For the American base of Souda to be closed immediately and for Greece to cease all participation in wars and imperialist policies, requested D. Koutsoumpas.
The general secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE D. Koutsoumbas made a speech today in Chania, at a meeting of agencies organized by the Chania sectoral committee. The title of the meeting “in a world on fire, the people will be the winners. Disengagement of Greece from the war. To close the base of Souda”.
Like D. Koutsoubas “from here, from Chania, from Crete, we are sending a message to all the peoples who are suffering, being tested hard, experiencing the horrors of war. To all the peoples whose governments are dragging them to slaughter, to the peoples who are worried about what kind of world their children are growing up in. In a world that is on fire, the people will ultimately be the winners, as the title of today’s meeting rightly says.”
“To close the Souda base”
He went on to say that the Greek people have huge mental reserves, they have proven it many times in their heroic history and will prove it again when needed. This moment is coming, he estimated, and “from here in Chania and Crete, which for decades has signaled the struggle against Greece’s participation in the dirty plans of the imperialists, we call on the entire working class, the popular strata and the youth, to join the fight en masse to stop the involvement of our country in the imperialist wars in any way”.
He emphasized that “in order to close the Souda base, as well as every military base and infrastructure that drags our people deeper and deeper into the carnage of war. The winners can be the people who will aim to get rid of the rotten exploitative system, which now only has to ‘offer’ poverty, insecurity, crises and wars, and will build their own society, where they will live peacefully, with prosperity, developing between them only relations of friendship and mutual cooperation”.
“The responsibilities of the ND government and Mitsotakis are great”
Mr. Koutsoubas spoke about the government’s political responsibilities, pointing out that “the responsibilities of the ND and Mitsotakis government are great, not only because it has taken off the country’s direct and indirect involvement in the massacre, but also because it cultivates complacency in the people, presenting the war fronts as something ‘external’, which supposedly does not directly concern us”.
He wondered how it is that the war in Ukraine is not our immediate concern, when “the government is sending war material, even the dangerous weapons of white phosphorus?” When he takes over the training of Ukrainian soldiers? Or when the ports, our lands like Alexandroupoli, the whole of Northern Greece for years now, have become ‘batte scyloi aleste’ with the passage of military forces, the transport of ammunition destined for the borders with Russia, Ukraine?”.
Regarding the Souda base, Dimitris Koutsoumbas described it as an emblematic US military base, which “year by year, is upgraded in the operational plans of the Americans and NATO, in the wider area of the Eastern Mediterranean, thus involving our country and the people deeper into imperialist designs and wars.
According to him. “However, it is not an ‘impregnable’ military base of the NATO, as it is a target of the opponents of NATO, other imperialist centers. There are not a few times that reports and plans come to light with Souda being within the range of powerful weapons systems of Iran and Russia, which escalates their conflict with NATO. Not without reason, Souda can be called the Pearl Harbor of the Mediterranean”.
“American sailors vent their repressed feelings in the city of Chania”
He referred to the base’s military engagements, its function as a naval supply and repair station, which soon “evolved into a gigantic NATO base, playing a strategic role for its interventions, operations throughout the region. It quickly developed into an operational center of NATO operations.”
But there is also the other side of the operation of the base, said Mr. Koutsoubas, “the most vulgar, if you consider that at the same time it is a kind of ‘recreation center’ for the American fleet that docks at its facilities. There are not a few times when American sailors vent their anger in the city of Chania, provoking the people of the city and the entire island. Similar incidents are now experienced by the residents of Alexandroupoli.”
“All US-NATO infrastructures in our country, including the Souda base, are a target of retaliation”
For these reasons, among others, the Souda base for the KKE is one of the most important US and NATO military bases in the Mediterranean. And because the rivalries are sharpening and the pivotal role of the base raises the risks for the people, Mr. Kutsoumbas that no one remains apathetic and that popular struggles are strengthened so that the base is closed.
“All US-NATO infrastructures in our country, including the Souda base, are a target for retaliation. And to put it bluntly: the ND government has made not only Chania, Crete, but also the whole of Greece the target of reprisals. Which, with the consent and support of the other parties, has turned our country into a base of war for the American NATO forces”, said Mr. Koutsoumpas.
At the same time, he emphasized that “the government of Mitsotakis is assuming historical responsibilities. It has no legitimacy to drag the people and the country into this disgusting war to serve its commitments to its friends, NATO and the US,” said Mr. Koutsoumpas.
Answered by Mr. Koutsoubas in the phrase that is often heard, that our country is “on the right side of history” and after talking about Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, economic crisis, competition and monopolies, popular households and citizens’ problems. He began by saying “to end this fairy tale”.
“The right side of history is the struggle in every country against the imperialist war”
He underlined that “a people stands on the right side of history when, without a second thought, it takes its position in the fight against participation, involvement, when it shouts and demands ‘Greece out of the slaughterhouses of wars’.” This option also offers valuable help to the peoples who are being tested, such as the people of Ukraine, rather than enlisting in one or the other imperialist camp that has made them a ‘punching bag’. On the right side of History are the children of the people, the officers of the Armed Forces, our soldiers, who express their opposition to imperialist wars, to the genocide of peoples, to the participation of our country on the side of a murderous state”
It was pointed out by D. Koutsoubas that “the Greek officers, our military youth have sworn to defend the borders of the country and its territorial integrity and not to serve NATO, the EU and Israel and to participate in crimes against peoples. We are on their side, as every mother and father is on their side, and we demand that all persecution against them be stopped now.
The right side of history is the struggle in every country against the imperialist war. It is the fight to close all NATO and US bases in our country now. And here in Crete, on the right side of History, is anyone who is constantly fighting to close the Souda base in Crete, so that their place, this beautiful place, ceases to be a war base at the expense of other peoples”.
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