Refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border where a makeshift camp had sprung up near the town of Idomeni. The sudden closure of the Balkan route left thousands stranded. Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Jun 9 2016 (IPS)

Closure of the Western Balkans route has trapped tens of thousands of refugees heading to Central and Northern Europe in Greece, including many unaccompanied minors who either escaped from war zones after having lost their relatives, or were sent ahead in hopes of helping their families follow afterwards.

While the Western Balkans corridor remained open, many minors opted to declare they were adults or register as relatives of other refugees transiting the country to avoid being put in protective custody and reception facilities.

According to a May 31 report by Save the Children, more than 1.2 million refugees have headed to Europe since 2015 – the continent’s “biggest wave of mass migration since the aftermath of the second world war.” They come mainly from conflict-torn countries like Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea.

The problem has worsened since the beginning of February, when European countries limited the number and profile of those let through. The formal closure of the route a month afterwards boosted the number of refugees stranded in Greece to 57,000, according to UNHCR. The U.N. refugee agency estimates more than 30 percent of them are minors.

Kiki Petrakou, a social worker with the National Center for Social Solidarity, a state agency involved with the system of transferring minors to specialized accommodation centers around the country, says the number of requests for hosting unaccompanied children rose sharply in the first three months of this year.

“The numbers we are called to manage have multiplied. From January to March 2016, we have had 1,210 requests while during the same period last year they were only 328,” Petrakou told IPS.

Up to the end of May, there have been 1,875 cases, 1,768 boys and 107 girls. “It is likely the numbers will keep increasing while authorities and organisations identify more of these kids throughout the reception camps,” said Petrakou.

So far 1,269 children have been sent to reception centers and another 629 requests are pending. But with inadequate facilities, some children must be placed temporarily in protective custody in police stations or reside in reception facilities for refugees in the Greek islands where conditions are tough and sometimes even hazardous.

Kostantinos Kolovos, a social worker involved with the management of a hosting facility operated by the NGO Praksis in the middle of Athens, says there have been a few isolated cases of children mistreated by authorities.

The center he works at currently hosts 28 minors of various ages and ethnic backgrounds. According to Kolovos, a crucial factor in whether a child receives adequate protection or falls through the cracks of the existing system is access to accurate information.

“Children are misinformed by smugglers who have their own interest in perpetuating the vicious circle of exploitation or ignore basic information regarding protection and rights available to them,” he says.

Consequently, many times they attempt to avoid being sent to official facilities or run away after a few weeks and try to survive on the streets."We pass information to kids about where to seek basic services and food so they don't resort to doing something bad for just 10 euros." -- Kostantinos Kolovos of the NGO Praksis

“We also do street work programmes so we can pass information to kids about where to seek basic services and food so they don’t resort to doing something bad for just 10 euros,” Kolovos says.

Abuse and harassment is not uncommon for minors who have completely fallen out of the protection network and are on the streets. Even those hosted in various emergency reception camps set up by the government around the country are not entirely safe.

Katerina Kitidi, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Athens, told IPS, “UNHCR is deeply concerned by media reports about survival sex, including sexual exploitation of minors, in sites accommodating refugee populations. The authorities should proceed to an immediate and thorough investigation whenever such reports occur.”

According to UNHCR, safeguarding the security of the sites and their inhabitants should be a key priority in all areas, both in the mainland and the islands.

“The danger of survival sex and other types of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is closely linked to the living conditions in areas accommodating refugees. Many sites were not set up to prevent or respond to such risks. For this to be achieved, one clearly needs well-lit and gender segregated WASH (water-sanitation-health) facilities and sleeping areas, as well as private facilities for women and children. In addition, one needs skilled personnel in SGBV monitoring and response, more female translators and investment in the provision of psychosocial aid” Kitidi told IPS.

But so far most of this kind of support to vulnerable populations and unaccompanied minors remains scarce or simply entirely unavailable throughout the reception camps.

A report published last week by the German organisation Pro Asyl regarding detection and protection of vulnerable populations in refugee camps around the Attica region includes interviews with many unaccompanied minors.

The majority of them, the report ‘Vulnerable Lives on Hold’ found, were not followed up with by authorities after being sent to the camps, had no accurate information regarding their own case, and had limited or nonexistent access to protection or asylum services.

“A very high percentage of them is estimated to be admissible for family reunification or relocation,” Pro Asyl noted.

But many, especially those in the islands, might have to wait a long time before having their cases processed while the asylum system struggles to cope with priorities set by the EU-Turkey statement. Under this agreement and according to the EU Asylum Directive, Syrian and other nationals who crossed the Aegean after Mar. 20 could be returned to Turkey on the basis that Turkey is considered a safe third country for them.

Petrakou says the acute need to increase the capacity of the unaccompanied minors’ reception system is not being met. Some new locations  have been created in various Greek cities over the last few months and have been immediately integrated into the reception system. But the 584 referral positions available are too few in light of the rapidly growing size of the problem, and meanwhile the threat of exploitation and abuse for unaccompanied minors is as big as ever.

Child trafficking trends in the context of migration and asylum analysed in a European Commission progress report last month show strong evidence that the ongoing refugee crisis “has been exploited by criminal networks involved in trafficking in human beings to target the most vulnerable, in particular women and children”.

Sit-in of Syrian migrants in Athens, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Nov 29 2014 (IPS)

A sit-in protest by Syrian refugees on Syntagma Square opposite the Greek parliament in the heart of Athens has turned into a demonstration of the stalemate faced by both Greek as well as European immigration policy.

About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries to the northwest of Greece.“Given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece” – Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece

Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Tens have already been transferred to hospital to be treated for minor symptoms, mostly due to hypothermia. Medical incidents have increased after many of the protestors decided to start a hunger strike six days ago.

Throughout the protest, the Greek authorities have been communicating with them, repeating the official line that there exist no legal provisions for travelling to other European countries unless they have formally acquired refugee status.

However most of the Syrians taking part in the sit-in appear unwilling to apply for asylum in Greece.

They have refused to do so even after it was made clear to them that asylum would be granted to them with fast track procedures. This would help secure the travelling documents, which they desperately want, but at the same time would deprive them of the right to seek asylum in other European countries in which refugees enjoy access to better integration services.

Indeed, the Greek authorities are facing a unique situation. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior, Aggelos Syrigos, told IPS from Syntagma Square where the protest is taking place that the situation seems irresolvable. “We explained to them that what they ask is not possible. We advised them to apply for asylum, so we can offer shelter to families. Many of them seem to believe that other Europeans can intervene to resolve their problem, which is not the case,”

Some years ago, when Greece was receiving mostly economic migrants, the country implemented a policy that limited access to asylum claims because irregular migrants were abusing the system.

Syrian migrants protesting in Athens. About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

The crisis transformed the country into a non-desirable destination for refugees and migrants. Now it appears to be the authorities that are pushing refugees, which are the vast majority of arrivals these days, to enter the system and claim asylum.

The change in policy came after the authorities established an effective asylum system in cooperation with UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and after pressure from the European Commission on the country’s authorities.

But this change of policy has not been followed up by establishment of the effective integration services and infrastructure that the country needs.

A recent reportby the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) on the cost-effectiveness of irregular migration control policy in Greece between 2007 and 2013 shows that Greece has prioritised an expensive system of border controls, detention and returns.

It has invested most of the available resources from European funds and the national budget in such a system at the expense of a less costly and more proactive system without such punitive measures. As a result, it now lacks facilities that would help manage new waves of arrivals.

The Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece, Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, told IPS that Greece never really attempted to implement an integration policy in the first place, but now, “given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece.”

Tsarbopoulos believes that the government’s decision to precondition any protection offered to Syrian protestors on first applying for asylum might prove counterproductive by polarising the situation.

Many Syrians who come from an urban middle class background understand that claiming asylum in Greece will connect them to a future that leads to social marginalisation, a situation that they clearly find very difficult to accept.

A few nights ago, this correspondent was party to a conversation between Mohammed A., who has been sleeping rough in Syntagma Square since the beginning of the sit-in, and a Greek man, both of the same age.

The conversation ended with the Syrian saying: “I don’t want anything from Greece. What I want is just to be able to go where I want. You can go anywhere you want. I want this too.”

Both Syrigos and Tsarbopoulos agreed not only that the issue will deteriorate but also that the time frame for adequate solutions is limited.

According to the latest official Greek estimates, more than 5000 Syrians entered Greece last month and just a few days ago Greece sent a military search and rescue operation south to Crete to save an immobilised container ship believed to be carrying about 700 refugees.

The Greek Council of Refugees issued a response to the government’s position to push Syrians to submit asylum applications. According to the organisation, the asylum process “should not be a tool and a prerequisite for the provision of material reception conditions and immediate humanitarian assistance to people fleeing war conflicts”.

In an analytical press release circulated by UNHCR Greece five days ago, Europe is being urged to open legal pathways for refugees and start a dialogue on a Europe-wide refugee solution that puts the emphasis on solidarity among the European Union’s member states.

For two years, the Greek government, together with Italy and Malta, has repeatedly been asking the European Council to discuss responsibility-sharing between member states in the north of Europe and those in the south, but this has not yet happened.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

‘Mare Nostrum’ – the largest search and rescue immigration operation ever carried out in the Mediterranean Sea – has become an issue of bitter brinkmanship between human rights groups and anti-immigrant lobbies.

At a higher political level, it has produced a tough negotiation between Italy and Europe, with the former asking for a European solution to immigration control in the Mediterranean.

Abandoned migrant boats lie lifeless opposite the port of Lampedusa, Italy, an island which experiences frequent migration from nearby North Africa. Credit: UN Photo/UNHCR/Phil Behan

‘Mare Nostrum’ was launched in October 2013 by Italy in the wake of a shipwreck south of the island of Lampedusa – the southernmost part of Italy lying 176 km off the coast of Sicily – that took the lives of 368 immigrants, mostly refugees from Syria and African countries.

The search and rescue operation is a military naval operation supported by the Italian Air Force and Coast Guard as well as civilian volunteers and medical personnel. It has operated in a vast area of the Central Mediterranean.

Between October 2013 and August 2014, ‘Mare Nostrum’ rescued over 115,000 people, mostly refugees, and transferred them to Italian territory. About 2,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives in the Mediterranean during the same period.

Human rights activists have praised the operation for rescuing refugees while its opponents have blamed it for producing a pull factor for immigrants and providing an illicit shuttle to Europe for them, making the job of traffickers easier.

The European Commission has now decided to flank the ‘Mare Nostrum’ initiative, although it has no intention of replacing it. After a meeting on August 27, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom and Italian Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano announced a new Frontex operation to stand by Italy’s ‘Mare Nostrum’ operation in the Mediterranean.

One of the main roles of Frontex – the European Union agency for external border security that started operations in May 2005 – is to protect Europe’s external borders from illegal immigration and people trafficking.

Announcing the new operation, which has temporarily been named ‘Frontex Plus’, Commissioner Malmstrom called on European member states to translate “oral solidarity into concrete action” by contributing resources and means.Humanitarian organisations in Italy have been quick to criticise ‘Frontex Plus’, saying that its description is still vague and that its primary aim is not the rescuing of immigrants and refugees but the upgrading of border surveillance and deterrence.

Ska Keller, Green Member of the European Parliament  told IPS that the new operation is “the result of pressure extorted by Italy on Brussels, but not what Italy has been asking for. It’s true Italy is rescuing a lot of people but this is not their main concern, they will not necessarily be happy to continue with Mare Nostrum.”

Humanitarian organisations in Italy have been quick to criticise ‘Frontex Plus’, saying that its description is still vague and that its primary aim is not the rescuing of immigrants and refugees but the upgrading of border surveillance and deterrence.

Silvia Canciani, press officer of the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI), told IPS that her association is “extremely concerned” because the only certainty about the new operation “is that ships will patrol only in European waters, 12 miles from the coast”, meaning they will no longer venture into international waters, like ‘Mare Nostrum’, which operated 170 miles from the Italian coast.

She added that it is still unknown whether Italian authorities plan to postpone, amend or carry on with ‘Mare Nostrum’ as it is, but a withdrawal from the operation might have a direct consequence on lives being lost in the Mediterranean.

Other critical voices stress how conservatives in the European Union see an opportunity in the negotiations that will follow on the new operation to capitalise on the issue of returning incoming migrants to safe third countries or to their countries of embarkation.

In a blog commenting on the announcement of ‘Frontex Plus’, Italian law professor Fulvio Vassalo Paleologo, a well-known commentator on immigration issues in the region, observed that in their joint announcement “the word ‘rescue’ has disappeared from Alfano’s and Malmstom’s vocabulary.” He also noted that neither of them had made a single remark about the conditions immigrants face in transit countries.

Both could be indications that the European Commission is seriously considering pushing for the control of population influxes outside European borders.

One day before the Malmstrom-Alfano announcement, the Italian edition of Huffington Post published an article citing an anonymous source in the Italian Ministry of the Interior, who was present at negotiations for the new operations in Brussels, as saying that “many people in Brussels see Mare Nostrum as an informal ferry for migrants.”

The unprecedented flows Europe is going to face given the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East will enforce a change of policy, which will translate into trying to “manage the flows of refugees and migrants in transit countries before they are on board for Italy,” the source said.

For this, he continued “we must work to re-negotiate readmission agreements with countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco” and then stop incoming immigrants on board and not let them proceed to Italy “unless they have already started the procedures for refugee status and we have already made identifications before they are on board.”

The policy scenario in the Huffington Post article was vividly mirrored in an Italian Interior Ministry’s press release two days later, after a meeting between Minister Alfano and his French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve to discuss “illegal immigration in the Central Mediterranean”.

Notably the meeting took place only one day after the announcement of ‘Frontex Plus’ in which France is expected to be one of the most active partners.

In the ministry’s press release, the term ‘rescue’ is again absent and the definition of the aim of ‘Frontex Plus’ is to “ensure control and surveillance of the external sea borders of the European Union … according to the rules of Frontex.”

From the press release, it also appears that both the Italian and French ministers believe that the issue of immigration should increasingly be dealt with “as a foreign policy issue” with “more emphasis to be given to the role of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”, meaning the European External Action Service (EEAS) which implements the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The two ministers also identified two key policy objectives to push for within the European Union: “the commitment of all Member States of the European Union to a strict application of the rules for the identification of illegal migrants provided by European legislation and the strengthening of cooperation with countries of origin and transit in the field of border surveillance, police cooperation and development aid to these countries.”

Frontex’s key role in a new operation could facilitate these objectives given that the regulation “establishing rules for the surveillance of the external sea borders in the context of operational cooperation coordinated by the European Agency for the Management of Operation Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the EU (Frontex)” adopted on April 30, 2014, includes provisions for the interception of incoming vessels in international waters and their return to third countries.

Many pro-immigrant organisations such as Frontexit (a campaign led by associations, researchers and individuals from both North and South of the Mediterranean on the initiative of the Migreurop network), the Belgian Coordination Initiative for Refugees and Foreigners (CIRE), as well as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, have indicated highly controversial legal gaps in the regulation that could compromise the rights of persons in need of international protection.

In a joint briefing, the latter said that despite some positive aspects, other aspects fail to meet the requirements of international law, including refugee law, human rights law, the law of the sea and E.U. law.

When asked to comment on the nature of the ‘Frontex Plus’ operation, Malmstroms’s office said: “At the moment we do not have anything to add in addition to the statement made by the Commissioner last week. The Commission is working on the definition of the adequate operational area and the components of a larger joint operation which can be a useful complement to the Italian efforts.”

It is thus clear that ‘Frontex Plus’ will eventually only play a merely auxiliary role alongside Italy’s ‘Mare Nostrum’ operation, particularly so when the costs of the operation are taken into account.

‘Mare Nostrum’ costs Italy over 9 million euro each month, while the current entire 2014 budget for Frontex is 89 million euro, with only 55 of them allocated for operational activities.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Scientists and local communities are expressing serious concern about the ongoing destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal on board a vessel in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Neutralisation” of the chemicals, including mustard gas and the raw materials for sarin nerve gas, began earlier this week under Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) guidelines, on board the specially modified U.S. maritime vessel Cape Ray.

The operation, which is expected to be completed within 60 days, uses Deployable Hydrolysis Systems (FDHS), but the technique is being criticised.

According to Thodoris Tsimpidis, director of the Archipelagos Institute, a Greek non-profit organisation specialising in marine conservation, hydrolysis is not a safe method for neutralising chemicals on board.

“We were invited for a tour of the Cape Ray before the operation but we did not go because whenever we asked something important they replied that it was confidential. We do not understand why scientists are not allowed on board during the operation,” he told IPS.Syria agreed to surrender it chemical weapons to international control after a chemical attack with sarin gas on August 21 last year against rebels in disputed areas of the Markaz Rif Dimashq district around Damascus.

“The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not responded to our concerns. Why is Greece sending a submarine to escort the operation and not its specialised maritime vessel that could monitor any sea contamination if this happens?”

Syria agreed to surrender it chemical weapons to international control after a chemical attack with sarin gas on August 21 last year against rebels in disputed areas of the Markaz Rif Dimashq district around Damascus. It is estimated that 281 died in the attack, with some reports raising numbers up to 1,729.

France accused the Assad regime, saying it had proof that it was the perpetrator of the attack but the Syrian regime blamed militants who had taken control of elements of its chemical weaponry.

France, the United Kingdom and the United States threatened the regime with military action but, after Russia’s intervention, Syria asked in September 2013 to join the OPCW and surrender its chemical arsenal for destruction.

Initially Belgium and Norway refused to host the neutralisation process on their territories, while Albania initially accepted, only to retract after public opposition rapidly invalidated plans.

U.S. authorities leading the operation then decided to attempt the destruction of chemicals on board, a process in which over 30 countries and the European Union have been actively involved.

The last consignment of chemicals left Syria on June 23 and was loaded aboard the Danish ship Ark Futura with destination the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy. There it was trans-loaded to the Cape Ray, which then sailed to the Mediterranean where the operation is now under way.

The operation has been cloaked in secrecy for fears of terrorist threats but others believe this is due to the precariousness of the operation itself.

On Thursday, members of political organisations and activists met in Chania, Crete, to coordinate protests against the operation. In an effort to break what they said was the “concealment” and “silence” of the big national media they plan to block a U.S. military base on the island for three days and attempt a symbolic sail against Cape Ray.

In an announcement on Wednesday, they said: “We warned them long before they started, by participating, together with thousands of people who reacted once they found out about their plans, in demonstrations and events throughout Greece. They decided, using concealment and silence by the mass media, to move on; we decided to meet them at sea. We are coming!”

Although the exact location of the neutralisation operation is unknown, it is thought to be taking place 100 km west of the island of Crete.

Secrecy about the process has disturbed the local community. “Monitoring by international observers and environmental organisations from the European Union and scientists of the countries directly concerned is necessary,” says professor Evaggelos Gidarakos, head of Laboratory of Toxic and Hazardous Waste Management at the University of Chania in Crete.

“None of those stakeholders have been given access in this case which has become an issue of the American military navy alone. The scientific community has been marginalised, so that even if something goes wrong we will never know.”

The presence of OCPW inspectors on board Cape Ray throughout the operation has not appeased critics. Tsimpidis said that OPCW “is not going to be held accountable” if anything goes wrong.

OCPW, a United Nations body, has continually repeated that all possible safety precautions have been taken for the operation, but it has also clarified that it “bears no responsibility” for any chemical accident and that is the U.S. Navy which will “assume all liabilities”.

IPS approached the OCPW for comments but only received an email answer directing it to the organisation’s FAQ page.

After the neutralization operation has been completed, the Cape Ray will sail to Germany and Finland to deliver the by-products of the operation for further processing

Meanwhile, the Ark Futura will continue on to the United Kingdom and then Finland to deliver chemicals to be destroyed at commercial facilities.

A second cargo ship, the Norwegian vessel Taiko, has already delivered a quantity of chemicals to Finland. The ship is now sailing to Port Arthur, Texas, in the United States, where the last cargo of chemicals will be destroyed at a commercial facility.

PPC power station in Ptolemaida. northern Greece. Credit: Nikos Pilos

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Jul 9 2014 (IPS)

Plans by the Greek government to sell companies that handle the key resources of energy and water face serious obstacles and its policy to offer investors exceptional privileges in an effort to boost interest in privatisation is coming under strong pressure.

Privatisation is one of the ‘prerequisites’ of the Troika – the tripartite committee led by the European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – in exchange for additional bailout money that Greece is seeking to continue to avoid insolvency.

The Greek government recently announced plans to sell a 30 percent share of its Public Power Corporation (PPC), and create a new ‘Small PPC’, which will be sold to private investors.

The new company will take with it some key production sites, lignite mines, and hydroelectric and natural gas units. In addition, about two million customers will be transferred from the original company and will be obliged to receive services from the new company for six months.Tax exemption seem to be a vehicle the Greek government favours using in its effort to attract investors to the country.

The lucrative terms and assets accompanying the new company, described in the legislation that creates it, are already attracting many local investors as well as major foreign energy companies like Germany’s RWE as well as the French EDL and the Italian ENEL.

The plan has caused strong reactions in north-western Greek cities where communities depend heavily on employment created by PPC mines and electricity production plants. PPC unions decided to take strike action to protest the privatisation plans, but these were declared illegal. The Greek opposition has called for a referendum on the issue but it appears unable to gather the 120 signatures of members of parliament necessary for it to go through parliament.

Kriton Arsenis, an independent Member of the European Parliament, has asked the European Commission whether obliging customers to receive services from the company constitutes an illegal state subsidy. In response, European Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger said that the Commission “does not have adequate information to deliberate on whether this constitutes illegal state subsidy”.

At the end of March, Arsenis submitted a similar question concerning the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF), which has been set up to manage Greek privatisations, and met with a similarly evasive answer.

The HRADF has announced the sale of 100 percent of Hellinikon SA – which administers 6,200 acres of land occupied by the former Athens Airport of Hellinikon – to Lamda Development.

Arsenis pointed that Article 42 of Law 3943/2011 establishing Hellinikon SA states that the company “shall be exempt from any tax, duty or fee, including income tax, in respect of any form of income derived from its business, of transfer tax for any reason, and capital accumulation tax” and again asked the Commission whether this unjustifiable tax exemption constituted state subsidy.

European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia replied that “Greece has not notified the Commission about the alleged tax exemption measure”, thus the Commission does not have sufficient information to assess whether it constitutes state aid and will ask Greece to provide clarifications on the issue.

Tax exemption seem to be a vehicle the Greek government favours using in its effort to attract investors to the country. Last week, Greek Energy Minister Ioannis Maniatis said that oil and gas explorers would pay 25 percent tax, down from the current 40 percent, to attract them to help exploit Greece’s untapped offshore hydrocarbon resources. “We have done this in order to incentivise our investors to invest in the future of Greece” he told a conference in London.

Plans to privatise water utilities stalled last month after the Supreme Court considered privatisation of the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP) unconstitutional. Following this decision, the transfer of a 34.03 percent share of the company’s stock holding to HRADF has been cancelled and the privatisation authority has publicly admitted that it is reconsidering the tender despite still holding 27.3 percent of the company.

This has effectively cast doubts on the privatisation process for EYATH, the water and sewage company of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. HRADF President Konstantinos Maniatopoulos was quoted saying in Greek media that “it will be difficult to continue the process for EYATH without taking into account the decision for EYDAP.”

The Suez/Ellaktor and Merokot/G. Apostolopoulos/Miya/Terna Energy consortia had been in the process of submitting binding offers by June 30. It appears now that HRADF will return about 50 percent of the 74 percent of its share in EYATH back to the state.

Two weeks ago, the Greek National Commission for Human Rights produced a focus report about the protection of access to water. Kwstis Papaioanou, President of the Commission told IPS: “International experience has proven that privatisation curtails the access of people to safe water. It is very encouraging though that the water has united citizens against its privatisation.”

Privatisation of water has indeed provoked strong public reactions. In an informal referendum in Thessaloniki in which over 200,000 people took part, 98 percent voted against privatisation.

“The court’s deliberation against privatisation of water companies is very clear but I would not be surprised if the government finds a way to circumvent it. There are plenty of other examples in which they have not implemented court decisions,” Arsenis, told IPS.

“Those interested in Greek public assets do not think like real investors. They take an interest only in privileged deals when profits are guaranteed and when most of investment risk is undertaken by the state in advance so that they have secured income that will cover their expenses in two or three years’ time.”

A first privatisation target of 50 billion euros in revenue by 2020 has been cut by more than half, with the country’s lenders now forecasting 22.3 billion. So far, only 3 billion has been collected.  The 2014 and 2015 targets for revenue from privatisations were set at 1.5 billion euros and 2.24 billion euros respectively but these are now very unlikely to be achieved.

Credit: Nikos Pilos

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, May 28 2014 (IPS)

The evolution of immigration and border control policy in Greece and its interdependence with European funding suggests an agenda which has been decided above national legislatures with strong coordination between European political actors and economic interests, while ignoring the human suffering it produces.

Since February, the Greek authorities have taken another step towards harsher treatment of irregular immigrants by announcing a policy of indefinite detention until repatriation. Indefinite detention has been based on an opinion of the Legal Council of the Greek State and will be implemented even in cases where repatriation is not feasible.

Earlier this week, a Greek court considered the premises of this decision to be against national and European legislation and asked for it to be revoked. Authorities have yet to react to this decision.

Since the summer of 2012, when police launched a crackdown policy on irregular immigrants with ‘Operation Xenios Zeus’, administrative detention has been implemented on a massive scale, often applied for the maximum period of 18 months.

Now the opinion of the Council of State considers this extension to be not ‘detention’ but a restrictive measure for the benefit of immigrants who otherwise, if released, could be exposed to situations of danger.

“Prolonged and systematic detention is leading to devastating consequences on the health and dignity of migrants and asylum seekers in Greece” – Doctors Without Borders
Detention has been denounced as ineffective and inhumane by various international organisations and local NGOs. Doctors without Borders called the measure an “appalling sign of the country’s harsh treatment of migrants”.

In a new report published last month regarding living conditions in detention camps in Greece, the organisation warned that “prolonged and systematic detention is leading to devastating consequences on the health and dignity of migrants and asylum seekers in Greece.”

While attracting severe criticism, the Greek authorities show no intention of relaxing their harsh measures. On the contrary, the tendency towards stricter controls appears to be in line with the European Commissions (EC) guidelines and funding rearrangements.

In September 2012 , a month after Greece launched Xenios Dias, the implementing rules of the Return Fund were amended, introducing several changes, including the possibility of financing infrastructure projects such as renovation and refurbishment or, in case of specific needs, construction of detention facilities.

The Return Fund is the European structure that finances the majority of immigration control projects throughout Europe.

Further, last year the Commission proposed an amendment increasing the EU co-financing rate, among others, of immigration control-related projects to be covered by the European Return Fund and the External Border Fund (from 50 or 75 percent by 20 percentage points).

The amendment would not result in any increase in EU funding, but it would allow the Member States concerned to decrease compulsory national co-financing.

In the case of Greece, the compulsory national co-financing for projects could be decreased from 25 to 5 percent. The legislative proposal was adopted in spring 2013.

Danai Angeli, a researcher with Greek ELIAMEP think-tank that runs ‘MIDAS’, an immigration control policy cost-effectiveness research project to be concluded later this year, told IPS that the interdependence of Greek policy and EC support cannot be questioned.

“The practice of systematic detention would have been impossible without the support of European funds,” Angeli told IPS. “Without these resources, the focus in Greece would possibly shift to alternative solutions that would take much more into account a cost-effectiveness approach and detention would have never acquired the status of a political priority.”

Despite the obvious cost in human suffering, the policy of en mass detentions is not only the prominent choice in the EU but, according to Dr. Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, a migration expert at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies in Denmark, it appears to coincide with an agenda of militarisation and privatisation of border and irregular immigrant controls.

”Despite public statements condemning the humanitarian catastrophe at the EU’s external borders, the union has in fact never ceased its support for more and harsher border controls in the south-eastern European borderlands,” Pedersen said.

“We can view this double standard as a way for the union to continually make itself a relevant policy venue in a Europe, where anti-immigrant parties occupy an increasingly larger part of both national parliaments and the European parliament.”

In December last year, the European Commission announced the launching of EUROSUR, a major project that will allow constant surveillance of the Mediterranean.

Although it has been introduced by the EC as ‘a new tool to save immigrants’ lives’, it has been criticised by organisations and MEPs, including leading German member of the European Green Party  Ska Keller, as an instrument “to serve the battle against illegal immigration”.

Also in December last year, the Council of the EU produced a proposal “establishing rules for the surveillance of the external sea borders”, and ten days later the European Council’s annual summit set priorities in increasing effectiveness of the defence policy and operations capacities of the Union.

“EUROSUR is a prime example of what we can call regulatory capture, that is, processes of lobbyism and multi-level governance, where actors like private security and military companies, and of course the European Commission itself, are able to transform the border control policies of individual nation-states without having to engage directly with their national parliaments,” Pedersen told IPS.

In April this year, four months after the annual summit, the Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs quietly initiated a tender to rent surveillance services for its naval borders at the Aegean sea.

The project envisaged compensation of 73,800 euros for 60 hours of surveillance over a period of two months, an average of 1,230 euro per hour, with 75 percent of the cost covered from European funds and 25 percent from national.

Privatisation of security services in three of the biggest detention centres in the country has also been planned, attracting major players from the private sector like G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, which has come under criticism for the treatment of detainees at its three U.K.-based asylum centres.

The costs, estimated to about 14 million euro annually, will also be covered mostly from European funds.

A Greek protester takes a step against austerity measures at a barricade in Athens. Credit: Infowar Productions/IPS.

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Feb 19 2014 (IPS)

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Greece and other recession-hit European countries as they undergo harsh austerity measures in exchange for a bailout. At the heart of it is the Troika, say trade unions, civil society and rights activists.

The Troika – as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC) have together come to be dubbed – represents international creditors.“The Troika ought to know now that they can’t hide any more behind their immunity in order to avoid Greek courts for the violations of human right in this country.”

It is increasingly being accused of demanding economic reforms that have driven insolvent countries in South-Eastern Europe into deep recession while undermining human rights.

The International Federation for Human Rights has completed a fact-finding mission in Greece aiming to assess the impact of the crisis on human rights and outline the need to hold accountable those responsible for violations.

“Our visit was aimed at collecting evidence that the austerity measures and structural reforms which the government has had to implement as a condition for bailout have led to a situation where not only economic and social but also civil and political rights and the very democratic foundations on which the state is built are under threat,” Elena Crespi, Western Europe programme officer with the Federation, told IPS.

“Our ultimate goal is also to warn against the risk that what started as a global economic crisis would turn into a global human rights crisis, whose effects can easily be foreseen but might be very hard to contain,” she said.

On Jan. 21, 20 trade unions, human rights and civil society organisations throughout Europe addressed Martin Schultz, President of the European Parliament, asking him to commission a report on the situation of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy in Greece.

“Reading the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, it is hard to find a single article that has not been violated by the Greek government during the last three years as part of the policies it has implemented against its own people,” the letter said.

Greece has borrowed about 230 billion euros (315 billion dollars) in the last four years in exchange for a massive austerity programme overseen by the Troika. The policy has backfired, with the economy sinking into unprecedented recession and unemployment soaring to 30 percent.

Signatories to the letter included the European Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH), an umbrella organisation of 30 groups in 22 EU member states, major Greek trade unions, the 167,000-strong Belgian private sector union CNE as well as smaller political and civil society organisations, including the European Attack Network and the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

CEO has launched a new project called Troika-Watch, which aims to create a network of citizens to monitor the body that represents creditors in counties implementing austerity programmes. This will produce a monthly newsletter in nine different European languages.

A resolution proposed by the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights (PACE) was adopted on Jan. 31 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Its draft recommendations on the “Accountability of international organisations for human rights violations” proposed that “international organisations should be subject to binding accountability mechanisms and that their immunity should be limited.”

According to the Assembly, “member states should also be held responsible for the role they play in international organisations and by assisting them in implementing their decisions.”

Greek MP Notis Marias, a representative of the Anti-Federalist Democrats group in the Council of Europe, who has proposed some of the amendments, said, “The Troika ought to know now that they can’t hide any more behind their immunity in order to avoid Greek courts for the violations of human right in this country.”

Basic wages have reportedly gone down 22 percent since the austerity measures began, unemployment among the youth is over 60 percent and over one million people do not have any kind of medical insurance any more.

In June 2013, the IMF admitted mistakes in handling the Greek debt crisis that caused the recession scenario to deteriorate. But the Troika never produced an impact assessment report prior to requesting social reforms and fiscal measures.

Andreas Fischer-Lescano, professor of European law and politics at the University of Bremen, was appointed by the European Trade Union Confederation to examine the legality of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed between bailed out countries and their lenders. His conclusions came out at the end of January.

In a draft document, seen by IPS, Fischer-Lescano argued that “it is the Commission and the ECB which on behalf of Europe lay down the conditions that are driving millions of Europeans to despair.

“MoUs have to be de-legitimised. There is no obligation to implement illegal provisions. National courts and also international courts such as the European Court of Justice and the European Court for Human Rights and human rights committees will have to clarify this,” he told IPS.

“The legal struggle against austerity is just beginning. The aim must be to defend core principles of social justice in Europe.”

The Greek Council of State has already found unconstitutional an emergency property tax passed in Greece in 2011.

On Jan. 28, the special committee of inquiry appointed by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament to evaluate the role the Troika played in bailed out countries visited the Greek parliament. It had previously stopped by in Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland.

In Greece, the head of the committee admitted the Troika had committed mistakes but said it fulfilled its role to save the country from bankruptcy. The committee will publish its findings before the European elections in May.

By then a new strong brinkmanship is expected to evolve around the future of Greece’s fiscal consolidation programme, given that the credit put aside for the country is almost used up.

An extra 15 to 20 billion euros (20 to 27 billion dollars) will be necessary to keep the country afloat but many believe this will not come in the form of a new MoU.

Already a German proposal is taking shape that aims to lower interest rates and extend repayment terms for over 50 years.

Economists say through such measures the political elite are hoping to tame public opinion, which in creditor countries is unlikely to tolerate a new loan for bankrupt Greece and which in Greece is steadily moving towards anti-MoU and extreme right-wing parties.

Greek PM Antonis Samaras greets European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Athens for the ceremony marking Greece's assumption of the rotating EU presidency. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Jan 8 2014 (IPS)

The start of Greece’s six-month presidency of the EU was marked by a ceremony Wednesday in the Greek capital attended by the EU commissioners. But protests were banned and there was no in-depth talk about the raging controversy over the bloc’s handling of the Greek debt crisis and the renewed concerns about the vitality of the Eurozone.

In May 2010, the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on a 110 billion euro bailout for Greece, conditional on compliance with severe fiscal consolidation, privatisations and economic reforms to bolster competitiveness. A second bailout of 130 billion euro with a debt restructure followed in February 2012, with additional austerity measures.

The recipe soon mutated into a scorched earth policy. Greece entered its seventh year of recession in 2014, with unemployment hitting a historical high of 28 percent and youth unemployment surpassing 65 percent – up from seven percent when the austerity measures began to be implemented.

In June 2013, the IMF – part of the so-called troika of international creditors overseeing implementation of the austerity policies in Greece, along with the European Commission and European Central Bank – admitted mistakes in handling the Greek debt crisis.

Deregulation of the labour market, severe taxation of the labour force and reforms of the health sector have cut so deeply through the social fabric that many are wondering whether austerity has caused a humanitarian crisis in Greece.

In 2012, nearly one million of the country’s 11.3 million people were living below the poverty line, according to the Greek Finance Ministry. Among them, more than 65,000 were surviving on less than three euros (four dollars) a day, while 102,000 people earned incomes ranging between 1,000 euros (1,358 dollars) and 2,000 euros (2,716 dollars) a year.

According to Greece’s statistics agency, by late 2012, austerity measures had shrunk the labour market by 20.8 percent – 870,000 jobs were lost since 2009 – and had taken more than 40 percent of the labour force out of the national insurance system.

Lee Buchheit, a globally acknowledged legal expert involved in the debt restructure accompanying the second bailout for Greece, told IPS that the Eurozone debt crisis is not over yet.

“It is worth remembering that with the single exception of Greek PSI [private sector involvement], not a single euro of the debt of the afflicted countries [Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece] has been written off. Each of those countries will be emerging from their bailout programmes carrying debt loads far heavier than when they entered the programmes.”

What has changed, Buchheit says, is the identity of the lenders. “The original private sector bondholders have been paid back in full and on time through new borrowings from official sector sources [the EU and IMF]. So the taxpayers of the debtor countries remain entirely on the hook for the repayment of those debts; they will just be paying them to a different set of creditors.”

Changing the identity of the creditor does not solve the debt problem, he said. “A sustainable solution would require either a reduction in the size of the debt loads or significant growth in the economy of the debtor countries, or both. Unfortunately, neither of those things has yet happened in the Eurozone periphery.”

But instead of considering a change of course to stimulus economics, European – most notably German – leaders are refusing to accept the failure of austerity. On the contrary, they have speculated that any extra help for Greece will come in the form of another bailout package.

Economist Philippe Legrain resigned last month from the Bureau of European Policy Advisers, an advisory body to the president of the European Commission. A week after his resignation he delivered a speech in Athens blaming European leaders for postponing an inevitable default at great social cost.

“I think Greece cannot pay back its debts in full. So the questions are not whether Greece’s debts will be written down, but when and how,” he told IPS in an email interview. “As of now, I think it will happen little by little and that it will take the form of lower interest rates and longer repayment terms rather than writing down the principal of the debt, to preserve the fiction that the debt is being repaid in full.”

Despite increasing concerns about society imploding, the Greek government insists on its optimistic scenario that foresees a return of the country to positive growth rates in 2014. The Finance Ministry has repeatedly reassured that Greece will mark a 0.6 percent primary surplus and will successfully return to the credit markets by the end of 2014.

Its optimism has been met with disbelief. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) forecast of a 0.4 percent contraction contrasts with the Greek government’s projection of 0.6 percent growth this year. The European Commission has predicted a Greek return to the markets in 2015.

In a scathing editorial this week, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine described Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras as “out of touch with reality.”

Meanwhile, Samaras’ coalition government, expected to face a huge protest vote in the European elections next May, has no alternative but to carry on with a painful reform of Greece’s primary care sector, suspending 1,000 doctors and 8,000 administrative jobs, many of which will eventually be lost. This will make up the bulk of the 15,000 jobs the Greek government has to suspend in 2014, under its austerity obligations.

The reform will transform the biggest insurance fund in the country from a service provider to a purchaser in the private health market, with many accusing the government that the real aim is not the creation of a more effective system but the indirect privatisation of primary care which will exclude hundreds of thousands from any kind of medical coverage.

“Austerity politics are a mistake,” says cardiologist George Vichas, the spirit behind a major parallel grassroots health structure, the Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko, that has treated 20,000 uninsured people in its 23 months of existence.

“But those who implemented them have not made a mistake. These results are exactly what they aimed at and what they believe in. They have experimented on Greece the last four years, but now the first signs of health sector deregulation have started appearing in Britain, France and Italy. This is Europe’s future.”

A Frontex ship patrols the maritime border in Greece. Credit: Frontex.

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Dec 3 2013 (IPS)

A Nov. 19 paper by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU diplomatic corps, considers the possibility of the European military getting involved in the south Mediterranean in an effort to curb the influx of irregular migrants and refugees into Europe.

The idea for a military operation initially appeared in an Italian proposal set forth on Oct. 24, suggesting extraordinary measures after the recent tragic events at Lampedusa in Sicily, where a boat that departed from Libya on Oct. 3 sank before reaching the island, killing 360 immigrants.

The incident sent shock waves throughout Europe and triggered a civil society dialog about European migration policy’s human cost. But many of Europe’s leaders have seen the tragedy as a reason for further militarisation of the region.

EEAS deputy spokesman Sebastien Brabant told IPS in an email interview that following the Oct. 3 incident in Lampedusa “the ‘Taskforce Mediterranean’ was created to set out proposals for immediate EU action” from which the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) proposal has emerged.

The proposal includes options for the interception of population movements towards Europe including an independent maritime operation or the implementation of extra measures within an ongoing Frontex – the EU border agency – operation in the region.

All options predict a central role for the CSDP, the key European instrument for dealing with international security crises.

The CSDP proposal as a platform for dealing with population movements that could occur as a result of destabilisation in the Mediterranean countries coincides with a pending consideration of the instrument’s future on the agenda of the European Council planned for later this month.

The EEAS will present its proposal when the heads of state discuss how to enhance defence capabilities, strengthen the defence industry and improve the effectiveness, visibility and impact of the CSDP.

The idea has provoked a backlash, with German MP Andrej Hunko, a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, saying that “Further militarisation of border surveillance will make crossings even riskier and lead to even more deaths. The EEAS even confirms this. The inhumane and frequently criticised approach taken by the EU border police, FRONTEX, is being reinforced.”

Meanwhile Frontex has already arranged to update its Joint Operations “Hermes”, launched to control illegal migration flows from Tunisia towards southern Italy, mainly Lampedusa and Sardinia, and “AENAAS”, combating illegal migration from the Ionian Sea towards Italy (mainly Apulia and Calabria) from Turkey and Egypt.

Italy has also put in place a national patrol operation named “MARE NOSTRUM” coordinated by the Italian military. An internal European paper issued on Apr 18 demonstrated the serious concern among European leadership about the possibility of Libya collapsing into sectarian war.

The paper was a blueprint for a civilian integrated European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM), aiming to help establish and train a new territorial and maritime border guard in Libya. EUBAM, which is ongoing now, is also a CSDP mission.

EUobserver reported on Nov. 18 that elements in the internal EU paper indicated that the “civilian” EUBAM to Libya was in fact designed to also train “paramilitary forces, amid a wider European and U.S. effort to stop Libya becoming a ‘failed state’.

Militarisation of the central Mediterranean would complement earlier restrictions put in place in the southeastern part of the sea. In the spring of 2012, Greece adopted tough control policies, including deploying security forces to its borders, building a fence along its land border with Turkey, and detaining irregular migrants for up to 18 months.

As a result incoming flows shifted to new routes through the Western Balkans or revived older one in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Meanwhile Spain has initiated project CLOSEYE, a multi-million euro border control project that will see drones and other means of surveillance being deployed over the southwestern Mediterranean.

The European Commission not only has bankrolled many of these operations but also has not effectively restrained member states from violating refugee and human rights, and even the principle of non-refoulement, against the expulsion of persons who have the right to be recognised as refugees.

Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, University of Copenhagen and an expert on the securitisation of European immigration policy told IPS that the question is why is the EEAS still proposing such options.

“Two reasons come to mind: Firstly, the Arab Spring brought with it the fall of dictators, who up until that point had been key allies funded by the EU, containing sub-Saharan and Middle Eastern migrants before they could reach European territory.” Since then, he said, “it seems that the EU has been looking to establish similar systems of control.”

“Secondly, it is important to note the timing of the EEAS’ proposals: they have been put forward just when the new EUROSUR [border] surveillance system is about to become operational. The EUROSUR system, which has been developed in close cooperation with the European arms industry, stresses exactly those goals listed in the EEAS options,” he said.

EUROSUR, which became operational on Dec 2, predicts a key role for Frontex in creating a border control coordinator. It initially involves 18 member states, and aims to gradually achieve increased intelligence sharing, improved situational awareness, increased surveillance capacity, search and rescue missions, and integration of third countries security and law enforcement systems.

Human rights groups have circulated evidence in the last few days indicating that Greece, Italy and Egypt illegally detain and push back Syrian refugees.

The reports were issued by the German refugee aid organisation Pro Asyl, Medici per i Diritti Umani – MEDU (Doctors for Human Rights – Italy), the Italian human rights lawyers Association for Legal Studies on Migration (ASGI), and Human Rights Watch

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, has also expressed worries about serious indications of violations of the non-refoulement principle in international law – which means that nobody should be sent to a country where he or she will be at risk of persecution – in Cyprus, Bulgaria and Greece.

On Nov.19, the European Commission publicly warned Greece and Bulgaria that turning Syrian refugees back at the border is illegal.

Pro Asyl circulated a detailed report on Nov. 7 based on interviews with 90 people who claimed to have been pushed back by the Greek security services since October 2012. The interviews were carried out between October 2012 and September 2013 in Germany, Greece and Turkey.

Most of the victims are refugees from Syria, but the interviewees also included people from Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea, who are likely to be persons in need of international protection.

The violations of international law and denial of refugee rights appear to be organised and systematic and to take place in undercover operations. Based on interviews with eyewitnesses, Pro Asyl estimates that up to 2,000 refugees might have been turned back in the space of a year without being given the opportunity to request international protection or to challenge their illegal removal.

In many cases, the victims described how members of the security forces – sometimes wearing masks – pushed them back at gunpoint, seizing their belongings and often mistreating them.

The organisation claims that in the case of nine Syrian males turned back from the island of Farmakonisi, the refugees were held incommunicado and were beaten to an extent that could amount to torture.

“Until now there has been no response from the Greek government to the accusations,” Karl Kopp, Pro Asyl’s director of European affairs, told IPS. “The EU, Frontex [the EU border agency], and the governments of Germany and other countries also don’t acknowledge their complicity in this human rights scandal.

“The EU demanded and financed measures to deter refugees in the Evros and Aegean regions [in Greece]. Frontex operates in basically all areas where push-backs take place,” Kopp said.

On Nov. 12, the UNHCR requested clarification from the Greek government regarding strong evidence suggesting it had organised a massive push-back of 150 Syrians that day, including many families with children.

UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said in Geneva that “UNHCR received information from villagers of the group being detained and transported in police vehicles to an unknown location, although they have not been transferred to a reception centre. Their current whereabouts is unknown to us.” The agency asked the Greek authorities to investigate their fate.

The refugees crossed into Greece across the northeast border of Evros in the early hours of the morning that day, before they were apprehended by police. A UNHCR team visited the site that evening.

On Nov. 13, MEDU and ASGI published their own report denouncing push-backs of Syrians to Greece from Italian ports. From April to September this year, interviews were carried out with 66 young people who were turned back after their attempt to reach Italy, and 102 illegal returns were registered this way by MEDU.

Loredana Leo, a lawyer who belongs to ASGI, told IPS that most of the people in question were asylum-seekers.

“When they arrived to the Italian harbours after a risky journey, most of them were unable to declare their age or request international protection due to the lack of translators; some of them suffered violence at the hands of the Italian authorities and most of them were not identified.”

In the next few days, ASGI is preparing to take Italy and Greece to the European Court of Human Rights, according to Leo, “for violations of the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Human Rights Watch also warned this month about the policy of detention and coercive returns of refugees that the Egyptian government appears to have put in place.

Up to 1,500 refugees from Syria, including at least 400 Palestinians and 250 children as young as two months old, have been locked up for weeks and sometimes months in Egypt. HRW said the refugees are held indefinitely until they are deported.

The U.S.-based rights watchdog also deplored that authorities advise refugees to leave the country, telling them that their only way to avoid detention is to return to Lebanon or Syria.

According to the organisation “more than 1,200 of the detained refugees, including about 200 Palestinians, have been coerced to depart, including dozens who have returned to Syria.”

The UNHCR is calling for a global moratorium on any return of Syrians to neighbouring countries.

Egyptian authorities estimate 300,000 Syrians are in Egypt, with 125,000 of them registered with the UNHCR. And there are an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria currently in Egypt, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA).

“Egypt is leaving hundreds of Palestinians from Syria with no protection from Syria’s killing fields except indefinite detention in miserable conditions,” said Joe Stork, HRW deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Egypt should immediately release those being held and allow UNHCR to give them the protection they are due under international law.”

The reports on the unlawful detention and deportation of Syrian refugees have appeared at a time of dramatically deteriorating conditions for displaced people in Syria and neighbouring countries.

According to recent reports, some refugees from Syria are selling their kidneys to human organ trafficking networks or selling teenage daughters or sisters, out of desperation.

A man walks by the police checkpoint in Gundik Shalal in northeast Syria. The war in Syria has increased the number of refugees seeking refuge in Europe. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Sep 20 2013 (IPS)

While the relentless war in Syria continuously adds to the number of refugees travelling west to Europe, Greece is fast becoming a nation they are choosing to avoid.

The majority of Syrians, and also others fleeing their countries, are now trying to reach northern Europe through other routes. And the tough Balkans is emerging as one such alternative.

With more migrants than it can handle and the enduring economic crisis turning locals xenophobic, Greece launched an operation to shield its borders in the spring of 2012. Meanwhile, irregular immigrants as they are termed, have been put en masse in detention centres while police atrocities and human rights abuses have been exposed in recent months.“The western Balkan route has seen an increase of 300 percent since the beginning of the year." -- Isabella Cooper, spokesperson for Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security

Considered by many as the last possible path to northern Europe, it is a trip full of horrors, says Hasam Nazari, a 25-year-old gifted musician from Afghanistan. He is among those to have taken the illegal route several times, after spending 18 months in Greece.

Nazari’s aim has been to get north to Hungary and from there to Austria. He has attempted to do so on five occasions now before running out of money and returning to Greece.

“We saw a 13-year-old being raped by a mafia gang after crossing the border into Fyrom (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia),” he tells IPS. “If you do not have euros to give them, they maim you.”

They wait at the region beyond the border, Nazari says, near abandoned houses on the way to the interior. “They ride bikes, around 10 or 12 of them, and have guns,” he adds.

Looting people is common. “They take you into the forest, strip you naked and steal everything valuable you have,” says Nazari. “You are lucky if they don’t beat you up as well.”

The police know what is happening. “We were beaten up in front of them and they looked the other way,” says Nazari. They are concerned more with treating the arriving refugees and illegal migrants with a heavy hand, he adds.

The trend of migrants and refugees taking the Balkan route has started showing up in statistics beginning 2013, says Isabella Cooper, spokesperson for Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security.

“The western Balkan route has seen an increase of 300 percent since the beginning of the year,” she tells IPS.

Bulgaria has seen the largest increase, with the influx of people coming in from Syria, Algeria, Iraq and Pakistan increasing sixfold, she adds.

“Some 60 to 70 people, sometimes even a 100, have been crossing the border every day since the beginning of 2013,” says Cooper.

“We have seen a shift to the east along the border,” acknowledges Boris Cheshirkov of the public information unit of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Bulgaria. “Now the biggest groups cross over through the thick forests of the Strandzha Mountains [to the country’s southeast border with Turkey]. It is extremely difficult terrain with very poor visibility.”

Smugglers have cottoned on to these new routes already and started asking desperate immigrants for more money to lead them to the border. If they were asking for 500 euros (670 dollars) per immigrant earlier to take them to the Turkish-Greek border along the river Evros, their rates now have gone up to nearly 3,500 euros (4,700 dollars).

Despite that, says Cheshirkov, “the smugglers take the groups just close to the border, they don’t cross with them, or guide them.”

He cites the example of Uaheyda Noor, a Syrian refugee now serving time at a prison in Silven, a city 130 km from the border with Greece and Turkey.

“The 35-year-old mother of four arrived in Bulgaria with her husband Abdul Hanan Noor, 38, in December 2012,” Cheshirkov tells IPS.

The family was accommodated at the refugee centre in the border city of Pastrogor. However, in January, Noor attempted to leave Bulgaria for Serbia with a daughter and son. She was stopped by the border police, sentenced to eight months in prison and has been in Silven since February.

“She was due for release in August, but hasn’t been as far as I know,” says Cheshirkov.

“Thirty asylum seekers are held in Sofia’s Central Prison,” he adds.

Serbia too is reeling under a rising migrant influx. From the 2,000 irregular migrants that came into the country in 2010, the number went up to 9,500 by 2011 and to 15,000 the following year, according to the Serbian Centre for Migration set up by non-governmental organisation Grupa 484. Another 20,000 are estimated to have crossed into the country this year.

However, Nenad Banovic, the Chief of Border Police in Serbia, says:  “We have seen a small reduction in arrivals in the first six months of 2013.” He attributes this to the opening up of the Turkey-Bulgaria-Romania route as well as the Greece-Fyrom-Kosovo-Montenegro-Bosnia-Croatia one.

But like in Greece, the pressure of immigrants is beginning to tell on the asylum facilities of Bulgaria and Serbia too.

All three of Bulgaria’s refugee centres – one in capital Sofia, and two closer to the Turkish border at Banya and Pastrogor – are operating above their 1,170-people capacity.

Two weeks ago, the Bulgarian government dedicated half-a-million Bulgarian lev (340,000 dollars) to arrange accommodation for another 500 people.

The Serbian system is also trying to cope with the influx of refugees.

“We are struggling to provide for them,” says Banovic, “but Serbia has limited resources and no help from Europe.”

The difficulties do not deter migrants from heading for the border city of Subotica 184 km north of Belgrade, says Nazari, the Afghan musician. Many families reside in an old brick factory in the city. Others stay in the forest adjoining the city until they can try their luck at the Hungarian border a few kilometres north.

Most of them get caught while trying to cross and sent back. “Most of these returns are unofficial but occasionally some are sent back formally,” says Mirolava Jelacic, a legal analyst at Grupa 484.

However, those who do make it across continue to inspire others to keep coming back.

A demonstration outside parliament against austerity measures. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS.

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Aug 9 2013 (IPS)

Greece has started unravelling its civil sector further in an attempt to persuade the Troika – the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission – to commit more bailout money by next October.

The Troika wants the Greek government to fire 4,000 employees and suspend 12,500 civil sector jobs by the end of September. Another 12,500 jobs will have to go by the end of 2013.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has ordered his ministers to rush the dismantling of ineffective public structure and to provide lists of people to be fired or suspended. Suspension means a waiting period of eight months during which 75 percent of wages are paid. At the end of the period the employee is sacked unless another position has been created to fill.

The sudden closure of public television in June was a first step in this direction; 2,000 workers were fired. Technical schools providing career opportunities to low income family kids have been abolished, and another 2,000 teacher jobs suspended. In all 2,200 school guards and 3,500 municipal police have also been suspended.

Themistocles Kotsyfakis, a teacher in a technical school for the manufacture of medical equipment, has found himself on the suspension list. “This is not reform, no study has been provided for the results of these measures, and no evaluation has taken place regarding who will go and who will stay,” he told IPS.

“Many of us will be fired, [no one] has guaranteed anything for our future and [no one] has provided an estimate of where we could be transferred. Suspension is a step that leads to unemployment.”

While the government strives to reach the agreed quota, minister for health Spyridwn Georgiadis has shortlisted six ineffective hospitals in the broader Athens area for closure. About 1,250 medical staff will be suspended.

Xaralampos Farantos, a surgeon at the General Hospital in Patisia, downtown Athens, which is on the list, told IPS that the ineffectiveness the minister refers to has been artificially created.

“All these shortlisted hospitals have been left without adequate medical personnel for a long period of time, due to previous agreements with the Troika regarding employment in the civil sector,” he told IPS.

“The hospitals then opted out of the emergency services scheme and because of new fees for admission and treatment (an austerity measure), patients avoided them.

“Then the new smaller numbers of admissions were interpreted as proof of our ineffectiveness and became the reason for our shortlisting. A dishonest method indeed.”

After the hospitals, the government is eyeing three underdeveloped military companies and a public nickel producer for liquidation or privatisation. That will add another 2,000 fired workers to its quota.

The en masse sacrifice of civil sector jobs comes amid warnings that the Greek fiscal consolidation plan is not going to work. The IMF has admitted mistakes and miscalculations over the cost of austerity and its capacity to bring the economy back on track.“Many of us will be fired, [no one] has guaranteed anything for our future and [no one] has provided an estimate of where we could be transferred. Suspension is a step that leads to unemployment.” -- Themistocles Kotsyfakis, a teacher in a Greek technical school

The fund admitted in May that it had breached three of four of its key guidelines in joining the European Union-led rescue package, and that the measures were mostly designed to win time to rescue the euro instead of helping Greece recover.

The current bailout package set aside for Greece will run out of cash around spring 2014. The country will still be in disarray then, with unemployment above 30 percent. The economy will have contracted more than 27 percent since the beginning of the crisis.

The future of Greece is meanwhile sliding into brinkmanship among western leaders. While the IMF and the U.S. have advocated more development and job creation policies possibly including a major debt write-off, Europe under German leadership stands still in favour of austerity.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble denies that the austerity programme is failing and on a visit to Athens last month prepared Greece for a new austerity programme after spring 2014.

Concerns are spreading fast that the Greek state might implode under the burden of austerity, and analysts suggest that Germany and the European Union have a Plan B. This would include transferring basic state functions and policy making to representatives of Greece’s international creditors.

Political analyst Giannis Kiboyropoulos told IPS that the first obvious sign of such a scenario was circulated end of July in a report by the Kielo Institute for the World Economy.

“German technocrats, after mentioning an obvious danger of the collapse of reforms in Greece propose a debt committee independent of political pressures that would handle public administration, the labour market, privatisations, transport, energy, the retail market as well as entrepreneurial policies,” Kiboyropoulos said.

He said that as these scenarios emerge “the Troika’s representatives in Greece have warned of extending their control over institutions responsible for privatisations and banks recapitalisation. One should not treat this as a mere coincidence.”

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, May 18 2013 (IPS)

With no end in sight for the ongoing two-year war in Syria, the ensuing humanitarian crisis continues to escalate, with over 1 million refugees having fled to neighbouring countries and at least another 3 million displaced within Syria.

Despite the staggering human cost of the war, however, the international community is very close to failing these refugees, warns Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees.

Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees. Photo courtesy of UNHCR.

All sides “appear to be committed only to military means for resolving the conflict”, Moumtzis told IPS, a decision that is leading to what he called “a massive exodus of people”.

Moumtzis has extensive experience in crisis management, having worked in Gaza, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, and other countries with humanitarian emergencies. He describes the Syrian crisis as one of the most acute crises he has ever seen.

IPS correspondent Apostolis Fotiadis spoke with Moumtzis about the situation in and surrounding Syria and the role of the international community in this crisis.

Q: What are the characteristics of the Syrian refugee population?

A: Most of the refugees are Sunni Muslim. Three quarters of those crossing the border are women and children. More than half are children. A large percentage of the men you see in Iraq are mainly Kurdish and wanted to escape conscription, which is a concern of many Syrians as well.

The father in one family I met told me, “In a few months my son will be 18, so we decided to take him out of school and leave the country, before it is too late and he is called to serve.”

Tens of thousands of soldiers have also left the Syrian army. A camp in Jordan, specially assigned for them, holds 20 to 30 thousand of them. But these are not refugees. Anyone who crosses the border with a gun needs to pass a period of six months without a gun or uniform before we accept him as a refugee.

Q: How many people have moved out of Syria so far, and what is the size of your regional operation?

A: Out of approximately 1.25 million refugees, 25 percent of them are in camps. This means another 75 percent is in cities and villages.

There are 17 camps in Turkey with 196,000 people, with three more being built now. Each of those is to host another 10 to 20,000. There, UNHCR advises the government, and we also try to monitor legal issues that occur for refugees and monitor registration in order to keep track of people’s special needs.

We also try to ensure that no recruitment of guerillas takes place in the camp or any kind of military activity happens there.

We run two camps in Iraq and another three in Jordan. Turkey provides things we are unable to offer in our camps, like hot water, three meals per day, and whoever gets married goes on a month holiday. It is very important that camps strictly maintain a civilian character.

Q: How fluid is population movement? Do people return to Syria while others escape the country?

A: We have had spontaneous returns in the last three months. Very often people want to go back and see their houses. Men bring the family out of Syria and then return to check on their property.

Q: If the situation in Syria calms down, how easy would be for refugees to return there?

A: We would suggest that people stay outside Syria for some time until we know an agreement or deal is implemented.

The ones close to the borders whose houses have not been destroyed would return first, whereas people living in Baba Amr at Homs would be the last to return, since the area is devastated.

We are interested in that returns are voluntary, that no one pressures people to return, and that people know what they will face when they return.

Still, in every conflict there are people that cannot return. If the regime changes, for instance, we would see Sunnis going back and ethnic minorities leaving the country.

Q: Has the international community stood up to the task of dealing with the humanitarian disaster in Syria?

A: U.N. agencies estimate that meeting these refugees’ needs requires 1 billion dollars for surrounding countries and another 500 million for those inside Syria. We now have 30 percent of this budget, so we must assess the most urgent needs.

One should also consider the failure of the international community to give a political solution to the Syrian civil war.

Q: Has the international community failed Syria because of the many different geopolitical interests involved in this crisis?

A: It is better to say that the international community has failed politically until now. Humanitarian assistance is an alternative, so we can say they are offering something for this failure.

But there are so many forces inside Syria right now that make the resolution of this conflict a very complicated task. The uprising against a family regime has turned into a war that increasingly resembles a fight between Sunni and Shia, a fight of Hezbollah and Iran against Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as a war in which Al Qaeda has intervened.

Q: Many voices warn about a domino effect, with the war spreading into Lebanon. Are these warnings valid?

A: This is not a theoretical danger. It’s a real threat. Overall, Lebanon seems very unstable at the moment, and the bad economic situation in the country does not help. Many times we have to ask our personnel not to do certain things because of the uncertainty.

In Tripoli, people have been killed in armed incidents. A bomb was placed in Beirut three months ago. There is also tension at Sirte, in the south, due to the Hezbollah presence there and in the Beqaa valley as well.

Excerpt:

An armed policeman stands guard in the village of Ierissos, where residents have been protesting a mining project. Credit: antigoldgreece.wordpress.com

By Apostolis Fotiadis
HALKIDIKI, Greece, Apr 27 2013 (IPS)

Any sense of tranquility that hangs around the mountain of Skouries in northern Greece, 80 km east of Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki, is a façade. Home to some of the oldest forests in Greece, the pristine region is now a battleground, as the local population takes on the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold Corporation and its local subsidiary, Hellas Gold.

At the intersection between the road that leads to the village of Ierissos and another going up to the only operational mine in the region, on the mountain of Mavri Petra, one is stopped by a security guard, with the questions: “Who are you and what do you want?”

The guards have good reason to worry. A huge majority of this community of 40,000 opposes the extractive project, which aims to mine approximately 12 billion dollars worth of copper, gold, silver, zinc and lead that have been slumbering untouched under this mountain.

This past February, hooded men wielding Molotov cocktails set fire to bulldozers, containers and other equipment to mark their resistance to so-called “cheap extraction” plans, approved by the Greek government in 2011.

The corporation has pledged to invest 1.2 billion dollars into the creation of a huge open pit mine, as well as a network of smaller mines below the surface of the mountain. It says the project will generate over 1,000 jobs for locals and pump new life into Greece’s sputtering economy.

A close analysis of the contract shows Greece will not pocket even a significant portion of the mines’ projected revenue.

Christo Pahtas, mayor of the municipality that houses the natural deposits, signed away extraction rights to a 317,000-square-kilometre area without specifying royalties for the state.

Currently, Greece is only eligible to earn social security contributions for workers employed in the project, and taxes from the company’s profits — which could reduce dramatically if Eldorado opts to process minerals in another country.

Arguments over the extent of possible environmental impacts have already split the scientific community here. The state-run Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration has formally thrown its support behind the investment, even while academics cry foul on the company’s claims that “new” extraction methods will spare the local ecosystem.

“The company speaks ‘half-truths’,” Georgios K. Triantafyllidis, a lecturer on mining and metallurgical engineering from the University of Thessaloniki, told IPS. The company has promised to refrain from using chemicals like cyanide or from emitting arsenic into the surrounding forests – but their “novel” practices are based on “scientific theories not yet proven in production”.

Past mining activity has set a negative precedent among locals, who do not trust claims of environmental sustainability. On Apr. 3, the results of a chemical analysis of samples from an old mining site the company plans to reintegrate into its production network showed arsenic contamination that was 42,000 times higher than the allowed levels.

On Apr. 17 the Constitutional Court of Greece declined the motion filed by residents against the validity of the Ministry of Environment approval of the environmental study submitted by Hellas Gold.

Locals are also concerned that mining will destroy the tourism industry here, currently the region’s biggest employer and income generator.

But the mineworkers and their families are determined for the project to succeed.

Having spent 26 years working in mines Aggelos Deligiobas, president of the Miners Union, told IPS he and others employed in the sector “will do everything in order to save [our] jobs”, insisting that if there was a real threat of environmental damage, they too would intervene to prevent it.

Disagreements have run deep into the local community, causing rifts between friends, neighbours and even families.

This instability could impact attempts by the Hellenic Republic Assets Development Fund to catch the eye of foreign investors in a 50-billion-dollar sale of most of the country’s wealth, a privatisation spree that many have termed a “total carve up” of the Greek economy.

Media coverage of the state’s heavy-handed repression of protests against this wave of privatisation could dissuade investors and spur support for local activists.

Last September, for example, the police cracked down brutally on a group of protestors marching peacefully toward the open pit construction site. The ensuing images of elderly villagers running to escape heavily armed riot police shocked the country.

In a press conference on Mar. 20, Eldorado Gold threatened to reconsider its investment if the government failed to “stabilise” the situation.

The company also launched what experts here called a “charm offensive”, inviting journalists of major publications and TV channels to tour Eldorado Gold’s sites in Greece and Turkey between Apr. 7 and 10, a move the Green Ecologist Party here has denounced as a ploy to deflect criticism.

On Apr. 9, a Facebook page dedicated to the company received more than 10,000 “likes”, many of them originating in Moscow, eliciting accusations from social media aficionados that the company has resorted to “buying” a good reputation.

According to statistics from the research company Media Services SA, Hellas Gold has given itself a virtual makeover. Between January and March 2013, the company paid over 630,000 euros for adverts, more than the company spent for all of 2012, shelling out roughly 370,000 euros in March alone.

One of the most popular advertisements uses images of the “workers” along with their names, implying that these are legitimate defenders of a plan resisted by hooded vandals.

Against a 24 percent dip in the advertising market in Greece, it is clear the company is going against the trend of the business community to stabilise its position in Greece.

Several requests for comments from Hellas Gold and Eldorado Gold went unanswered.

Zeki Gorbuz, a Turkish asylum seeker in Greece, who was arrested on Feb. 12, remains detained today due to an international warrant that was transmitted by Turkish authorities to Greece just one day before his asylum interview. Turkish media were quick to report the arrest, describing Gorbuz as a radical leftist and regional leader of the Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLCP), which has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the Turkish government.

On the same day that Gorbuz was detained, Bulent Aytunc Comert, who arrived in Greece as an asylum seeker in 2002, was also arrested. His request for asylum was approved in 2003 but was never cleared by the ministry of police.

Branded by Turkish authorities as a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), Comert is a fugitive. He was imprisoned in the notorious solitary confinement units known as the “White Cells” on what he says was a fabricated murder charge.

“Members of several civil society organisations and student groups [in Turkey] have been put into prison, often on flimsy evidence and based on the anti-terrorism law that can be used to charge pretty much any form of dissent as terrorism."
Having come here to escape persecution, Gorbuz and Comert, like many other Turkish political dissidents and Turkish Kurds, are now stuck in no-man’s land, suspended between the highly bureaucratic Greek immigration and asylum system, and an extremely hostile government in Turkey.

Indications of a secret deal to return asylum seekers in Greece to Turkey are surfacing, while human rights activists warn of the grave impacts of Greece’s plan to extradite persons in need of international protection against criminal charges that might be fabricated by Turkish authorities.

According to Turkish media reports, a Feb. 4 meeting between Turkish Chief of Police Mehmet Kiliclar and Greek Police Chief Nikolaos Papagiannopoulos ended with the Greek official’s promise to dismantle Kurdish as well as radical leftist “Turkish terrorist cells” here.

A month later, on Mar. 4, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras visited Turkey for a high profile meeting with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, where the two heads of state signed 25 cooperation deals covering areas such as health, tourism and fighting illegal migration.

That same day, the Ankara Strategic Institution pointed out that private Turkish investment in Greece has been used as a pressure tool in order to promote the deal on extradition. More reports followed referring to preparations for extraditions but the Greek government is yet to responded to any of them.

Besides Gorbuz and Comert, three more asylum seekers have been arrested since February, including Meric Serkan on Feb. 14, Fadik Adauman on Feb. 26 and Huseyin Cakil on Apr. 6. All are wanted by Turkish authorities for “terrorist activity” and, according to the Greek Council for Refugees, all five have been victims of torture during their detention in Turkey.

The activist group Movement for Freedom and Democratic Rights (KEDDE), which has been a whistleblower on the deal between Turkish and Greek authorities, says there is no guarantee of Turkish dissidents’ safety if they are forced to return.

“People arrested under the Turkish anti-terror law are subject to a long detention with an indefinite time limit and with no access to their case file until the beginning of the trial (which could be situated two years later),” according to a statement on the group’s website.

“It might also mean they become subject to the jurisdiction and judgment of special courts, for the operation of which Turkey has been several times condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, since these courts make use…as means of ‘proof’ confessions extorted through torture.”

Cakil’s case was tried in the Greek city of Thessaloniki and, given that his asylum claim has been informally accepted and is pending ministry clearance, the move to extradite him was denied.

Gorbuz and Comert who were apprehended in Patras, about 215 kilometres west of Athens, were also spared extradition but they will now have to face a court of second instance.

Given that most cases here take months or even years just to reach court, let alone a decision, this “rapid response by Greek authorities…is indicative of political interests (both Greek and Turkish) behind the cases,” lawyer Dimitris Sarafianos, member of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH), told IPS.

He believes it “strange” that the prosecutor of the court of second instance appealed the decision in “absolute contradiction with the fact that the prosecutor of the hearing had pointed out that the charges were heavily unfounded, requesting for the continuation of the detention of one refugee (Gorbuz).”

“Given the persistent rumours referring to a secret agreement between the two Prime Ministers, Samaras and Erdogan, concerning matters of extradition of asylum seekers to Turkey, it is clear that the Greek government is prompt to violate the Geneva Convention,” the lawyer said.

According to Sarafianos, who participated in an ELDH fact-finding mission to Turkey, over 10,000 citizens of Kurdish origin are currently faced with charges, as are scores of Turkish unionist in the private and public sectors, professors, students and lawyers defending human rights.

The extradition deal currently being worked out the with Greek authorities appears to be part and parcel of this ongoing wave of detentions and arrests of political dissidents as well as suspected members of the DHKP-C – branded a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — and members of Turkey’s Contemporary Lawyers Association (CHD).

Earlier this year, Erdogan rushed to connect the DHKP-C with the Feb. 1 bombing of the U.S embassy in Ankara.

Dr. Kerem Oktem, expert on contemporary Turkish politics and research fellow at the European Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, told IPS that although the detentions “caused a great outcry…many of the arrested people are intimately related to the DHKP-C, which took responsibility for the bombing of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) headquarters and the Justice Ministry in Ankara on Mar. 11.”

Although Oktem acknowledges that “members of several civil society organisations and student groups have been put into prison, often on flimsy evidence and based on the anti-terrorism law that can be used to charge pretty much any form of dissent as terrorism”, he believes it would be incorrect to characterise the crackdown as being directed solely against dissenting civil voices.

Often it is aimed at apprehending “groups and individuals that maintain relations with real terrorist groups”, he said.

(END)

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Mar 17 2013 (IPS)

As fighting rages on throughout Syria, civilian families desperate to escape are fleeing west to Greece.

What they find here, however, is anything but a warm welcome, as massive operations to seal the borders and round up so-called “illegal immigrants” unfolds in the form of arbitrary arrests, poor conditions in detentions centres, and heavy racial profiling.

“Operation Aspis” on the northeastern Evros border region and the countrywide “Operation Xenios Zeus” involve hundreds of newly deployed forces.

Border guards spot incoming migrants and deter them from crossing into Greece. They are assisted in their duty by high tech border control equipment acquired with financial support from the European Commission (EC).

Meanwhile urban police scan the region, rounding up undocumented migrants, including refugees, and sending them to improvised detention camps around the country.

Allegations from immigrant rights groups and other international organisations regarding maltreatment of detainees as well as substandard detention conditions have circulated since the operations commenced last August.

In mid-January, during a visit to Greece, the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe (PACE) urged EU members to stand in solidarity with Greece as it tackles this “migration crisis”.

PACE deplored the detaining of Syrian refugees, which is tantamount to preventing them from applying for asylum because of the lack of legal assistance, interpretation and information available to them in detention centres.

Additionally the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention undertook its first official fact-finding mission to Greece from Jan. 21-31 to assess the extent of deprivation of liberty in the country.

“The imprisonment of a migrant or an asylum seeker for up to 18 months, in conditions that are sometimes found to be even worse than in the regular prisons, could be considered a punishment imposed on a person who has not committed any crime,” Vladimir Tochilovsky, a member of the group, said at a press conference in Athens. He later told IPS that the group met with Syrians in multiple detention centres.

While some blame lies with the Greek migration authorities, other evidence suggests that complicity on the part of European officials and funding from the European Commission are the biggest culprits in this wave of rights abuses.

IPS has recently gained access to technical documents regarding the EC’s funding of these operations, which prove that the Commission considers the harsh policing of Greek borders and territory “imperative” to protecting human rights. Last December the EC made it clear that it was a priority “to continue, through the External Borders and Return Fund, financial and operational assistance to Greece in its building of an effective return and border management system” adding that the money the EC gives to Greece is “aimed at improving standards and ensuring respect of EC Law and fundamental rights”.

A revised version of the Annual Funding Programme of the European Return Fund submitted by Greek police to the European Commission outlines a nine-million-euro action to renovate or build new detention facilities that can house up to 7,200 migrants.

The project aims to “decrease allegations of human rights violations in the area of returns”.

The EC has recently restructured the Return Fund – to which member states allocated 676 million euros for the period 2008-2013 — in order to accommodate the new needs that have arise from Operation Xenios Dias.

“The amendment of the implementing rules for the Return Fund was adopted in September 2012 introducing several changes extending the possibility to finance infrastructure projects such as renovation and refurbishment or, in case of specific needs, construction of detention facilities,” Michele Cercone, EC spokesperson for home affairs, told IPS.

“In addition…new guidelines were provided to Member States in July 2012 that extend funding to running costs of detention camps in order to help Member States… improve the reception conditions in detention facilities,” he added.

Until recently, the Fund did not cover running costs, but the amendment has now made it “possible for member countries to operate these detention centres”.

Another 1.9 million euros will go towards the continuation of Operation Aspis, which will be extended until June or July 2013.

Additionally the EC has planned to increase its co-financing rate of all similar actions up to 95 percent, thus taking over practically the entire cost of operations.

A proposal is already being examined by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe and will become official legislation before the end of the month.

Annette Groth, a German parliamentarian with Die Linke a and member of the PACE delegation told IPS that Europe ought to consider its responsibility for continuing to fund operations while leaving Greece to deal with what is practically a humanitarian crisis.

“Whoever makes these decisions in Brussels knows exactly what they are doing. The situation in Greece resembles nothing like the human rights we talk about in Europe, this policy of mass detention in deplorable conditions of all incoming migrants and refugees. For the latter it is equivalent to denying them the right to asylum any longer,” said Groth.

“It makes no sense blaming only Greece. We have to recognise that the European Commission is indirectly responsible for these human rights violations,” she added.

Evidence of appalling conditions for migrants is unlikely to spur a rapid change in EC policy.

According to Cercone, “Only after the completion of the whole process”, within a time frame of three years, “will it be possible to assess in detail the effective use of funds”.

But a source in a major international organisation and with interlocutor status to the EC has told IPS that the Commission not only knows but is also very concerned about the situation in Greece.

Furthermore, he said, assistance from the Return Fund is only to be dispensed for expenses relating to detention centres holding returnees, not asylum seekers. “Since Greece is detaining indiscriminately…funding might be withheld,” he told IPS.

*The full EU response to IPS’ questions can be read here.

Excerpt:

A 35-square-metre facility in Chios Island in the Aegean Sea, where more than 50 migrants and refugees have been held. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Mar 16 2013 (IPS)

Faraj Alhamauun, a Syrian national now residing in Istanbul, was detained while crossing Greece, in the hopes of heading north, last September.

An activist who cooperated with Human Rights Watch (HRW) after the war broke out in Syria, Alhamauun was injured last summer in a bombing outside the northwestern city of Aleppo.

Despite his serious leg injury he was held in a detention camp in Greece’s northeastern Orestiada region, where he claims his belongings and money were confiscated upon his arrest and never returned to him.

Afterwards he was verbally and physically harassed multiple times.

Alhamauun says he complained about his treatment to a delegation of European officials who visited camp Fylakio where he was detained last October.

“After they left I was physically abused for talking to them,” he told IPS in an exclusive phone interview. Alhamauun went on a hunger strike in protest of his plight, and was hospitalised before finally being returned to Turkey.

His story is not unique here, where funding from the European Commission is enabling massive migration control operations that have resulted in a slew of human rights violations.

Funding extensions for the coming months are being considered, despite European officials having full knowledge of the indiscriminate detention of asylum seekers, as well as the inhumane conditions in detention centres across the country.

Last August, Greek police deployed 1,881 new officers along the river Evros in “Operation Aspis”, an attempt to seal the border with Turkey, through which Syrian refugees were pouring into Greece.

Meanwhile, the continuing countrywide “Operation Xenios Zeus” has led to 4,849 arrests of irregular migrants or refugees and over 90,000 apprehensions based on heavy racial profiling by authorities.

Commencement of these operations coincided with the beginning of a major humanitarian crisis in Syria, with fighting transferred into big urban centres and the number of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries skyrocketing.

In order to accommodate arrested migrants, the government has begun transferring detainees to improvised camps that were former police academies and old army depots, such as Xanthi and Komotini in northern Greece, Korinthos in the Peloponnese, and Paranesti in the northeastern region of Drama. These buildings, as former inmates like Alhamauun disclosed to IPS, are often black holes for human rights.

Asylum-seekers are also kept in local police departments’ cells or other makeshift facilities throughout the country. The detention period can last anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

A December 2012 report by ‘The Guardian’ presented serious allegations that the successful police operation in Evros involved the pushback of Syrian refugees arriving at the northeastern border.

Lathra, a refugee rights group based on Chios island, recently reported that the coastal guard is holding large numbers of migrants – among them Syrian refugees, pregnant women and children – in a 36-square-metre wooden container in the port.

Since last August at least 84 people, including Syrians, have died in shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey attempting to reach Greece.

Although operations like Aspis and Xenios Zeus have been largely “successful” from the authorities’ point of view, Greece has limited resources with which to continue them.

It appears that the European Commission is aware of the results of these operations, since it embarked on a fast-track monitoring mission of the northern Greek border and detention camps last September.

The Commission has admitted in correspondence with IPS that the purpose of the trip was to assess funding required for these operations.

Since then, multiple delegations of European officials and international organisations have given negative testimony on the situation in Greece.

On a visit to Greece between Oct. 28-30, a Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE) called for the closure of certain detention camps and encouraged Greece to speed up the creation of a new asylum system that would transfer responsibility from the police to a civilian structure.

Two weeks earlier, on Oct. 8, 2012, Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom herself visited at least one of the detention centres in question.

In her personal blog the Commissioner wrote that she spoke with detained asylum seekers, adding, “The humanitarian conditions are very basic, in some places downright awful. Some centres should be closed down entirely; others are newly opened and quite OK.”

But in an interview with IPS back in August 2012, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the conditions in these new centres in Xanthi, Komotini and Korinthos as “substandard”.

Only the Amygdaleza detention centre in Athens has been universally described as an acceptable place.

Despite these findings by experts and officials, migrants have little access to redress.

Four Syrians arrested with Alhamauun were found guilty for initiating a riot inside Fylakio camp, for which Alhamauun was acquitted. Court cases against troublemakers, who are mostly protesting conditions inside detention camps, are a new phenomenon in Greece, following implementation of the migration policy put forward by Police Minister Nikos Dendias last August.

At the beginning of October 2012, fifteen migrants went to court in the northwestern coastal city of Igoumenitsa for escaping from a camp that has lately gained a reputation as “the worst in the country”.

After hearing that their detention involved extremely harsh conditions, including being locked up on a 24-hour basis, the court ruled that the situation was a “violation of the European Convention of Human Rights” and the European Returns Directive, and acquitted them.

(END)

Excerpt:

Saddled with a long list of woes brought on by an economic crisis, debt-stricken Greece now finds itself tackling a different kind of austerity than the one implemented by its European creditors: this time it is press freedom, not public budgets, on the chopping block.

Journalists claim their working environment is deteriorating so rapidly that Greece will soon top the list of European countries with the worst press freedom indicators.

Already the country meets all the negative criteria included in a resolution on media freedom passed by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament last Thursday.

The resolution focuses heavily on the protection of independent journalists and media outlets, both of which have watched their freedom wane rapidly over the last five years.

According to the 2013 Press Freedom Index, issued by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym RSF), Greece dropped 14 places – down to 84^th – on a list of 179 countries, which the organisation termed “a disturbingly dramatic fall”.

At the beginning of the economic crisis in 2009 Greece was ranked 35^th on the index – its plunge represents the most dramatic deterioration among European countries.

In addition to frequent intimidation of reporters, the rights group noted, “The social and professional environment for journalists, who are exposed to public condemnation and violence from both extremist groups and the police, is disastrous.”

The New Year opened on a bad note for reporters here: the night of Jan. 10 saw home-made bombs lobbed into the residences of five journalists working for mainstream private TV channels and public media.

The attacks were allegedly the work of left-wing radicals who regarded the journalists as “pawns” in the corrupt relationship between media moguls and corporate interests that unquestioningly support the ruling authorities as well as the actions of the Troika, the three European institutions responsible for implementing what many Greeks see as a devastating austerity plan.

But though such incidents represent a worsening of the environment for journalists, the issue of press freedom here is not a new one.

Even before the financial crash hit Greece, capitulation of the majority of mainstream media to elite interests had become a thorn in the sides of citizens and independent media practitioners.

As a 2006 U.S. Embassy cable, made public last year by the whistleblower website Wikileaks, explained, “The private media outlets in Athens are owned by a small group of people who have made or inherited fortunes in shipping, banking, telecommunications, sports, oil, insurance, etc. and who are or have been related by blood, marriage, or adultery to political and government officials and/or other media and business magnates”.

All major private TV channels in the country are corporate-owned. Most major publications and radio stations also have direct links to private corporations.

Reports indicate that 500 to 600 journalists are currently, or have been, on government payrolls.

Independent journalists hounded

For the past year the few existing independent investigative journalists in the country have experienced severe aggression from government authorities, as well as a host of other difficulties including death threats, stalking and defamation and denouncement by a domestic media that experts say is increasingly submissive to corporate agendas.

Just one example of the hostile environment journalists are forced to operate in came earlier this year, when UNFOLLOW magazine published a cover story on oil smuggling involving Aegean Oil, a major private multinational company, and Hellenic Petroleum, a private-public energy conglomerate.

The story explained how the companies buy oil at reduced tax rates and channel it back into the market at the normal price; the exposé also contained two reports by the 7^th Piraeus Customs Authority, detailing the practice.

The day after the story’s publication, Lefteris Charalabopoulos, the reporter in charge of the investigation, received a phone call at the magazine’s office from a person going by the name of Dimitris Melissanidis, head of Aegean Oil.

The reporter told IPS the entrepreneur initially threatened legal measures against the magazine, then went on to issue a stream of invective, shouting, “Screw you and the authorities. You will not be able to sleep. You will not be able to go out, I’ll be your nightmare. Fear of me will haunt you. They will come to your house and blow you up in your sleep.”

When Charalabopoulos answered back, the caller warned, “I want you to tell me that with a gun to your head.”

Though a spokesperson for the company subsequently denied that such a phone call had taken place, Charalabopoulos told IPS, “When the number of the call was traced back it was easily identified as a number registered with the central offices of Aegean Oil.”

“I have no doubts about the identity of the person I spoke with on the phone,” he said, adding that almost all mainstream media ignored this incident of blatant intimidation.

When the centre-left opposition group, Syriza, brought the issue to the Greek parliament, Makis Voridis – a popular MP with the ruling New Democracy Party – made dismissive remarks about a “superfluous opposition that annoys parliamentary proceedings with legally insignificant issues like an intimidation case between two private entities.”

In another example of the government’s unfriendly stance towards independent media, Kwstas Vaxevanis, a popular investigative journalist, was brought to trial last November when his magazine ‘Hot Doc’ published a copy of the hitherto unseen Lagarde List.

The document contained over 2,000 accounts of possible tax evasion by individuals or mirror companies, amounting to hundreds of millions of euros.

The argument that Vaxevanis had violated the “privacy” of those on the list fell apart, but when the acquitted journalist walked out of the courthouse, he was greeted only by a flock of major international media – the domestic mainstream stayed far away from the case.

Despite international denunciation of the whole issue, Vaxevanis is now pending re-trial.

“In Greece the law is abused by politicians and media practitioners who try to protect their tycoon patrons against anyone who dares to speak up against them,” Vaxevanis told IPS. “During the …dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974), press freedom was targeted in the name of national interests.

“Today, press freedom is (jeopardised) by manipulation of the law. Unfortunately this country is governed today by a closed group of professional politicians, businessmen and celebrity journalists,” he added.

Meanwhile, experts say intimidation is also spreading.

Nikolas Leodopoulos, a Thomson Reuters reporter involved in investigating major banking scandals, is regularly pictured by news outlets with ties to elite and corporate agendas as a “fake reporter” or as a suspect of “criminal deeds”.

The last four years have witnessed at least three attacks on journalists by security and police personnel that caused serious harm.

Many less serious attacks, as well as widespread intimidation by radical leftists or neo-Nazis, are regularly reported during strikes and riots.

(END)

Migrants picked up by the Greek coastal guard in the Mediterranean just in time after destroying their boat to make sure they get arrested. Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS.

By Apostolis Fotiadis and Claudia Ciobanu
ATHENS/WARSAW, Jan 11 2013 (IPS)

Publicly funded research is paying towards security systems that the EU is inviting major multinationals to put together to keep unwanted migrants out.

The new EU approach to border security started to be implemented in 2004 with the setting up of the European Security Research Programme (ESRP). This went on to become a part of the EU’s 7^th Framework Research Programme (FP7) under the current seven-year EU budget for 2007-2013.

The ESRP and FP7 have been increasingly used to finance research for the development of EUROSUR and ‘Smart Borders’ – two critical measures to toughen EU borders.

EUROSUR is the European External Border Surveillance System meant to enhance cooperation between border control agencies of EU member states and to promote surveillance of EU’s external borders by Frontex, the EU border agency.

‘Smart Borders’ will put in place an ‘Entry-Exit System’ (EES) to identify visa over-stayers, and establish a Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) to enable pre-vetted individuals to cross borders faster. The system would rely heavily on use of biometrics and on the collection of a huge database of personal information.

Major weapons and security equipment manufacturers have been members from the start of boards advising the European Commission on research to be financed from ESRP and FP7.

According to ‘Borderline’, a critical study of the EU’s new border surveillance and control system published by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, the corporations Finmeccanica, Thales, EADS (a European corporation including Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter), and Sagem, as well as industry lobby groups have been members of successive European Security Research advisory boards, alongside Frontex and national border control authorities.

In 2006, the European Security Research Advisory Board was co-chaired by an EADS director Markus Hellenthal, who then went on to work for Thales.

In 2007, the European Security Research and Innovation Forum brought industry and European policy makers together again, this time to create a 20-year vision for the ESRP, according to the Borderline report. This ‘Working Forum 3’ was chaired by Frontex, with Italian producer Finmeccanica as Rapporteur.

The Forum developed the integrated borders management concept and advised that the development of affordable equipment for this task be a priority for EU member states.

According to the European Commission, industry was not predominant on these boards: the FP7 advisory group, the EC wrote in an email response to IPS, included representatives from the German and Polish civil protection services, national authorities, universities and research institutes, and the Israeli Red Cross.

But companies on the advisory board benefited from the security research funds from FP7 programme. These funds allocated significant sums to EUROSUR and to the ‘Smart Borders’ development.

PERSEUS (Protection of European Seas and Borders through the intelligent use of surveillance) worth 43.6 million euros is implemented by EADS and Boeing subsidiaries among others; OPARUS (Open Architecture for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-based Surveillance System), worth 1.4 million euros, has as its beneficiaries Sagem, BAE Systems, IAI and two Thales subsidiaries; SEABILLA (Sea Border Surveillance) worth 15.5 million euros benefits Thales, Sagem and BAE subsidiaries.

Approximately 200 million euros were allocated to “intelligent surveillance and border security” from FP7. The security branches of major producers such as Thales, BAE, IAI or EADS usually benefited from these funds, in partnership with research institutes among other actors.

As the research projects were being implemented, Frontex has been creating opportunities for national border control authorities, European Commission representatives and industry players to meet routinely and to exchange views on what equipment may be necessary to member states to implement EUROSUR and ‘Smart Borders’.

“We do not do any research ourselves,” Edgar Beugels, Director of Research and Development at Frontex told IPS on the sidelines of a business-end users conference on ‘Smart Borders’ in September in Warsaw.

“We rely on research done by others – international research agencies, industry, universities, member states – we try to find out what they are doing and pass this to our end users (national border authorities and the Commission). Meanwhile, we collect a wish list from end users and transfer that back to the research community.”

At the Warsaw event, national authorities spoke about their border control plans in the main conference room while companies presented technology suited for those plans on the sidelines. Apart from such exhibitions, Frontex – which is the coordinator for EUROSUR – organises demonstrations where bigger equipment can be tested.

Frontex spokespersons interviewed by IPS did not deny that ideas for research projects submitted later to FP7 could be born during the conferences they sponsor, but said the agency does not play an active role in this process.

Responding to questions from IPS whether convergence between industry and the Commission on security equipment research and promotion and acquisitions by member states constitutes a conflict of interest, the European Commission said: “Industry representatives are quintessential for a technology oriented theme such as the Security Theme. It is not possible to get an expertise on the technical feasibility of a research project without industry representation.

“The implementation of a research project is not feasible without a company that can turn the theoretical analysis into a functioning technology,” stated the office of Marco Malacarne, head of Security Research and Industry in the Directorate General Enterprise at the European Commission, in a written response to IPS. “Initiating security research without technological partners would be an inexcusable waste of public money.”

But others doubt that this link between EU institutions and business is useful or necessary. “What we are witnessing here is an unholy alliance between business interests and political hardliners,” Ska Keller, member of the European Parliament told IPS. “Surveillance technology is the wrong answer to migration challenges. The way forward is not drones but improved, Europe-wide standards for asylum seekers and more solidarity and burden-sharing among member states.”

The European Commission clarified in a letter to IPS that the way Frontex is involved in the creation of EUROSUR and the promotion of market ready security equipment is entirely within the limits of European legislation.

The industry’s participation in the new border regime does not have a military aspect, the Commission letter says. Instead of any conflict of interest in the convergence of the industry with the Commission and Frontex over the development and production of security-oriented equipment, the Commission sees a legal obligation of the European Union to support its industry (although some of the companies are not entirely or at all European).

The full EU response to an earlier draft of this report can be read here.

Excerpt:

Thousands have protested against the austerity measures imposed on Greece by its creditors. Credit: George Laoutaris/CC-BY-ND-2.0

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Nov 9 2012 (IPS)

Ignoring the thousands of protestors gathered outside the Greek parliament on Wednesday, the government voted in public spending cuts amounting to 17 billion dollars in an economy already on its knees from a lacerated budget.

The government was promised 40 billion dollars of bailout money in exchange for the implementation of this fresh bout of austerity.

But the country’s creditors – the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), known as the Troika – have fallen out over crucial disagreements about the terms of the financial “rescue” operation, resulting in a stalemate that has brought Greece to the knife’s edge.

It is obvious that a write-down of Greece’s 200-billion-euro debt, now owned by the European public sector, is sorely needed in order for Greece to avoid disorderly default.

In fact, a day before the election in the United States, even incumbent President Barack Obama threw his weight behind calls for a write-down.

But the EC and ECB are reluctant to accept losses, which the IMF has deemed “necessary”.

The handling of Greek debt has been a point of contention between the IMF management and European interests in and outside the Fund since Greece first asked its international creditors to rescue it from default back in May 2010.

Unable to survive its debt obligations, Greece entered into a 110-billion-euro loan deal with its eurozone partners and the IMF, conditional on the implementation of severe austerity measures.

The programme failed and the economy has all but imploded.

Peter Chowla, head of the London-based Bretton Woods Project, a non-governmental organisation that monitors IMF and World Bank activity, told IPS that it was obvious to most observers very soon after the program began that a second bailout agreement would soon follow.

He added “Even during 2010, many internal IMF reports warned that the Greek programme would not work out. Those were systematically ignored by the Fund’s leadership in order to present homogeneity of the Troika in negotiations with Greece.”

Meanwhile the main line inside the Fund gradually shifted away from European interests and closer to the positions of developing countries like India, Brazil and Russia, all of whom expressed doubts about the efficacy of the Greek plan.

Finally a compromise was struck between the IMF and the European financial institutions about the writing down of Greek debt to a level that might allow the programme to continue.

“In the spring of 2011, amid disagreements about the sustainability of Greek debt, the IMF warned, for the first time, of not offering any more money unless a debt restructure took place. European interests, inside and outside the Fund, finally had to accept this, but tried to limit their losses as much as possible,” Chowla explained.

In October 2011, the Troika offered a second 130-billion-euro bailout loan that not only demanded another austerity package, but also forced private creditors holding Greek government bonds to sign a deal accepting a 53.5 percent face value loss.

Soon after, it became clear that the second programme was wreaking havoc on a crumbling economy and would not put Greek public finances back in order.

And meanwhile, relations within the Troika kept deteriorating.

A confirmation of the depth of the fracture inside the Fund emerged this past July, when Peter Doyle, after two decades of service within the Research and Development branch of the Fund, resigned.

In his brief letter he criticised the IMF’s role in the Troika, blaming ‘European bias’ for constraining the Fund from exercising an impartial role.

Doyle charged that the IMF had compromised its independence, citing “suppression” of information that had been identified well in advance as a reason for the failure of the institution’s surveillance mechanism, which should have properly examined the impacts of the austerity plan.

Austerity shock therapy, according to Doyle, has caused the economy to disintegrate faster than expected and has brought “the second global reserve currency to the brink”.

Further evidence of the Fund’s responsibility in what is now a full-blown Greek crisis surfaced during the launch of the IMF’s autumn 2012 World Economic Outlook in Tokyo, where the IMF’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, acknowledged that the Fund’s surveillance models, used to dictate the terms of bailouts, were flawed.

Panagiotis Roumeliotis, Greece’s one-time representative to the IMF, confirmed to IPS that Doyle’s criticism is serious and valid.

He also provoked a high-profile investigation about the handling of the crisis by stating in an interview with the New York Times this August that the bailout plan was “condemned” from the start.

Domenico Lombardi, Italy’s former representative on the IMF’s executive board, says the impasse within the Troika is now reaching a total deadlock.

This August, the Fund refused to provide money to pay off a 3.2- billion-euro Greek bond held by the ECB, Lombardi told IPS. This was made up by an emergency bond sale by the Greek state.

A 5.5-billion-euro bond due to expire on Nov. 16 should be covered by anticipated bailout loans, but the IMF seems unwilling to participate in financing that either.

“Basically the IMF is not going to contribute in any meaningful way till the debt restructuring issue is agreed, formally or informally, explicitly or implicitly,” Lombardi told IPS.

He added that the entire joint programme would have to be restructured if the IMF pulled out at this late stage.

Given that the Greek economy will face an emergency liquidity problem next week, it hastily organised a short-term bond sale Friday to close the gap.

This debt is owned by the ECB, which has thus far refused to write down the debt or lower interest rates.

The situation has now become very dangerous, according to Lombardi.

The creditors may be able to buy some time “by lowering the interest rate on bailout money they have loaned to Greece,” he said.

But the most pressing issue is that none of the leading players seems to have any idea what is to be done in the long term.

(END)

Greeks citizens protesting against the public spending cuts that have accompanied the austerity package. Credit: Bego Astigarraga/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Oct 10 2012 (IPS)

Like a person on life support whose vital functions are failing, the Greek economy is slowly but surely shutting down as radiation from the so-called ‘austerity plan’ erodes public institutions.

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived here on Tuesday morning for an economic assessment of the debt-ravaged country, she did not see the things that, for thousands, have become commonplace: cancer patients dying outside clinics, unable to access the treatment they need, or kindergartens turning students away due to overcapacity.

Meanwhile, international financial institutions continue to drag their feet on how best to solve the debt crisis and revive the country’s banking system.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samara publicly stated last week that Greece will be “unable to go on without further international financial aid after November”, referring to the long-awaited 31.5-billion-euro bailout. This amount is only the latest tranche of a 110-billion-euro loan that the eurozone and the IMF earmarked for Greece back in May 2010, conditional on the implementation of austerity measures.

In October 2011, eurozone leaders agreed to offer a second, 130-billion-euro, financial bailout.

Disbursement of this loan has been momentarily stalled due to a stalemate between the IMF and its European counterparts (the European Commission and the European Central Bank) over whether Greece will be able to meet its debt obligations in the near future.

Sources close to the government told IPS that the IMF is even considering opting out of the Troika, the body that has been responsible for negotiating and implementing a severe austerity plan for more than two years.

Over the next few days, Merkel, a staunch supporter of the massive public spending cuts required by the austerity package, will push the Greek government to reduce public spending by a further 13 billion dollars.

A malfunctioning state

But state employees say additional cuts will be fatal. Already crucial state institutions are showing serious signs of malfunction or even collapse, with hospitals, schools, day-care centres, social security funds, tax offices and courts all struggling to withstand budgetary lacerations.

Giannis Tsounis, secretary general of the federation of municipalities (POE-OTA), an umbrella for all the major municipal unions in Greece, told IPS that the municipal administration is on the verge of collapse.

“Before the crisis the state dedicated 169 million euros to municipalities. Now that number has reduced to 95 million and will eventually reach 72 million.

“Next year they will enlarge our portfolio by adding 113 responsibilities (to our mandate), which we will be expected to carry out after a 60 percent reduction in resources,” according to Tsounis.

“There are 65,000 municipal workers in Greece and 10,000 will (retire) in the next few months,” Tsounis added. “According to austerity plans they won’t be replaced.

“In order to unburden the central administration of responsibilities, the Minister of Interior gets rid of the problem by pushing various functions of the government onto the municipal level.

“Some municipalities are already using money allocated for other purposes to pay wages while many workers remain unpaid for months,” said Tsounis.

“We cannot keep functioning like this, where there is no money left even to maintain public swimming pools, or pay kindergarten teachers their wages.”

A more silent, but equally dangerous breakdown is looming over the health sector, according to Giorgos Vixas, a cardiologist running a makeshift yet highly efficient clinic in Elliniko in South Athens.

Some weeks ago, during a radio debate with Vixas, the Greek minister of health was forced to admit that the public health system is unable to provide medical assistance to an uninsured person.

Most workers lose their insurance barely a year after they are laid off. Self-employed people lose the possibility of medical care the minute they fail to renew their insurance.

According to the labour inspectorate one in every three workers is uninsured. Roughly 57.2 percent of uninsured labourers are Greek and 42.8 percent are migrant workers.

Vixas believes the government has made a “huge mistake” by cutting state budgets and restricting access to public healthcare during a time of crisis.

“Many people with serious conditions are left without medicine, diagnostic examinations, or surgery. People do not take their drugs for months because they can’t afford them. Three cancer patients that came here, to this very clinic, died because they had no access to chemotherapy.”

Agios Savvas and Metaxa, two specialised cancer hospitals, have directed patients to Vixas’ makeshift clinic for drugs.

“A woman who had miscarried came here, with the foetus still inside her. She needed an emergency operation but no public clinic would accept her. We managed to send her to a private clinic that offered her a free abortion,” he added.

“In other cases various doctors continue to treat excluded patients in public hospitals despite a term in the austerity memorandum that states that when a doctor offers services informally, he or she must cover the expense themselves,” Vixas said.

He also predicted that the health sector budget would be choked by “another 1.5 billion euros, bringing total cuts to five billion euros since the austerity package was first implemented.”

Antonis Liakopoulos, deputy president of the Association of Attika Police Officers, told IPS that even public safety is at risk due to financial constraints.

Policemen have taken a six percent wage reduction, before taxes. Often, those who work the night shifts are not paid at all, and none receives wages for anything more than 48 hours of work despite working much longer hours.

“More than 35 percent of police officers have a second job. Plenty of our colleagues are forced to shoulder the expense of adding petrol, or changing tires. Many police vehicles are immobilised” due to inadequate repairs, he added.

“A reduction in the quality of safety services might open the door to corruption within the police structure, though the risk of this is low at the moment,” said Liakopoulos.

Stavros Lygeros, a popular economic and political commentator and author of the best-selling analysis on the Greek crisis, ‘From Cleptocracy to Bankruptcy’, told IPS austerity policies are fast destroying the capacities of the Greek state.

“We are observing a rapid deterioration of governability. The preconditions for (total) collapse, characterised by defunct state institutions, are approaching fast.”

It is of ultimate importance that European partners understand where the austerity package is leading Greek society, Lygeros warned.

What Greece is experiencing is not what the IMF calls “economic therapy”, but rather a slow death, he said.

“No country can do what the Troika is asking for. No society can accept a devaluation of such proportions,” Lygeros concluded.

(END)

Panahi Gholamhousein (22), an Afghan refugee who spends his days in a room that is barely five square metres with his wife Zarmina (18) and their 19-month-old daughter Zahra, has hardly left his place in downtown Athens since he was beaten up and robbed nearly a month ago.

Extremist sympathisers in the Greek police force breed impunity. Credit: George Laoutaris/CC-BY-ND-2.0

The four attackers “unleashed their dogs on me”, he told IPS. The incident shook him badly, confining him to an apartment shared with many other irregular migrants living in squalid conditions.

The young family – who lost legal status some months ago after withdrawing their asylum application to Greek authorities in exchange for a return ticket to Afghanistan – embody the predicament faced by many migrants caught in a rising wave of xenophobia.

The last three years have seen racist attacks dominating the streets of Athens, spreading fast throughout the country.

Some experts blame the situation on the social stress caused by an extended period of economic austerity – unemployment rates are fast approaching 30 percent and approximately 25 percent of the Greek population now lives below the poverty line.

Last Saturday at 2 a.m. a group of three unidentified assailants used an incendiary explosive device in an attempt to burn Pakistani immigrants alive in their home while they slept.

Navit Navaz was awakened by an explosion from a flaming bottle of gasoline that landed on the edge of the bed. Navaz was subsequently brought to Thriasio Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit with severe burns on his back and hands.

Two months ago Human Rights Watch released a report describing how gangs of Greeks carry out attacks against migrants with almost total impunity. Authorities are reportedly ignoring complaints, or discouraging victims from filing them at all.

On Jul. 23, the rape and attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl in the island of Paros by a Pakistani migrant worker, Ahmed Vakas, fueled a wave of attacks against foreigners during which Iraq Aladin, an Iraqi immigrant, was beaten and stabbed to death by five hooded youngsters on Aug. 12.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), along with 20 organisations that comprise the Racist Violence Recording Network, blamed the deterioration of social relations on the “the inability or reluctance of the law enforcement authorities to carry out arrests”.

Extremists on the rise

Many of the attacks are allegedly linked to the neo-fascist party Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) that entered parliament last June with 6.9 percent of the vote and is now climbing even higher in the polls.

So far the organisation has not accepted responsibility for instigating the attacks but continues to endorse racist initiatives. Thus far, only two violent attacks have been linked directly to the party, one against four fishermen at Perama and one in central Athens that involved a Golden Dawn candidate.

According to migrant communities more than 400 attacks took place last year alone, but very few people have been arrested and none of the perpetrators has faced justice.

Opposition MPs and activists claim that Golden Dawn supporters inside the security apparatus breed a culture of impunity.

The problematic relationship between the organisation and elements within the Greek police force provoked close attention two weeks ago when Golden Dawn supporters, along with two of the party’s official deputies, Giorgos Germenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos, checked legal documents and attacked immigrants’ stalls at a church fair in Rafina, a small town northeast of Athens.

As legitimate members of parliament these deputies have immunity and cannot be arrested by the police.

Furthermore, the local police director failed to report the incident to her central command for two hours and claimed that the deployed forces were not “strong enough to intervene” despite her own description of the incident as verbal abuse.

Victims of the attack have denounced police for turning a blind eye to their vulnerability and the police director of Rafina has been suspended from service.

However, a pattern of impunity for such officials suggests that she might soon resume her post, with the possibility of a promotion.

Golden Dawn has promoted the events in a bid to present itself as a force that guarantees the interest and protection of Greek citizens.

Nikolaos Dendias, minister of public order and citizen protection and commander of all Greek security forces, has stripped Golden Dawn deputies of their police protection following these incidents and allegations.

In a symbolic move the organisation responded by suing the minister and since then it has continued to challenge of state authority – despite allegations from activists that members of the police force and extremists are working hand in glove.

Effective control over the security apparatus by the political leadership is an issue of acute concern according to Anastassia Tsoukala, a criminologist at Paris University XI and former advisor to the ex-minister of citizen protection.

In a recent article that appeared on the local ‘TVXS’ online news site, Tsoukala argued that there is ample proof of mutually beneficial relationships between low ranking policemen and extremists.

“According to information in our hands from the last national elections, a very big percentage of the police personnel share the same ideology as the perpetrators of racist attacks,” Tsoukala wrote.

The percentage of Golden Dawn voters that work for the security apparatus was estimated to be between 17.2 and 23.04 percent in 11 electoral sectors during both national elections last summer.

This relationship is a “danger to the pubic order” according to Tsoukala.

Antonis Liakopoulos, vice president of the Association of Attika Police Officers, responded to these challenges with the assertion that the abuse of authority is a common phenomenon among police forces around the world, “but one should not generalise over these cases”.

The real problem, according to Liakopoulos, is the large numbers of Greek officers who have suffered major wage cuts, and security structures that operate on budgets that are inadequate to support their basic needs.

“This is what makes the police ineffective and unable to offer safety,” he told IPS.

“In a society going through such an acute crisis, wherever police and state institutions fail to exercise effective control, other groups see an opportunity to promote their own agenda,” he added.

Still, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, in a speech to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council last week, highlighted Greek police ineffectiveness in addressing and preventing “violent xenophobic attacks against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in recent months”.

Dendias’ repeated promises to establish a special force to address racist violence are still pending. Prosecutor Ioannis Tentes has instructed police stations around the country to stop and, if necessary, apprehend members of the parliament if they become involved in unlawful actions.

(END)

A crackdown on irregular migration has entered its fourth week in Greece. The government is shutting the Greek-Turkish northeastern border across river Evros, and removing massive numbers of undocumented migrants from big urban centres into makeshift detention camps.

On Aug. 2 police deployed 1,881 new police officers along the river Evros in an attempt to seal the border. Greek Police spokesman Christos Manouras told IPS that the deployment “has effectively stopped new arrivals…When we become aware through our infrared cameras or our patrols that someone attempts a crossing, police officers form a human shield against them and prevent them from entering.”

Meanwhile in Athens alone the police have apprehended 12,900 migrants and arrested 2,100 who resided in the country illegally. About 400 are kept in a new detention camp in Amugdaleza on the outskirts of Athens. The rest have been sent to two police academies turned into makeshift camps in Xanthi (500) and Komotini (800) in northern Greece.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) members visited both these camps last week and described conditions as substandard. “Our team registered serious deficits regarding the infrastructure and conditions of detention, despite the obvious efforts of authorities to improve the situation,” director general of MSF Reveka Papadopoulou told IPS.

“We will monitor the situation further but we will not get involved in a way that will prevent the government from dealing with responsibilities that occur from a political choice of implementing a policy of large-scale detentions.”

Authorities do not allow journalists to visit detention camps, and access to the border is limited in coordination with the Greek Border Guard.

The European Commission has not ruled out financing for such measures. The Commission “organises regularly technical missions on the ground to discuss with the Greek authorities eligibility of actions under the EU co-financed programmes,” the Commission told IPS by email, referring to a Commission mission to the border.

Last week authorities opened a makeshift camp at the site of old military barracks in Korinthos, 75 km south of Athens, that can host another 2,000 detainees. Currently 400 people are detained there.

“Detentions will last for up to one year” as authorities try to send people back to their countries of origin, Manouras said. “Many of them could opt to return through the programme we implement together with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).”

Co-financed by Greece and the European Union Returns Fund, the programme has already sent 5,000 people back. At the end of July IOM and Greece signed a 10 million euro 12-month agreement that will offer assisted voluntary return to countries of origin for some 7,000 irregular migrants.

Since 2005 Greece has become the main influx point for undocumented migrants, with more than 80 percent entering Europe coming from Turkey through the Aegean Sea or the Northeast mainland boundary of the river Evros.

The vast majority of these migrants hope to move towards Northern Europe. However, the distance to other European countries as well as clauses in the Dublin II regulation that dictates the return of asylum seekers to the European country they first entered, have effectively condemned scores of immigrants to remain stuck in limbo in Greece.

This has transformed the country, and Athens in particular, into a depot of hundreds of thousands of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers, who survive on below-subsistence incomes in a vast black market.

The new migration policy of the coalition government of the right-wing New Democracy, the technocrat PASOK and moderate leftist DEMAR is being implemented at a time when many international organisations are expressing concern about the failure of authorities to protect the human rights of migrants and asylum seekers, and to offer them protection from a rising tide of racist attacks.

The policy is being implemented in the midst of an economic crisis. Since 2009 debt insolvency has translated into a full-blown economic crisis for Greece, and driven the country into borrowing heavily in order to avoid disorderly default. The country is undergoing a fourth consecutive year of recession, with unemployment climbing to 29 percent.

In the economic collapse, xenophobic sentiment has swept through society. Racist attacks have increased on the streets of Athens and are spreading fast throughout the country.

On Jul. 23 the rape and attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl on the island Paros by an irregular Pakistani worker outraged the public. In a wave of attacks against foreigners that followed the event, an Iraqi migrant was beaten and stabbed to death by five hooded youngsters Aug. 12.

“You know this might happen to you every time you go out of the house,” asylum seeker Ramadan Sah who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan tells IPS in fluent Greek. “One might stop you and ask you where are you from. And then many more appear and attack you. It is really dangerous out there.”

Sah has been stuck in the asylum system for more than a decade. A couple of months ago the appeals committee reviewed his application. He is about to finish a degree in political science, but he faces renewed fears.

“It’s like when we hid in houses to escape the Taliban. Then they called us leftist, now we are the foreigners.”

Kosmas Bitros (29) didn’t “believe in politics and in elections as a way of changing society”. Still, he showed up at the ballot boxes for the first time last Sunday to cast a vote against austerity in the Greek national elections.

Though he did not identify with one particular party, Bitros believed it was a matter of great urgency to bring down the two-party regime, comprised of PASOK and the New Democracy (ND) party, which has dominated Greek politics for the last 30 years.

He cast his vote for the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza and went out with friends. At night they gathered together to watch the results and for the first time ever Bitros witnessed what he had believed was impossible: Syriza was coming second with 16.7 percent of the vote, just behind the right wing ND, with 18.8 percent.

“The (old regime) was corrupted, they have destroyed the country and they didn’t want to give up power,” Bitros told IPS.

“When the (economic) crisis came, I realised how defenseless we are, how they are playing with our lives without care.”

Although he was hesitant to vote, believing his actions to be of little consequence, he finally understood that politicians “cannot destroy democracy completely. You have to use even the most marginal chance you have to push things where you want to see them, not let go,” Bitros added.

The outcome of the election proved that scores of other Greeks felt exactly the same way.

The size of the ‘protest vote’ in Greece was directly proportional to the level of frustration among ordinary people in the country whose lives have been turned upside down by sweeping cuts in public spending mandated by the so-called austerity programme that has gripped the country since May 2010.

Guided and coerced by the Troika – the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank – Greek politicians slashed pensions, government salaries and public services in an effort to close the country’s massive deficit and receive billions of dollars in bailout loans from the international community.

Rather than pull the country out of recession, the austerity era ushered in an unemployment rate of 22 percent, as well as a new class of poor, disenfranchised and desperate Greeks, who turned out in droves over the weekend to demolish the two traditional political forces in the country.

The former socialist-turned-neoliberal PASOK party went from 43.9 percent of support in 2009 to just 13.5 in this election; while the ND, notorious for being the party that governed the country from 2004 to 2009, also experienced a huge drop in popularity.

“The protest vote was an anti-bailout vote,” economist Leonidas Vatikiotis told IPS. “The election produced a fragmented political environment that gave rise to political forces of the left and the right, and brought into the parliament the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn,” a party that has risen from a marginal fascist group to a parliamentary party with seven percent support.

“You look at the picture after elections and understand that people do not trust austerity as a solution. Three years of austerity have pushed the country’s debt from 125 billion to 165 billion. Public finance consolidation has not happened despite the remarkable sacrifices people have put up with. In the end, we do not believe in austerity and Europe needs to get that message,” Vatikiotis stressed.

News of François Hollande’s victory in France fueled optimism in Greece that an alternative coalition could renegotiate the terms on which Greece settles its debt with the outside world, particularly with the international financial institutions (IFIs).

Europe on edge

European officials are extremely alarmed by the prospect of an anti-bailout front being formed in Greece, and of a European swing against austerity following elections in Greece and France.

On Tuesday German officials responded by issuing several warning statements in the international press. Chancellor Angela Merkel personally excluded the possibility of renegotiating the European public finance agreement put in place at the end of last year, which imposes very strict rules on how member states run their public finances, as well as severe penalties for those who fail to comply with the so-called regulations.

The country is expected to face enormous pressure at the beginning of next week when the Council of the European Ministers of Finance (ECOFIN) convenes in Brussels.

European Commissioner Jose Manuel Barosso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Vice- President of the Commission, Olli Rehn, rushed to warn the country that if Greece failed to observe commitments made in the bailout agreement, its status in the eurozone would be at stake.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble was more succinct, saying the country could not “have the euro without the austerity agreement. If it seriously observes its commitments then we will observe ours as well. But if Greece decides not to stay in the eurozone, we are not able to coerce it.”

Europe bureau chief for the U.S.-based McClatchy news service, Roy Gutman, has described the German official’s words as “a direct intervention into another country’s politics. The German finance minister goes beyond commenting on political developments in Greece to telling the people there what he wants them to do,” he said to IPS.

Meanwhile, inside the country, leaders of the pro-austerity coalition have warned that the anti-bailout rhetoric and promises made by Syriza’s leader, Aleksis Tsipras, are jeopardising progress in the country, for which millions of Greeks have made huge sacrifices in recent years.

For now it seems that no amount of scare tactics and criticism can turn the tide of support away from Syriza. The latest poll leaked to the press two days ago shows the party’s popularity increasing by the day.

Perhaps the only thing that could reverse the momentum would be the formation of a national salvation government, which PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos has invited all parliamentary parties to do. He is also pushing ahead with efforts to prevent a head-on collision with Brussels and Berlin; but time is running out.

According to the constitution, if talks convened by Greek President Karolos Papoulias fail to produce a coalition government by the beginning of next week, the country will be forced back to the polls in a month’s time. So far, neither side has budged.

“European officials and Greek politicians should think seriously about the fact that the Greek political stalemate might lead us into a head-on confrontation between anti and pro-austerity forces,” said Vatikiotis.

“The fear of punishment has coerced Greeks into accepting austerity but after Sunday’s elections this bond has been broken. More coercion of this kind now might produce unpredictable results.”

If it comes down to it, he said, people will realise that the choice before them in a second election will not be between parties that are for or against austerity but between a sovereign, democratic country or a future in the eurozone.

(END)

Aggeliki Anagnostopoulou (30) sits in a corner of the huge room that volunteers from the new party, Independent Greeks, are using as a headquarters for their pre-election campaign in the lead up to polling day on May 6.

A New Democracy (ND) voter until the last election in 2009, she recently joined the Independent Greeks, led by former ND minister Panos Kammenos who broke away from his old party when it entered a pro-bailout coalition government at the end of last year.

“Greek voters are disappointed with the two big parties. They are trying to find a new perspective. I (used) to vote for Panos Kammenos in New Democracy but I was disenchanted with the party so I followed him to this new beginning,” said Anagnostopoulou, who used to work as an external auditor for a United States-based multinational but was made redundant in 2011.

At the two-month-old, improvised party headquarters, modern techniques like the use of social media are being fused with the traditional practice of citizens registering with the party, in the hope of attracting new supporters while keeping the old voter base happy.

With elections just around the corner, the Independent Greeks’ headquarters has become increasingly populated.

Former supporters of ND and PASOK, the two parties that dominated Greek politics from the beginning of the 1980s up until the last election in 2009, have thrown their lot in with Kammenos in what appears to be the biggest protest vote the country has experienced in the last 30 years.

Kammenos, known for his explosive speeches in parliament, has capitalised heavily on anti-bailout rhetoric with nationalist undertones, in a campaign that blames PASOK and New Democracy politicians for betraying the country and conspiring against the nation.

Recent polls show him climbing up to 10 percent support in the national election this Sunday.

Creditors hold the reigns

Greece all but handed over its public finances to its creditors – led by the Troika, an administrative structure consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – when it became all too clear in May 2010 that the country was unable to repay its huge public debt.

Since then it has implement a severe austerity programme of raising taxes and cutting pensions and state salaries across the board, deregulating the labour market and pushing ahead with pro-market reforms in exchange for billions of ‘bailout euros’.

The programme of slashing public spending has sunk the country into three years of recession and pushed unemployment up to 21 percent.

The austerity policy has also damaged political parties associated with its implementation and sent an enormous wave of protest votes fleeing towards leftist and right-wing parties.

Pre-election polls have highlighted the fragmentation of political forces, showing ten parties from across the political spectrum climbing above the three percent support threshold.

“It is evident now that the old political system that nurtured Greece’s public finance issues is meeting the beginning of its end,” said Nick Malkoutzis, a renowned journalist and political analyst who has gained recognition covering the crisis on his popular blog ‘Inside Greece’.

Increased support for leftists or the appearance of extremist groups like the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are not yet proof of a change in political culture; still, “It is evident that people are looking for something different. Plenty of them think that a vote for the neo-Nazis is a way to punish traditional politicians,” said Malkoutzis.

“Real change might come not in this but the next election,” he told IPS.

Given that the Troika plans to return to Greece right after the elections, to determine an economic plan that will cut a further 11.5 billion euros in public spending, “it is unlikely that the new parliament will live long,” Stavros Lygeros, a senior Greek political analyst, commented a few days ago.

“It is in fact one of the major paradoxes of this election that ND and PASOK fight each other, when they have both signed (onto) the austerity programme to be implemented after elections.”

He added that the mainstream political establishment is hopeful that the two parties will survive the election only to form a new coalition government that will carry on under the Troika’s command.

During the announcement of elections at the beginning of April, Troika officials publicly exerted pressure on the leaders of PASOK and ND in order to prevent them from straying too far from the rhetoric of bailout commitments.

Paul Thomsen, head of the IMF mission in Greece, has specified measures the new government will have to implement, irrelevant of which party wins the election.

“It is very negative for Europe that technocrats were able to express opinions in international media that elections should not take place in Greece, or that the country must carry out its commitments irrelevant of the outcome of this election. It is obvious that the Troika would prefer a PASOK and ND government that implements further austerity measures,” says Malkoutzis.

ND and PASOK leaders have employed a pre-election rhetoric that borders on blackmail, explicitly warning the nation in their latest speeches and articles about the chaos that will surely follow if they do not survive the election.

Though “this blackmail worked for the last two years, it wont be of use for much longer,” said Zeza Zikou, an economic analyst for the biggest national political newspaper, Kathimerini.

Gradually, she said, people will understand that the bailout agreements have condemned ordinary people to work forever to repay a debt that can never be settled.

The broken display cases at Greece’s Museum of Olympia, the site where the first Olympic Games were held thousand of years ago, have stunned members of the Archaeological Service who have been registering a stream of missing cultural artifacts.

Despina Koutsoumpa, president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists (SEA), says treasure dating back to the Classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine periods has disappeared from the museum, including “a golden ring stamp, copper sculptures from the eighth century BC, coins and clay vases”.

The burglaries in the National and Municipal Galleries during February, as well as the armed robbery at the Museum in Olympia on Mar. 5, have exposed weaknesses in the protection of cultural heritage sites around the country, made worse by the so-called austerity programme that is slashing all national public service budgets.

To add insult to injury, the Greek Minister of Culture has decided to cut funding for museum security by 20 percent. According to a new law, the Greek government is also planning personnel cuts of 30-50 percent at the Ministry of Culture.

Furthermore, the law plans to combine various arms of the archaeological services into one in order to ‘reduce expenses’, thereby leaving sectors that need specific protection vulnerable to the massive budget cuts sweeping through each and every realm of Greek society.

SEA mobilised against the cuts with a press conference last month that received substantial international attention and is still attracting support messages from all over the world.

Koutsoumpa says that the Archaeological Service has never enjoyed an adequate budget anyway. “The ministry never received above one percent of the national budget, the service always lacked personnel. Whether coming from the national budget or European funds, over 60 percent of the money was always for wages,” she told IPS.

Today 66 administrative departments of antiquities throughout the country handle the workload and law enforcement pertaining to Greece’s cultural heritage, including permits for use of land where archaeological treasures are thought to be buried, the organisation and running of archaeological sites and museums, excavations and archaeological surveys, and archaeological scientific research.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism is comprised of 7000 employees, including 950 archaeologists, civil servants, and 2000 guards and night-guards. Moreover, each year 3500 extra employees are hired on short term contracts. In November 2011, 10 percent of the total workforce of the Ministry of Culture that represented the most experienced employees (with more than 33 years of experience) was forced to leave the service and retire, as part of plans to reduce the total number of public sector employees in Greece.

Further personnel cuts would mean that the Ministry of Culture will be unable to cover even its basic operational functions.

For many decades, the personnel of the Greek Archaeological Service have been working for poor salaries, with limited funding. Net salaries of archaeologists in 2009 ranged from 880 euros (for newly appointed staff) to 1550 euros (for those with over 35 years in the service).

In 2012, a newly appointed archaeologist receives 670 euros (after taxes and social security contributions), representing “a 35 percent wage reduction,” Koutsoumpa said. In 2011 the budget for the Archaeological Service was 12 million euros (down 35 percent from 2010) and in 2012 it is facing an even more severe slashing.

Apart from protection, the Archaeological Service is also responsible for 210 museums that include collections of pre-historic, classical and Byzantine antiquities; 250 organised archaeological sites; and 19,000 declared archaeological sites and historical monuments. It also runs 366 projects co-funded with the European Union with a total budget of 498 million euros.

As the Ministry’s ability to carry out its mandate of protecting ancient archaeological sites diminishes, so too does the future of various preservation projects.

Nikolas Zirganos, a journalist renowned for his investigation of organised trafficking of antiquities, which resulted in the return of ‘The Golden Crown of Macedonia’ from the Getty Museum, explained to IPS that cuts in public spending pave the way for a burgeoning illicit antiquities market.

“Organised crime mechanisms are sensitive and react faster than authorities. When a state and its structures are collapsing, like what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union, traffickers exploit the situation fast. In the midst of social and political crises, those countries all suffered a severe loss of symbols of their cultural heritage.”

While the Ministry of Culture has attempted to downplay the burglaries, characterising them as isolated events, Zirganos believes otherwise.

“I doubt that someone would steal from a museum, take antiquities that are famous and registered and try to sell them alone in the illicit market,” he stressed. “These are usually orders from specific rich collectors in Western Europe and the United States”.

He mentioned that there has also been an increase of illicit excavations over the last few years while the police dedicated to fighting illicit antiquities trade are limited in number. “The department of police responsible for fighting illicit antiquities trade has been a committed one. But it is a joke to think that 40 people involved in this department are able to stop a wave of organised trafficking.”

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Mar 14 2012 (IPS)

Last January, several pupils coming out of a high school in Kallithea, a central residential neigbourhood in Athens, attacked a Pakistani passer-by.

The nature of the assault alarmed Maria Daneil and Artemis Kalofuri, as well as other teachers in schools around the area, who consider this to be just the latest in a sequence of racially charged confrontations in Greece’s economically fraught urban areas.

“There has been a deteriorating picture including anti-migrant attacks, the attack on a makeshift mosque, harassment of students, as well as the appearance of people flaunting neo-Nazi paraphernalia around the schools. We felt that passive observation is not effective anymore, we had to do something,” Kalofuri told IPS.

With support from the local branch of the association of teachers (ELME), the educators formed a student discussion group, where questions on migration, racism and fascism, as well as current social issues arising from those problems, could be raised and analysed by pupils themselves.

Kalofuri said, “Between 60 or 70 people showed up the third time we met.”

Both teachers mentioned links between a very small number of pupils and radical nationalist groups as well as the establishment of a culture of fear and silence regarding the issue.

Fear, particularly, is what Yunus Mohammedi, an Afghan immigrant residing in Greece for over ten years, has begun to notice in the city, as public aggression has almost become a daily issue.

In order to alert fellow Afghan immigrants, Mohammedi circulated a map of Athens, marking in red the zones where most violent incidents take place.

“This is how we used to warn people about the places they ought to avoid in Afghanistan when I worked there for Doctors Without Borders,” he recalled to IPS.

“We explain to new-comers as well as people for who have been in Athens for longer, which places to avoid when it gets dark and advise them not to walk around alone if possible.”

A trained pathologist and one of the few Afghans that speaks fluent Greek, Mohammedi has become a person with whom many Afghans consult when they are in trouble.

“Ten years ago things were very different. Back then you had to worry about having a job and making ends meet. Now it is dangerous, we often have to care for people stabbed or violently beaten. I often receive phone calls from people threatening me for getting involved,” he said.

Hardships fuel racial hatred

The economic crisis has altered significantly the social rules between Greeks and immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Asia and Africa.

Since 2005 Greece has become the main influx point for undocumented migrants, with more than 80 percent entering Europe coming from Turkey through the Aegean Sea or the Northeast mainland boundary of the river Evros.

The vast majority of these migrants hope to move towards Northern Europe. However, clauses in the Dublin II regulations that dictate the returns of irregular immigrants to the country they entered have effectively condemned scores of immigrants to remain stuck in limbo in Greece.

This has transformed the country, and Athens in particular, into a depot of hundreds of thousand of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers, who survive on below-subsistence incomes won in a vast black market.

Certain areas of the capital have been morphing slowly into semi-permanent migrant quarters with the municipality estimating that in certain central areas, Greeks number less than four percent of the population.

Since 2008, the worsening economic crisis replaced most Greek’s passive understanding of migrant workers’ plights with xenophobic intolerance.

According to Eurostat, Greece’s economy is retracting at the alarming rate of 7.5 percent, while unemployment climbed to 21 percent last December.

Moreover, increasing involvement of migrants in violent thefts and organised criminal activity has inflated antipathies. Greek police have registered an increase in the involvement of migrants in violent crime rates from 24 -25 percent in 2000 to over 65 percent today.

Lack of employment in the regular and irregular markets has increased antagonisms not only between Greeks and foreigners but also between various migrant groups.

Far-right groups have capitalised on this situation to increase their popularity and recruit membership around the run-down areas of the city, leading to an explosion of anti-migrant rhetoric and violent attacks against Asian and African migrants.

Marianna Tzeferakoy, a lawyer with the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), told IPS, “Many people referring to the GCR for assistance have reported violent behavior, but given that no structure for monitoring the situation is available, we have no picture of the scale of the problem. We know only that is it worsening very quickly.”

Tzeferaku as well as Mohammedi have alleged that Greek police personnel are systematically discouraging migrants from reporting violent incidents.

Judith Sunderland, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, added that a recently completed fact- finding mission in Athens supported fears of a brewing crisis.

“The testimonies we have collected so far from victims and associations providing services to migrants and asylum seekers suggest that the violence has increased significantly over the last several years,” Sunderland told IPS.

“We have collected numerous testimonies indicating that the police have failed to intervene rapidly or have discouraged victims from filing official complaints. We are similarly concerned that the government has not yet acknowledged the gravity of the situation. Neither consistent condemnations of attacks, nor a clear plan of action to prevent attacks and punish those responsible, have been articulated.”

Greek police spokesman Athanasios Kokkalakis, who has opposed these allegations, told IPS, “Whenever the Greek police has received a detailed report about incidents related to racially motivated violence it has intervened and arrested anyone responsible, even in cases where the accused have been police officers themselves,” he stressed.

The combination of a relentless migration wave and the deteriorating economic crisis fuelled by austerity measures is giving birth to complicated social issues says, Kokkalakis added.

“Migrants are at the same moment victims and perpetrators of crime. They arrive in a country in which social cohesion is challenged and welfare and social structures that could support them are on the point of collapse. At the same time they are under enormous pressure from international trafficking networks that push more and more of these people into criminal activity.”

Last week the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) completed a three-month-long pilot project of documenting xenophobic aggression.

A representative told IPS, “It is early to talk about specific results; yet it is obvious that a pattern of violent aggression has started forming in certain areas of the capital.”

After the results are examined the agency will try to put in place a permanent observatory of racial and anti-migrant violence.

Excerpt:

According to European mainstream economists and politicians, the solution to the Greek debt crisis, and the only option for returning the country to a path of progress, is ‘fiscal consolidation’.

Demonstrators flood Athens on Feb. 12, 2012, in protest against public spending cuts. Credit: Katerina Stauroula/IPS

In a last ditch attempt to secure an additional bailout loan of 130 billion dollars from the Troika (a mechanism comprised of the International Monetary Found, the European Central Bank and the European Commission), Greece has capitulated to the austerity plan forced upon it by the international community, hoping to escape bankruptcy.

The latest phase of the plan included cutting 150,000 public sector jobs, overturning existing labour laws, slashing pensions and reducing monthly minimum wages by 20 percent, from 751 euros to 600 euros.

Workers under 25 years of age have been asked to take a bigger – 30 percent – salary cut.

Parliament ushered in the fresh ‘bout of austerity’ on Feb. 12 amid increasing violence across the city. Mobs of newly impoverished Greeks took to the streets, setting Athens ablaze and offering yet another spectacle to the international media.

Meropi Andriopoulou, a medical officer involved in the national health system since 1989, who often joins the demonstrators, believes that ordinary Greeks only stand to lose more from the neoliberal structural adjustment policies (SAPs) imposed on the country.

“Greece was a country with universal healthcare. Now, many of the people who show up in public hospitals can’t even afford the five-euro general admission fee introduced two years ago. Ten percent of patients don’t even have insurance,” she told IPS.

“Spending your days in a public hospital (highlights the degree of) social exclusion. Our healthcare system has collapsed and there is no political will to get it back on track,” she added.

Having taken a salary decrease of over one thousand euro herself, Andriopoulou, a mother of two, decided to join ‘Doctors of the World’, a volunteer team in the remote Athenian district of Perama, which has weathered unemployment rates of nearly 50 percent since the collapse of the local vessel reconstruction port.

The group of medical officers provides free treatment, medical supplies and foodstuffs to people lacking social insurance.

“You can’t imagine that this kind of social exclusion exists until you show up there,” Andriopoulou told IPS. “Moreover, I was surprised to see that most volunteers were unemployed doctors or people under serious financial hardships themselves.”

“Like many of them, I don’t believe in philanthropy, I believe that poverty is a social issue, not the result of bad fate. I have spent over two decades working for the National Healthcare System, which I believe has been the victim of clientelism and political interests. The only response to it is a political one,” she added.

Greeks brace for tidal wave of poverty

On Feb. 8, Eurostat published a report estimating that 27.7 percent of the active workforce, aged 18-64 years old, currently lives on the poverty line.

The rapidly increasing numbers of homeless people sleeping around central Athens prove that this report is not unfounded.

Over the last two weeks, rising homelessness has caused friction between socially active citizens and the municipality, as sub-zero temperatures compelled authorities to take urgent action to prevent people from freezing to death.

Giorgos Apostolopoulos, the deputy mayor responsible for the homeless food centre of Athens’ municipality, admitted that over the last few months, urban social infrastructure has been stretched to its limit trying to provide for the needy.

Various NGOs focused on poverty reduction and homelessness, many of which attacked the mayor on political grounds last month, have since stepped in to fill the state’s distribution gaps.

Among scores of volunteers was Tonia Katerini, an architect active in the civil rights movements through Open City, a leftist municipality organisation who believes the issue of poverty is severely politicised in Greece.

“The municipality, in cooperation with private entrepreneurs, plans to open big hotels that had previously been shut down because of the crisis and transform them into one-night shelters.”

She believes this process will be fast-tracked and happen in a non-transparent manner, raising questions about how municipal authorities open up space to private entities and tackle social issues like poverty.

“Furthermore, the ministry of health has moved to prohibit the distribution of food by ‘unlicensed’ groups of people. They say this is because of ‘hygiene standards’ but it’s obvious that the issue is about controlling who will get involved with the exploding (crisis) of poverty in the capital. While the poor and needy multiply, the well-connected will discover new fields of business,” she said.

Katerini predicted that the number of people in need of shelters would continue to grow throughout the year.

SAPs have caused the Greek economy to contract by about four percent, though the rate of decline could increase to seven percent in the near future, analysts say.

This would add thousands more to the ranks of the unemployed, which swelled to over a million Greeks last October.

However, two years ago, ex-finance minister George Papakostadinou – the man responsible for initiating the austerity reforms – described the spring of 2011, which saw scores of workers dismissed from their jobs, as the moment when the country would experience recovery and “growth”.

Goerge Barkouris (62), who found himself homeless for the first time in his life during the massive wave of unemployment in 2010, lost his home last November.

Barkuris had worked for over 25 years in music and radio production but lost a contract with the public sector due to cuts in 2001. He then worked as a freelancer until 2008, but “when the crisis hit it was impossible to make money to pay for my house,” he said.

He has now found shelter in Klimaka’s hostel for homeless people in exchange for contributing to its street work programme, which consists of riding Klimaka’s van around the streets of Athens, handing out food and other assistance to people in need.

While discussing Greece’s sudden conversion to a country of mass impoverishment, he expressed opposition to the prevailing political and economic order.

He says the politicians presiding over the crisis “are not stupid. They know what their politics are going to do to the rest of us but they do not care about their people anymore.”

“I was lucky to find this solution but for many others the physiological pressure is intolerable. The days out in the street are long and hard and the nights are full of fear. I have experienced very few days of (despair); the thought of people who are out there for years makes me wonder how they manage to deal with it,” Barkuris said.

“I cannot describe what one sees out there in the streets of Athens during the night, the violence, the deprivation, the dehumanisation.”

Klimaka’s representative Anta Alamanou told IPS that despite skyrocketing poverty rates, the authorities have proved shockingly indifferent to utilising European funds assigned specifically for dealing with homelessness in Greece.

As the Eurozone falls deeper into its sovereign debt crisis, the labour movement in Greece is being cudgelled to its knees by an austerity programme that has so far failed to bring any positive change for the crumbling Mediterranean country.

Greek citizens protest austerity plan, May 2011. Credit: Christina Kekka/CC-BY-2.0

While the government slowly tightens a noose around public spending in what many economists have deemed a misguided effort to stem runaway debt, Greek workers are being stripped of their few remaining protections – a move experts see as signalling perennial deterioration of the economy.

The government now plans to cut private sector workers’ wages and deny the salary increases promised in the National Collective Contract for next summer in an effort to settle its 14.4 billion dollar debt with international donors by March 20.

Union leaders and renowned economists like Giannis Milios, a professor at the polytechnic school of Athens, have dubbed the move “evidence of big businesses’ desire to brutally deregulate” the labour market.

Meanwhile Greece is expected to complete a debt forgiveness and bond exchange negotiation (PSI) with private debt holders and implement measures agreed upon last year with the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission (otherwise known as the troika), before becoming eligible for further monetary assistance in 2012.

Without this ‘bailout’ money Greece will be unable to pay next March and likely become mired in a vicious cycle of debt default.

The first to come out in favour of rapid implementation of the reforms requested by the troika was Loukas Papadimos, a European Central Bank technocrat who took control of the coalition government last November and is now rushing ahead with wage cuts, despite the fact that numerous analysts, including experts from the International Organisation of Labour, have dissociated labour market reforms from the success of the structural adjustment plan.

Christina Kopsini, a working relations and labour market analyst, thinks Greece’s current deference to the free market is largely a political game, one that will lead to a compromise in the short term since “nobody is ready to risk crossing the Rubicon of default yet.”

She told IPS that while the government and private sector jostle each other over the margin of debt forgiveness, Greek workers will bear the brunt of the crisis by being forced to concede more of their rights and meagre incomes.

“It is noteworthy that the only austerity measures implemented without delay over the last two years are those deregulating the labour market and abolishing basic legislation protecting workers,” she observed.

Despite a massive public outcry against such a blatant violation of labour rights, Papadimos’ cabinet has admitted that it is prepared to bypass the parliament in order to enforce the wage cuts.

He also openly blackmailed unions and business associations alike by threatening to hold them accountable for Greece’s bankruptcy if they failed to comply with the wage cuts, which he claimed are “the only way to save the country.”

Papadimos’ decision to remain loyal to corporate interests rather than standing by besieged workers has led to the accusation by leftist parliamentary parties, swathes of the general public and unionised workers that he is merely a pawn for organised capital, which sees the current moment of economic collapse as a lucrative opportunity to shift the balance of power further in its favour.

“After two years of austerity that has brought statistical unemployment up to 19 percent, it is becoming obvious that the strategic aim of the structural adjustment plan is not fiscal consolidation but the total deregulation of the labour market and a severe devaluation of labour force value,” Savvas Robolis, a widely respected professor of social economics at the Panteion University of Athens and director of research at the Institute of Labour, told IPS.

“The current cuts are just another step towards gathering momentum for the complete abolition of the minimum wage in the country, the secret desire of big capitalists,” he added.

“We have to remember that 2013 will be a year of constitutional reforms; I predict that during this year article 22 (containing legislation that protects the national collective contract) will be attacked severely,” Robolis asserted.

Discussions on decimating the last line of defence for working people in Greece began in 2010 when the minister of labour, Louka Katseli, together with the troika, introduced legal changes regarding wage negotiations within private companies.

According to the Labour Inspectorate in Greece, 52 companies seized on those legal reforms to reduce wage expenses from 42-10 percent, affecting the income of 17,531 workers.

Katseli claimed she partook of the negotiations to avoid an even worse situation, which would have shredded the national collective contract and stripped workers’ associations of the ability to exercise even a minimum degree of bargaining power.

After being removed from government in June 2011, following a damaging publicity campaign launched against her by major media owned by Greek business interests, Katseli told a foreign journalist – in an interview that IPS attended – that she was marginalised because of her efforts to expose the actions of “international neoliberal ideologists and local business interests that are destroying labour relations and any negotiating power remaining in the hands of organised unions.”

Deregulation advanced further after former Prime Minister George Papandreou voted in the ‘interim austerity package’ last June, fifteen days after Katseli was removed from office.

“The deconstruction of a structure that provides space for negotiation between social partners is a dangerous path. It inactivates the unions and leaves no valid collective interlocutor to represent workers. This model is leading society into a world where individuals will single-handedly have to take on super powerful business interests on a minimum income and without protection,” Kopsini stressed.

Giorgos Xatzinikolaou, a worker in a major insurance company, told IPS that fears of rapid unemployment keeps much of the labour force silent.

“You feel you are alone, unions are untrustworthy and weak, and people at work keep their mouths shut,” he said, adding that he recently accepted a 20 percent reduction in his salary via a new ‘contract.’

“If you know what’s going on out there (in the labour market) you shut your mouth and sign,” he added.

By Apostolis Fotiadis and - -
ATHENS, Nov 1 2011 (IPS)

Harsh austerity measures and a struggling economy have given birth to the ‘new poor’ in Athens, a term used to describe those suffering the impacts of social exclusion and rapidly shrinking civic welfare institutions.

Demonstrations against austerity measures in Athens in May 2010. Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS

Despite the government’s repeated assurances that austerity measures are needed to improve the country’s status vis-à-vis international markets, citizens increasingly believe that the negative impacts of public spending cuts and costs to Greek society far outweigh any positive returns in the global arena.

Since 2010, the government has raised taxes and cut pensions and state salaries across the board.

Last month, the government announced it would put 30,000 workers on reduced pay as a precursor to termination and unveiled its plans to slash the pensions of nearly half a million public sector retirees.

Furthermore, it has imposed a ‘solidarity tax’ ranging from one to four percent of income, to shift the burden of unemployment services from the government onto taxpayers, as well as introduced an additional tax on self-employed workers.

The government has also raised its value-added tax on most goods and services. For instance, taxes on food have shot up from 13 percent to 23 percent.

In spite of all these harsh measures, the government has failed to control its debt. Just last week, the European Union concluded the Brussels Agreement, which decided to cut Greece’s debt burden in half.

The economy contracted by five percent in 2011, while unemployment is inching closer to 20 percent.

As a result many are now facing the threat of extreme poverty for the first time in their lives.

The homeless have multiplied and, despite the approaching winter chill, have gathered en masse in central squares around the country.

Doctors of the World operates a volunteer programme to offer medical support to the homeless and also runs a polyclinic facility in Perama, a district of Athens where a majority of the workforce relied on traditional docks construction and repair facilities for employment.

The collapse of these industries over the last two years effectively stripped 80 percent of the workforce of their jobs and has pushed scores of families residing in the district below the poverty line.

Nikitas Kanakis, head of Doctors of the World, described an Athens on the verge of a humanitarian crisis.

“Out of the 40 kids our pediatrician examined two weeks ago, 23 were malnourished,” he told IPS.

“Some years ago we thought that this country had moved past the point where a lack of food was a prominent social issue. Now we are making public appeals for supplies, so that we can provide those in need with dry rations and clothing along with our medicines.”

According to Giorgos Apostolopoulos, head of the Athens Centre for the Homeless, the lack of food is reaching a crisis point.

The Centre, which distributes food multiple times a day to people in need, has seen a 30 percent increase in visitors since the beginning of 2011.

“We offer 3000 meals every day in our centre and the Greek Orthodox Church offers another 3200 through our facilities,” Apostolopoulos told IPS.

A few days ago the Centre made an open appeal to the public for donations of pasta and canned tomato sauce to cover the weekend rations, since a lack of funds has disturbed the distribution of food.

With additional supplies, roughly 12,000 meals are offered around Athens every day.

“Though we have seen a definite increase in visitors, it is extremely difficult to calculate the exact number of people facing deprivation, since those experiencing such conditions for the first time tend to be extremely secretive,” he added.

Apostolopoulos stressed that he and his colleagues are enduring extreme difficulties on a daily basis in order to keep the centre going.

“Given that the economic and political crisis is exerting enormous pressure on administrative structures we have to fight to survive every day here. Believe me, it is a very difficult reality we have to deal with,” he told IPS.

Another issue is drug abuse, which is now rampant in public spaces, mostly outside universities, without any signs of serious policing or prevention efforts through the welfare state.

Evvagelos Liapis, a field doctor with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the Centre’s mobile polyclinics have examined about 8,000 people since June.

“Though we cannot yet offer accurate numbers, we are already able (to discern) an obvious correlation between economic deterioration and the health condition of specific social groups. The impacts of the crisis are mostly felt by the homeless, irregular immigrants and drug abusers in the centre of Athens,” he told IPS.

“We have noticed a significant increase of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis and diseases transmitted through skin, like warts. We are also researching a possible increase in hepatitis and HIV among those groups of people,” he added.

Liapis believes that declining health conditions are a direct result of the collapse of social programs, such as needle exchanges and injection services for drug abusers.

“An addicted person in acute lack of money would opt to save a euro for his dose instead of buying a new syringe,” he said.

“As well as an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, we also have strong indicators about increased street prostitution and its spread to groups of people hitherto unaffected by social and economic conditions,” he added.

Last September the Greek Minister for Health, Andreas Loverdos, reported that suicides may have increased by as much as 40 percent in the first few months of 2011.

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By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Oct 2 2011 (IPS)

Every working day a long queue of people forms outside the State Translation Service in Thission in downtown Athens from early in the morning. Most are youngsters processing documents they need to leave Greece for study or work. Many move on to queue later outside embassies for visas.

These are signs on the street of the emigration wave sweeping Greece. As Greece sinks deeper into economic crisis, thousands are looking for a way out of the country.

Unemployment has skyrocketed to an official 16 percent this month. Minister of Finance Evaggelos Venizelos has admitted publicly that the economy is retracting faster than feared, at a rate of 5.2 percent, and that this trend will continue into next year.

A report published by the Labour Research Institute, belonging to the General Labour Union (GSEE) of private sector workers has predicted rapid deterioration. Officially more than 790,000 are currently out of work. The real numbers are higher because many are not counted due to logistical reasons.

The young coming into the labour market are hit hardest, with unemployment of those between 15 and 29 years rising above 40 percent. This feeds the emigration wave.

Some of the well-off are leaving as well. Andreas Kallisteris dropped a lucrative consultant’s job at the ministry of employment to follow his wife and son to Berlin. His wife, a self-employed translator, was also doing well, but decided to go.

“We are thinking not to ever return,” Kallisteris, a highly skilled professional involved in policy making for years told IPS. “I can’t influence the future and I cannot affect the choices made by a failed administration and political system. There are no prospects for this country.

“I am leaving behind me a place that is becoming a desert. With the departure of the best human resources, phenomena like the rise of extreme right and underdevelopment will become acute social issues soon. I will only return if and when this generation that runs the country pulls out.”

Old migration roots have been revitalised since last year. People from north-eastern Greece, the hardest hit by the crisis, are trying to return to Germany and Scandinavia where their predecessors flourished as ‘gastarbeiters’ (guest workers) in the fifties and sixties. Countries in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia are the most popular destinations so far.

Up to July this year, 106,775 visits were recorded on the website of ‘Europass’, popular among those looking for jobs in the European Union. By August 55,073 documents were completed by people residing in Greece.

In Australia, after scams that abused the credit details of people promised migration and jobs, the Greek community in Melbourne, that has one of the biggest diaspora communities of ethnic Greeks, has mobilised to accommodate seekers.

Following their initiative the Australian embassy in Greece has announced a conference in Athens on Oct. 8 and 9 for potential migrants and employers. High attendance is expected.

Some are headed to destinations off the usual route. Dionysis Raitsos, who was a researcher at the Greek Centre for Maritime Research never thought he would leave to live in Saudi Arabia. “Mine was a good job in a dynamic environment but with serious lack of funding which mostly came from European programmes,” he told IPS.

“I stayed for four years on a basic wage without real prospects for improvement. The contracts of many colleagues were expiring and were not renewed, my turn would have followed.” Last year he moved to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

“It was a clever move. I got a scholarship and living support and I landed in an environment where things progress massively. Despite cultural differences and migration difficulties, getting out of Greece was a one-way solution.”

It is difficult to identify the extent of emigration and its impact on the country, but experts appear pessimistic. Savvas Robolis, head of research at the Research Institute of GSEE describes the young as “Greece’s lost generation”.

Greece is unable to absorb most of the 40,000 new workers entering the market every year, and they are now seeking a better future abroad. Not many talk of ever returning.

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By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Sep 16 2011 (IPS)

An unflattering report on Greece’s media by a former United States envoy to this country, revealed by Wikileaks, evoked little public reaction because it was taken as a faithful portrayal.

Charles P. Ries’s secret dispatch to Washington said Greek media was run by a “small group of people who have made, or inherited, fortunes in shipping, banking, telecommunications, sports, oil, insurance etc. and who are or have been related by blood, marriage, or adultery, to political and government officials and/or other media and business magnates.”

It is hard to dispute the Wikileaks revelations two weeks ago because it is a fact that Greek media, lacking in objectivity and mired in nepotism, has lost the confidence of the public. Traditional media hit rock bottom two years ago in a survey on trust in public institutions.

Strikingly, there has been a drop in sales of the Sunday editions of national newspapers, once esteemed for their sharp political analyses.

One newspaper with a high average circulation and officially selling 300,000 copies in 2005, saw sales dipping well below 100,000 by May 2010. Even during the height of the Greek debt crisis its sales never crossed 75,000.

A turning point in public confidence came during the December 2008 riots when a private channel was caught adding sound effects to scenes of an aggressive crowd attacking policemen, following the cold- blooded shooting of 16-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer.

An undoctored version, leaked on the popular video-sharing site YouTube immediately afterwards, had only the sound of a gun being fired.

“It is a proven fact that mainstream media are rapidly losing their audiences,” says Aggeliki Boubouka, a journalist specialising on the new media. “It is also a fact that a critical mass of a couple of tens of thousands of people use the Internet and new technologies to access reality in the country.”

Boubouka says the growing impact of social networking media in Greece can be seen by how “major newspapers, radio stations and channels struggle to understand this new environment.

“For the first time mainstream media were forced to alter their discourse after people using social media took up specific issues like the 2008 riots and the first ‘Freedom Flotilla’, last year,” she told IPS.

Boubouka is herself associated with ‘Eleftherotupia’, a major progressive publication that has dominated journalism for more than three decades in Greece, but has not paid wages for three months now and is facing closure.

“Shortly, the media reality here will be very different and new forces will come into the picture. No one can say how this will change things, but the transformation is already causing concern to established powers,” she said.

Since the beginning of the year, major TV channels like ‘SKAI TV’ and ‘MEGA’ have been experimenting with live Twitter interaction in news programmes.

SKAI Radio, the biggest station in the country, is now preparing a major blog. Many well-established journalists are also attempting to create their own online news and analysis websites.

‘TVXS’, that appeared a few years ago, has been one of the more successful ones attracting thousands of readers, while ‘Protagon’ has promoted a site for commentaries by celebrities. Both are run by successful TV journalists, but find themselves challenged by anonymous bloggers.

Younger journalists, denied opportunities by poor employment conditions, are also attempting to reach audiences online. ‘Parallilografos’, a site that first appeared some months ago, now accepts more than 3,000 visits daily.

Smartphone owners who cover demonstrations and other events and report live on Twitter have multiplied during the last four years and have challenged big media players that dared ignore public opinion.

“Now thousands of people will check on alternative sources as well as established media before they form their perspective on things,” says Spyros Papadopoulos, popularly known as ‘To Vytio’ among bloggers and Twitter fans.

He still remembers when the first Twit of the murder of Grigoropoulos went online three minutes after the shots that killed him were fired.

“Lately one can observe a kind of decentralisation taking place. There are informal talks on Twitter before demos and people decide on a common tag on which to report during the demo,” Papadopoulos said.

Earlier this year, Papadopoulos joined a group of bloggers and amateur journalists involved with the ‘Radiobubble’ online radio station to cover major events by providing alternative breaking news coverage in which citizens contribute live from the field.

An audience of more than 3,000 people has followed Radiobubble coverage during big strikes or days marked by riots this year in Athens.

An information watershed was the circulation of a current affairs documentary named ‘Debtocracy’ that criticised the government’s austerity policy. The film was produced by Katerina Kitidi and Aris Xatzistefanou on a 16,000 euro (21,927 dollars) budget raised from the public.

“We uploaded the film online and asked people to get involved in distribution; on some days we register 500,000 non-unique views on our page,” said Xatzistefanou who lost his job with a major radio station soon after the documentary was released.

“When its impact became obvious Greek TV channels ignored it while newspapers reported about it negatively. I believe they despised it for political reasons and for being something they couldn’t control. Greek media are traditionally very authoritarian,” Xatzistefanou told IPS.

‘Debtocracy’ now has 1.5 million views on its website. It has been subtitled in many languages and screened in Britain, Spain, Portugal and Belgium and there are plans to show it in Latin America.

“The role of social media in Greece is somewhat different from that in the Arab Spring,” says Xatzistefanou. “Here we are not fighting for plain freedom of speech but against the domination of mainstream media on analysis and interpretation of reality. We are getting there.”

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By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Jun 27 2011 (IPS)

Activists are engaged in a harsh confrontation with Israeli authorities days before the international ‘Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human’ sets sail towards the Gaza strip in an attempt to break the naval blockade Israel has imposed since 2007.

The flotilla will include 10 ships that have already reached Athens. Two are cargo boats carrying medical aid and construction material. The rest are passenger ships carrying hundreds of people, among them politicians, writers, religious leaders, people from the fields of art and culture, as well as ten members of the European Parliament and ten MPs from France, Norway, Sweden and Spain.

“There is enormous pressure exerted on the Greek government by Israel and the United States. It is by now certain that they are going to use all technical and administrative means to discourage us. Their plan will not work, we are ready and we will begin in a few days,” Vaggelis Pissias, a member of the co- ordinating committee who was physically abused during the previous trip by Israeli authorities but prepares to sail again told IPS.

Over the last few days Greek authorities have raised problems for two of the Greek boats participating in the flotilla. One was declared not seaworthy because of an engine problem. Activists paid a 10,000 euro reparation sum to circumvent this problem. The second is not allowed to sail because of debts of a previous owner to the state.

On Sunday the propeller of one of the Greek passenger boats was critically damaged while the boat still remained at the dock; the ship is likely to miss the trip to Gaza. The boat’s captain has spoken of sabotage.

Serious backstage talks between Israel and Greek authorities have been continuing, including communication between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. The Greek government has openly expressed concern that the flotilla could compromise the strategic rapprochement of Greece and Israel that Papandreou has pursued over the last year and a half. Last week the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly advised Greek citizens not to board the flotilla.

After similar talks with the Turkish government two weeks ago Israel has managed to cancel participation of the Turkish Islamic organisation, the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) in the flotilla. IHH was preparing to send back the ‘MV Marmara’ boat. During the previous flotilla in May 2010 the Israeli navy had attacked the boat, killing nine Turkish civilians.

Meanwhile Israel has been putting pressure on all fronts. An Israeli government spokesman has warned journalists that joining the flotilla will mean a ten-year ban on entering Israel.

Jane Hirschman of the U.S. delegation told IPS an anonymous complaint was filed when their boat docked in Athens. “Someone, using only a Greek first name, reported to the Greek Coastal Guard that our ship is not seaworthy, meaning that now we are expecting them to carry out an inspection on our boat. We managed to collect info and trail the source of the report and it is sure it came from the organisation called “Israeli Law Center”.

In a similar case Cherna Rosenberg, a 68-year-old citizen of both Canada and Israel, filed a complaint on Jun. 2 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto against the Canadian Boat to Gaza. The complaint charges the initiative with collecting funds for and providing material support to Hamas, which governs Gaza and was declared a terrorist group by Canada in 2002.

Pissias says these are results of an Israeli propaganda campaign to distort the real aim of the flotilla by projecting it as a radical religious initiative against Israel. “People should not consume this propaganda; the flotilla is not an Islamist initiative against Israelis or Jews. It is an action fulfilled by citizens of all religions and many countries nationalities.”

Manuel Tapial, a Spanish activist planning to sail to Palestine has condemned his government’s approach towards the flotilla. “Spanish government complicity with Israel is disturbing,” he told IPS. “Some of the people involved have faced short term rendition by police. They were questioned and evidence of their documents was withheld because they are involved in preparations for the Freedom Flotilla II.”

This pressure has not stopped activists from reaching Athens, and according to Tapial is not going to stop them sailing to Gaza. “We will go, by all possible means.”

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By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, May 16 2011 (IPS)

The murder of Manolis Kantaris, 44, last week has initiated a vicious circle of violence in the Greek capital that deepens the existing wounds of the country and makes many wonder what the future holds for Athenians.

Kantaris was stabbed to death late at night while preparing to drive his wife to the hospital to give birth to their second child. The incident took place in the heart of Athens, a place that residents increasingly describe as a lawless area where organised criminal groups rampage.

It is alleged by police – given footage collected from nearby security cameras, and locals – that the three murderers were of northern Africa origin.

The following day members of nationalist-fascist groups – whose presence in Athens’s devalued neighbourhoods during the last year has increased – have staged numerous attacks to ‘avenge’ the Kantaris murder. They ruthlessly attacked migrants and abused people who protested against their violence.

“People in this society wherever they come from need to stay united, criminality does not depend on nationality or ethnic background, and none should hold migrants collectively responsible for this murder,” Naim El Gadour, head of the Muslim Association of Greece told IPS. “Sober people have to take the initiative and seek solutions to the unfolding crisis in downtown Athens. We need this – Greeks and foreigners alike.”

The police are being criticised for tolerating the violent nationalist actions to an extent that led Minister of Security Xristos Papoutsis to publicly admit lack of control over security forces operating in the field.

“It is better to dissolve a security structure, no matter how effective this is, if it operates under a special tolerance status that covers up abuses of power and incidence of extreme violence,” Papoutsis said while warning about a “democratic deficit and arbitrariness inside the security structures of the state.”

The atmosphere deteriorated further when it came to light that three young people had been injured, one seriously – from what the doctors have described as intolerable police brutality – during a general strike march the same day. This was the eighth strike organised since 2010 against the measures the government has undertaken to pull the country out of its economic crisis.

The following night two men killed a Bangladeshi – stabbing him four times before escaping on a bike. Despite lack of evidence, the crime has been extensively described as racially motivated – something the police have accepted as a serious possibility.

Violence again spiralled into a frenzy Thursday afternoon while two demonstrations – one against migrants and criminality, and one against police violence – were held around the centre of Athens. Attacks against migrants continued, leaving 19 foreigners and one Greek person hospitalised.

“It feels like Athens is going through its darkest night,” El Gadour said. “We cannot let anyone think about what happens in terms of two sides killing each other, this will get us nowhere. We have to deal with people that hate us and want to hurt us.”

Residents in Athens, already demoralised by economic the crisis are now living in fear for their security. Marianna Pantermali, an activist and resident in the city centre where the nationalists have staged their action, says the situation is dramatic. “People around those neighbourhoods have lost trust in parties and politicians and are rapidly adopting the views of extremists.

“If they do not actively participate, they passively approve the pogrom against migrants and refugees. They are asking for blood. We have never seen anything like that.”

The fascist organisation Golden Dawn receives between 1 and 1.5 percent of the national vote. Anarchists seem also to be mobilizing. On Saturday afternoon a crowd of 30 alleged to be extreme leftists, launched an attack on a police department in Exarxia neighbourhood. Molotov cocktails seriously injured three citizens.

The situation reminds Xara Kouki, a young social researcher with ELIAMEP Institute here, of a powder keg that is about to explode, she wrote in an article published by The Guardian that became rapidly popular among young Greeks through social media.

“It has been less than 12 months since this crisis began, but little stories that illustrate the change keep bubbling up,” Kouki says. “The city full of homeless people looking for food in dustbins; friends fired without compensation, or accepting wage cuts; police officers beating up citizens who protest, schools and hospitals shutting; teachers and doctors losing their jobs; journalists censored; trade unionists persecuted; racist attacks downtown.”

The government has been unable to convince the public as well as its lenders that the structural adjustment plan implemented for more than a year now is succeeding in dragging the economy out of the crisis.

According to official figures, the number of unemployed is climbing every month – it is currently 15.4 percent.

“Its now clear to Europeans that Greece will not be able to borrow again from the markets,” Savvas Robolis, professor of public policy at Panteion University, told IPS. “At the end of 2012 Greece will have to pay back an expiring debt of 66 billion dollars.”

The loan from the troika of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB), will bring 24 billion dollars and “we will be missing another 42 while the country is locked out of the markets. The equation simply does not work out.”

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