International Meeting, Athens, 23-25 June 2000

Closing Remarks by cde Orestis Kolozov.

Comrades

After three tiring days we have reached the end of our proceedings.

But before expressing any thoughts, I would like first to thank the comrades for their comments on the draft announcement that we, as CPG, will be distributing to the Press at the end of this meeting.

I should point out that unfortunately there were a number of mistakes in the translation.

The most important was in the introduction: this meeting is not being held �under the auspices� of the KKE, it is being hosted by the KKE in Athens.

In particular I would like to thank cde Sam Webb, President of the Communist Party of the USA for his considerable help in putting this announcement into the best possible English.

I would also like to thank all of you for your patience and discipline, which helped us to finish our work within the time allotted.

The remarks of the party delegates who spoke confirmed that these meetings provide an opportunity for us to exchange information and thoughts about the new condition the human race is experiencing.� Alliances that promote struggles �Regarding the issue of alliances, gained significant experience has already been gained from the policy of alliances applied by the parties, as can be understood from the interventions we heard.

Alliances in the struggle waged by parties in various countries spearheaded by the struggle against the monopolies and the New World Order, and by the fight for democratic liberties in a number of countries.

Of course the policy of alliances is being applied under conditions which differ from one country to another; there are also differences in the direction in which these alliances are moving, according to the specific conditions under which each party is working.

It was shown that alliances are not limited to parties alone, but that forms of alliances with movements are also used.

Alliances that urge forward and contribute to the development of movements, actions and struggles seem to be very important in certain countries where our parties are active.

In these struggles the possibilities of alliances will be manifested along the way on a political level.

In any event, many delegates emphasised the need for communist parties to retain their independence within these alliances, and raised a number of concerns regarding the extent to which efforts are made so that Communist Parties become diffused in such alliances and lose their identity.

From this point of view, on an international level as well, we believe the issue of the Communist Parties' distinctive presence is significant.� Proposals for better coordination �It is our feeling that what emerged from the discussion is that it's not always easy to go from the national level to global common action, both in terms of coordination and common action by the CPs and coordination and common action by broader Democratic Anti-Monopoly Anti-Imperialist Patriotic Forces.

Some speeches expressed the thought that meetings need to be held on a regional and continental level and on the level of groups of movements.

In this regard, the CPs taking part in this meeting today could, as part of their experience, transmit the following proposal to their leaderships: That broader meetings be sought on the regional level, similar to the Sao Paulo Forum taking place in South America, and That regional meetings of Communist Parties be sought..

These two efforts do not conflict, in fact one supports the other.

A good many comrades put forward the proposal at this meeting that its work should continue.

We believe that we could organise a new meeting, which would concern itself with the issues of the mass movement, particularly the labour and peace movements and the contributions of the Communist Parties to them.

It also became clear that there is a need for CPs to develop an active policy of solidarity and support among themselves, but also more generally for popular movements.

This means support for initiatives taken by various CPs or movements, such as the one organised in Prague, or for initiatives taken by mass and other movements, with which we have not yet developed the kinds of links that should be developed, movements such as those that took part in the Seattle demonstrations.

For example, it was mentioned here that initiatives could be taken on the occasion of the next World Trade Organisation meeting.

We believe that initiatives of this type can and should be supported by CPs, providing of course they take place in countries in which CPs exist, and that these parties should take such initiatives and inform other parties about the progress of organising these demonstrations.

Many ideas were expressed about creating some kind of secretariat, a coordinating centre, that would promote and foster further coordination and common action.

I believe that issues like this could be a topic for our bilateral contacts, in such a way that their potential or usefulness could be assessed, as well as the means by which these proposals could be implemented.

Similar proposals exist for setting up a fund from which joint and other activities could be funded.

All this could and perhaps should be discussed by Communist Parties on a bilateral basis, so that we can see how these matters, if they are judged to be possible and useful, can be advanced.

The discussions that have taken place at previous regional meetings, with a view to finding means to assist in the rapid dissemination of information to everybody, help us in our coordination.

The idea was put forward there of creating an information centre.

The KKE made an effort to respond and today �Solid Net� is a reality which, in the short period of time that it has been operating, appears to meet the needs we intended to satisfy by creating the site.

The two information centres, Solid Net and with Red Net, the site of our US comrades, are today in a position to keep us all informed about basic CP documents and their primary concerns.

I would also remind you that a number of parties' announcements, accusations, appeals for solidarity and assessments that we have received from parties by e-mail about arrests or other problems are forwarded to all parties with an e-mail address as soon as they reach Solid Net, and are sent by fax wherever there is no e-mail.

This helps in disseminating information more rapidly and in sharpening the CPs' reflexes to respond to requests for such expressions of solidarity with parties or movements that are facing hardships.� Confronting the anti-communist offensive �Also many comrades today, as at previous meetings, drew attention to the need to deal with the anti-communist offensive taking place not only on an ideological level, but as a form of oppressing the peoples and of restricting elementary democratic rights which, on the pretext of confronting communism, are imposed particularly by the new regimes in the former socialist countries, in such a way as to be unacceptable at least for a country in the European Union, of which Greece is a member.

There were also many ideas about how we might work.

We believe that the parties which have the opportunity, and which are participants in the difficulties faced by a number of parties in these countries, have the obligation to publicise these anti-communist and undemocratic actions, and violations of elementary democratic rights of the peoples on whom these restrictions are imposed.

It is important, in particular for the parties of Europe, to publicise this issue better.

Even within the context of the EU, to the degree that we are informed, we as a party are trying to do this, because the EU cannot hypocritically raise the banner of human rights and at the same time have a series of priorities in the accession of countries to the EU in which human rights are violated, where communists cannot be hired anywhere in the public sector, just because they are communists, where communists or communist parties, organised and legal, cannot exercise their democratic rights.

We have heard here about the example of Hungary, where it is even prohibited to gather signatures on an issue.

And I think that publicising these problems will give us all the opportunity to become aware of the difficult conditions under which the communist movement is trying to reorganise in the former socialist countries.� Continue the struggle �I would like to close by pointing out that in all these difficult, contradictory conditions that humanity is living through, there are times when the movement has successes.

Such moments were referred to here, such as the victory in southern Lebanon, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, which was the result not only of the struggle of the Lebanese people in which the Communists played a leading role, but also of the struggle of the Arab world, of democratic people as a whole, of all democratic movements throughout the world.

Another example of the positive development that has occurred is the problem of Korea, with the recent summit meeting that will open the road of hope for the promotion of a solution which will be in the best interests of the peoples of both North and South Korea.

Thank you again for accepting our invitation.

On the subject of the invitations, there were a number of parties that could not be present, even though they were invited, for reasons that were either financial or due to particular conditions prevailing in their countries, and about which they informed us.

These parties sent messages of support to our meeting.

It was certainly not our intention to leave out parties that exist and operate in different countries of the world.

We hope that you will return to your countries and press on with your struggle to consolidate democracy and promote your struggles for socialism.�