Mass mobilization held in front of the Greek Ministry of Defense in Athens against NATO

The mass mobilization that took place in the afternoon of Thursday 25th of February at the Ministry of Defense against NATO's involvement in the Aegean ended with the symbolic blockade of the Ministry's gate and with the slogan "EU and NATO are the syndicate of war, close the bases of death now."

The mass protest was organized by the Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE), while PAME, OGE(Greek Women Federation), EEDDA (Greek Committee for International Democratic Solidarity), OBSA (Athens Federation of Craftsmen) and MAS(Students Militant Front), issued a call for people to participate. A plethora of organizations of the people's movement, workers, youth and women responded to the call.

A similar mobilization against NATO's involvement in the Aegean was the All-Crete protest at the NATO firing range on the island.

The main issue of the demonstration was to denounce and to protest against the decision of NATO upon a common proposition of the German, Turkish and Greek governments to send warships and navy to patrol in the Aegean Sea, supposedly in order to stop the flow of refugees while the same forces (e.g. NATO and EU) are the ones who are deeply involved in the crisis in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

The speaker at the rally was the president of EEDYE and MP of the KKE, Stavros Tassos, who stressed that the "SYRIZA-ANEL government plays the leading role in implementing the very dangerous political line that serves the interests of the monopolies and assimilates our country even more deeply into the war plans of NATO and the EU." Stavros Tassos underlined that “The government bears enormous responsibilities for proposing, in conjunction with Turkey and Germany, to dispatch NATO forces into the Aegean in the name of protecting the Greek-Turkish borders from refugees!!! The decision of the EU – given its support of NATO in the militarization of the Aegean – leads to “co-management”, against our country’s sovereign rights. NATO is a butcher of the peoples; it is a murderous war machine. It has no business in the Aegean; it is dangerous to the Greek people and to the refugees and migrants whom it uproots from their countries, together with the EU.

The demonstrators demanded:
• NATO out of the Aegean
• No participation of Greece in the imperialist interventions
• The euro-atlantic military bases in Greece must be closed now.