Joint statement of communist and workers' parties on the 60th anniversary of Nato

The 4th April 2009, is the 60th anniversary of the foundation of NATO, the imperialist organisation which is under the leadership of the USA.

NATO was created allegedly in order to confront the USSR, the first workers’ state in the world that withstood and confronted successfully the attack of the Nazi plague, giving a new impetus to the struggle for national and social liberation all over the world.

At the same time, the capitalist governments of the USA, Canada and Western Europe needed a military political mechanism to repress and intimidate the peoples. This need was served by the foundation of NATO.

Its goal was to confront and obstruct with the use of arms any type of progressive changes. For that reason, but also for ensuring the interests of imperialism, NATO supported the reactionary regimes and dictatorships in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, while it played a leading role in the partition of Cyprus.

Its action was and still is based on anticommunism and all types of fabrications and provocations against the revolutionary communist movement and the peoples’ struggle for peace, social justice and socialism.

NATO’s history in its role as world “sheriff” of imperialism is linked to violations of international law. It is marked with the blood of victims of its direct or indirect interventions throughout the world.

Especially nowadays the character of NATO as a military mechanism, as a basic tool of imperialist action inside the member states as well as outside their borders for the establishment of the “new order” has been fully exposed.

The argument that NATO was an allegedly defensive treaty is a lie and empty propaganda aiming at concealing the real goals and role of this aggressive organisation.

Following the summit in Rome in 1992 and in 1999 in Washington, NATO has adopted a new doctrine that provides the possibility of intervention throughout the world, in the name of new threats, under the pretext of combating terrorism, the protection of natural sources’ flow etc. During this period NATO moved on with its new structure which is based mainly on the aggressive “rapid deployment forces”.

The USA along with the EU organised the dissolution of Yugoslavia and in this way NATO triggered off the war in Bosnia, realized the dirty war against Serbia, with the 78 days of bombing in 1999 that levelled the country to the ground and led to the NATO and EU occupation of Kosovo and its “independence” from Serbia.

The wars of NATO in the Balkans and Afghanistan, the participation in the war in Iraq, the interventions in Pakistan and in South Asia demonstrate the brutal nature of imperialism. NATO was always the main supporter for Israel in its aggression against the Palestinian people and other Arab peoples. NATO, also, played, and still plays a role in the siege imposed on Gaza. Contrary to peoples’ will, NATO attempts to draw to its web Ukraine and Georgia. It encourages in every possible way their armament, supporting the most reactionary circles of these countries. The imposition of a “new order” have as an enemy the states and the peoples that react to the imperialist aggressiveness. Therefore, it escalates the armament and develops new threatening weapon systems, such as the so-called antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

NATO’s programme “Partnership for Peace” promotes its expansion with new country-members. It was implemented in all former socialist countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe that later became members of the NATO. Nowadays, pressure is being exerted to the government of the Republic of Cyprus to join this programme and be integrated in the Euro-Atlantic plans. The government and the people of Cyprus strongly resist because an approval would give an indulgence for the invasion of the Turkish army in Cyprus conducted with the approval of the USA and the NATO, as well as acceptance of the de facto occupation of part of the island by the Turkish troops that continues till nowadays.

Imperialism-USA-NATO-EU are closely related concepts. Despite their contradictions and their antagonisms, both the EU and USA turn against the peoples, since the EU in the Euro-treaty considers NATO as its main pillar and fully accepts its role. The EU army is linked with the NATO and France has returned to the latter’s military arm. On the 60th anniversary of its establishment, NATO attempts to present itself as “innocent as a dove”, with an unprecedented propaganda of distortion of history, through the media manipulated by the system, the universities funded by research programmes of NATO etc.

NATO appears to be all-powerful, but it is not. The world economic crisis of capitalism strengthens the imperialist aggressiveness while at the same time it shows its limits. Imperialism cannot exist without controlling new markets, without broadening its influence, without capturing and oppressing other peoples, along with the peoples of its own states, for the expansion of monopolies’ activity.

There is a counterweight to NATO; it’s the anti-imperialist forces all over the world, the global anti-war, anti-imperialist, peace movement that in coordination with the workers’ movement and the other social movements of women, the youth, in defence of nature of natural resources and the movements of solidarity struggle against imperialism and demand from the collaborators of the “predatory alliance” the immediate dissolution of the NATO.

This is the “one-way road” for the peoples. We have to stop the imperialist aggressiveness, contribute to the defeat of imperialism that constitutes a prerequisite for a peaceful world.

Nowadays, the verbal condemnation of NATO’s crimes and threats is not enough. There needs to be a wide anti-war, anti-imperialist peace movement that will rally the workers, the youth and broad social and popular forces.

The peoples through their struggle can actually set obstacles to the criminal plans of the NATO and the other imperialist forces and win.

The Communist and Workers’ Parties call the peoples to intensify their struggle:

• Against the military expenditure.
• Prohibition of NATO programmes at the universities.
• The immediate return of all troops and other missions that participate in imperialist operations outside our countries.
• The emancipation of our countries from the imperialist wars, countries’ occupation and imperialist interventions.
• The removal of all foreign military bases from our countries.
• The disengagement of our countries from the NATO.
• The dissolution of NATO.

LONG LIVE THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE PEOPLES

DOWN WITH THE NEW ORDER OF THE IMPERIALISTS

The parties

1. Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
2. Communist Party of Bangladesh
3. Communist Party of Belarus
4. Worker’s Party of Belgium
5. Workers' Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina
6. Brazilian Communist Party
7. Communist Party of Brazil
8. Communist Party of Britain
9. New Communist Party of Britain
10. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
11. Communist Party of Canada
12. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
13. Communist Party of Cuba
14. Communist Party of Bohemia Moravia
15. Communist Party in Denmark
16. Communist Party of Estonia
17. Communist Party of finland
18. German Communist Party (DKP)
19. Communist Party of Greece
20. Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party
21. Communist Party of India
22. Communist Party of India [Marxist]
23. Communist Party of Ireland
24. Party of the Italian Communists
25. Jordanian Communist Party
26. Socialist Party of Latvia
27. Lebanese Communist Party
28. Socialist Party of Lithuania
29. Communist Party of Luxemburg
30. Communist Party of Malta
31. Party of the Communists, Mexico
32. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
33. Communist Party of Pakistan
34. Communist Party of Poland
35. Portuguese Communist Party
36. Romanian Communist Party
37. Communist Party of Russian Federation
38. Communist Party of Soviet Union
39. Communist Workers Party of Russia-Party of Communists of Russia (RKRP-RPC)
40. Union of Communist Parties —CPSU
41. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
42. Party of the Serbian Communists
43. Communist Party of Slovakia
44. South African Communist Party
45. Communist Party of Spain
46. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
47. Communist Party of Sri-Lanka
48. Syrian Communist Party
49. Communist Party of Syria
50. Communist Party of Sweden
51. Communist Party of Turkey
52. Communist Party of Ukraine
53. Union of Communists of Ukraine
54. Communist Party of Uruguay

9th April 2009