Tomorrow, Tuesday 9 October when German
Chancellor Angela Merkel will be arriving in Greece, Athens will look like an
occupied city in which martial law is in force. In the wider area of the city
centre, demonstrations are not allowed, traffic and public transport is banned
and the subway is closed. Even schools located in this area are informally
ordered to remain closed. We as Greeks living in the Netherlands are appalled
at this curfew which is incompatible with a democratic state.
Chancellor Merkel is visiting Greece at
a moment when policies that herself, the Troika and the Greek governments
applied and continue to apply, are causing an economic disaster followed by a
humanitarian catastrophy. The recession gets deeper and deeper. In the end of
2012, the GDP of the country will have fallen cumulatively by 25% the last 4
years. Unemployment has climbed to 24% - which becomes 55% for young people.
Wages and pensions at the private and public sector are reduced by 30-50%,
suicides have increased by 50%. The public health system is collapsing with
immediate consequences for the health of the public. Schools and universities
are suffocating due to the lack of staff and funding. On the social front,
police attacks whichever social group dares to demonstrate its objection to the
governmental policies, migrants are chased and stabbed by neo-nazis in
collaboration with the police.
Merkel is coming to put the final touch
to the new austerity program that will give the final blow to the Greek people.
The people will bear the new budget cuts of ?11.5-13.6 billion with new wage,
pension and benefit reductions along with the unprecedented sell-out of state
property to the debtors. With the excuse of 'doing everything needed to remain
in the Eurozone' the Greek government is pushing the new austerity package
through and arranges for the police and the neo-nazis to attack everybody that
resists.
We consider Chancellor Merkel and the
policies applied by Troika and the Greek governments responsible for this
disaster. This is one of these times when one needs to take sides and we choose
to take the side of the people and the youth of Greece that tomorrow will try
to break the curfew by demonstrating for their right to live. Merkel, Troika,
IMF and their collaborators are unwanted in Greece. The people - immigrants and
Greeks alike - have the right to define their own future. It's high time to do
so, regardless of the cost!
REinFORM
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου