On Friday, May 7, anti-imperialist groups in the Greek city of Alexandroupolis protested the use of the city’s port as a US-NATO base. On Wednesday, the US ship Liberty Promise docked at the port and unloaded military equipment and personnel to be deployed in the ongoing “Defender Europe 21” joint military exercise in the Baltic region. The call for mobilization was given by the Alexandroupolis committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
The landing of military personnel and equipment at the Alexandroupolis port was witnessed by US ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt and Greek defense minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos. US fighter aircraft landed at the Greek airstrip of Larrisa on Thursday.
The KKE slammed the government for dragging Greece into NATO’s imperialist designs in Europe. “Under the watchful eye of the NATO hawk, the American ambassador, thousands of NATO troops are heading through Alexandroupolis to the Russian border where war preparations are underway in Ukraine,” KKE stated.
“We call on the people of our city, Alexandroupolis, not to be complacent, but to be vigilant to the sounds of the bombers, to the trumpets of the promises of “freedom” of their real enemies…. to declare to the ambassador and every other NATO hawk that you are unwanted and go back from where you came,” the party added.
In 2019, Greece and the US signed an updated defense cooperation agreement to adjust the MDCA, also known as the “Agreement for the Bases,” in accordance with the current US-NATO strategic outlook in the region. The agreement envisages the upgradation of the Souda base in Greece and its integration into the existing circuit of bases, including those in Larissa, Stefanovikio, Magnesia, Araxos and Alexandroupolis. Anti-imperialist sections in Greece such as the KKE, All Workers Militant Front (PAME), Hellenic Committee for International Recession and Peace (EEDYE) and others, had denounced the agreement and organized massive protest rallies against it across the country.
To protest the recent US military maneuvers in Greece, the EEDYE has announced several anti-imperialist actions in the second half of May throughout the country, but especially in areas where bases and infrastructure are located. The Volos Peace Committee has also given a call for anti-imperialist mobilizations and “denounced the right-wing New Democracy (ND)-led incumbent government in Greece, which, stepping on the paved road found by the government of SYRIZA and PASOK, involves Greece more and more deeply in the dangerous tangle of competition and war.”
