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Thank you, Mr Bush!
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There is no greater callousness and immorality than the discussion going on about post-war Iraq.
The martyred victim writhes desperately under the lethal blows of the criminal, while Europe dares not look at the victim, dares not look at the criminal, dares not look at the slaughter, but discusses its share of the profits arising from the burial of an entire population.
A monstrous attitude that tarnishes the moral values Europe is supposed to be founded on and on which the European Union is now to be extended.
It no longer exists, the European Union! The European Union was murdered by Bush, Blair and Aznar, when they decided upon their barbarous invasion of Iraq, which means the negation of the quintessence of Europe as a moral entity respecting international law and the rights of populations.
After that, it was stigmatised by the decision of the candidate countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary) together with the governments of Italy, Portugal, Holland and Denmark to collaborate in this criminal action.
So what Europe are we speaking of? On 16 April, the day when Athens is set to celebrate the 25-State Europe, there will be tens of thousands of civilian dead and wounded in Iraq, incalculable destruction.
Why? What are the moral principles and human values that half the governments of Europe defended alongside the USA in Iraq? On the basis of what human, national or international right did they invade a country without reason and bomb it to rubble, sowing suffering and destruction?
And what relations can we, the Greeks, have with those who murder women and children in cold blood, knowing that this is being done, firstly, to let America’s leaders share the petrol supplies between them, and secondly, to turn Iraq into an American protectorate that will control by force of arms the whole Middle East.
For what reason should we, the Greeks, coexist with perceptions and practices that until now we have considered morally unjustifiable, for which we have shed our blood to eliminate them from the globe?
Our Europe, the one that conforms to our own principles and history, is the Europe of Peace, the Rule of International Law, the Respect of the Sovereign Rights of all the people of this world without any exception, and above all, the Respect of Human Life and Human Values.
Greece has never in its recent history coexisted with ideologies and practices that ride roughshod over these inviolable moral principles and slaughter innocent peoples and innocent individuals.
The Greek Government offends us by using the pretext of a non-existent European Union, which in reality serves to exculpate governments that have the blood of Iraq’s innocent children on their hands.
The Greek people – if they really agree with these principles – will have to demonstrate their will through their deeds.
Athens, 9.4.2003
Mikis Theodorakis
English translation: © Ariel Wagner-Parker
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