As the Greek parliament votes on the new agreement (memorandum) negotiated by prime minister Alexis Tsipras and the country’s creditors, the left of the ruling Syriza party and other organisations are moving into action against the capitulation.
They are calling for a united movement to honour the 5 July referendum result, when the working class and its allies overwhelmingly voted no (“Oxi” in Greek) to any new agreement that did not lift the crippling austerity of the last five years.
The following statement was published on 13 August at the website Iskra, the publication of the Left Current from Greece’s governing Syriza party. Background to the current events can be found at Articles from Athens.
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The undersigned, representing a wide range of forces and organisations of the left reject the new third memorandum submitted today to the Parliament and call for large united struggles to overturn all memoranda and impose a new progressive orientation for the country.
The signing of a new memorandum by a government that was elected to abolish the previous two, amounts to a major disaster for the Greek people and democracy. The new memorandum means even more austerity, further restriction of the rights of the citizenry and the perpetuation of the country's regime of tutelage.
The new memorandum is a complete reversal of the mandate of the Greek people, who rejected in the referendum of 5 July in their entirety the neoliberal policies of austerity and of neo-colonial dependency.
Throughout the last five years the people opposed in every possible way the fear and blackmailing and struggled for an independent, just, reconstructed, democratic and sovereign Greece. As was the case for the previous ones, this memorandum needs to be met with the wider militant resistance of a cohesive and determined society.
We will continue down the path of 5 July until the end, until the overthrow of the policies of the memoranda, with an alternative plan for the next day – for democracy and social justice in Greece.
The fight against the new memorandum begins now, with the mobilisation of the people in every corner of the country. For this fight to develop and win, it is necessary to build up popular organisation at all levels and in all social areas.
We call for the constitution of a broad political and social nationwide movement and for the creation to of committees of struggle against the new memorandum, against austerity and against the tutelage of the country. This will be a united movement that will satisfy the aspirations of the people for democracy and social justice.
The fight that led to the triumph of “OXI” of 5 July continues and will win!
Signed
Panagiotis Lafazanis (Left Platform – Left Current)
Alekos Vernardakis (Communist Renewal)
Nikos Galanis (Leftwing Intervention)
Dimitris Kavouras (Communist Organisation Reconstruction)
Kaltsonis Dimitris (Association Yannis Kordatos)
Panagiotis Mantas (DIKKI – Socialist Left)
Antonis Davanellos (Left Platform –DEA)
Andreas Pagiatsos (Xekinima)
Spyros Sakellaropoulos (ARAN – Left Recomposition)
Dimitris Sarafianos (ARAS – Leftwing Anticapitalist Regroupment)
Maria Souani (Workers Struggle)
Themis Tzimas (Former member of PASOK National Council)
Lambros Heetas (Initiative of the 1000)
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* Xekinima is the Greek section of the Committee for a Workers’ International
* The Communist Organisation Reconstruction and the Association Yanis Kordatos are regroupments of former KKE (Greek Communist Party) activists
*Workers Struggle is a network of activists who are still in their majority members of the KKE
*DIKKI – Socialist Left is a regroupment of former PASOK activists that was part of the Syriza coalition
[Translated, with comments, by Stathis Kouvelakis.]
