EDITORIAL

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.

Dean Andromidas
(Analyst, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR)

Copyright: Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) on line

The great edifice of the Euro Empire appears to be crumbling before the mass strike now sweeping Greece. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets to demonstrate they can no longer tolerate brutalization for the sake of a mountain of unpayable debt. The paralyzed Greek government is unable to implement the austerity plans required before yet another EU bailout can be implemented, to prop up the hopelessly bankrupt euro financial system.
The Greek government's own paralysis is mirrored 17 times over by the paralysis of the 17 nations that make up the Eurozone. After losing their bailout ringleader, former International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, they are unable to agree on a policy to save the doomed Eurozone. While the Eurogang squabbles over unworkable schemes ranging from ``voluntary haircuts'' for private creditors to wet dreams of a giant new bailout fund of EU1.5 trillion, the only solution available is the restoration of a Glass-Steagall standard in the United States, and its extension to Europe.

Let’s face some facts here.

1. The Papandreou regime is completely delegitimized, and hobbling along, as it stubbornly and criminally proceeds with an unprecedented methodical destruction of Greek society through IMF/EU-inspired revenge austerity. At last though, the Greek people are swelling into action -- so far, peaceful but nobody’s putting any money on the table that this will continue for long or that Papandreou won’t be lifting off the terrace of parliament in a helicopter, en route to an aircraft carrier off the Phaliron coast soon, for effectively shooting his own country in the head with the purpose of a professional executioner. Already, even sworn media supporters of the “free market” and maniacal “fiscal rationalization” are taking notice.