KK-Forum,
noe jeg får fra Z-Net vidersendes herved. Andre utfordres til å slutte seg
til dette Z-Net opplegget (se avsnitt 2 i teksten nedenfor stjernene)
Hilsen Knut Rognes
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Here is today's ZNet Commentary Delivery from Nikos Raptis. The attached
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Here then is today's ZNet Commentary...
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The Greeks, Kosovo and the US
By Nikos Raptis
Following the Chomskyan distinction, in the present text the word Greeks
refers to the inhabitants of the geographic region of Greece as distinct
from the political and economic elits that "govern" the country. (The use of
the quotation marks is explained later on.)
But, first, a report on the main events in Greece for the last 20 hours.
(This is being written at Halandri, a suburb of Athens, on April 28, 1999 at
7 pm, Athens time.)
- Yesterday, around midnight, a group of Greek citizens demonstrated against
the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia at the gate of the fenced area of the
railroad terminus of the port of Salonica. The aim of the demonstrators was
to block the departure of a train that was about to move British troops and
tanks (on flatcars) from Salonica to Macedonia. The demonstrators blocked
the train as it moved out of the terminus, painted the swastika on the sides
of all the tanks on the flatcars, wrote (in English) the slogan "Killers go
home" and started shouting against the British soldiers that were in the
train cars. Then, they started throwing stones thus breaking the glass
windows of the cars and forcing the rather surprised British soldiers to put
on their helmets. Finally, with the help of the railroad employees, who
joined them, the demonstrators succeeded to force the train to move back
into the terminus.
(Source: Reported as seen by me on the news of the Greek TV stations.)
Note: On April 1 similar scenes to the above took place again in the port of
Salonica. Also, a couple of weeks ago a big group of demonstrators at the
Greek-Macedonian border stopped a big convoy of trucks that were moving
French troops from the port of Salonica to Macedonia. Finally, after many
hours of negotiating with the police, the demonstrators forced the convoy to
return to the port of Salonica! (Source; The same as above.)
- Yesterday on the island of Corfu, at 10 pm (Athens time) there was a
concert - demonstration against the NATO bombings attended by about 10,000
people. After the concert was over, around 12 midnight, the crowd walked to
the airport of the island, overcame the police force that was guarding the
airport and stormed into the buildings. Then they moved out towards the
runway and there ensued clashes with the police that lasted up to 3 o'clock
in the morning. Result: 6 or 8 policemen injured, one of them in serious
condition, 8 civilians arrested.
(Source: The same as above.)
- Today, in the Greek papers there is a report that the day before yesterday
in an an evening TV show George Katsanevakis, the prefect of the prefecture
of Chania on the island of Crete, declared that Nicholas Burns, the US
Ambassador in Greece, is "persona non grata" in Chania. Because, Burns
protested to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs about a resolution made
public by the General Assembly of the Local Governments of the Chania
prefecture. The resolution: "We, the members of the Local Governments, being
aware of the indignation felt by our fellow-countrymen, inform our
government... that the American soldiers are undesirable in our country and
we cannot guarantee for their physical safety or for anything else that
might happen to them. We call the citizens to boycott the American
multinational companies and not to deal with them."
(Source: ELEFTHEROTYPIA, Apr. 28, '99, p.7)
Notes: 1. Most Cretans, by tradition, own guns. Ownership of guns is illigal
in Greece. Cretans fire their guns mostly to celebrate a marrige,or on other
festive occasions, sometimes in the presence of governmant officials. Also,
they fire their guns to kill one another in decades long vendettas. 2. The
US military base at Souda Bay in Crete seems to be one of the most important
(if not the most important) US bases in the world.
- Yesterday at 11,36 pm, a time bomb had exploded infront of the Athens
Intercontinental Hotel. There was a 39 years old woman dead and a man
lightly wounded. The organization that put the bomb, the "Revolutionary
Cells", had warned about the bomb 30 minutes before the explosion. The
occasion for placing the bomb, as explained by the organization itsef with a
letter to an Athens paper, was to protest for a conferene organized by the
London "Economist" in the hotel. The general consensus of the Greek press is
that this is a provocation by western secret services.
Now to the main theme of this commentary: Why only the Greeks, among all the
European peoples are opposing the NATO (that is US) bombing against
Yugoslavia? The polls show that 98 % (!) of the Greeks are against the
bombing. They express their opposition with massive demonstrations, almost
every other day all over the country. In Athens the demonstrations end up
infront of the US Embassy. This seems to not only annoy Mr. Burns, the US
Ambassador, but according to the Greek press to also make him jittery, as
indicated by his frequent visits to the Ministry of Public Order, a natural
reaction when one observes a mass of humanity as far as the eye can see (to
the tune of tens of thousands) and has protection of only a few hundred
policemen. The Greeks are ANGRY against the US. They think that the war is
morally wrong. They can see through the hypocrisy of Clinton and his
puppets. They know who Milsevic is. They are not for Milosevic. They know
the suffering of the refugees and the role of the bombing in this. Also,
they know what is happening in Yugoslavia. There are dozens of Greek
reporters in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo, who report honestly what is happening
there, as much as is possible to do, They know that Greece has been under
virtual US occupation since 1947. They know that any Greek government
"governs" as a proxy of the US elites. They know that when Demirel of Turkey
threatens Greece with war, in case Greece does not do the bidding of the US
in Kosovo, as Demirel did threaten Greece immediately after the bombing
started, he (Demirel) is doing the threatening as a proxy of the US.
However, the main reason that the Greeks see through the lies that other
peoples swallow is their history of the Resistance against the Nazis and the
history of the Greek left, especially the Greek Communist Party. It is quite
interesting to see today coservative Greeks to agree with the positions that
the left had been holding, about the US, for almost half a century, namely
that the "Americans are murderes of peoples!", which by the way is the
slogan heard from one to the other end of the country. (Of course, the
Greeks make the necessary Chomskyan distinction and by "Americans" they mean
the Trumans, the Clintons, et al.).
Two days ago, in Syntagma Square, the historic square of Athens, there was a
concert - demonstration with Mikis Theodorakis, the composer, as the central
figure of the event.. There were more than one hundred thousand people, of
all ages, present at the event. The Greeks were proud and moved to tears
about the maturity, the seriousness and the MORALITY of those present,
especially the young people. This, I think, was a real life test of the
truth of the claims made about the Greeks in the preceding paragraph. The
main slogan, repeated continuously, was: "Americans murderes of peoples!"
At this point a short parenthesis for those that do not know who Mikis
Theodorakis is. Mikis was borne in 1936. At the age of 14 he joined the anti
Nazi resistance. He was arrested and tortured. He joined the Greek left and
spent years and years in prisons and concentration camps. Since the age of
ten he had been composing. Now he is considred, worldwide, as a composer who
belongs in the company of the best composers of the world. He still belongs
to the left.
Three days from now, on Saturday the First of May, the Greek workers for the
first time in the history of the Greek labor movement will celebrate the
sacrifice of the heroes of Haymarket of Chicago infront of the US Embassy in
Athens, protesting the bombing. They will be joined by another mass of
Greeks who would start their First of May celebration in Syntagma Square,
and who are the "descendents" of the Greeks that were killed in that very
square in December 1944, essentially by British troops, a few weeks after
the Nazis left Greece, as they (the Greeks) demonstrated for freedom and
social justice.
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