity and state sovereignty are abolished by the imperialist intentions. This “right” is dominant: Redrawing of borders, protectorate states, vassal governments and bourgeois leaderships, new American military bases in the region, new “peacekeeping” forces (occupation armies).
All these happen on a foundation of an unprecedented – at least for many decades - economic crisis that is interrelated with the paroxysm of imperialist contradictions. It is well known that the economic crisis caused by the voracity of capital eventually leads to a generalized imperialist war. In this sense there must be no complacency and no illusions that the needs and the rights of the people will materialize by themselves. Neither these will be given as gift by other imperialists, Russians or Europeans. Neither there must be an illusion that Obama will transform hawks into doves.
Comrades and friends
The peoples are in danger along with people in our own country.
Our country is at the same time member of NATO and the EU. So it clearly bears the consequences and the shocks that run through the western camp. It is located in a region where the antagonisms between the US and Europe are expressed sometimes intensely and sometimes more “elegantly”. Recently appears yet another complication with the more active interference of Russia in the region, which is not only over the energy question but more general, and which does not sit with its hands crossed but takes initiatives.
These interrelations are a great source of dangers if we take into account the accentuated inter-imperialist antagonisms particularly in our region. The bourgeoisie of our country endures serious pressure for greater alignment to the NATO-US plans:
- For greater participation in the criminal imperialist operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
- For more active contribution in the promotion of the imperialist plans in the Balkans, the recognition of Kosovo, the expansion of NATO and the EU
- For the complete alignment on the question of the antimissile shield.
- For the question of gas pipelines and the military weapons orders.
- For the divide of the “pie” of privatizations.
- For the control of Greek capital activities in the Balkans, the Black Sea and the “openings” to Russia.
- For the Greece-Turkey questions, the Aegean and Cyprus.
The use of the Astakos port for the transfer of weapons to Israel, the recent agreement for a new NATO military headquarters in Thessaloniki, the strengthening of the military presence in Afghanistan are signs of this alignment.
It is imperative to put again and in mass terms the demand that our country must stop being a base of operations for the imperialist killers, to oust the cancer of military bases and to overthrow the politics of subjugation and servitude to the people’s killers.
It is in the people’s interests to struggle for friendship and solidarity with other neighbor peoples. Our people must struggle along with other peoples against the imperialist war. Our people must fight against the forces of vassalage, as it has done in the past, and make our country inhospitable to killers.
Only the antiwar demonstrations and mobilizations must not be a “one time” matter. We must not remember Gaza, Ramalah, Baghdad and Belgrade only when they get bombed. There must be continuous struggle with a correct orientation that day by day will embrace more and more people and help them become conscious of their duty for antiwar and anti-imperialist struggle.
This orientation we, of the Antiwar Anti-imperialist Committee of Karditsa, follow all these years. We do it through dozens of activities condemning war, participation in solidarity missions in Yugoslavia at the time of the bombings and in Palestine, meetings and debates, publication of our magazine (Antiwar Bulletin), dozens of antiwar anti-imperialist demonstrations, and so.
We believe that meetings and activities such this one here have the same orientation with ours. In this sense we wish you every success in your efforts and – mainly – we wish you to continue in the same path. The PEOPLES’ FRONT is a necessity of our times and IS THE ONLY ANSWER TO THE IMPERIALISTS’ WAR.

Karditsa 20-3-09