Catastroika

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After 2 years of "rescuing",

the austerity-loving governments...

...raise sovereign debt

from 115% of GDP to 160%.

One out of two young

workers is unemployed.

Thousands of others emigrate or have

to live by with 500 Euros per month.

Suicide rates increase by 20%,

while homeless people

in Athens surpass 20.000.

The constitution is circumvented.

Bankers and former supporters

of the military junta...

...occupy key positions

of the state machinery.

Everything is now ready

for the last act of the tragedy.

Greeces complete sell off.

INFOWAR PRODUCTIONS presents

A documentary by Katerina Kitidi and

Aris Chatzistefanou

Scientific editor

Leonidas Vatikiotis

Edit

Aris Triantafyllou

Music

Active Member

Ermis Georgiadis

Production manager

Thanos Tsantas

The short 20th century

comes to an end.

The West envisions

the end of history.

And tries to implement it

in Russia.

The transition includes

the biggest experiment...

...in privatisation,

in the history of mankind.

An experiment that will lead

a nation to utter disaster.

The fire sale of a whole country,

planned in the West and

implemented by Russian oligarchs,

couldn't take place without

limiting democratic freedoms.

The rules of the game

must change.

After the 1993 mini coup d'etat

against the parliament,

Yeltsin feels ready

to accelerate privatisation.

I'm absolutely certain

that privatization in 1994...

This process was called

Catastroica.

Catastroica in Russia is usually

presented as an exception...

...in the history of mass

privatisation.

In fact, it was just

an extreme example...

...of how the fire sale

of national assets...

...is incompatible with political

or economic democracy.

The practice of fire sales

comes with the neoliberal wind...

...that blows for the first time

at the Univesrity of Chicago.

Professors such as Friedrich

von Hayek and Milton Friedman...

...seek a laboratory

in order to test...

...the so-called free market

and minimal state intervention.

But, since no democratic government

agreed to implement their ideas,

they turned to Pinochet's Chile...

...and afterwards

to general Evren's Turkey.

Margaret Thatcher

will finally find a way...

...to bring neoliberal privatisation

to western Europe.

In order to achieve this,

it will take two wars...

...and the limitation

of democratic freedoms.

Thatcher's Britain is a typical

case of how the infringement...

...of labor law and the violation

of workers' rights...

...coincided with an increase

of repressive measures.

The most characteristic example

is that, nowadays,

according to british law,

when more than four people are

picketing outside a workplace,

the protest can be banned...

because it can affect the morale

of those working in the company.

Neoliberalism, which promises

less state control,

demands a strong state mechanism

in order to be implemented.

However, the blood-thirsty dictators

and Thatcher's shock policy...

...have an expiration date.

New means must therefore

be found...

...for the infliction

of mass privatisation.

Institutions such as the IMF and

the World Trade Organisation...

...played a leading role

in the sell-off of whole countries.

The European Union followed suit.

The conditions laid down

by the IMF,

as well as the big american

and european banks...

...demand the total submission

of peoples' rights.

Debt becomes the excuse

to push for Greece's fire sale.

However, once again, a small

obstacle must be overcome:

Democracy.

The European Union

and the greek financial elites...

...got to the point of appointing

a former central banker...

...as prime minister of Greece.

Taking over from Papandreou,

Lukas Papademos

appoints bank executives,

like Gikas Hardouvelis of Eurobank,

in the prime minister's office.

Political and economic

power relations...

...turn into an interbank deal.

What is happening in Greece

is very serious.

Democracy was born here...

...and the international financial

system now decides...

...that it should die here as well.

I think that the scientific term

is junta.

We have a group of politicians

headed by a banker,

who is, in fact, responsible for

Greece's bankrupcy to a great extent.

It is a banker's junta...

...with no more popular

legitimisation than the 1967 junta.

Papademos' government is only one step

towards Greece's financial control.

The EU, however, sends many

more supervisors to the country.

The German pro-consul

is Horst Reichenbach.

He arrives in Greece as head

of an army of technocrats.

He is followed by many EU

and IMF employees...

...that are appointed

to major ministries.

We find ourselves

in a neo-colonial period...

...when international financial

and political centers...

...impose policies not only in Africa

or Latin America, but also Europe...

...and this becomes an inherent

part of capitalism's organization.

The country's control by foreign

and greek financial interests...

...is achieved mainly

via two loan agreements.

The goal is to impose

the creditors' conditions...

...and turn work into slavery.

Labour relations return

to the 19th century.

In order for these regulations

to pass,

another coup is necessary.

This time a parliamentary one.

The first loan agreeement never came

to the parliament for ratification,

which is clearly anti-constitutional.

The second one was presented

three times as a blueprint.

The creditors were obviously

asking for changes...

...and needed a preaproval

of this blueprint.

It is obvious that our political

leaders do not intend...

...to implement the constitution,

but the political orders

they receive from abroad.

Whoever dares to talk about

a parliamentary coup...

...and to question the policies

of the government and the troika...

...is characterised as a populist.

This is impudent, it is an insult!

You talk about a coup...

...because the government which

was elected by a vast majority...

...asked for a bill

to be voted as urgent.

You have to apologise for

this insult towards the institutions.

You are the advocate

of the Greece of the drachma,

the Greece of poverty,

the Greece of humiliation,

you and everyone like you.

No more rescuing

The ideological terrorism

escalates.

Mainstream media

blackmale citizens...

...saying that, if they do not accept

the loan agreements,

...the super market shelves

will soon be empty...

...and the country will return

to the stone age.

There will be chaos. Greece will

become a Thirld World country.

There will be ration coupons...

Having done away with democracy...

...the governments prepare

for the sale of public assets.

They start off

with a tested recipe....

...by turning public servants

into the crisis' scapegoat.

The greek government is lying,

by saying that it doesn't know...

...the public servant's number and

then that they reach one million.

It withholds the fact that the public

sector's size and the average wages...

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