“Cyprus – Polytechnic: Fascism Νever Again!”
Mass march to the US Embassy in Nicosia
Cypriot students denounced the US policy that has driven national independence and sought to suppress popular sovereignty in Greece in a mass mobilisation on Wednesday morning to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising in November 1973 with the slogan “Cyprus – Polytechnic – Fascism Never Again!”.
During the event organised by the Coordinating Committee of Pupils (PSEM) with the participation of students too marched to the US Embassy in Nicosia where they delivered a petition.
The students held Cypriot and Greek flags, banners reading “NATO – CIA – Treason”, “Cyprus – Polytechnic: Fascism Never Again!”, “Bread – Education Freedom” and chanted slogans such as “American killers of the peoples”, among others.
The demonstration stopped just before the US Embassy, due to the railings placed by the Police, where flowers were placed in memory of those who fell during the Polytechnic uprising. A musical concert was held, while a representative of PSEM spoke to the assembled.
The President of PSEM Grigoris Grigoriou said that students and the organized student movement “are here today to honor the dead and those who were wounded during the Polytechnic uprising to overthrow the junta of the Colonels, for a democratic Greece”.
The PSEM President said that through their event they want to stress that they do not forget the struggles of the peoples and that “the young generation honors the struggles of the peoples, but also draws conclusions…We will continue to honor these struggles and continue to struggle for a better future, for a better school.”
In the Resolution approved, students said, among other things, that “48 years onwards, the messages from from the Polytechnic uprising remain relevant, but also instructive for today’s struggles and especially for the young generation.”
“We, the young people of Cyprus, have special reasons to commemorate the 17 November 1973 uprising, which marked the beginning of the end of the black seven year dictatorship which ended with the fall of the Junta a year later”, adding that “unfortunately for Cyprus, the Greek Junta collapsed after it had planned and completed – together with EOKA B – its destructive and treacherous actions with the execution of the fascist coup of 15 July 1974 against the Republic of Cyprus, which led to the betrayal and sale of Cyprus to the Turkish invading army”.
In its resolution, PSEM states that its main objective is “the achievement of a permanent and lasting solution to the Cyprus problem on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation, as well as political equality as set out in the UN resolutions, with a single citizenship, a single and indivisible sovereignty and a single international personality, based on the High-Level Agreements, the resolutions of the UN on Cyprus, European and international law”.
“We are struggling for a solution that is fully compatible with the European acquis and fully restores the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Cypriots under the principles of democracy and the rule of law”, the Resolution underlines
