Article written by my good friend Thomae GREECE: AN OCCUPIED COUNTRY FIGHTS ON By Dr. Thomais Kakouli-Duarte

1. GREECE: AN OCCUPIED COUNTRY FIGHTS ON
By Dr. Thomais Kakouli-Duarte
Greece, a small and peaceful nation in the south of Europe, has fallen prey to the
international money traders. An unprecedented and political crisis rocks the country as
people are being driven to mass unemployment and poverty. Since the start of the crisis the
Greek people have been portrayed as being lazy, wasteful, and thieves. This is part of a
concerted campaign of defamation by the international mainstream media, owned and
controlled by the financial cartels, which aims to justify the fall of Greece. The Greeks are
being treated as the cause of all evil for the euro-fiasco-project, while in fact it is the euro-
fiasco-project that systematically destroyed Greece. At the same time, we witness not only
lack of solidarity towards Greece, but behaviours that nearly border racism, while the Greek
people are “punished” for crimes that they did not commit.

2. Greece is in the brink of complete occupation, with lost sovereignty and with part of its
financial system to be controlled by British law. The protest marches in Greece, although in
their vast majority peaceful, are systematically hijacked by violent elements directed by
exogenous control centres to destabilise the popular movement and to bring chaos and
social unrest to the country. Thus, the dictatorship that governs Greece will soon
“conveniently” invite foreign troops to “restore stability and order”. This could be another
neo-colonial campaign, such as those we witnessed in recent years in the world, aiming to
abolish nations and loot their resources.
The troika-imposed “austerity” for nearly two years now has brought the Greeks in
conditions that no people can accept and live under. There have been savage cuts in
education, health care, pensions and the most vulnerable in the society have been affected
worst. But the troika claims this has not been enough. The “new austerity package”
aproved by the Greek parliament on Feb 12th dictates that the minimum wage is going to be
cut by 32% for the workers under 25 years (€430 per month), and by 22% for the above 25
year olds (€ 610 per month). Unemployment for the 15 to 24 year old group has risen to a
soaring 48% and overall unemployment has reached 20%. The sacking of 15,000 public
sector workers within the next year will add to it. More so, the “austerity package” demands
cuts to pensions and public services including health, education and social welfare. And to
add insult to injury, all this to be supervised by people other than the Greeks in their own
country – a thorough disciplinary and punishment system.
It is important to remember, when we casually use the term “bailout”, that it is not the
Greek people who are bailed out – it could not have been a most misleading term to
describe where this money goes. Not a single life will be saved by this money in Greece, but
it will be rather pocketed by the financial global system, i.e. the banks, hedge funds and
pension funds of other EU member states. In this context the term “austerity” is a gross
insult to the people of Greece, and it should be rather called insensitivity or cruelty at best.
No body has to have an economics degree to realise that this system is not working. Cuts do
not produce growth and it is growth that the Greek economy needs right now, so that
production can start again and Greece can deal with its debts and be able to repay them. It
is as if we have a patient who is sick from malnutrition and to make him better, instead of
feeding him with good food, we place him in a reduced calorie diet. It just does not work.

3. What Greece needs now, is to be able to issues its own money, owing it to no one, and
pump this to its economy to kick-start it again; this is analogous to the provision of good
food to the starving person in the previous example. This can happen by leaving the
Eurozone, as should have happened at the start of this crisis in 2009-2010, and start
producing their own national currency. Many a doomsday scenario have arisen by the
international financial speculators aka gamblers-with-fates-of-nations, but Greece, unlike
the demonization media campaign claims, has had working, clever and educated people.
Greece is gifted with a generous sun, a fertile soil and marvellous weather that can support
the growth of nearly everything in the world. It is time for the Greek people to go back to
their roots and reclaim their primary production sector who was wrecked by EU directives
and interventions: agriculture. Greece has the strongest shipping industry in the world and
thousands of islands; it has minerals, and recently found oil. It is almost certain that a future
new currency of Greece will undergo devaluation, but this can increase its competiveness
for exports and boom again its tourism industry. Greece needs to get out of this façade,
regain its sovereignty and commence building her shattered body all over again.
Rebuilding is nothing new for the Greeks. They carry a history and civilisation of nearly three
millennia, and the Greek nation steered many times through rough waters. Only the 20th
century had marked Greece with two world wars, one civil war and a junta. In relation to
WWII there is still unfinished business between Greece and Germany and Ms Merkel should
be more careful waging her financial war against Greece. When the Nazis occupied Greece
they emptied the treasury of the country. They called that robbery the “occupation loan”
which effectively financed Hitler’s campaign to occupy Greece. The International Red Cross
has estimated that between 1941 and 1934 at least 300,000 Greeks died from starvation,
which was the direct result of the looting of Greece by the Germans. Adding to that all the
victims of the Nazi massacres on the Greek people, Greece is the only country which lost a
staggering 13% of its population as direct result of WWII. Germany never honoured its
obligations for reparations to the Greek people as determined by international law. Using
current interest rates (US Treasury Bonds) since 1944, it is estimated that the current value
of the occupation loan is $163.8 billion and that of the war reparations is $ 332 billion.

4. The French economist and French government consultant Jacques Delpla stated on the 2 nd
of July 2011 that Germany owes to Greece 575 billion euro from WWII obligations (Les
Echos, Saturday, July 2, 2011). The German economic historian Dr. Albrecht Ritschl warned
Germany to take a more chaste approach in the euro crisis, as it could face renewed and
justified demands for WWII reparations from Greece (Der Spiegel, June 21, 2011;
guardian.co.uk, June 21, 2011). If you wish to support Greece in its campaign to claim its
rightful WWII reparations from Germany, please visit: http://www.greece.org/blogs/wwii/.
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We are all Greeks Now
http://www.newsit.gr/default.php?pname=Article&art_id=122871&catid=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLHzYqPpQ7M&feature=player_embedded
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_18/02/2012_428616