By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
An international meeting against the conservation and further expansion and development of the Atlantic Alliance was held on the 26th of October in Rome, at the initiative of the Italian Committee “No to NATO, ‘No to war’. Tens of personalities from ten European countries, the United States and Lebanon, among them (current and former) parliamentarians from Italy and other European countries, participated.
The occasion for the meeting was the giant NATO exercise «Trident Juncture» that the bystander MP and member of the Political Bureau of the Cypriot AKEL George Loucaides described as a “war rehearsal”, designed to scare all over the planet. One of the biggest in the history of the alliance, the exercise is being conducted in a huge area from the Atlantic to North Europe and the Mediterranean, involving more than 35,000 troops from 30 countries.
Apart from the protest for the exercise, the purpose of the meeting was, according to the organizers, to coordinate efforts to inform the public about the role of the Atlantic Alliance, and the abolition of NATO, as an essential step for the protection of peace and the consolidation of the European independence.
In his speech to the conference, Giulietto Chiesa, well known Italian intellectual, journalist and former MEP, referred extensively to the Ukrainian crisis, stressing in his speech the need for the European public to realize that NATO is an organization preparing actually the 3rd World War.
Several Italian speakers referred to “occupation” of very large regions of Sicily and Sardinia by NATO and the intense and very negative Environmental consequences of the existence and operation of these facilities, while others have underlined the effective abolition of the Atlantic Alliance of peoples’ sovereignty and national independence of the Member States.
The background of the hostile policy of the West against Russia is the assumption that the USSR was defeated in the Cold War, but this was not the case argued MEP from Latvia Tatjana Zdanoka who recalled that one of the essential documents of that time – the Charter of Paris for a New Europe as of November 1990 – is forgotten. The preamble of this document says: “The era of confrontation and division of Europe is ended. We declare that henceforth our, relations will be founded on respect and co-operation”. The Russo phobia is imposed to the West European countries by Poland, Sweden, Baltic republics having their own historical prejudices against Russia and Russians, but no any conflict in Europe can be resolved against Russia, Mrs Zdanoka said.
All participants from Greece and Cyprus stood in particular to the decisive role played by NATO in the imposition of the military dictatorship of April 21, 1967 in Greece, in the coup and the attempted assassination of Cypriot Archbishop Makarios in 1974 and in the subsequent Turkish invasion of the island.
“Neither NATO in Cyprus, nor Cyprus in NATO” was formula used by Mr. Loucaides, who referred to the decisive role of his party, AKEL, and its determined anti-NATO attitude, with which agrees the majority of the Cypriot people. This AKEL stance was essential in discouraging the plans for the integration of the island into the Atlantic Alliance and the “Partnership for Peace” program.
The vice president of the General Council of the Greek Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY) and ex-member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA Marios Kritikos stressed that workers in Greece are fighting for a Europe free of nuclear weapons and for the abolition of NATO, “gendarme of world capitalism.” They demand from the Greek government the immediate return of Greek forces involved in offensive missions of the Atlantic Alliance, the “catastrophic, tragic results of which are now visible to everyone on the giant refugee flows”. Participation in such missions, he pointed out, is totally unacceptable also for the additional reason that spending money that has desperately need the Greek society.
The journalist and writer Dimitris Konstantakopoulos emphasized from his side the organic unity of the world “neoliberal” and global “neoconservative” project, aimed at in-depth restructuring of the whole socio-political relationships and the system of international relations inherited from the victory over fascism in the second world war and the anti-colonial revolutions that followed in the Middle East (and Cyprus). In Greece, he underlined, we now encounter, on one hand the devastating effects of the attack of international finance capital against European democracy and the welfare state, on the other the reflection of a new and terrible form of imperialism, exercised in the Middle East. Imperialism and colonialism are not new phenomena for this region. What is new, he stressed, is that now they are not just conquering, but literally they destroy the countries of the Middle East.
The ‘Greek author argued that today the essential role of the NATO is not different that the one described by the military adviser of Churchill Lord Ismey, that is to “keep Americans in, Germans (Europeans) down and Russians out” from Europe. He recalled that even in the Maastricht Treaty there is a condition for the EU to go on attached to the Atlantic Alliance. European independence is inconceivable without NATO, addressing the huge economic and social challenges in front of Europe is inconceivable without the independence of its nations.
The participants condemned the exercises now conducted in a huge area of Europe and agreed to coordinate the actions of information and opposition to NATO activities.
