Greek Resistance hero and Syriza MEP has issued a statement urging opposition to the deal done by the party’s leadership on Friday

Manolis Glezos kickstarted the Greek Resistance when in early 1941, he and a friend climbed the Acropolis to tear down the Swastika the Nazi occupiers were flying. 

He now sits, aged 92, as a Member of the European Parliament for Syriza. Glezos commands huge respect across the Greek left; in this statement he urges resistance to the deal agreed by Syriza’s leadership on Friday.

The fact that the Troika has been renamed ‘the institutions’, the Memorandum has been renamed the ‘Agreement’ and the Creditors have been renamed the ‘Partners’, in the same manner as renaming meat as fish, does not change the previous situation.

And you can’t change the vote of the Greek People at the January 25 election.

The Greek people voted what Syriza promised: that we abolish the regime of austerity that is the strategy of not only the oligarchies of Germany and the other creditor countries but also of the Greek oligarchy; that we abrogate the Memoranda and the Troika and all the austerity legislation; That the next day with one law we abolish the Troika and its consequences.

A month has passed and this promise has yet to become action. It is a pity indeed.

From my part I apologize to the Greek people for having assisted this illusion.

Before the wrong direction continues.

Before it is too late, let’s react.

Above all the members, the friends and supporters of Syriza, in urgent meetings at all levels of the organization have to decide if they accept this situation

Some people say that in an agreement you must also make some concessions. By principle between the oppressor and the oppressed there can be no compromise, as there can be no compromise between the slave and the conqueror; Freedom is the only solution.

But even if accept this absurdity, the concessions that have already been made by the previous pro-memoranda government with unemployment, poverty and suicide, are beyond any limit of concession…

Manolis Glezos, Brussels, 22 February 2015