Ioannis Kolovos

(RIEAS research associate on the issue of illegal immigration and editor of the “RIEAS Newsletter on Immigration to Greece”)

Copyright: www.rieas.gr


The economic crisis is the most prominent issue facing the EU these days. But there is also another issue – a silently emerging one – that may have even more serious repercussions for the EU’s future than the economic crisis. If the mishandling of the issue of immigration - both legal and illegal – continues, it may well threaten the existence of the EU as we know it. Recently, the pressure is mounting on a basic pillar of the EU: the Schengen Agreement.

Dear “Rescuers:”

This is a really strange thing.

The more we try to feel grateful to you for “saving” us at the last moment, the more we struggle to discover our best feelings on this particular occasion.

No doubt, we note with due respect all your efforts aimed at making us “competitive,” as par example driving unemployment to unprecedented levels and cutting wages down to Chinese standards; devastating the smaller private business sector and destroying hundreds of thousands of families in the process; whipping our collaborator regime into driving our taxes up and up and away with Ottoman aplomb; making the price of petrol equivalent to that of an ounce of gold; and smiling understandingly when our collaborator regime sends out its baton-wielding, tear gas-launching helmeted preservation-of-order squads to send us to the hospital or worse.

Nikolas Stylianou
(RIEAS Research Associate & Security Analyst)

Copyright:
www.rieas.gr

On the July 11th a tragic incident took place at the Navy Base of Mari (Limassol). 98 containers of gunpowder, explosives, rockets and guns exploded resulting to the death of 13 people from the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Cyprus and the Cyprus Fire Service. The current article aims to highlight the background of the catastrophe and underline the personal responsibilities of the President of Cyprus, Mr. Demetris Christofias, the Minister of Defense, Costas Papacostas as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marcos Kyprianou.

Back in the 1930s, the world was in a swirl that was gradually gaining momentum toward a maelstrom. The maelstrom eventually did crash onto Europe with Hitler’s attack on Poland in September 1939 and the outbreak of World War Two.

The rest, as they say, is history.

In 2011, the swirl is already working itself into a boiling cauldron thanks to the enormous power of largely invisible global enemies: bond markets, unregulated investment banking, and predatory lending capital.

In Greece, the answer to this question is, primarily, democracy.

With the Papandreou regime sliding fast toward authoritarianism in an effort to gain more time for its outside controllers, busily trying to transfer the Greek debt from banks to taxpayers, Greek democracy is losing its main underpinnings.

Never really workable or based on sound political foundations, Greek post-junta democracy was nevertheless a vast improvement over the recent past. After 1974, a modicum of civil liberties came into place, freedom of expression was more or less guaranteed, parliament came into its own, and elections, once freely tweaked with by parastate forces, acquired the level of legitimacy that is routine in other Western countries.

On June 29, 2011, the regime of Greek prime minister George Papandreou decided to take another huge step in the direction of unhinging Greek democracy and violently suppressing the people of Greece, who are rising against outside-imposed austerity that guarantees the death of what’s left of Greece’s economy.

Greece is already beaten into a pulp by the EU/IMF “bailout packages” that have literally sucked the breath of life out of her body.

Papandreou’s compliant collaboration with those who are dealing this country a death blow reminiscent of World War II has triggered mass popular unrest that simply won’t go away.

So, on June 29, 2011, the Greek regime, isolated, delegitimized, and fearful of collapsing under popular rage, decided it had had enough of the thousands of peaceful demonstrators, filling the square in front of parliament for weeks on end to denounce the entire political system as well as the regime’s own honest efforts at economic genocide through foreign-ordained austerity.

The order then went out to the riot squads to clear Constitution square of all demonstrating vermin Middle East style.

The outrage that followed has been graphically described in scores of stark eyewitness reports -- one of which you can find here   -- and has stunned an expiring nation reeling under the effects of a shambolic race by European “leaders” to buy more time for European banks that are trying to unload as much of their Greek junk bonds as possible before Greece’s inevitable implosion occurs.

On orders from the euphemistically named “Citizen’s Protection” ministry, riot squads, helmeted and appropriately armored, baton charged the thousands of peaceful demonstrators in what turned instantly into an orgy of violence, even by established Greek standards. Orders from above called for an extreme display of physical brutality that included stomping on people, running them down with police motorcycles, and delivering full-power blows to the head  with batons; they also allowed for uncontrolled deployment of chemical agents in the midst of one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.

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