PHA-Exch> Situation in Greece

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Alexis Benos abenos at gmail.com

Dear friends,

As you probably know already in Greece we are in the midst of an important
movement and social unrest. All started when 2 weeks before a policeman shot
to kill effectively a young student 15y.o., just for fun! As a response, the
same night a tremendous riot started including thousands of students in the
streets of all  greek towns - not only Athens -. Enormous manifestations
every day, attacks with fruits and stones against police stations and
attacks against banks and shops including occasionally looting which  was on
purpose permitted by the complete absence of police in order to difame the
movement. After some days of absolute chaos, we are now in a period of daily
big manifestations, street events and concerts, the majority of the
university schools are occupied and the secondary schools are in a constant
unrest.  A general strike was succesful last week and several workers unions
are participating in the movement including the health workers.
The gut reaction to this unjustistified killing of a young student was the
trigger for this outburst which is understandable as a social phenomenon.
The greek society, as the world over, is seeing a complete dismantlement
of human values. A govt with an incredible record of corruption is under
pressure the last three months with a series of scandals including billions
of euros looting of public property in collaboration with the church
(orthodox monastery of Mount Athos), selling public land, energy,
telecommunications, Olympic airlines, health services, universities to their
private sector friends (literally). In parallel, working conditions are
deteriorating, the majority of young people are working in precarity and
with salaries no more than 600 Euros per month without any insurance and
pension schemes and  unemployment is rampant. In this setting, a few weeks
ago the govt announced a gift to the banks of 28 billion Euros as a measure
to prevent the monetary crisis.....
In this setting, all the politcal and media establishment is trying to
promote a political concensus that all these events are due to the illegal
actions of some clandenstine gangs. In this campaing, all the parties are
participating including the Communist party (a stalinist remnant) except the
Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) which is struggling with the
movement  and for this reason is accused as the promoter of looting!!!
As for health services, the policy of both the socialdemocratic party
(Pasok) and the ruling conservative (ND) party are asking for the
dismantlement of public services and the promotion of profit making private
sector which has a tremendous expansion the last 10 years. As a response to
that, there is an active movement fo the rigth to health, mainly led by
health workers unions which are participating in all recent manifestations.
A conference, in Thessaloniki, for the movement for the rigth to health is
having as a central document  the People's Charter for Health; it
is scheduled for this week, but due to the events is postponed for the 10th
of January.
Finally I want to stress to the solidarity  that is being expressed in
several european countries these days, giving us hope that a european
movement is growing against neoliberal capitalist ruling, for a humane
society of solidarity and fraternity.
You can find more about the events at www.indymedia.org
militant greetings from Greece,
Alexis Benos
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