Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the incendiary attack on the political office of Development Minister Adonis Georgiades by Proletarian Cell Dimitris Christoulas
“The occupying government of Tsolakoglu literally annihilated my possibility of survival, which was based on a decent pension which for 35 years I alone (without state support) had been paying for it. Because I am of an age that does not give me the individual possibility to react (not excluding of course if a Greek would take the kalashnikov the second would be me) I find no other solution than a decent end before I start to look in the trash for my alimony. I believe that the young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the national traitors upside down in Syntagma Square, as the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945 (Loreto Square in Milan)” Dimitris Christoulas*
We take responsibility for the incendiary attack on the political office of Adonis Georgiades, the representative of capital, politician responsible for the poverty and misery suffered by the people through poverty.
From the economic crisis of 2009 from which the country never came out, to the socialization of the losses of capital from the pandemic Covid 19, the latest increases in the price of electricity, fuel and almost all essentials are added to the already unbearable cost of survival of the working class and the people, to the pre-existing queues of the ΟΑΕΔ (Employment Insurance) , to the pension cuts, to the crumbs of the basic wage. The “development” invoked and evangelised by the domestic bourgeoisie is reflected physically and materially in people who die trying to keep warm, who look in the garbage for food, who commit suicide for economic reasons. It is reflected in workplaces that are graveyards for people of our class, where dozens of workers do not return home because a few extra euros were not “wasted” for the safety of the workers. Their growth translates into slow death in the corridors of hospitals. To the nearly 27,000 deaths from Covid 19, to the blockade of care in public hospitals amidst the increasing privatisation of the ΕΣΥ (National Health Service). Their deployment amounts to a daily battle for the survival of the next day for the majority of society at the same time as a handful of industrialists, shipowners and contractors continually speculate on our backs, reap the rewards of the toil and slavery we produce, extract surplus value from our starvation wages, continually devaluing the value of our labour power.
This scumbag is among the main supporters and spokesmen for these policies, using his institutional/political position to implement them. His history is known throughout society. From the party of the fascist Karatzaferis’ LAOS party, to the Papademos government as Deputy Minister of Development, executing to the letter all the memorandum dictates and policies of the government. Then to the Ministry of Health, with the budget mismanagement of public health spending, the Novartis scandal and the systematic attempt to dismantle the ΕΣΥ, until today in the position of Minister of Development. Society has felt the results of his policies in its own skin. The irony and mockery against the people. “First of all, the people are not cold” he used to declare while the people were burning alive from the mangals (wood burners) they were lighting to keep warm.
With the inflation soaring and no measures being taken to protect the poor, with rents no longer affordable for a working man, while local and foreign investors are literally fleecing the people through the floodgates of the banks and tourist investments. A typical example is the neighborhood of Exarcheia, where the redevelopment of public space is methodically attempted (e.g. privatization of the Strefis Hill, metro in the neighborhood square) and the expulsion of residents from their homes to create houses, apartments, airbnb, hostel and hotel units for the benefit of tourism capital, aiming at the same time to uproot the ideological and political character of the neighborhood.
At the same time, within the borders where poor people cannot afford the increased cost of living, for almost two months now we have had another imperialist war in Ukraine knocking at our door and we are probably on the verge of a generalized World War III. Threats of nuclear weapons are being launched with incredible ease, increasing insecurity for peoples. The antagonisms between the Euro-Atlantic bloc of the USA NATO EU on the one hand and imperialist Russia on the other, which is setting up similar mechanisms such as the Euro-Asian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, can only bring death, poverty, hunger and misery to the peoples. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of the imperialist conflict to control spheres of influence, sources of wealth and trade routes. The ferocity that underlies imperialist rivalries could in no way be resolved without war. The US-led coup in Maidan in 2014 resulted in the prevalence of fascist groups, fully trained and equipped by NATO (Azov battalion, etc.). This was followed by Nazi executions and persecutions against militants and Russian-speaking populations, culminating in the burning of the Syndicate in Odessa. At the same time the peoples of the wider region were being targeted by attacks and bombing and forced into poverty and refugeeism. While the energy and predicted food crisis will hit the poorest social strata in many countries of the world. At the same time that thousands are becoming “meat for their cannons” the Greek state seeks to upgrade its geostrategic position. We, for our part, being a NATO state, must turn our arrows to our own country, to the NATO bases that become bases of war, to the prevention of sending military material, to the cancellation of agreements on the purchase of military equipment (Rafale, frigates, etc.).
At the same time, Greek shipowners are rubbing their hands, seeing the war as another opportunity to increase their profitability. “Crisis breeds croissants” said the bastard Onassis, the most tangible example of Greek shipowners. Current geopolitical developments make it necessary to “switch” to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in European countries. Greek shipowners have already announced the purchase of ships for the transport of LNG, reinforcing their already large fleet, at a cost of almost €4 billion. At the same time, it continues to transport Russian oil to Europe without stopping, thus profiting from the war many times over and proving once and for all that capital has no home.
In this context in which we are living, with the ever-increasing impoverishment of our lives on the one hand and the war trumpets of imperialist antagonisms sounding ever closer and closer to us on the other, our only response must be the political and organisational upgrading of the movement, which is the only road that will lead to social revolution. Which will smash the rotten capitalist system in deep crisis and bring the peoples back to the centre of history.
*Dimitris Christoulas, a Greek pensioner who committed suicide in Syntagma Square in Athens on April 4, 2012. 77 years old at the time of his death, he was a retired pharmacist who sold his pharmacy in 1994 and had been experiencing both financial and health problems, including difficulty paying for his medications, when the Greek government austerity measures slashed his pension. Before his death, he had posted a sign outside his apartment that stated, “Can’t pay, won’t pay,” and his last words before shooting himself were “I am not committing suicide, they are killing me.”
