Mikis Theodorakis: “Expose all the USA’s crimes”
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The Miami 5
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The Greek composer and resistance fighter Mikis Theodorakis gave the following interview to the Greek Communist Party (KKE) daily “Rizospastis”. It was published on 12 September 2006.
Rizospastis: The USA is relentlessly pursuing its aggressive policy towards Cuba. One expression of this policy is the condemnation of five Cuban activists, the “Miami 5”, who were arrested in the United States because they were agents defending their country. What is your opinion of the case?
M. Th.: The young Cubans have already been held in American gaols for eight years. Meanawhile their condemnation was declared arbitrary and illegal by the committee of experts of UNO’s Human Rights Commission on 27 May, and the Atlanta Court of Appeal held their condemnation to be invalid on 9 August. But the US authorities responsible just turn a deaf ear. The superpower has been ignoring UNO as well as its own judiciary for a long time now.
Since 11 September 2001, it has even violated its own Constitution concerning the personal freedoms of its citizens. It was only recently that George Bush finally admitted the existence of secret prisons scattered all over the world – God alone knows what orgies of torture go on in them. Bush termed them “useful” in the war on terror. The useful term „terrorism“ was found to legitimise the country’s own crimes. Just as in another age Hitler discovered the Jews and the bad “Reds”. A nazi-style concentration camp, Guantánamo, exists before our eyes, provocative and unendurable. Yet the powerful of the world act as if they couldn’t see it, while the peoples, the majority of whom are in thrall to their pro-American leaders, remain to all intents and purposes silent.
R.: On 12 September, an international campaign for the immediate release of the five Cubans was started. Do you think it can succeed?
M. Th.: In my opinion, it can only be effective if it is accompanied by an active campaign of information that exposes all the USA’s criminal activities. For these crimes do not come about because the country contains a few evil and ill-intentioned individuals but because they are part of a dynamic process that has transformed the USA into a militaristic aggressive imperialistic power with a clearly neo-nazi ideology, pursuing a long term aim of world domination. Starting off with the countries which are “easily” attacked and progressing methodically to further objectives, a few of which have already been announced.
R.: Why do you consider that solidarity with Cuba and its five activists is a matter of concern to all democrats?
M. Th.: In Greece we have an additional problem as far as information and mobilisation goes. And this is because we are faced with a terrible contradiction. On the one hand the Greek people is considered, and rightly so, to be the number one enemy in Europe of the USA’s current aggressive policy, while on the other hand, over 90% vote for the two ruling parties, which have perhaps the most pro-American attitude of any European power today. So it is noticeable that while Greek democrats, patriots and internationalists are aching to express their rage and indignation at the genocides taking place, for example, in Iraq or Lebanon, apart from those who take to the streets with the KKE and other anti-war organisations, the broad masses remain trapped within the influence of the two main parties, knowing that the few, half-hearted words some of their leaders mumble against the war are only for the sake of appearances.
So we can see that now, when our country, together with the whole of humanity, teeters on the brink of a global catastrophe that only a rebellion of the peoples of the world can prevent, the Greeks are caught in a trap. At the same time, the voices of those who are aware of their responsibilities and give expression to the concerns of the age, go under in the hubbub of the well-heeled propaganda of the all-powerful mass media, which are controlled by the Americans and their faithful friends and fellow-travellers in our country, who are currently in the majority in the areas of politics, the economy and in general, of the entire state of our nation.
It thus follows that we all have the duty, alongside our obvious solidarity with the Cuban people and our protests on behalf of the Cuban prisoners, to solve this huge national problem: the contradiction in which a large part of the Greek people finds itself, voting for a policy which it detests.
We should at least demand that parties like PASOK, a large percentage of whose supporters vote for it, as we know, because they believe in anti-imperialist policies and are against war and for peace, should make a firm stand, calling things by their name, coming out and clearly denouncing the crimes against humanity and peace which are being committed before our eyes. They should call on their supporters to go out onto the streets as well and demonstrate, thus acting in a way our people and our country once used to, as protagonists in the struggle of the people against war, violence and arrogance, and for peace, life, the integrity of human dignity, the international rule of law and the enforcement of international solidarity in practice.
Interview: Aristoula Ellinoudi
English Translation: Ariel Wagner-Parker
Original interview in Greek in Rizospastis
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