A few days ago, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, the so-called "La Paz Declaration", a text which is co-signed by "personalities of the left" and "progressive leaders" from 11 countries, was made public. Among the signatures is that of Alexis Tsipras, president of the social democratic party of SYRIZA, whose government managed capitalism in Greece in the period 2015-2019. The barbaric anti-popular policy against the Greek people, the crushing of workers' and people's rights, the suppression of people's struggles, and the disappointment of the expectations that SYRIZA had created in the popular strata, have today led the right-wing party of ND to the government. The "left" SYRIZA government paved the way for the right-wing government, in terms of continuing the anti-popular policy in domestic issues as well as in foreign policy. SYRIZA had developed close relations with the Donald Trump administration, through the "strategic agreement with the USA", prepared by its government and ratified by the ND, which provides the proliferation and expansion of the US-NATO military bases in Greece, etc.
Of course, among the signatories are also other representatives of the old and new social democracy, tried-and-tested in the anti-popular management of capitalism against the peoples, such as José Luis Zapatero (social democrat former Prime Minister of Spain), Dilma Rousseff (social democrat former President of Brasil), Rafael Correa (former President of Ecuador and one of the representatives of the so-called "Socialism of the 21st century"), Pablo Iglesias (from "Podemos", current minister in Spain), but also politically bankrupt opportunists such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon from "France Unbowed").
The text itself is nothing more than a manifesto of whitewashing the capitalist system. It distorts the character of the capitalist crisis by saying that it is caused by COVID-19, it exclusively blames the neo-liberal version of its management for the utter failure of all bourgeois governments to address the pandemic, it deifies bourgeois democracy and condemns the far-right, indirectly celebrating for President-elect Biden in the USA among other things ...
The above, although not surprising, are a provocation when, for instance, we see the signature of the president of SYRIZA, whose government further degraded the public health system in Greece, did not open any of the hospitals that were closed in 2013, and further reduced the state budget for healthcare, doctors, nursing staff and ICU beds. Alexis Tsipras himself, who is celebrating Trump's defeat, called him "devilishly good", participating in all US-NATO plans in our region. The Prespa Agreement for the expansion of the murderous NATO in the Balkans bears Tsipras' signature. During the SYRIZA government, the police hit demonstrators of PAME and the popular movement that reacted against the signing of the US-Greece agreement. SYRIZA, which in the "La Paz Declaration" allegedly fights against the extreme right, co-ruled for five years with the far-right party of ANEL, and these are only a few examples, since the list is very long…
Such declarations are intended to pull the wool over the people's eyes about the role and responsibilities of all kinds of "left" managers of capitalist barbarism. However, no matter how hard the political forces of social democracy, such as SYRIZA, try to re-present themselves as "pro-people" and "progressive" forces, we now have gathered a lot of evidence and considerable experience. The Greek and other peoples consider them as anti-popular forces that have fully served the interests of the capital, monopolies and imperialists.
The article was published in Rizospastis on 14/11/20