Speech of Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, at the International Conference organized by AKEL
“The danger of fascism and reactionary forces in the era of imperialism and wars”
4th June 2015, Nicosia
On behalf of the C.C. of AKEL I warmly welcome you all to Cyprus. Within the framework of the 22nd Congress of our Party we are organizing this International Conference on the theme “The danger of fascism and reactionary forces in the era of imperialism and wars”. Your own participation is an honour for us. We hope its deliberations and content will respond to everyone’s aspirations and particularly of our peoples.
Your participation and contribution today in the Congress sends out an important message to the Cypriot people. As you know Cyprus and our people suffered the consequences of the aggressiveness of NATO imperialism, Turkey’s expansionism and Greek and Cypriot fascism. These forces led to the occupation of a large part of our country by Turkey. Our small country unfortunately has never experienced full independence and freedom. Cyprus was always a victim of the aggressions waged by the mighty of the earth that from time to time used or cooperated with a section of the domestic ruling class, the nationalist and chauvinist circles on the island in order to fulfill their abhorrent plans. We express our gratitude because the Communist and progressive parties from all over the world and the international peace-loving movement always stood on our side and helped, without demanding anything in return, the struggle of the Cypriot people for liberation and the reunification of our homeland.
Today, as AKEL, we are working together with the other peace-loving forces on our Island to build up a dynamic for a solution of the Cyprus problem, but not any solution however. We are struggling for a solution that will free us from the occupation; that will reunify our island on the basis of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and that will lead to a single State, with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship. We are struggling for a solution without guarantees, without rights of intervention and foreign armies; for a solution that will be based on the relevant resolutions of the United Nations, the High-Level Agreements, International and European Law; for a solution that will serve the Cypriot people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, as well as the cause of peace in the wider region. We are seeking to utilize the international interest to achieve a solution, not because we have illusions that the imperialist circles are interested in a solution as we understand it. However, it is our duty not to allow time to pass by, consolidating and perpetuating more the fait accomplish on the ground. Such a development will render colonization permanent and will bring us closer to partition. We are fully aware of the difficulties we will encounter in the effort to reach a solution. However, we believe in the just cause of our struggle. We are filled with self-confidence about the strength of our arguments. We therefore need to operate with consistency to the principles to assert it, act with seriousness and in a collective manner to assert the solution. In this way we can demand from the international community to exert its influence on Turkey to arrive at an agreement.
70 years since the Antifascist Victory of the Peoples, where the role of the Soviet Union was decisive, international developments are forming conditions similar to those that were prevailing before the outbreak of the Second World War.
In our view there are four key elements that illustrate the current reality; a reality reminiscent of the period when the scourge of Hitler fascism was unleashed.
The first is the deep capitalist crisis. We all know that crises are an inherent characteristic of the capitalist system. They are necessary for curbing workers and labour rights, as well as ensuring profit. This is what is happening now. The most recent policies being promoted by the ruling class of the European Union are aiming at the curtailment of workers rights, creation of new labour faits accomplis and safeguarding profits. The identification of the political parties of the Right and the Social democrats for some years now is leading to this direction, intensifying the denigration and depreciation of the political system in general. These two political families in reality are giving the same answers to basic issues, with very few differences between them.
Both of them together established within the EU mechanisms of dependence of the member-states on the periphery; whilst in the internal affairs of their countries where the parties of these political families are in power they are managing the system in harmony with the monopolies.
Secondly, reactionary forces, but also those of an openly neo-fascist character and others more covertly with a racist and anti-immigrant mask, have grown stronger since this crisis broke out, but also because of the gradual development of economic management in the states. These forces of the extreme-right are benefiting from the partial or total depreciation of the political system and are attempting, dressed with a supposed patriotic mask, to present themselves as an alternative option. They conceal the causes for the impoverishment of the popular masses and are satisfied with superficial analyses and populist slogans. For example, as far as the millions of migrants are concerned these forces conceal the reasons forcing them to search for a better future elsewhere. They hide the fact that the intense influx of migrants is the result of the inequalities, dependence and poverty. First and foremost it is the result of the savage wars waged by imperialism as it wants to create colonies to extract raw materials or to control the energy routes and other rich resources. In concealing these truths they continue their rhetoric of hatred, appealing to the lowest instincts of the masses. They accuse immigrants of being responsible for unemployment. Of course they keep quiet about the fact that big capital is using immigrants as a reserve force of cheap labour. These reactionary forces are fed both by the political positions of the bourgeois parties which in part are investing in populism, as well as anti-communism which the ruling parties are cultivating.
The latest example is the decision taken by the European Union to conduct in the name of combating illegal migration a war supposedly against traffickers of migrants. This is the way they tackle the causes of growing migration which are rooted in the system itself as I have previously mentioned. They are just increasing the repression and missions in third countries. At the same time, they resort to FRONTEXT-type standard policies, whilst strengthening the arsenal of the reactionary, fascist and ultra-right circles that are attempting to combat immigrants through violence and hatred.
The third point is the deadlocks the system generates in the struggle of the ruling forces for the division and re-division of the world.
The imperialist forces in their efforts to prevail in the competition for the wealth of nations, supported through their interventions in Ukraine, Syria, Libya and Iraq the most backward, sectarian, and extremist nationalist-fascist forces. These forces rely on implementing tactics of horror and ethnic cleansing. There support was given aiming to destabilize the regimes that were governing specific countries so as to impose a new order to suit and serve their own interests. This tactic is not at all strange to the US or NATO. As Hilary Clinton herself admitted the US funded and armed the Taliban, the hordes of Bin Laden in the war of Afghanistan in 1983 and ISIS so that they could exhaust the opposing force of the Soviet Union and win the game of their strategic goals. At the same time, they opened, we believe deliberately, the Pandora’s Box to the reactionary forces which they themselves had created in order to impose their backwardness on the peoples wherever they prevailed. Whilst they themselves supported and strengthened them, now they are elevating them as an enemy of the civilized world. Indeed, they are launching protracted wars to exterminate the forces they themselves had created. Nothing is accidental. Their interventions supposedly to promote peace and democracy are aiming to serve the wider interests of the ruling economic forces.
In the Middle East they have supplied with funds, arms, information and other means, the fanatical Islamist elements. There is now proof of this. I am indicatively referring to the press report published in the reputable newspaper “Guardian” in May 2013. This underlined that the decision of the European Union to lift the embargo against the occupied by the fanatical Islamists Syria led to petrol being traded by Al-Nusra and other organizations, hence providing them with significant funds in the war they are waging to establish an Islamic state between Syria and Iraq. We must recall that over a year of economic and political support rendered to the fanatical Islamists had gone by when the US realized that they were supplying “the wrong organizations”, resulting in the division of the Syrian opposition and the creation of the new so-called Syrian Council. Until then, the so-called “Free Syrian Army” included the most reactionary elements in the Muslim world. At the same time, according to a statement made by the then deputy President of the German Parliament Claudia Roth (Green Party) on 12th October 2014 Turkey hosted on its territory a military camp of the so-called Islamic State organization.
In Ukraine they used the Right Sector and other fascists as a Trojan horse that attracts due to their origin the collaborators of the Nazis during the Second World War. Both the US and the EU worked on the ground in Ukraine for the coup d’état to succeed against the lawful government of the country and for forces to seize power that are promoting Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO. Since 1997 Brzezinski, an advisor to successive US governments outlined the objective goal of the foreign policy of his country to continue in the long-term to be the leading economic and military power and the transformation of Russia into a “loose confederal formation that will be composed of European Russia, the Serbian Republic and the Republic of the Far East”. The reason is that energy in the wider region is the driving force of economic power in history. An encircled and subsequently divided Russia cannot challenge any superior hegemonic power.
“I believe,” Brzezinski said,”that if Ukraine is not led into a position of subjugation towards Moscow, but gradually begins to approach the EU and NATO this increases the possibility of Russia too following a corresponding path”. To fulfill their goal these very same circles, headed by the military arm of NATO, are letting loose and enhancing neo-fascist forces. The strengthening of monopoly trusts and of the military-industrial bloc of the mighty of the world is being promoted simultaneously with the elevating of the most reactionary forces from history’s dustbin as significant players on the political arena.
The fourth point I would like to point out is the anti-scientific campaign to equate fascism with communism is not accidental. The transformation of History into a tool of the ruling ideology has two specific goals: To deprive the Historical truth and the vision of a different future from future generations. The theory about the “two extremes” which is being promoted in recent years cannot withstand the objective and dialectic examination of events. Every logical person can see the difference between the two. It is obvious that this equation is being carried out because the ruling bourgeois ideology, the ideology of neo-liberalism and the so-called new world order, which presents itself as the opposing pole to the two extremes, wants to prevail. The reality and historical truth state that there is a difference in both philosophy and content. Fascism and Nazism bequeathed the hell of Auschwitz and their sickening ideology. Socialism with all its mistakes, distortions and weaknesses, bequeathed social, scientific and cultural progress; it bequeathed principles, values and ideals that have people at their core. Socialism bequeathed the precious experience of a qualatively more advanced society from which the contemporary communist movement draws valuable lessons for the future.
Cyprus suffered from the consequences of the fascist coup d’état in 1974. It suffered from the NATO interventions, including the invasion and occupation by Turkey of half of our homeland. That is to say, the historical background and experience exists regarding the consequences of this action and the need for an anti-fascist struggle. Just recently, through demonstrations, but also the holding of discussions and symposiums we led the efforts to raise the alarm about the danger of fascism to all the democratic forces. AKEL, as our fraternal Parties too, has repeatedly stressed that developments are so dangerous that they affect humanity as a whole. It is inconceivable for an entity to claim that it has an anti-fascist character if it does not denounce in practice the policy of the imperialist forces, the wars imperialism is waging and their cooperation with the fascists and ultra-right. Irrespective of the resonance and influence of our type of Parties the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggle must be uncompromising. In addition, the World Peace Council, as well as the mass peace organizations in our country, must be supported so that the movement becomes broader and increases its influence.
We believe that as far as action on an anti-fascist level is concerned, the international Communist and Workers movement can express with greater effectiveness and in a collective way internationally all that it puts forward on a national level. On our part, we pledge to work with greater consistency towards this end. Our demand and struggles for the dissolution of NATO represents a contribution to humanity’s progress. International and local reaction to imperialism’s plans and their fulfillment by the mighty of the world can inspire our peoples.
We need to intensify the struggle for the non-participation of our countries in unjust wars, to highlight an overall humanistic education as a bastion of resistance to fascisation; to intensify the battle against racism, xenophobia, against the exploitative system itself which generates poverty in the life and minds of people. We need to use parliamentary struggle and every institution we participate in to promote and project. All of these are in our opinion a priority for our type of parties, as well as of the truly democratic forces.
