In solidarity with the Greek People

From Critical Legal Thinking:

For joint actions around the Greek elec­tions, and for large Euro-Mediterranean’s mobil­iz­a­tions in autumn 2012!

The response to the fin­an­cial and eco­nomic crisis is the same every­where: cuts in expendit­ure and aus­ter­ity meas­ures under the pre­text of redu­cing defi­cits and the repay­ment of a pub­lic debt which is the dir­ect out­come of 20 years of neo­lib­eral policies. Gov­ern­ments in the ser­vice of fin­ance and big European cap­ital are actu­ally using this pre­text to fur­ther reduce social spend­ing, lower wages and pen­sions, privat­ize health care, dis­mantle social bene­fits and dereg­u­late labour laws, increase taxes on the major­ity while social and tax giveaways are gen­er­al­ized for the big com­pan­ies and the highest net worth households.

Meas­ures of viol­ence against the pop­u­la­tions, sim­ilar to those tested in the Greek social labor­at­ory for two years, are already being imple­men­ted in Por­tugal, Ire­land, Spain, Italy, and in East­ern European coun­tries. Latvia, Romania, Hun­gary and Bul­garia have inaug­ur­ated the same sad lit­any of aus­ter­ity meas­ures, with drastic fiscal cuts (sig­ni­fic­ant decrease in wages, clos­ure of schools and hos­pit­als, par­tial or total axing of social bene­fits, rise of VAT rates…). All the European peoples are threatened. This polit­ical ori­ent­a­tion, which res­ults in grow­ing unem­ploy­ment and poverty, must be rad­ic­ally rejec­ted. Every­where, com­pan­ies are clos­ing down and indus­trial waste­lands are cre­ated, all for the greater glory of imme­di­ate gains. Every­where, social inequal­it­ies are increas­ing. The pub­lic debt grows whilst many coun­tries enter into eco­nomic recession.

Finally, while gov­ern­ments of tech­no­crats are put in place by the cred­it­ors flout­ing uni­ver­sal suf­frage and the most ele­ment­ary demo­cratic rules, new European treat­ies (ESM, European Sta­bil­ity Mech­an­ism, and TSCG, Treaty on Sta­bil­ity, Coordin­a­tion and Gov­ernance in the Eco­nomic and Mon­et­ary Union) are adop­ted to the det­ri­ment of demo­cracy, for the bene­fit of fin­an­cial mar­kets and behind the people’s backs. These treat­ies grant immunity to senior civil ser­vants, allow for the par­ti­cip­a­tion of the private sec­tor in close col­lab­or­a­tion with the IMF, impose a limit on defi­cits and give pri­or­ity to the repay­ment of debt, no mat­ter the consequences.

Faced with such coordin­ated attacks on our social gains, res­ist­ance is get­ting organ­ized among Euro-​​Meditarrenean peoples, there are national gen­eral strikes and the ‘indig­na­dos’ move­ments are increas­ingly act­ive. In Ice­land the people refused to pay the Icesave debt to the UK and the Neth­er­lands. In Europe as in Egypt and Tunisia, ini­ti­at­ives for a cit­izens’ audit of pub­lic debt ana­lyze how much of the pub­lic debt is illegal, ille­git­im­ate, odi­ous or unsus­tain­able, and must there­fore be can­celled. Until all rights are guar­an­teed to all hab­it­ants, all debt repay­ments should be sus­pen­ded until exhaust­ive audits have been com­pleted. Pay­ing cred­it­ors is steal­ing what right­fully belongs to the pop­u­la­tion and pay­ments will con­tinue to be the cause of col­lege and hos­pital clos­ures, pen­sions cuts, etc. The Greek res­ist­ance per­severed for 2 years and recent elec­tion res­ults in Greece show a strong rejec­tion of cur­rent neo­lib­eral policies. We here express our firm sup­port of the refusal, by the Greek people in their bal­lots on 6 May 2012, to nego­ti­ate with the Troika and to apply its memor­andums and the cred­it­ors’ vil­lain­ous conditionalities.

How­ever the neo­lib­eral steam­roller has not yet been stopped, and it is high time for the pop­u­la­tions and their organ­iz­a­tions to develop mobil­iz­a­tion on a more sig­ni­fic­ant scale.

Along with other European and inter­na­tional net­works such as the Joint Social Con­fer­ence, the Inter­na­tional Cit­izen debt Audit Net­work (ICAN) calls for a com­mon mobil­iz­a­tion of all groups and trends within the social move­ment, without excep­tion, includ­ing trade uni­ons, ‘Indig­na­dos’ and ‘Occupy’ move­ments, women’s move­ments, alter­g­lob­al­iz­a­tion asso­ci­ations and NGOs, polit­ical organ­iz­a­tions, lead­ing fig­ures, grass­roots cit­izens, intel­lec­tu­als and artists.

Aware of the need of con­ver­gence of all mass mobil­iz­a­tions, we call for large Euro-Mediterranean’s mobil­iz­a­tions in autumn 2012, coordin­at­ing an inter­na­tional level of solid­ar­ity with the Greek people, against ille­git­im­ate, illegal, odi­ous or simply unsus­tain­able debt and aus­ter­ity meas­ures, to be organ­ized around the tra­di­tional week of global action against debt and inter­na­tional fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions which, this year, coin­cides with the 25^th anniversary of the death of Thomas Sankara.

In the same spirit, we call for the cre­ation or rein­force­ment of grass­roots’ com­mit­tees together with local audit groups in all European coun­tries – they would spear­head res­ist­ance against the EU’s attacks and give sub­stance to our solid­ar­ity with the Greek people and all har­assed peoples.

Together we can !

Please send your sig­na­ture to : debtauditineuromed@​gmail.​com.

NB: For a bet­ter coordin­a­tion, the Inter­na­tional Cit­izen debt Audit Net­work (ICAN) will provide fur­ther inform­a­tion in each coun­try where it is present:

Bel­gium, http://​www​.sauvetage​-dexia​.be/ and www​.cadtm​.org

Egypt, http://​www​.dropegypts​debt​.org/

France, http://​www​.audit​-citoyen​.org/ and https://​sites​.google​.com/​s​i​t​e​/​r​e​f​e​r​e​n​d​u​m​d​e​t​te/

Ger­many, http://​blockupy​-frank​furt​.org/es and http://​www​.attac​-net​zwerk​.de/​a​g​-​s​c​h​u​l​den andhttp://www.zukunftskonvent.de/

Greece, http://​www​.con​tra​-xreos​.gr/ and www​.elegr​.gr

Ire­land, http://​www​.notourdebt​.ie/

Italy, http://​rivol​taildeb​ito​.glob​al​ist​.it/ and www​.smon​taildeb​ito​.org

Poland, http://​nienaszd​lug​.pl/

Por­tugal, http://​aud​it​or​iacid​ada​.info/

United King­dom, http://​www​.jubileedebt​cam​paign​.org​.uk/

Spain, http://​aud​it​or​i​a15m​.org/

Tunisia, http://​www​.tunisie​.attac​.org/​d​e​t​t​e​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​php /​ and http://​zelzel​.net/