On the occasion of International Migrants Day, the KKE expresses its solidarity and support for the refugees and economic migrants living in our country, as well as Greek immigrants living and working abroad. It calls upon them to organize and struggle in the ranks of the class-oriented labour movement to join with the KKE:

• Defending and expanding their labour, social and democratic rights.
• Asserting their right to go to any country they choose - against the decisions and the agreements of the capitalist states, the EU, NATO
• Demanding decent housing, food, healthcare at the premises and structures that house refugees and immigrants so as not to risk dying from the cold for as long as they remain in Greece. For their children to go to school.
• Not to be threatened by the minions of the bosses and the system; i.e.; the Golden Dawn forces and other fascist racists when they go or return from a long workday, such as the case of the immigrants at Aspropyrgos and Menidi, or when they are in the ‘hospitality’ compounds, such as with the family of the small Afghan Amir.
• To be free of the system of exploitation, from imperialist wars and poverty, which massacre the people, plunging them into misery, forcing them into mass immigration, to become refugees.

This year's Migrants Day finds the people confronted with even greater risks of war breaking out in old and new arenas of monopoly competition. The EU, the US, NATO and other capitalist powers are intensifying preparations for imperialist wars and interventions. US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is directed against the rights of the Palestinian people and pours yet more oil on the fire of the rivalries of the imperialists in the region. The Greek government, like the EU, has tremendous responsibilities as it increases its military, political and economic cooperation with Israel that murders the Palestinian people, and has not formally recognized the Palestinian state, despite the decision made by the Greek Parliament to do so. It provides bases for NATO and the United States and actively participates in and facilitates imperialist plans. It is jointly responsible for the increased risks posed to the Greek people and other peoples.

The EU is revealing more and more clearly its real face towards the peoples, especially towards refugees and immigrants. Tusk's proposals to abolish this remaining measure of the allocation of refugees to EU member states is not a sign of discord. It is a confirmation of the EU's policy of entrapping refugees in Greece, of funding slave auctions in Libya and drowning immigrants in the Mediterranean. Gate controls at German airports for passengers coming from Greece are not an exception; they are an application of the Schengen Agreement. With the Schengen and Dublin Agreements, the EU Border Guard, and the additional measures of putting people on file, all show that the EU and its member States only want capital and its services to circulate freely; they want ‘selective’ groups of workers to pass the border, cheap labour without rights, in order to increase the profits of the business groups.

The Greek government, which does not even guarantee the protection of the lives of the refugees on the islands’ miserable hotspots, bears enormous responsibilities because it supports this policy. It enforces the totally unacceptable EU-Turkey agreement that has double-locked refugees on the islands and strikes deals with the Turkish government making the agreement even more barbaric. It is readying fast track expulsions into the hell of imperialist war. In the name of ‘a more rapid asylum procedure’, it is formulating amendments that will strike the final blow to the right to asylum.

It has delayed organizing the education of refugee children for yet another year. At the same time, it refuses to solve the problems with the Greek schools for the children of Greek immigrants abroad.

It does not provide long-term free residence permits for the thousands of migrants living and working in our country in a number of industries and businesses under a regime of sheer exploitation. It does not provide simple and free procedures for those who are entitled to and wish to acquire Greek citizenship.

At this time, the workers' struggle in each country is becoming more and more necessary and timely to overthrow capitalist barbarism and build a new socialist society where workers will take the means of production into their hands and work them in a way designed to serve their own needs. The Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia opened this path 100 years ago, proving that capitalism may be strong but it is not invincible.

19.12.2017