IV494 - March 2016

Note from LeftEast editors: We publish here a demand for removal of the fence on the Macedonian-Greek border as requested by a list of Macedonian grassroots movements and NGOs. At the beginning of March 2016, Slovenia announced the re-establishing of the Schengen zone and the visa regime- only people with valid documents and visas were allowed entry on its territory, which effectively meant a closure of its borders for refugees. Croatia and Serbia followed Slovenia’s example. Macedonia followed suit last week, when it sealed off its border with Greece. With this act, “the Balkan route” last year’s main refugee route has effectively been cut off. If you would like to voice your support individually or as an organisation, please send an e-mail to ld.solidarnost@gmail.com, with the following subject: Solidarity with the people on the move.

IV 494 March 2016 PDF magazine

A few days ago came the 16th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s rule, which is traditionally celebrated by endless fantasies on the theme of ‘Russia after Putin’. This intellectual exercise, which is constantly reproduced by the liberal opposition media, has an obvious therapeutic function: no one believes that it will actually end, and therefore the question of the end of this era, as it is beginning to seem endless, becomes the subject of utopias and anti-utopias.

The Third National Conference of the Greek anti-capitalist left, organized three years after the previous one, was a gamble and a challenge, for reasons that were at once fundamental, strategic and organizational.

It’s hard to believe that our twitchy governor, John Kasich, is thought to be the most reasonable and moderate of the Republican presidential candidates. He’s never been that sensitive, no matter how many hugs he gives on national television. This is the governor who, after being ticketed for a traffic violation, called the policeman an “idiot;” the man who went to Cleveland and told Browns football fans that he rooted for their arch-rival, the Steelers.

Five years after the beginning of the popular Syrian Revolution which demanded democracy and human rights, the Syrian revolutionaries have been decimated through the combined military force of the Assad Regime, the Iranian regime with its sectarian militias, Russian air strikes and military assistance on the one hand, and the ultra-terrorist ISIS and other Salafist – Jihadist organizations on the other hand. Nevertheless a partial reduction of airstrikes by Russia and the Assad regime in early March led to an immediate revival of mass protests of the democratic opposition across the country with banners such as the following in Idlib: “Our peaceful revolution is still in progress until toppling Assad and imposing justice all over Syria.”

Twenty years ago the Mexican government signed the San Andrés Accords Regarding the Rights and Culture of the Indigenous that granted autonomy to Indian communities. Yet today, some argue that the indigenous people of Mexico, who represent about 10 to 15 percent of the population of the country, are worse off than they were then. What happened and where are things now?

Massive popular demonstrations have continued to take place throughout the liberated areas of Syria for the past three weeks under the slogan “The revolution continues”. Hundreds of protests were recorded on the “Friday of Dignity” on March 18, 2016 from the north to the south of the country. The Syrian revolutionary flag was waved everywhere, while Salafi jihadist forces and their symbols were still absent from these protests in recent weeks. Some small rallies were also held in some towns and villages in the Kurdish majority regions with slogans promoting unity between Arabs and Kurds and solidarity with other cities and regions of Syria. A big demonstration was held in the city of Qamishli on March 12, 2016 which has a majority populated of Kurds but with also Arab and Assyrian populations, to commemorate the twelve years since the start of the Kurdish uprising in Syria in 2004, which included also slogans against the Assad regime.

The LCR-SAP condemns in the most energetic fashion the cowardly terrorist attacks that were perpetrated on 22 March in Brussels. No political or religious motivation can be an excuse for these heinous crimes. The LCR-SAP expresses its support and its profound solidarity with all the innocent victims of this blind violence.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his government are preparing to confront a new round of protests and strikes as the European authorities—often referred to as the Troika of the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF)—demand even deeper cuts on top of the drastic austerity measures of the third Memorandum that Tsipras agreed to last July. The mass support that Tsipras and the remnants of the radical SYRIZA has been crumbling since the September 2015 election after the party’s left wing was driven out and formed the core of the new organization Popular Unity.