AKEL honors the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic popular uprising

 

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 16th November 2020, Nicosia

AKEL honors the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic popular uprising against the American-engineered junta of the Colonels which oppressed Greece for 7 years and massacred Cyprus with the betrayal it committed against it. We pay tribute to the dead of the Polytechnic uprising and all the fighters of the Greek people’s anti-dictatorship struggle who were tested in the torture chambers, prisons, exile and the military courts.

The emblematic slogan “Bread-Education-Freedom” and the demands “USA out – NATO out” that were painted on the gates of the Polytechnic, united the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist content of the struggle against the April 1967 military dictatorship with the visions of social progress and justice. This is the thread of history that unites the Polytechnic with the current demands of the youth and working people, with today’s struggles for their just causes and rights.

The anniversary is a reminder of the Greek junta’s role in the NATO plans for the partition of Cyprus. With the organization of the coup d’état against President Makarios, the Greek junta of the ultra “national-minded” forces knowingly opened the gates for Turkey’s army of Attila to invade our island. The modern history of Cyprus and Greece reminds us that countless times traitors came disguised as super-patriots.

Today, democracy may have been restored, but the great and always timely demands of the Polytechnic remain unfulfilled. In fact, the dangerous American-NATO presence in our region is deepening again, while fascism in Greece and Cyprus has raised its head again. The memory and honor to the Polytechnic popular uprising demand the defence of History and Democracy from the fascist ultra-right. It demands resistance to the plans seeking to turn our island into a bridgehead of foreign forces and struggle so that the crime committed by the Greek junta against Cyprus will not be completed. It demands relentless struggle to stop the partition, struggle for the liberation and reunification of our homeland and people.