Greece: Three years of resistance

The beginning of the tragedy

Only in the first three weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, on September 15^th 2008, almost 2.5 millions Americans lost their houses, being unable to repay off their mortgages. From October, 2007 to the first quarter of 2009, the international stock market losses had overcome those of 1929. More than 42 trillion dollars were lost, amount that, at that time, corresponded to the 75% of the world’s GDP. From July 2008 to July 2010 in the 33 OECD-member states, the number of the unemployed increased by 13,4 million and reached the enormous amount of 45,5 million. As always, the systemic crisis moved across the world. It was inevitable that the weakest economies in the Eurozone would be affected.

The failure of austerity policies

On April 23^rd 2010, the former prime minister of Greece, George Papandreou, announced the agreement between Greece and the IMF under the supervision of the EU and the ECB (that formed the so-called ‘Troika). A few days later the first bailout agreement between Greece and the Troika was voted by the Greek parliament. The bailout was accompanied by an austerity package. A bit less than two years later, unemployment reached 19% and 47% among the youths. Numerous small and medium companies went bankrupt and a series of massive lay-offs were initiated both in the public and the private sector. Wages and pensions of civil servants were reduced up to 500 Euros (to give an example: a newly hired teacher earns 500 net per month…). The forecasts of the IMF and the Greek government concerning the public deficit were proved completely wrong. Instead of the growth that they promised for 2011, the economy shrunk by almost 7%.

Despite the apparent failure of the first austerity package (all the official estimations were proved wrong), in June 2011, the Greek government passed another austerity package under the pressure of the Troika,. The agreement is monstrous. According to the standard neo-liberal recipe, Greece not only has to completely liberalize its economy (50 billions of state property, with market price at about 120 billion have to be sold), to privatize all state-owned enterprises – in extremely low prices – and to abolish the majority of welfare benefits but also to lose its sovereignty which consists a major constitutional violation. Greek workers have to accept wage cuts up to 40% and the rapid privatization of health care, social security and education. Clearly, although the initial plan failed miserably, the recipe remained the same.

Apparently, even the second failure was not enough to make the geniuses of the Troika and the Greek government to change policies. On Sunday February 12^th, 2012, the Greek Parliament approved the third austerity package. The Parliament decided to reduce the minimum monthly salary to 480 and 435 euros for young people (this time also in the private sector), the unemployment benefit to 369 euros, cut down pensions and fully privatize health care and education. The priority of the state will no longer be to ensure a decent living to the citizens of the country but to serve the debt towards the domestic and international creditors. The new ‘rescue’-plan for Greece is actually a rescue plan for the European banks. The northern European tax payers will be forced to provide another 130 billion euros to serve the Greek sovereign debt. This money will end up directly to the European banks and will be never returned to the people. As the previous rescue-plans, the new plan is only meant to fail and take along into the path of destruction, the Greek people but also the European pension funds and the state finances of the rest of the Eurozone-countries.

Oppression

During the last three years people in Greece did not remain silent. They resist to the so called “rescue” proposed by the Troika and to their ideologically-biased neo-liberal policies. Unfortunately, the struggle was not without victims. On the December 6^th 2008, the 15 year old, Alexis Grigoropoulos, was murdered by the police forces. The kid was cynically shot by the police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas. The murder was followed by massive riots in Athens lasted for three days. The unfortunate event of the murder released the anger of thousands of Greeks who had just started to feel the economic consequences of the financial crisis and already well familiar with the corrupted political system.

On the 5^th of May 2010, a general strike was announced by the Greek trade unions as a response to the agreement with the IMF. The participation of the people to the strike was enormous. It was the biggest general strike accompanied by the largest demonstrations of the last 30 years. The banker Andreas Vgenopoulos had made it clear to his employees. Whoever participates in the general strike will be fired immediately. During the demonstration fires broke out when unidentified culprits hurled fire bombs inside the bank. The result was the killing of three employees of Vgenopoulos’ bank. Paraskevi Zoulia, 35, Nontas Tsakalis, 36, and the pregnant Aggeliki Papathanasopoulou, 32 were dead, suffocated from the fatal smoke…

Last June hundreds of thousands of people gathered repeatedly at the Syntagma Square in Athens and other squares around the country to demonstrate their opposition to the second bail-out that was imposed by the Troika and the Papandreou – government. The so-called socialist Papandreou government responded with a massive wave of police oppression. For two days, the centre of Athens became a warzone. Several people were severely injured and hundreds of demonstrators were arrested. Terrorism is the only word that comes to our mind when we watch the pictures of those days.

The 19^th of October 2011 was the second day of a general strike organized by the major trade unions in Greece. For first time after many years all unions decided to gather in the same place, the Syntagma square in Athens. The participation of the working people was astonishing. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in order to demonstrate against the austerity measures. The message was clear, the government did not possess the democratic mandate any more. The so-called representatives of the people were very well aware of that. The only way to react was again the oppression. The result was one more dead man. The 53 years old, member of the Communist Party, Dimitris Kotzaridis died in the hospital. The official cause of his death was respiratory problems. That day the police force made once again massive use of chemicals and teat gases.

Last Sunday, one more episode of the same story took place in Athens. Once again the Greek parliament, this time under the leadership of the banker Loukas Papadimos, was to approve the third bailout plan. The response of the people was immediate. A general strike was called and a large protest was organized in front of the parliament. Even though the police forces used the most undemocratic practices such as invasions in houses and preventive arrests, hundreds of thousands of citizens of Athens gathered to demonstrate peacefully in the Syntagma square. The official time of the protest was 17.00. At 17.30 we witnessed an apparent orchestrated police action. Without any reason the police made massive use of tear gas and chemicals and in less than 15 minutes the Syntagma square was empty. The people remained around the square for several hours and riots broke out which lasted the whole night. More than 50 people were injured and dozens were arrested. Inside the parliament the MPs voted the new loan agreement without even have the time to read it. More than 500 pages were delivered to them just two days before. Changes to the translation of the text were even made during the meeting. The agreement itself is full of clearly constitutional and sovereignty violations.

The end of democracy

After the financial crisis broke out in September of 2008, we have witnessed the hardening of neo-liberal policies in the EU and a major shift to centralization of powers. The already controversial Maastricht treaty is changed several times during the last years with agreements such as the Stability Pact which forces constitutional changes to the member states. The concentration of power at the hands of the European Commission and the clear participation of well known lobbies in the decision making of the commission bring up several issues of violation of democracy. The massive bail-outs to the banking system of Europe without any attempt to change anything in the way the banking system operates is more than suspicious. The financing of the major political parties by multinational corporations and the unwillingness of governments to resist the decisions of the rating agencies is totally unacceptable in a democratic regime. The installment of technocratic puppet-governments well-known bankers such as Loukas Papadimos in Greece and Mario Monti in Italy as leaders is simply something unacceptable.

The massive demonstrations in Spain, Greece and other countries during last summer and the Occupy movement in the USA suggest that it is time for a change. Since the very beginning of history, changes are made by social struggle and Europe has always the pioneer in social experimentation. Throughout history, two major forces are fighting at the political and social level: the people and the elite. Once more, the outcome of this fight will determine the course of history.

In this struggle, we stand side by side with the people!