Partial transcript of the speech by Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras, during Supreme Council of Greek-Turkish Cooperation, Smyrna

19:21 approx.:

I would like, in my turn, to warmly thank the Turkish PM, my friend Ahmed. As he himself said earlier, we have been meeting very frequently lately. [...] We have highlighted the significant prospects presented by energy cooperation and the great importance of paths for natural gas, of the TAP and TANAP pipelines, the great importance of our cooperation in Tourism [...] Of course, no one can ignore the fact that the future of Greek-Turkish relation goes through major challenges, such as coping with the great crises we are facing, and specifically the refugee crisis. [...] 

In order to obtain a better life, [refugees] become victims of traffickers and many of them lose their lives in the Aegean. So we, the two governments, me and Ahmed, are here today, so we can commonly declare that what is going on in our sea is a shame to our values and our civilization.

AKEL, "Marxism-Leninism", and the "solution of the Cyprus problem"...

From the "unofficial" visit of the GS of AKEL to Mehmet Davutoglu, 23 January 2016, Turkey

Interview with Toumazos Tsielepis, Head of AKEL Committee on the Cyprus Problem, 16 January 2016:

On imperialist war in the Middle East as an auspicious conjuncture for the solution of the Cyprus Problem:

- "It is true that at this moment, there is a conjuncture that is advantageous to the efforts for a solution. All the international players have an interest in a comprehensive solution of the Cyrus issue, like never before. The same goes for the rational interests of Turkey, though its current leadership is unpredictable."

On the need for cash liquidity the solution will imply:

- "Our job is to find the solution. When we find it, we need to come up with a final cost and then address that to the international community, asking for its aid so this solution can be implemented. The international community must procur us with the money, either as a gift, or as low-interest, long-term loans.  It goes without question that in that case there cannot be a Memorandum logic at work, because then the Federal state would be mathematically led to collapse!"

Entry to British Sovereign Base in Dekeleia, Cyprus. Written into the Cyprus Republic's Constitution of 1960

- On why the "International Community" [sic] should support the cost of the solution given its own financial problems: 

"The Cyprus problem is a political problem giving the international community a headache for the last 50 years. It should be dealt with as such: with political, not with economic and Memorandum-like terms. The solution to the Cyprus problem is linked to major political, but also economic interests. Doesn't the EU have an interest in the solution to the Cyprus problem? Doesn't it, for instance, desire the natural gas of the Eastern Mediterranean in a manner that puts an end to its dependence on Russia? Doesn't the solution to the Cyprus problem work in the interests of the Southeast wing of NATO? The 10 or 20 billion that may be necessary for funding the solution is small change for the international community. On the contrary, the benefits it will reap are infinitely larger."

From statements of Mevlut Çavosuglu, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affrairs, after his meeting with AKEL GS Andros Kyprianou, 23 January 2016:

"Asked how he views AKEL's positive views on a solution to the Cyprus Problem given that in 2004 it had voted against the Annan Plan, the Turkish minister stated that back in 2004, the leadership of AKEL was Mr. Christofias, who had different views, and added that today's AKEL leadership has a different position."

P.S.: AKEL describes itself as a "Marxist-Leninist" party...

Greece, its "geography", and imperialist war

Greece: The birthplace of theater and Trojan horses

"Greece can offer military bases for logistical support or for naval maintenance in Suda [Crete] and elsewhere. Drones and aircraft can also operate from Greek military bases. You can also contribute with information as the refugee crisis offers the opportunity to collect data from interviewing these people, but also of using biometric data. If NATO decides to send military trainers in Iraq, Greece can participate. What is important is for Greece to utilize its geography. Imagine if the Cyprus issue is resolved. Then, Cyprus and Crete can become two mighty military bases"!!!

This what James Stavrides stated in his interview with "Vima" newspaper. Stavrides is Greek-American, a retired admiral of the U.S. Navy, a former Commander of NATO in Europe, and today, the Rector of the Fletcher Law and Diplomacy School at Tufts University, Boston. He thus gave a comprehensive picture of what the country's bourgeoisie, its governments, including that of SYRIZA-ANEL, are negotiating; how much deeper they plan to embroil the people in imperialist plans, aiming at the geostrategic upgrading of the local business groups, in order to claim a piece of the exploitation of resources and transportation avenues.

Manolis Anagnostakis-I speak.../These lines/Poetics

I speak...

I speak of the last trumpet calls of the defeated soldiers
Of the rags from our holiday clothes
Of our children, selling cigarettes to passers-by
I speak of the flowers that have wilted on the graves and are rotting under the rain
Of the houses that gape, windowless, like toothless skulls
Of the girls begging, showing the wounds on their breasts
Of the barefoot mothers crawling in the debris
Of the flaming cities, the corpses piling in the streets
The pimp poets, trembling in thresholds at night
I speak of the endless nights when the light is lessened at dawn
Of the loaded tracks and the steps on wet cobblestone
I speak of the prison yards and the tears of those condemned to death.

Aleka Papariga-On "the unity of the Left" and the KKE alliance politics

Aleka Papariga

From "The Alliance Politics of the KKE and the Critique to 'Left Unity'"

In Contemporary Right-Wing Opportunism, Publication of the CC of the KKE, Synchroni Epohi, Athens 2008.

The purpose of this article is to encode, as much as possible, the objective differences between these two propositions for an alliance [the alliance politics of the KKE and the notion of "Left Unity"]. Alliances, it should be understood, are not based on agreement on terms and slogans or general ideas, but on issues of strategic importance and orientation, on the issue of alternative power.

For the KKE, alliance politics is a permanent, not a conjunctural policy. We struggle to make it materialize, to foreground it and to popularize it, independently of the existence of the subjective preconditions for its materialization at the political level. For the KKE, the creation of an alliance is an issue of struggle, of developments in the correlation of forces, of radical reorderings within political and social consciousness, such that they can bring changes to the composition of the political landscape. Ultimately, the level of the movement will play a determining role in this all-important issue. Of course, we are not simply waiting for possibilities to drop on our hands like overripe fruit. We take initiatives, and first of all we foster dialogue within the people, with radical popular forces, with social agents acting in a positive direction; we follow developments, we try to assist positive trends.

Whose class interests does SYRIZA 2.0 SAY it represents?

Yesterday, and after meeting with representatives of ESEE and GSVEE, the leader of SYRIZA 2.0, aka "Popular Unity", Panayiotis Lafazanis made the following statement, which is very interesting from the standpoint of the kind of class consciousness it represents, and, of course, the class consciousness it addresses and solicits:

Within the context of the mandate I have received from the President of the Republic [as "third Party", despite never having been elected as such], I had the honor to meet two of the greatest Confederations of our country, GSVEE and ESEΕ. It was especially honoring to me that we sat and talked and exchanged views with honesty, for quite some time, I would say. 

It was a meeting of many hours, but also a substantial and productive exchange of views. What I derived from it is of course well-known, but I will repeat. The Memoranda have two great victims in Greece: the first and great victim is of course our youth, which is unfortunately compelled to migrate in order to survive; the second great victim of the Memoranda are medium and small businesses. Medium and small businesses have been placed in the gallows, in the guillotine. With the Memoranda, austerity, tax raiding, lack of cash flow [bank closure was implemented while Lafazanis and other members of "Popular Unity" were in the government cabinet], the robber bank system, which becomes constantly more rapacious, under these conditions, medium and small businesses cannot survive. They have no future whatsoever. And with them, of course, the Greek economy, Greece and the Greek people have no future.

The Europarliament Group of the KKE on the dangerous developments in Ukraine

In a letter addressed to the President of the Europarliament, Martin Schulz, the Europarliament group of the KKE has condemned the adoption of a reactionary law imposing Mass Media censorship in Ukraine as well as the initiative of a Czech MEP, known for his anticommunist activity. The letter is as follows:

"With the present letter we would like, first of all, to denounce the new, reactionary law of the Ukrainian government, which imposes a regime of censorship on the Mass Media, publishing, films and every cultural and artistic creation, in the name of "protecting national security" and preventing the "fomenting ethnic hatred." This law constitutes another dangerous element of the politics of the forces that seized power after the intervention of the USA-EU-NATO in Ukraine, which took place in the midst of competition with Russia and the antipopular schemes of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.

This is another strike of the Ukrainian government against the people; supported by fascist forces, the government continues to bomb Donbas and has banned the CP of Ukraine, while abductions, persecution and threats against communists and other workers and racist murderous attacks by fascist shock troops continue.