THE Greek Seafarers Trade Union PENEN issued a statement on Sunday condemning the imperialist attack on Iran and calling for the withdrawal of all Greek ships from the war area.
It also called for the withdrawal of Greek navy warships and other military personnel from the imperialist fleets in the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea – Indian Ocean.
The statement read: ‘1,350 Seafarers on over 60 Greek-owned ships are in mortal danger. We demand their immediate removal from the war zone.
‘The mass murderers and criminals of the peoples, the Americans and Israelis, with their new aggressive military operation against Iran, are once again staining their hands with the blood of the people.
‘The gigantic campaign they had organised and prepared for days, evolved into a murderous attack, in which they assassinated the religious leader of Iran, dozens of senior government and military officials, while they bloodied a school, killing dozens of innocent children.
‘Behind the new imperialist attack, which has the support of the West, are hidden the huge energy reserves of Iran that the large monopoly groups want to put in their hands, the overthrow of the regime in Iran by imposing a government liked by imperialism and Zionism, which will operate as a protectorate for their economic, geostrategic and geopolitical interests.
‘We condemn the new imperialist massacre and declare that it is the business of the peoples, and them alone, to determine their future without foreign interventions and wars.
‘We are resolutely on the side of the Iranian people and we demand here and now that the murderous imperialist intervention be ended.
‘An intervention that has already spread to the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the North Arabian Sea and poses a visible risk of expanding into a more general international conflagration.
‘We strongly denounce the ND (Greek) government, which has become involved in the military confrontation on the side of the USA-Israel, turning the American base in Souda into a base for the imperialist war against the people of Iran.
‘The military conflict in the region poses a mortal danger to the Seafarers who are on ships in the war zone.
‘According to official data, over 60 Greek and Greek-owned ships (11 Greek flag and 49 Greek interests with flags of convenience) with over 1,350 Seafarers are in the fire of war.
‘Also, a Greek war frigate is still in the Red Sea area, as part of the European operation “ASPIDES”, for the interests of the parasitic shipping capital, putting the personnel in immediate danger after the Houthis’ decision to resume attacks on commercial ships.
‘We demand:
• To stop the murderous US-Israeli intervention against Iran. To end all Greek involvement in the war. To close and leave the bases of death in Greece. To remove Greek and Greek-owned ships from the entire area of the war zone. To return the Greek frigate to our country from the Red Sea. Greece out of the imperialist, warmongering, aggressive alliance of NATO. No Greek soldiers in the occupation force in martyred Gaza. Nothing to do with the state-murderer.’
