[Peace-discuss] The Greek Debt Truth Commission

[David Johnson]

The Greek Debt Truth Commission is due to release its first report in ten days' time. Obviously, it would be naive to imagine that the debt can be modified by even one iota through legal submissions; but, as with the publication by the Bolsheviks of the secret treaties behind the First World War, if the commission succeeds in laying bare some shocking illustrations of the corruption of the ruling financial kleptocracy, its report could be explosive, giving a new impetus to the campaign against austerity throughout Europe. 

 

Let's be clear: Greece has already changed Europe. Its example has already radically upset the balance of forces. The Scottish National Party found itself taking up the slogan against austerity and won an unprecedented landslide victory – a virtual clean sweep of parliamentary seats. Having cheerfully implemented Tory cuts in Northern Ireland alongside their sectarian right-wing coalition parties, Sinn Fein are now threatening to bring down the assembly on the same issue, in an effort to help them pose as champions of the working class in the coming elections in the south of Ireland, which they could also win. PODEMOS has made sweeping gains in local elections throughout Spain and could be in government (perhaps alongside a truncated PSOE) after elections later this year. 

 

Meanwhile, the Greek workers have after all been spontaneously "mobilising" again and again, for years on end, in constant occupations of Syntagma Square and literally dozens of general strikes. Their relative passivity today – and it is very relative, since there are still frequent demonstrations, strikes and occupations – has a positive aspect: it is an expression of a growing understanding that general strikes are not enough, that a comprehensive political challenge is needed.     

 

Against six months of overwhelming and unremitting pressure, so far SYRIZA has stood firm on its fundamental "red lines": no pension cuts, no wage cuts, no mass redundancies, no tax increases on basic necessities, free electricity and food vouchers to the poor, etc. 

 

This cannot continue for much longer. Either the government will at least partially capitulate (and it will have the support of at least half the population in doing so, for the sake of retaining the Euro, and their understanding that it was forced on them); or it will default on the debt and find itself forced out of the Euro, with possibly catastrophic short-term consequences. Everything therefore depends on European solidarity and a widening of the struggle throughout the continent.  

 

Here is what Paul Mason says about the Truth Commission...

 

 

The wild card in all this will be the woman sitting behind Tsipras when he makes his speech. Zoe Konstantopoulou, the speaker of parliament, is technically there to chair proceedings.

But while Tsipras, <http://www.channel4.com/news/varoufakis-yanis-greece-finance-bailout-grexit-best-quotes>  Yanis Varoufakis and their negotiators have been trying to get the country’s debt reduced via the IMF and ECB, Ms Konstantopoulou has been working to get it declared invalid.

Ms Konstantopoulou’s debt truth committee, set to report on 18 June, is said to be on the point of finding some of Greece’s original bailout debt, from either 2010 or 2011, was unlawfully contracted. In addition, Ms Konstantopoulou is armed with a finding from experts that  <http://www.channel4.com/news/greece> Germany owes  <http://www.channel4.com/news/germany> Greece €350bn in war reparations – more than the whole of its debt to Europe.

As I’ve said before, those who think the debt truth and reparations processes in Greece are “for show” are mistaken. Ms Konstantopoulou is piling up, effectively, a mega legal claim amounting to hundreds of billions that would be lodged in Europe’s various international courts.

In recent days her efforts have been boosted by a finding by a United Nations expert on human rights that Greeks’ “economic and social rights” had been undermined by the IMF/EU imposed austerity.

“At stake are not only debt repayment obligations, but as well the very foundations on which the European Union is built,” said UN expert Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky on Tuesday.

“Human rights should not stop at the doors of international organisations and international financial institutions. They have to be respected when responsibilities are delegated by States to international bodies, such as the European Stability Mechanism.”

Since Greece is a signatory to both the European and UN conventions on human rights, a keen-eyed lawyer – and Ms Konstantopolou (interviewed below) is one – could on the back of this build a legal case to have the Troika-imposed conditions declared in breach of them.

Roger Silverman

 

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