The enemies of the people embrace!

Build solidarity between the working classes of Greece and Turkey!

Greece is in flames. The world economic crisis of the capitalist system has descended upon the country in extremely intensified form and left the economy face to face with bankruptcy.

Having presided over a system that, by its nature, creates crashes and depressions, the rulers of the capitalist European Union and the international capital’s agent of austerity for the masses, the IMF, have decided to wage a savage assault on all the gains and rights of the Greek working class. The Greek “socialist” Prime Minister George Papandreou acts as their hitman. After having been elected last November on a platform that promised exactly the opposite, he has now turned around and attacked the Greek working class and the labouring masses on behalf of the European ruling classes and the Greek bourgeoisie.  Savage cuts in wages and pensions, demolition of what remains of welfare State, of Education and health services, privatizations of public good are on the agenda.

It is right in the middle of this ferocious assault of the Greek government that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, is visiting Papandreou with a lot of ministers at his side and great fanfare. Nothing could be more fitting! Ever since he came to power at the end of 2002, Erdogan has been faithfully serving the class interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie and attacking the rights of the working class, however limited these are after three decades of the neoliberal offensive. Between 2007 and 2009 he violently repressed attempts to celebrate May Day on Taksim Square and he had the Tekel workers attacked with water cannon, teargas and clubs.

So Papadreou and Erdogan are comrades in arms! They are the enemies of the working people. It is totally appropriate for Erdogan to visit his class comrade in the midst of the fire that has set Greece ablaze. It is totally appropriate for him to have embraced the anti-working class politics of Papandreou

In return, it is incumbent on the working class and leftist movements of the two countries to reach out across the Aegean and create fraternity and solidarity between the struggles of their working classes. And struggle there surely is. These two countries, notorious for the hostility to each other created by bitter historical events and forever fanned by their respective bourgeoisies, have now been united by their working classes in their fight against the onslaught of capitalism.

With five General Strikes in five months, particularly with the General Strike of the 5^th of May, the biggest mobilization in three decades, the Greek working class demonstrated its fighting capacity and its determination to defeat the barbaric IMF/EU measures. The coming General Strike of May 20^th will be another crucial confrontation in this on-going struggle.

And Turkey has been rocked these last months by workers’ struggles as well. The Tekel workers waged a heroic battle for 78 days. One result was the impressive May Day demonstration on Taksim Square in Istanbul bringing together anywhere between 200 to 300 thousand workers and supporters. A general strike is scheduled for 26 May, though the machinations of the bureaucracy will probably reduce its importance.

Let the ruling classes fear the working classes of the two sides of the Aegean! A war has been declared by the international and Greek bourgeoisie on the Greek working class. The Greek proletariat has shown that it is resolved to respond in kind: It is the duty of proletarian internationalists to make sure that this struggle binds the workers of Turkey and Greece in their fight for a socialist world without capitalists, without generals, without bureaucrats..

For permanent revolution against the permanent war fuelled by imperialism!

Out with US, EU, and NATO imperialism and dismantlement of their military bases in Greece and Turkey!

Withdraw of all foreign troops (Turkish, Greek, British, United Nations)  and dismantlement of the imperialist bases  from Cyprus! No partition under an imperialist imposed settlement, for a united, independent, socialist Republic of Cyprus with equal rights of its Greek and Turkish citizens!

For a Balkan Socialist Federation of free and independent peoples! For the United Socialist States of Europe!

EEK and DIP are fighting to form a world party of the working class, to re-found the Fourth International, to march forward to this end. We appeal to the working class of the two countries to join hands against the common enemy, capitalism!

It is the capitalists who must pay for their own crisis!

Workers’ power with a socialist program to solve the crisis is the only solution!

May 12, 2010

Israeli troops out of Gaza immediately!

Victory to the Palestinian Resistance!

Down with the Zionist state!

For a free, united, secular, socialist Republic in the entire historic territory of Palestine embracing the Arabs and the Jews!

The murderous war of extermination unleashed by Israel on the people of Gaza is testimony to the vicious nature of the Zionist state–if that kind of testimony was ever needed. Hypocritically presented as an attempt to stop the shelling of southern Israel with missiles and mortars by Hamas militants, the assault is in effect an all out endeavour to intimidate the civilian population of Gaza in order to eventually bring down the Hamas government elected through universal suffrage in 2005. So far more than 660 (up to now, January 7, 2009)Palestinians, among whom many children, elderly and non-combatant women, have lost their lives as a result of Israeli bombing and more than 3000 have been injured. The list of some of the buildings targeted by Israeli war planes is also telling: the prime minister’s office and several ministries, other governmental buildings, the Islamic University, and, most importantly many mosques, six to date. None of these can reasonably be argued to belong to Hamas; they are all the common patrimony of the Palestinian people, a people impoverished by decades of ruthless colonial oppression. The ground war now targets whole cities–Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanun, Jabaliya, as well as Gaza City, the capital of the Strip. Even Rafah in the south bordering Egypt is being heavily pounded by air strikes targeting the web of tunnels that serve for provisions coming into Gaza–a vital source of supplies for the population of Gaza given the vicious economic blockade being implemented by Israel for a long time now. It is the whole population of Gaza, 1.4 million souls, including children, the elderly, women and civilians in general, that is suffering immensely as a result of this ferocious offensive by the Zionist state on the densest population settlement on earth.

A war for “regime change”

In attacking Gaza, Israel is following in the footsteps of its “big brother”, i.e. US imperialism, replicating the policies pursued by the latter against Saddam’s Iraq. Having received the mandate of the people of Gaza in landslide elections in 2005, Hamas has been in power in the territory ever since. The fact that Hamas does not recognise the legitimacy of the Zionist state, added to its refusal to comply, in contrast to al Fatah under the rule of Mahmoud Abbas and its stooges in the so-called Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, with the dictates of the so-called “Oslo peace process” has led Israel to adopt an outright hostile policy to the government in Gaza elected freely by the people of the territory. The complete blockade of the territory for a long time now was very much a replica of the embargo staged on Iraq in the 1990s by the US and the EU, with the seal of approval of the United Nations, that parliament of imperialist bandits, an embargo that cost the lives of nearly one million Iraqi citizens, including around 500 thousand children. Gaza, for its part, has gone with two or three hours of power daily and a meagre ration of food for a very long time now. As a result, today, under the Israeli offensive, the population has to survive without electricity, without water, without a functioning telephone network and with a dire shortage of food–and all this in terribly cold weather.

The war declared on the territory is itself very clearly a war for “regime change”. Apart from dismantling a part of the military power of Hamas, the Zionist state aims to terrorise the civilian population of Gaza in order to lay the basis for the fall of the government and its transfer to “safer” hands. Naturally, all kinds of public relations ploys are being used to mask this objective. A top level Israeli official reveals, under condition of anonymity, that during a war cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said very clearly that “the objective is not to topple the government”. And this crap, very visibly a manoeuvre of public relations, is spread far and wide by the international media! Unfortunately for Israel and its acolytes, deputy prime minister Chaim Ramon blundered early on and has gone on record for having declared that “the aim of the operation is to bring down the regime” (French daily Le Monde). This is definitely where truth lies: the political content of the war is the attempt by Israel to bring down the Hamas government in Gaza and replace it with a more docile government that will bend to its diktat.

The new war of aggression of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza is not only a sign of the barbarity but also a symptom of the deep crisis of Zionism itself. After its humiliating defeat in 2006 at the hands of the Hezbollah militia, the Zionist regime has plunged in a deep crisis affecting all the military, intelligence and political Israeli establishment while the head of the State of Israel, the head of the Kadima-Labor Coalition government and the head of the army of invasion in Lebanon had to resign under an avalanche of scandals destroying what was left of authority to these embodiments of the Zionist institutions. Over this shambles emerged Netanyahu of the right wing Likud (which includes now an openly racist-fascist wing) as the probable winner in the coming Israeli elections in February 10, 2009. Kadima’s leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Labor’s leader and Minister of Defence Ehud Barak have planned their aggression to Gaza in a timing that helps them to use war hysteria to advance their electoral chances (and apparently, in this cynical and criminal exchange of corpses with votes they succeeded according to the polls).

But the attempt by the war in Gaza to re-stabilize the Zionist State after the Lebanese 2006 debacle and to re-elect a Kadima-Labor Coalition to continue the fraud of a “dialogue” with the puppet Abbas in Ramallah while eliminating Hamas (including a new Hamas electoral victory) is condemned to fail. Credibility to Israel’s deterrent power could be further damaged, particularly “if they enter the deadly labyrinth of Gaza City and its refugee camps, as they were suckered into the treacherous ravines of South Lebanon”( Financial Times, January 4, 2009) Gideon Rachman, a columnist of the Financial Times characterises the aggression as “Israel’s self-defeating Gaza offensive” ( FT January 5, 2009).

The war in Gaza destabilizes further an already chaotic Middle East and produces new explosive problems for the Zionist regime and its allies in the West and in the Arab world in the middle of the worst world capitalist crisis in history.

Universal complicity

The whole of the so-called “international community” has a share in the responsibility regarding the death of hundreds and the untold misery of the entire population of Gaza. The international media are adamant on attributing the blame on the missiles and mortars fired by Hamas into Israel, thus balancing out the occasional death of an Israeli citizen every so many months against the death of more than 660 Palestinians (and still counting!) within 10 days! The talk on the “disproportionate use of force”, rampant in the media, is still another smokescreen that justifies, rather then condemns, the murderous acts committed by Israeli forces, implying as it does that, in itself, the onslaught is justified, but that Israel should be a bit more restrained. The question that naturally arises is how many Palestinian casualties would make the Israeli assault more “civilised” and “proportionate”?

United States imperialism must surely have been consulted by Israel before the decision to attack was made. In any event, the Bush Administration is now standing squarely behind the massacre of the Palestinian population. It has even blocked the meek UN Security Council draft resolution on the issue, lest this should pave the way for a ceasefire and get in the way of Israel in achieving its aims. The EU, as represented by its present official Czech presidency, has come out unequivocally on the side of Israel, as has the German government. Sarkozy, in a familiar show of French and personal illusion de grandeur, is posturing for a ceasefire, making it clear, nonetheless, that what is needed is a “durable ceasefire”, i.e. one that has tamed Hamas into accepting Israeli conditions.

The Security Council staged a show on the 12th day of the massacre, trying to make the peoples of the world believe that it is really concerned about what is going on. The live broadcasting of the speeches of Mahmud Abbas and the UN representative of Israel by international network channels was part of the farce being played out. Abbas, a traitor to the Palestinian cause, cannot, et this point, in any manner be considered to be providing the viewpoint of the people of Gaza (or of the Palestinian people at large, for that matter—he is now, incidentally, jockeying to extend his mandate, which expires at the end of this month of January).

Russia manoeuvres between imperialism and its local would be allies, particularly Syria. It refused to take a stand in defense of the embattled Palestinian people. To show its resurgent geopolitical role, it moved in the region in crisis two important ships of the Russian Fleet, a missile destroyer escorting Russia’s only air carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, which has anchored offshore the southern coast of Turkey.

The reactionary Arab states, from medieval Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms to the more “modern” dictatorships such as Egypt and Jordan have not yet lifted a finger in order to help their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Livni had announced Israel’s coming war while she was on official visit in Egypt, and Mubarak’s regime not only keeps the Egyptian borders with Gaza closed but also its troops fired against the Palestinians assisting Zionist fire. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed on January 5 Hosni Mubarak had told European officials that Hamas must not be allowed to win the conflict in the Gaza Strip. No wonder then that even Condoleezza Rice “commends” the resolution proposed by Egypt concerning a diplomatic solution to the war: Mubarek’s stand can only play into the hands of Israel. The Arab League has not even made the most formal hypocritical noise of protest in the face of the Israeli atrocities. All these reactionary states are tied hand and feet by their utter servility to US imperialism, depending as they do on its support for their survival. They are also dead scared by the prospect of a Palestinian victory against Zionism, since this would trigger a massive revolt against their hold on power.

Closer to home, Greece and Turkey bear responsibility for the atrocities committed by Israel as well. Both countries have military pacts and close military and intelligence cooperation with Israel A few months ago, Israel-Greek military exercises took place in Crete having as a declared target Iran. The US military bases in Crete and other US/NATO facilities in Greece, as well as in Turkey and the British bases in Cyprus are crucial for any imperialist intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The Karamanlis right wing government, which still faces the upheaval from the December 2008 popular revolt, shares all the hypocrisy of the dominant European Union powers; it “regrets” the Israeli invasion and condemns the “violence” of…Hamas.

The hypocrisy of the semi-Islamist government of Turkey has reached disgusting proportions. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s first reaction to Israel’s onslaught was: “This is an affront on our respectability”, a reaction that would make him the laughing stock of the world, since his “respectability” pales into insignificance when compared to the death of a single Palestinian child. However, there also resides in this comment the tragedy of a politician reared in the anti-Semitic environment of the Islamist milieu, where the whole world is considered to be ruled through a Jewish conspiracy, the same politician now finding himself exposed as a friend of Zionism against the Palestinian people. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had visited Erdoğan barely four days before the air bombardment began and, given the close collaboration between the two countries, the question is rightly being asked whether Olmert let Erdoğan in on his plans to attack Gaza, an extremely embarrassing situation for the latter. Having tried to pursue a policy of “regional power” mediating between contending forces in the Middle East and the Caucasus (the most ridiculous instance being the attempt to establish a non-aggression pact between Caucasian states and Russia in the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war last summer), Erdoğan has now visited Damascus and Amman in order to promote détente, whereas any policy that does not confront the brutal Israeli aggression head on really plays into the hands of the aggressor. Turkey has become, in the course of the last two decades, a quasi-strategic ally of Israel, holding common war games with the Zionist state, allowing Israeli pilots to train in Turkish airspace, signing a multiplicity of military agreements, and entrusting many different military renovation projects to the Israeli military-industrial complex.

Freudian slip: who is Barack Obama monitored” by?

Since his victory in the US presidential elections, Barack Obama has been the darling of the reformist and pacifist wing of the antiwar movement in the United States and the West in general. The Stop the War Coalition of Britain (sister organization of the organization with the same name in Greece and other countries) made its nature clear for all to see by declaring that it was “delighted” to see Obama elected. For days and weeks after Obama’s victory, the democratising and liberal left worldwide clamoured to convince ordinary people that Obama was the hope of all, both in the economic area and regarding US foreign policy, including the question of war. Given Obama’s own statements on the different aspects of foreign policy and his choice of personnel (e.g. his promise of a “surge” in Afghanistan, his threat of bombing Pakistan, something even George W. Bush has been doing under cover, his all too clear allegiance to Israel, his pick of Joseph Biden, a resolute friend of Zionism, as running mate, his prevarications on the question of withdrawal of troops from Iraq late in the campaign, his choice of Emmanuel Rahm, a notorious Zionist, as White House Chief of Staff, and the final nail in the coffin of illusions, the nomination of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State), the ingenuous deception of the reformists and the pacifists can only be termed shameless.

It is this very president-elect, the peace-lover championed by the reformists and the pacifists the world round, who carefully kept his mouth firmly shut for the first ten days during the tragedy being played out in Gaza! And when he opened it, he was only able to mumble “concerns” about the situation and pontificate on how “engaged” he would be once he takes office, leading all mainstream commentators to agree that what he said amounted to nothing. Most telling in his words was not what he wanted to say, but something he did not wish to say but escaped his mouth! Having started out one of his sentences as “I’m being fully briefed on the events”, he finished it by adding “and monitored”, then hastening to correct himself by saying “monitoring the situation”. The original utterance, that Barack Obama is being monitored, reveals his real “concern”. Taking over the presidency in the midst of the worst economic crisis world capitalism has experienced since the 1930s, haunted already by scandals arising within the Democratic establishment, i.e. the sale of the Senate seat in Illinois and the Mexican connection of Bill Richardson, the would-be Commerce Secretary, Obama is extremely concerned not to alienate the Zionist establishment so powerful in the United States even before he has been inaugurated president. He is thus painfully aware that he is being closely “monitored” by this powerful establishment and, most immediately, by his Vice-President and his Chief of Staff!

In effect, Israel has done Obama a great favour by starting its war of aggression three weeks before the inauguration of the president-elect. In the (improbable) case where the Israeli war attains its objectives or in the (more probable) case where an international intervention establishes, under the threat of extermination for the Gazan population, a new status quo by the 20th of January, Obama will have been exonerated of the murder of hundreds or even thousands of Palestinians in the eyes of a large constituency as he is taking over the presidency. Not in our eyes! Every day that passes by without a clear protest by Obama adds to his exposition as a shameless supporter of the massacre and a reliable friend of Zionism!

The shameful capitulation of Mahmoud Abbas

That the process of the integration of the leadership of Al Fatah and, consequently, of the PLO into the imperialist order of things as a result of the so-called “Oslo peace process” has reached the stage of the putrescence of this leadership has been laid bare in the reaction of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, to the Israeli aggression on Gaza. Having condemned both Israel and Hamas on the first days of the air bombardment, Abbas had to wait for a week and for the launching of a ground war by Israel to speak of a “brutal aggression” by the latter. And these are only words! While his Palestinian brethren are being decimated in Gaza, Abbas, supposedly the President also of the 1.4 million Palestinians living there has not lifted a finger so much as to organise a massive demonstration, such as the ones organised by Hezbollah in Beirut. No doubt, the real duty of Abbas, Al Fatah and the PLO is to fight the Israeli army guns in hand, in order to broaden the front on which the Zionist state has to fight. But even the demonstrations in Ramallah had to be organised by Hamas itself!

The left-wing forces in the PLO, first and foremost the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but also living forces within Al Fatah itself, should, without delay, make a balance sheet of the record of Abbas and the PLO and break with the shameless attitude of collaboration with imperialism and Zionism adopted by the present leadership. The friends of the Palestinian people must speak the truth to its organisations and not hide it under diplomatic manoeuvres. The way forward for the Palestinian revolution and the liberation of this people with a unique destiny lies in the break from the pro-imperialist and pro-Zionist leadership of the moment. Unless this path is taken, Hamas will be the centre of attraction for those Palestinians who persevere in the fight against Zionism.

For international solidarity with the people of Gaza! For a free Palestine!

The beginning of the 21st century has seen a massive drift between the governments and the peoples of the world on the question of war and peace. Striking a chord reminiscent of the antiwar movement against the aggression on Iraq, and in particular of the more than ten million people who marched on 15 February 2003 on all continents, the peoples of the world, from Indonesia in the east to Chile and Peru in the Western hemisphere, have taken to the streets to protest the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. The peoples of the Arab Middle East have painted a striking contrast with their rulers. The people of Turkey have come out time and again to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Most importantly, the Greek people, in the context of a massive revolt that has now lasted for a month, have not neglected solidarity with the wretched of the earth that the Gazan people are. This movement should be consolidated and widened to embrace ever broader layers of the population of each country until every government realises that it has to pay a high price to support the butchers in power in Jerusalem.

Despite the technological and manpower superiority of the Israeli army over the military forces of Hamas, an Israeli victory against the people of Gaza is far from a foregone conclusion. Only two years have gone by since, in the summer of 2006, the Hezbollah of Lebanon inflicted an embarrassing defeat militarily and politically on the supposedly invincible armed forces of Israel. The Palestinian people have in the past proved their heroic dedication to the cause of their oppressed nation. Israel’s exit from Gaza will certainly not be as easy as its entry.

The colonialist, racist and fundamentalist Zionist state of Israel embodies the expropriation of all the national rights of the Palestinian people, including, the rightful demand of the Palestinians refugees to return to their homeland. With Israel as a bastion, imperialism will continue to wield a weapon that serves to force the peoples of the region to submit to its dictates As Zionism plunges in crisis, it escalates the oppression and extermination of Palestinians in all occupied Palestine. The fallacy of a “two-state solution” with a Palestinian statelet composed two or more Bantustans has definitely collapsed. Its failure is obvious from the Oslo process to the 2000 Intifada, the emergence of Hamas as a leading force, the siege and now the massacre in Gaza. The Zionist State of permanent wars and terror has to be destroyed and the right of national self determination of the Palestinian people established. Only a democratic, secular and socialist republic bringing together Jew and Arab in the entire historic territory of Palestine will overcome the ordeal of the Palestinian people and put an end to the fortress-like life of the Jewish people of Israel. To present the Zionist state of Israel as the saviour of the Jewish people is an utter lie and to pretend that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism is sheer demagogy. On the contrary, Zionism is fuelling anti-Semitism all over the world and its crimes are used by the far right in Europe and elsewhere to cultivate hatred against Jews, in the current dangerous conditions of capitalist crisis. Anti-Zionist Jews all over the world, starting with the UEJF of France that organised a mass rally in Paris to condemn the Israeli assault and to display solidarity with the people of Gaza, have exposed this lie and demagoguery for what it is. Above all, the 10.000 strong anti-war demonstration of Israeli Jews in Tel Aviv during the current war in Gaza is a courageous and encouraging sign that opposition to the dominant Zionist madness is growing.

Hands off Gaza! Stop the Zionist terror unleashed on the people of Gaza! Israeli troops immediately out of the Gaza Strip!

All imperialist troops out of Iraq, the Middle East, and Afghanistan! UN forces out of Lebanon!

Down with the Zionist state! For a democratic, secular and socialist Republic bringing together Jew and Arab in the entire historic territory of Palestine!

For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!

No to the US/EU imperialists’ operation of a fake “independence” of Kosovo!

Yes to the right of national self-determination of all the Balkan peoples!

For a Socialist Federation of the Balkans!

The declaration of the “independence” of Kosovo has nothing to do with the legitimate national rights of an oppressed people or a national minority. It is, first and foremost, an act of a new imperialist intervention in the Balkans, the creation of a US protectorate under EU military control. It is also a step forward for one of the pet projects of the US in the Balkans after the 1999 NATO war: the establishment of another Albanian statelet side by side with Albania itself leads to their future unification in a “Greater Albania” absorbing the Albanian populations in neighbouring countries, first of all of Macedonia. US imperialism, as the Italian fascists did during the Second World War, wants to manipulate Albanian nationalism for its own interests and strategic plans in the region against the peoples of the Balkans, including the Albanian people.

This fact is so tangible, so concrete that when Martti Ahtisaari, the Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN), in a report he submitted in spring 2007 after two years of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia had reached a deadlock, recommended the “independence” of Kosovo, he had to qualify this by a special formula, “supervised independence”.. Hence, the “independence” of Kosovo is openly sham independence.

And who is supposed to “supervise” the “independence” of Kosovo? The answer to this question gives us the second dimension of Kosovo’s “independence”. It is a well-known fact that, after the seventy four-day air strikes inflicted on the former Yugoslavia by NATO, Kosovo was delivered to the civilian rule of UNMIK (the UN Kosovo Mission) and the military control of KFOR (the Kosovo Peace Force). According to the terms of the resolution adopted by the UN after the termination of the Kosovo War, Kosovo was to remain Serbian territory, but was also to be converted into a “UN protectorate”. This was a legal formula that was permeated with contradiction, since the status of “protectorate” is an entirely colonial status and to declare a territory that is under the sovereignty of an independent state (the former Yugoslavia and today’s successor state of Serbia) a colonial belonging defies logic. The “independence” granted today to Kosovo removes this contradiction, making it thereby a straightforward colony, one under multilateral rule. The initiative regarding the declaration of “independence” does not belong to Hashim Thaci, the leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army become prime minister in January this year, but Ahtisaari on behalf of the UN. It is a travesty to pretend that Thaci is a “hero”. Imperialism has offered “independence” to the KLA on a golden platter. Today Kosovo is controlled by 17 thousand NATO troops. It is being delivered to the rule of the EU, which will be sending an additional force of 1800 to police the territory. “Independence” on the force of arms of others is sham independence!

The 1999 NATO/US/EU war against former Yugoslavia was fought on the declared grounds of stopping the cruel treatment and ethnic cleansing the Albanians of Kosovo were suffering at the hands of Milosevic. But the final outcome nine years later demonstrates that the real aim was to carry to its conclusion the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. “Operation independence Kosovo” is but the belated consummation of the forcible destruction of Yugoslavia in the years 1991 to 1999.

A clear understanding regarding the aims of this imperialistic policy is of paramount importance. To start with, the Balkans are the South-western tip of Eurasia, an immense region that has come up for grabs as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the other degenerated workers’ states in Europe between 1989 and 1992. It was imperative for imperialism to prevent the survival of a state (Federal Yugoslavia) that had the capacity of obstructing imperialist plans in the Balkans. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was the most violent form that capitalist restoration took in this historical period. Secondly, for the smooth implementation of EU’s and Germany’s plans to annex central and Eastern Europe, it was necessary to carve Federal Yugoslavia into mini-states and subsequently to destroy the historically strong identity of the Balkans through the imposition of the concept of “Southeast Europe”. Third, the Albanians were promoted and manipulated as a “special ally” of the US. Albania has today become the stronghold of reaction and pro-imperialist policies, as well as the Balkan centre of trafficking in drugs and prostitution. The project of “Greater Albania” is a US initiative, developed as a counterweight to the preponderance of the Southern Slavs in the Balkans and particularly as a barrier to Russia’s role in this strategic region connecting the oilfields from the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia to Europe. Today Albania and Kosovo seem to embody the two heads of the eagle on the Albanian flag. Tomorrow, the eagle may become triple-headed, with the Albanians of Macedonia joining the band wagon. The “independence” of Kosovo should be situated in this overall picture.

Another significant aspect is to threaten the many states in the region with strong minorities by the prospect of demands for independence. The “solution” would be an imperialist consensus against the peoples, in a Holy Alliance, as after 1815. And, connected to this aspect, one must underline the nationalistic messages developed by layers of the present ruling restorationist elites in the countries formerly under a Stalinist bureaucratic rule: these messages, directed against the conscience of the unity of the working people, constitute the response to the aggravation of the social, economic, political crises of these countries and the world.

The Albanians of Kosovo seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of secession from Serbia. Would it not be appropriate under these circumstances, it might be asked, for internationalists to support this “independence” on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination? The status accorded to Kosovo today has nothing to do with “independence” and hence with self-determination. A new colony is born. How long the status of protectorate will last is totally unforeseeable, given the policy of imperialism in the Balkans.

That Turkey should have recognised the “independence” of Kosovo immediately, on the same day as the US and the larger states of the EU, and this despite its own Kurdish question and its fears regarding the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has certainly nothing to do with respect for the rights of oppressed nations. The ruling classes of Turkey have made it a principle to serve the policies of imperialism and of US imperialism in particular, in the region of Eurasia, as long as these do not come into direct conflict with its own interests as in the case of the Kurdish question. The Eurasia policy of Turkey, pursued since Özal established it in 1991, has taken the form of military support to all kinds of imperialist endeavours (Somali, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc.). During the Kosovo War, Turkish bombers poured death over the Serbian people arm in arm with the air forces of imperialist powers, three military air strips were allocated to imperialist fighter jets (but were not ultimately used because the war ended earlier than predicted), and the supposedly nationalist prime minister Ecevit declared, in the early stages of the war, that Turkey was prepared for land combat. The recognition of the “independence” of Kosovo implies that Turkey continues to play the game of imperialism and is directly connected to the agreement of 5 November 2007 between Bush and Erdogan related to the bombing of Kurdish (PKK) targets in Northern Iraq. Given the oppression of the Serbs by the Turks and the role they played under the Ottoman Empire in the forcible Islamisation of Kosovo, this policy becomes all the more shameless.

The capitalist government of Greece temporarily did not recognize the “independence” of Kosovo- where Greek troops are also stationed as a part of the actual occupation of the country by imperialism after 1999- solely to bargain with the US a solution of the so-called problem of the “name of Macedonia” in favour to the interests of Greek capitalism as a regional economic hegemon.

All the ruling classes and restorationist regimes in the Balkans are closely collaborating with imperialism in its plans to re-colonize the region and impose a New imperialist Order in the post-Cold War chaotic world. Nationalism and chauvinism, reactionary dreams for a “Greater Albania”, or a “Greater Serbia”, or a “Greater Romania” or a “Greater Greece” or for a “neo-ottoman Empire” etc are tools at the hands of the imperialist Great Powers. It is also a dangerous illusion, nurtured especially by Serbian and Greek nationalists, that the Putin restorationist regime and Great Russian nationalism could help the Balkan peoples against imperialism. Only the workers and peasants, the oppressed popular masses can and should unite in a common struggle against all the oppressors, the Great Powers as well as against the local pro-imperialist nationalistic cliques, for social and national emancipation, for Socialism.

The danger for a new round of massacres re-emerges. Urgent action to stop new wars and imperialist barbarism is needed by the working class and all the oppressed popular masses; to open the road for a Balkan Peninsula which belongs to its free and independent peoples united to build their socialist future without imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation.

Withdraw the decision to recognise the independence of Kosovo!

For the right of national self-determination without any imperialist interference!Turkey, Greece, and all Balkan countries out of NATO!

Pull all imperialist troops and military bases out of the Balkans!

For a Socialist Federation of the Balkans!

25 February 2008