The July 13th EU agreement
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
As in all great historical moments,
simple people understand what is really happening before economists,
politicians and commentators are able to analyze the precise details of an
event.
A fisherman in an Athens
market tries to hide his tears hearing from the radio the terms decided by
European leaders in Brussels and imposed upon PM Tsipras and his country. That is
the details of the way “civilized” and “democratic” Europe will continue on
destroying his country and the life of millions of people, in spite of all the
referendums of the world. They treat, using financial and political means, a
whole people and his state, the same way they treated Iraq or Libya. Simply in the case of the Middle
East they were using bombing, instead of financial means!
The terms European leaders decided become
more and more reminiscent to Greeks of what their country had to suffer under
the German Nazi
occupation (1941-44). Professor Travlos, a recognized
authority in Labour Law, says that, at first glance the terms imposed to
Greece are reminiscent of the terms imposed to Germany between 1945 and 1953,
as a consequence of its defeat.
The way the EU leaders are ordering the
Greek parliament to
vote legislation in 48 hours, revoking previous legislation it has itself
passed, and sometimes not having sufficient time to translate
from English into Greek the texts submitted to the deputies, it is felt, and it
is a particular
humiliation imposed to Greeks by German, Dutch and other
leaders, obviously enjoying their clearly sadistic behavior.
It is not only a coup d’ Etat in Athens,
organized with the help of banks instead of tanks, it is clearly a coup
d’ etat affecting the whole functioning and the fundamental ideology to which
European Union was supposed to be based upon. The implications are clear for
all European nations.
In a local SYRIZA
organization people are crying in disbelief and despair. They
are crying like their fathers and grand fathers, the partisans who fought
against Hitler, who won the war and then they were ordered by their leadership,
after the Varkiza agreement of 1945, to give up the arms they had taken from
the enemy. The An.Ell. party is also in disarray.
Two strong forces are clashing
in the souls of Greeks. The first is the fundamental psychological
mechanism which leads the revolt. This mechanism was put in action, for the
majority of Greeks, the 2nd or 3rd of July, when the
anger and the need of people for decency and respect did overcome the fear,
producing the 61% of the referendum. The second is the despair and
discouragement when the leader himself and his generals capitulate. This is
what making the political and social situation highly unpredictable.
Some in SYRIZA and An.Ell.
speak already of betrayal. It is true that Tsipras faced very powerful enemies
and a horrible correlation of forces. But, at the same time, he bears enormous,
historical responsibility for not preparing, until the last moment, himself,
his party and the country for the very probable scenario of a confrontation. He
seemed to believe until the very last moment that, somehow, the US-Israel axis
could intervene on his behalf. It
is true that Obama intervened, and he probably ordered also Paris, Rome and
others to intervene, but such an intervention was sufficient just for not
kicking Greece out of Eurozone, out of fear of Greece turning towards Russia,
not for finding any kind of plausible compromise.
We should also point to the fact that a part inside SYRIZA leadership has
waged a ferocious battle behind the scenes to reverse the anti-austerity line,
to reach a compromise with Creditors at any cost, to cancel the referendum and
provoke a defeat of the No camp. As for forces opposing the capitulation course
inside the Party, have proven all the way totally ineffective and bureaucratic
in nature.
Members of SYRIZA are bewildered also by
the fact that Tsipras himself has not gone public, to explain in any convincing way
the reasons behind his U-turn. The Central Committee has not convened during
all these weeks of the crisis. Some ministers or other leading cadres do not
try even to claim that this was a retreat, necessary under the circumstances.
They try to defend, against common sense, the agreement per se.
A huge question is coming
now from thousands of mouths: What we do now?
“Now
begins the struggle”, is the answer by Professor Kasimatis, the top
Greek specialist on constitutional law, Founder and Honorary President of the
International Association of Constitutional Law. Kasimatis is the author of a
devastating legal critique of the colonialist “bail out” programs imposed on
Greece after 2010, from the point of view of both the Greek constitutional
order and European and international law.
The 13th of July
“agreement” guarantees in fact the precipitation of the Greek economic and
social disaster and the further destruction of Greek democracy. The Greek
problem and, with it, the European problem will again explode, in the space of
a few weeks or of a few months.
The agreement was imposed on the Greek
government by Merkel, Dragi, Hollande and the others, by means of coercion,
blackmail and economic and political pressure, under the threat, which was
already put into application, of provoking the “melting down” of the Greek
banking system and the return of the country to the “Stone Age”!
The agreement is the product
of the massive use of political and economic pressure in international
negotiations, banned by the Vienna international convention of 1969. It
constitutes the first time in the history of European Union than a member is
treated this way. It puts in direct danger the life of hundreds of thousands of
Greeks citizens, already victims of the EU-IMF “bail-out” programs and also the
security of the country.
The decisions of the EU council are a
flagrant violation of the will of the Greek citizens, expressed in the recent
referendum. The mandate given by Greek citizens it is even much stronger,
because it was given under condition of a terror campaign against voting No by
nearly all Greek mass media, under the direct threat of very strong
international forces and with the ECB waging financial war against Greece, leading
to the closure of the banks. One
can imagine the percentage No would gain if all these factors did not exist.
According to the Greek constitutional
order and to European law, the result of the referendum is of a binding
character for both Greek authorities, including the Parliament and European
institutions. It can be changed only by a new referendum. Once again European
authorities and governments are acting, as they did all the time after May
2010, in clear violation of legality.
On the level of the economy, the program
adopted is clearly a recession provoking program applied to a country that has
already suffered, as a result of European “efforts to help it”, by far the
biggest economic and social disaster in post WWII capitalist Europe, losing more
than 27% of its GDP, that is more than US during the Grand Depression, Weimar
Republic during its last three years of its existence, France or Germany during
the 1st WW. If Greece needs something is immediate financial help to
stop the humanitarian catastrophe and invest in the redressing of the economic
situation. In reality it will get the money to pay back its creditors,
increasing its own, already unsustainable, sovereign debt. The promises about
some future discussion of restructuring and help for development are simply
ridiculous. They have given in the past and they were not kept.
Besides, the agreement
contains a lot of neocolonialist, property looting terms.
Such economic measures
cannot be applied by a normal parliamentary regime. They can lead either to a
civil war, either to a dictatorial regime. In fact this is
exactly the ultimate result, if not the aim of the program.
25 years ago, the toppling of the eastern
“socialist” regimes provoked the collapse of economy and society of those countries.
Now it goes the other way around. The collapse of the economy and society are
leading to “regime change”. They lead to the negation of the most fundamental
political, national and social rights of European peoples, enjoyed by them
after the 2nd WW, if not after the French Revolution.
The Greek program is not a mistake. If it
was it would be corrected long ago. The Greek program is the result of a choice
of society and the way to realize this choice. Greece is the laboratory where
the future is prepared, like Spain was, before the War, the laboratory for what
would follow in all Europe. This the idea dominating powerful circles of the
International Finance in alliance with European elites, first of all the German
elite. In Greece we have the rare opportunity to see the future they prepare
for all of Europe. And this future may be not only a huge social and cultural
regression of the continent, but also can lead to war with Russia, if the
forces already in action finally win.
A day, back in the summer of 2012, I had
the opportunity of discussing this idea with Alexis Tsipras, speaking to him
about the radical character of the policy of the forces he would face. I was
telling him that we face a transition from neoliberal to a “catastrophe
capitalism”. He is more a fun of cinema than of Marx, so I suggested him that
Kubrick has given us, with his last masterpiece, a very disturbing portrait of the real people dominating our
postmodern world and preparing the advent of Totalitarianism.
Our world has nothing to do with the world of Roosevelt, Kennedy, De
Gaulle etc. He looked to me in great disbelief. He could not believe or
understand why there can be forces in Europe wishing to destroy his country. At least let his tragic fate serve
as a warning. Illusions
about the reality and the dangers we face can be very fatal!
Athens, July 13th,
2015
No virus found in this message.
No comments:
Post a Comment