bases now!"
French workers leaderships during the
Algerian war.
A UNITED FRONT AGAINST RACISM
In Dreux, there was not a dead silence following the vote.
Alongside working people, SP and CP members, alongside immigrants, the LCR demonstrated. The demonstrators showed so much spirit
Position of the Greek Fourth Internationalists that Stirbois and his cowboys decided not to set foot in the city hall that evening.
facing
So, the mounting threats hundreds of people in Dreux are ready to wage a day-to-day fight against the
The treaty on the U.S. bases in Greece, which was initialed by representatives of the abuses of the right and its auxiliaries.
Greek and American governments in July, was formally signed in Athens on Sep-
The town is not on its knees, and it has no intention of letting the Stirbois-
At the same time, an exchange of letters between the two governments was
Hireaux duo impose its racist notions or revealed, making clear what the Greek government had gotten in return for the new rule the roost as a local dictatorship.
gifts that the Americans bore were two.
What about other places? The municicredits for 1984, to be used to buy U.S. military materiel. The second was a promise pal election results in the twentieth to maintain the balance of power in the Aegean, that is, to assure that Greece kept arrondissement of Paris showed the same military equality with Turkey in the sea that divides the two countries.
pattern as in Dreux.
What part of the
Since military equipment is one of the U.S.'s most lucrative exports, it is clear country is safe from such dangers, then?
that a paltry half billion dollars to finance such purchases is not a particularly gen-
However, there is no inevitable process leading the middle strata and the
What maintaining the military balance in the Aegean means, moreover, is far from poorer white-collar workers to fall into
Obviously the U.S. would not let a war between Greece and Turkey go very
It stopped the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in a few weeks, just by cutting off the arms of a dreary fascist demagogue or an activist of the right grown more
Washington keeps both the Turkish and Greek military on a tight leash. The fact savage in the opposition.
that the Papandreou government has extended the lease for the U.S. bases on such
It would be wrong to react to Dreux poor terms is particularly scandalous since this regime was elected on a wave of
"the resignation, with pendulum is what can you expect?"
swinging back,
Because of its small size and strategic position, Greece is unusual among the
The fact is that a lot of SP and CP activdeveloped capitalist countries in that throughout its history as a bourgeois state it has ists and unionists do not agree with the been subjected to continual direct intervention by the big powers national consensus on immigration. A lot
A reactionary government was reimposed after World War II by Britain and the
The dictatorship that was forced to withdraw from power in 1974 took over in of workers are ready to fight racism. The campaign that was waged between the
Thus, anti-U.S. and anti-NATO feeling is extremely strong among the workers and first and second rounds in Dreux shows
And this, in large measure, accounts for the successes of Papandreou's that.
So, the process can be reversed if a
The present Greek CP defeated a Euro-Communist faction by identifying a broad.
united antiracist campaign is
To maintain its pretenses, and perhaps as a way of launched now. The activists and working winning back lost ground from PASOK, it has denounced the treaty.
people who oppose racism can be brought problem of explaining the Kremlin's support for it. The following comment is from together into a united front, along with the September issue of Ergatiki Pali, the paper of the Greek section of the Fourth the forty organizations that are campaigning for a single residence permit-identity card valid for ten years, with the MRAP
(3), and all the trade-union and political organizations that can be induced to join.
We have to take the fight against seriously, just as we racism racist offensive seriously.
not been lost with the first skirmish.
will be a long-term struggle, a constant task.
It will have to be explained again and again in the neighborhoods and the workplaces that working-class unity is the best bulwark against racism.
The Front National is a quite small fascist organization.
The racist propaganda of the right can be combated. So, let's get on with the fight.
3.
Movement contre le Racisme, Anti-Semit-
Paix,
Movement isme, et la
Against
DOLLE
Racism, Anti-Semitism, and for Peace, a liberal organization in which Communist Party members and periphery have traditionally played a major role.
12 tember 8. supplies to the Turks. U.S. 1968 with the help of the CIA and NATO. Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party (PASOK). pro-Moscow line with militancy.
After an interminable round of discusdeliberation, and bargaining was to confuse and disorient the Greek working people the Greek government has initialed a treaty with the U.S. on the American military government claims that this is a We are not surprised by this sort of bluster by the PASOK government: Over the last two years, the most blatant false pretenses have become its trademark. We doubt if this scale of demagogy has any parallel in all of Greek political history.
When he initialed the agreement on the bases on July 15, 1983, the Greek premier [ Papandreou ] said over TV: "The contents of this treaty will be made public, I think, in ten to fifteen days."
Well, over a month has passed since then and these celebrated contents have not yet been put before the public.
Another example of the way PASOK distorts the truth is the so-called time limit for removal of the bases. PASOK has talked about a five year period for getting the bases out. But this does not
One was 500 million dollars in But it has the include the year that was taken up by the
And it will not include the year for "dismantling" the bases (which in fact will never happen). least seven years before the bases could
On TV, Papandreou also said "This treaty is virtually unparalleled. no other example of such a treaty. you like, it constitutes an important historical precedent."
We agree that there is something unparalleled about this treaty. is is the retreat from PASOK's election
The new treaty is scheduled to run out
Every treaty has a definite time span; it ends sometime. In this case, the treaty runs out in five years. There is nothing, however, to prevent the two contracting parties from renewing it or from signing another with better or worse conditions.
What PASOK in fact did was to commit any Greek government from moving against the bases for five years. Over this period, there is now no legal way to get rid of the bases.
What the PASOK government in fact
"Mr. U.S. imperialists, I give you my pledge that for five years you can keep your bases, your fortress against the Arab peoples, and if necessary against the peoples of Eastern Europe. about the only pledge, moreover, PASOK is likely to keep. And we are not putting words in their mouth in our hypothetical quote. Because these words they used in
The essential thing about the treaty, in fact, is that it guarantees that the bases will remain a long time and does not offer any guarantee that they will go when that
The treaty also contains other stipulations, the details of which we do not know about. But from what the premier said immediately after the signing, we have a pretty good idea.
The premier boasted that the Americans agreed to make it explicit in the treaty that the bases do not serve NATO's interests but only those of the U.S. But what real difference is there?
Another point that Papandreou stressed was that Greece got important concessions both in terms of economic aid and with respect to maintaining the balance in the Aegean.
We might paraphrase this also. What it amounts to saying is: "Yes we did give them some land - no small part of the national patrimony — to use to build a fortress to serve their interests - and everyone knows what those interests involved. But the Americans will give us aid." If that is not a deal, if that is not selling out the country, what is it?
To point up how much of a retreat this treaty is from PASOK's election promises and how much of a "victory" it is, we will note two facts:
The first is that Americans do sign treaties like this with countries where such treaties with Spain and
The second is that the treaty has gotten the approval of all the reactionary forces from the Greek right to the Amer-
The rightist papers have not only expressed thier satisfaction. ridiculed PASOK for its vainglorious
Averoff said that the treaty positive step. Karamanlis (1) said that it strengthened our national defenses.
At the same time, the Soviet Union and TASS commented: "Thanks to the courageous stand taken by the Greek government, reflecting the great wave of opposition to the U.S. military presence in Greece, Washington was forced to make some concessions.
The Soviet bureaucrats thought the position of the Papandreou government was courageous. That means that the Greek working people should accept the treaty and of course not protest about it.
The position of the Soviet Union does not surprise us. This is not the first time the Soviet bureaucracy has betrayed the interests of the Greek working people for the sake of its policy of "peaceful coand maintaining the status
What do Rizospastis (the Greek CP paper) and the Communist Party think about this? The CP, of course has a different view. It is against the signing of the treaty. But we don't think its objections will go beyond some limited flights of patriotic rhetoric and appeals for nais a spectacular retreat from the promises PASOK made during the election campaign to convince the Greek people to vote for it. The hopes of the Greek people have been betrayed in
However, as a defender of the interests of the capitalist class, PASOK could not pursue a policy different from that of its bourgeois masters. The American bases represent a guarantee and an underpinning of interests of the bourgeoisie.
maintaining these bases is a question of vital importance for the bourgeoisie. But also for American imperialism, this is a question of enormous strategic importance. These bases enable them to control an important part of the Mediterranean. make it possible for them to control an area as sensitive as the Middle East.
For example, it is from the bases that it has in neighboring countries that the Americans are sending their mercenaries against the Sandinista government of government should stop pretending that this treaty is a victory. It only makes them look more ridiculous. Or do they think that it amounts to a victory because it has a few minor improvements over the previous one that was signed in 1953, in a period when the Americans had made Greece into their
The Greek working people will fight to bourgeoisie shall not pass. must be dismantled now.
This government has no right to sign a treaty that not even the right accept, that all the working people are opposed to.
More fundamentally, why doesn't the government give the right to the Greek people to decide on such an important
We should remind the government that the bourgeoisie often gives its dirtiest Jobs to "socialist" and "left" governments. •
The bases out now!
- Let the people vote on the bases! 1. Karamanlis is the president and the main representative of the classical right. He was installed as premier in 1974 by the dictatorship of the colonels when it retired from the scene, Averoff is the leader of the main rightist party.