Tuesday, April 9, 2024

"Communists are potential terrorists": Anti-communist rant by Swissport executive in Greek airport

 By Nikos Mottas

“Communists are potential terrorists” and for that reason, employees must have no contact with them!! This is what a security executive of Swissport company has been quoted as saying during a speech to workers and staff in the airport of Chania, Crete.

More specifically, in a statement published in Communist Party's 902.gr portal, the KKE Party Organization in Chania denounces the unacceptable references of a Swissport member who “urged the company's workers to avoid contact with left-wing groups and communists” (!!) because they “are potential terrorists”! 

Additionally, in a special reference to the KKE, the Swissport executive went so far as to claim that the Greek Communist Party “organized the first hijacking in Greece when children of wealthy families boarded a plane with the intention to fly to Belgrade” (!).

The KKE Party Organization in Chania stresses out: “The anti-communist rant expressed by this particular executive is reminiscent of other periods and shows what is the actual fear of the companies that treasuring up every year from the labor of the workers. They tremble at the idea of employees coming into contact with the communists who are leading he way in organizing workers in every workplace, demanding measures of protection for the lives and safety of the employees, fighting through the unions for substantial wage increases”.

The Swissport executive “exceeded all limits of crude anti-communism by characterizing as terrorists the members of EPON, the youth of EAM, who were chased by the bourgeois state and managed to escape in Yugoslavia”, says the KKE and adds: “The “historian” of Swissport forgot to mention to the employees that the six members fo EPON tried to save themselves in 1948, being chased by the state, while the Civil War was raging throughout the country. This is how the government, the state and their international allies (USA, Britain) repaid them for their contribution to the liberation of the country from the Nazi invaders!”.

We remind to the executive of Swissport and to anyone else willing to adopt this anti-communist garbage, that the KKE achieved its de-facto legalization 50 years ago, with countless of sacrifices of its members and thousands of militant fighters. We also inform them that every house in Chania has a relative who participated in the National Resistance against the Nazi invaders and that thousands of communists sacrificed themselves for this country's liberation. The KKE never stopped its political activity, not even during the occupation, in dictatorships, prisons and exiles”, reads the statement.

The KKE Party Organization in Chania demands from Swissport, as well as from Fraport (the German company which has the management of the airport), to officially position themselves over the hideous anti-communist rant of the executive. They must also revoke the “junta-inspired lessons of history” and the designation of the KKE as terrorist organization.

This isn't the first time...

The anti-communist “lesson” of the Swissport executive isn't an isolated incident. On 19 March 2024, a similar case had taken place in the Port of Piraeus by a security executive of “JK Security” company who was delivering a “security seminar” to the employees of Supefast Ferries.

Back then, the KKE Transportation Sectoral Organization in Attica had denounced the incident: “Within the context of an “anti-terrorist seminar” organized onboard by the shipping company, the “JK Security” presenter Wilfred Cooperberg, included the communists in the list of terrorist and destabilizing groups”. Responding to a female crew, who reacted to his words, Cooperberg provocatively and in a police-style asked: “Are you a communist?” and “Isn't the KKE a terrorist organization?”.

According to 902 portal, the resume of Mr. Cooperberg points out that “he has 14 years of experience working as a security officer at EL AL airline, 13 years as a security officer of Israeli shipping company ZIM and until 2018 he was a consultant and security officer of the Israelite Community of Athens”.

“We know deeply what is the real enemy of the employers and the governments”, the KKE had stressed out: “Lately, a coordinated attack against the Party is being attempted by the bourgeois staffs, aiming to influence the working-popular consciences. Such phenomena that sow anti-communism at every opportunity serve the strategic choice of the capital and its parties, they feed on it, and as such we will deal with them”. 

* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.