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Words from Athens
Pedro Olalla. Athens, October 5th 2011
Greetings to all.
I want to record a few words for all who hear me from Spain or from elsewhere,
urgent words addressed to my friends from Athens, an Athens more and more wound.
I want to inform you of a situation that concerns us all and, due to its severity,
is achieving that lately any other issue that we deal with might almost seem frivolous.
I also want to ask you for something, something important,
but I'll leave that for the end, because I trust that you will not mind waiting five minutes.
In recent times, the political and media discourse in Spain and other European countries
has been to say, in a tone of relief, that "we are not Greece,"
that our income statements are better, and that the Greeks actually deserve what is now happening to them,
for being lazy and unruly and prone to strikes and demonstrations.
Hopefully, now that the tide is coming to Spain and elsewhere,
that there too salaries, pensions, rights and benefits are beginning to being cut,
the Spanish and Europeans will weigh up their opinion on Greece better
and become aware of the true nature of the situation that threatens us all and its true range.
What is happening?
In historical terms, what is happening is that those who control financial power in the world
are taking possession of the political power through the creation and exploitation of the debt.
And they are doing this with the connivance of our government and before the inability of an organized response of the citizens.
So the problem of Greece is not a problem of local character, it is the visible face in Europe of a tragedy that affects us all:
the progressive dismantling of the state and democracy by the agents of economic globalization.
What is happening is very serious, because when the economic and financial forces have completely conquered the political power,
politics as an exercise of sovereignty will disappear, democracy will only be a grotesque chimera,
and independently of whoever might govern, we will all be slaves of a handful of magnates of money.
To resist as citizens against this process is the deeper meaning of all the mobilizations which,
the past one and a half year now, occupy most Greeks every single day.
The people of Greece are willing to make sacrifices, and many,
but they are slowly realizing that all the sacrifices that are demanded and imposed upon them
are not intended to stop a perverse system, but to feed and perpetuate it.
Why?
Because the "rescue plan" organized by the hard core of the EU and the IMF imposed on us as the only and desperate solution to bankruptcy
is a plan designed to safeguard the benefit of speculators, to minimize their risks and to open them the way to appropriate national wealth.
It is not at all a plan to alleviate the situation of the country, or to generate development, or to redistribute wealth more fairly to all;
quite the contrary, it is a plan to unfairly keep the wealth of all people increasingly flowing toward less hands.
Let's be clear: what is presented as "crisis" is actually an organized economic attack,
and what is presented as "debt" is a carefully designed product as a weapon of submission
which gives continuity to colonialism and perpetuates the same violence.
We owe one of every five dollars of world debt to the IMF and the World Bank.
For those who have notions of contemporary history, the practices of these institutions are very well known in the countries where they have operated so far.
If not, they should ask Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb countries in Southeast Asia
or all of the so-called Third World, which, in the recent decades, live bleeding by a growing process of accumulation of debt,
while paying back seven times what they receive in alleged development aid to the First World.
These institutions act as financial intermediaries and, through their loans, offer greater payment guarantees to investors from the countries in which they invest.
The purpose of the "investors", as it is known, is to encash money,
but as private investors they have no guarantee that the countries which they invest in will produce the expected benefits and that the encashment will occur:
they are subject to the risk of the bet, and their right to collect is limited to only a portion of the benefits, never a part of the heritage of the country in which they invest.
So, in order to collect with guarantees, their goal is to bring a collection agent capable of transforming private speculation in government debt into the country.
And that is what the International Monetary Fund has been doing since its creation.
But in order to achieve this, one must get the connivance of certain politicians. And this is what they have achieved in Greece.
Now, thanks to the IMF’s "converter effect" Greece no longer owes money to private speculators but to other states, making a non-payment more complicated.
And now, one has to answer for this dubious debt with the taxpayers’ sweat and –what is even more attractive to investors-
with national wealth which the government has seen to compromise as a guarantee beyond the inalienable bounds in the recently signed protocols’ text.
Let's see: Is Greece the most indebted country in Europe or the world, like some try to make us believe for some time now?
Of course not.
In "External Debt in millions of dollars" it is ranked 18, in "Foreign Debt to GDP ratio" it is ranked 9
and "Debt per capita" it is ranked 15, well behind France, Germany, England and Switzerland, even well distanced from Spain.
Nor is Greece ranked first in terms of private debt and public spending or in terms of number of staff.
But yes, it is the country with the highest rate of consumer prices in articles of basic necessity,
and most of the Greeks have long been turning to family, moonlight jobs and precarious work to last through the month.
What then is this debt?
The debt, on behalf of which Greece is being forced to raise the highest loan in the history of mankind,
consists in 90% of government bonds.
And government bonds are not exactly "debt": they are "investment mechanisms",
freely negotiable in market values, bets with money that can be won or lost.
And this makes a big difference.
Today, the capital which is moving in the loan market worldwide is 1,000 trillion (GB billion) dollars,
while the worlds' annual production is only 57.
The cause of the worlds "indebtedness" is rooted in this abysmal difference;
it does not rely in the actual deficit, but in the "need" that just 1600 big investors have of "exploiting" this capital.
In recent decades, economically speaking, we have constructed a world that is not only unjust but absurd.
And yet, it seems we have to do everything possible to not let it break down!
So, without going any further, just two years ago,
Greece bailed out the banks with 70,000 million of taxpayer’s Euros, saying in order "to avoid major disasters".
And now we have to rescue the financial sector, again with the taxpayer’s money.
Meanwhile -attention- 50% of the money that moves in the world,
does so through offshore companies set up in tax havens to avoid taxes and to maintain their owner’s total anonymity.
Only in Greece more than 4,000 off-shores are operating,
and in the last ten years more than a million of these companies invented by Anglo-Saxon speculators have been founded in the world.
Nowadays coups are done by financiers.
The Greek people –following the dictates of the European Commission, the Central Bank and the IMF–
has to suffer tax raises, wage cuts, it is expelled from work, it is snatched health and social gains,
it is imposed privatization of its state enterprises, it is forced to be put its country's national wealth in the hands of foreign investors,
it is forced to buy weapons to its creditors and on top of that it is forced to pay "solidarity fees".
Meanwhile, banks are subsidized and not even the imposition of a minimum rate of 0.1% on international financial transactions is considered,
with which more than 600,000 million euros could be raised annually -more than the alleged Greek debt-
without touching the taxpayers’ pockets or the hunger of the poor.
But this is not done, it must be immoral..
While the world works that way, neither politicians nor financiers have the moral authority to impose the sacrifices they want.
And what could be done?, you will ask me.
What is not done?
First of all, what is now called the European citizenship (if it even exists), in Greece, Spain and all European countries,
has to form a common front against the abuse,
it has to demand from governments to stop the speculators or go home,
obliging investors to take the "risk" of their rather devious operations instead of coming to their rescue with public money in order to make them always end up winning,
they should, in short, rule for the people who entrusted them with the power and not for their own interests.
In the case of Greece, European citizenship should support it to refuse the recognition of that "debt".
Any plan for renegotiating the debt will be to end up in bankruptcy and subject to the conditions of the lenders.
Everyone, not just Greece.
The path of debt is a bottomless pit, as history has shown repeatedly.
So, we must demand that the current political practice changes.
We must immediately stop paying the "debt".
We must clarify the origin and nature of this "debt",
see if there are guilty of crime among those responsible for the borrowing
and determine precisely how much of this hefty amount is but an "odious debt"
-contracted against the interests of the population of a country with full knowledge of the creditor-
according to the concept the U.S. coined in their own benefit, after the war with Spain for the independence of Cuba.
And once all this is cleared up and the guilty are punished,
decisions will be made with serenity and justice on which loans, which sales or what new measures will have to deal with the legitimate debt:
the real deficit of the country in the last decade is only 4% of this supposed "debt".
One such measure, for example, could be to claim decisively the war reparations that Germany was ordered to pay to Greece after the end of World War II,
which, despite the military occupation, the massive deportations to the extermination camps and over a million of dead, have not been met.
Other measures, cheaper and less "historic"
would be to begin with to prohibit the operation of off-shore companies on Greek soil,
blocking its assets and obligating its anonymous shareholders to identify themselves and pay taxes to unlock their property.
It is likely that most of them would not even dare to come forward.
Also one should demand the banks returned their rescues, impose taxes on international financial transactions,
fair rates on the shameful deposits in Switzerland and other tax havens ...
A series of tax measures to avoid the real fraud that is occurring across the banking, stock exchanges and the off-shores.
And beside all this, one would have to rethink one's relationship with the European Union with one currency, the euro,
designed with neoliberal criteria for the priority convenience of Germany and some other partners.
If we do not acknowledge the debt, we will be kicked out of the markets for a while, boycotted as far as possible,
but we will also save money from the speculation on bonds and save much of the national wealth which is going to large investor groups.
Only the interests on the bonds for the current year are 16,000 million,
the same amount which is dedicated to education and health in Greece!
If we do not acknowledge the debt, instead of feeding the speculation, we can address the deficit,
we will be able to support the country's real economy, relieve the pressure on citizens, revitalize trade and promote savings.
And above all, our sacrifices -which itself will be many- will really serve to overthrow an unjust system and build a better one.
And now, coming at the end of these words from Athens, is when I want to ask of you something important.
Before the abuses of economic globalization, help to globalize the resistance.
European society is fast asleep and accommodated in the political management of their poor democracies;
and yet urgently it needs to be progressive in their beliefs and react decisively before the new coup.
Effectively combat injustice and ignorance, rather than conceal or promote them according to dark interests.
And this must be done for the good of all,
because those who enjoy more than others freedom, welfare and culture, we have this moral debt to the rest of humanity.
Yes, I acknowledge that I am "anti-system",
because I do not understand how in a world where fifty companies accumulate more wealth than a hundred countries, someone who believes in solidarity can still be "pro-system".
I think in the times we live in, our "system" needs dissidents more than ever.
People willing to think high, to feel deeply and speak out.
Best wishes from Greece!