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Anastasia Balezdrova

Independent Greeks announced that they will start working in order to create a patriotic Democratic Front, which will aim "at saving Greece from the neo-liberal avalanche."

Apparently in response to their former party fellows, who left the party and reduced its parliamentary power, Independent Greeks summoned the first national conference.

Leader Panos Kamenos said that it was about time that his party took control in Greece and urged members and supporters to "take the reins into their own hands." He was greeted with loud applause. Conference participants chanted loudly, "Panos means a united Greece", to which the leader replied: "Independent Greeks means a united Greece."

At the very beginning of his speech he reproached those who argue that the party has no ideology. "At our founding congress, direct democracy will be applied for the first time. You will decide what the party organs will be and who will participate in them. We will create popular committees everywhere."

Panos Kamenos added that the only thing that will not be changed is the founding declaration, "which was approved by hundreds of thousands of Greeks."

He strongly criticised the political system after the restoration of the democratic system in 1974. "We need changes, but they will not be imposed by moneylenders from abroad, but by the Greek people," he said, adding that the crisis in Greece is artificially induced by "foreign centres of management of the new world order which turned us into an experiment."

According to Panos Kamenos, the Greek government has no policy of its own, but "obeys orders of foreign creditors. They impose harsh measures for the people, because their goal is not to let us emerge from the current situation, but to take hold of public and private property."

"They have chosen the wrong laboratory animal for their experiment. They used the public debt as a means of control and inclusion of the country in a referendum. But local collaborators of foreign usurers, who acted as traitors will be subjected to investigation and those responsible for these actions will go where traitors end up. We owe it to our jaded compatriots, to the 3,000 people who committed suicide because they could not stand the pressure, to the 1.8 million unemployed and to the holy bones of the Greeks," emphasised Panos Kamenos.

Further in his impassioned speech, he explained that "the only ideology of our movement is patriotism" and called on supporters of the centre-right space, patriotic centre of PASOK and patriotic Left to join the planned patriotic centre. "To all who want to affiliate us to a political space, we would like to say that we belong to Greece," he said.

After that, leader of the movement Citizens Against the Memorandum Notis Marias took the floor. He said that Independent Greeks will write off public debt because it is immoral.

He repeated Panos Kamenos's passionate words about the existence of "an organised attack" against Greece, adding that "foreign centres never wanted to help Greece. They purposely brought it here in order to get its energy reserves into their hands."

Notis Marias said that it is necessary to establish a government of national salvation which should tackle the following:

- write-off of external debt

- cancellation of the Memorandum and loan contracts

- payment of German war reparations and the loan from Germany during the occupation at the expense of Greece

- announcement of an Exclusive Economic Zone

- punishment of "those who violated the Constitution and laws related to memoranda and loan contracts.

He insisted that direct democracy should be applied at the level of adoption of government decisions. "A 'popular veto' has to be introduced on the decisions of Parliament. Citizens have the right to not only choose, but also deselect MPs when their actions are directed against society, as is the case now."

The conference was attended by representatives of the Independent Greeks party, the part of the Arma Politon Party which is united with them, the movement Citizens Against the Memorandum and other movements from "the Square", i.e. the famous Discontented.