The 4-day activities of the Anti-imperialist Anticapitalist Meeting at the Panteion University of Athens were successfully completed between 4 and 7 of May 2006. In this international meeting participated mass organizations, trade unions, unions of migrants, women and farmers, left and communist movements and parties, antiwar and anti-imperialist committees and solidarity organizations from Greece, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, Turkey, Cyprus, Jordan, Philippines, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Nigeria, Russia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, India, Brazil, etc. From Greece participated organizations from the mainland and the islands, Albanian migrants and political refugees from Turkey, Kurdistan, and Afghanistan.
All main panels and workshops (in all 23 discussions) as well as cultural events (theater, shadow theater, music concerts) were held as programmed. On Saturday May 6 there was a mass antiwar- antiimperialist demonstration from the center of Athens to the EU headquarters and the American Embassy, headed by the foreign delegations.
During the Meeting, as well as during the demonstration, the presence of the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) was active. A message from the chairman of ILPS Jose Maria Sisson was read, while Arman Riazi, secretary of ILPS, saluted the antiwar – anti-imperialist event. The presence of the Turkish section of ILPS was particularily active.
In the International Meeting special tribute was given to the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people against the US occupation army and its allies, during the respective main panel discussion. Militants from various political trends of the Resistance participated. The recent developments in Europe, after the victorious uprisings of the French youth and the Italian elections, were discussed and the need to strengthen the working class and peoples struggles against capitalist barbarism and the policies of the EU and the European governments, either right or center-left, was stressed.
The Athens International Meeting was an important step towards a more coordinated and unified development of the anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces in the direction already set by the Thessaloniki Resistance 2003 and Mumbai Resistance 2004 initiatives. Once more the opposition to the hegemonic sosialdemocratic forces of the European Social Forum and its policies of incorporation and subjection of the masses and the resistance movements to reformism, the western NGOs and the European center-left were declared. The need for an independent, grass-roots organization of a broad front of peoples and movements against the US and the other imperialists and the direct need for the reconstruction of the labor movement against capitalism and any kind of reaction and backwardness were stressed.
It is urgent for the antiwar movement to receive a new impetus and to strengthen the anti-imperialist trend in its ranks. In this context many mass organizations and parties participating in the International Meeting adopted the Athens Declaration.
The organizing Committee and the Greek organizations would like once more to express their satisfaction and acknowledgements to the foreign delegations and send a message of solidarity and struggle.
Athens 13-5-06
Class March
Peoples” Militant Movement
Antiwar Anti-imperialist Committees and Movements
Communist Party of Greece (marxist-leninist)
