A few days ago a young girl died from poisonous fumes in Greece after she and her mother had been using a homemade brazier to heat their apartment when their electricity was cut off for non-payment. You would think that this is as bad as things could get for the poor mother but no. She was promptly charged with involuntary manslaughter due to negligence for the death of her daughter. Fortunately, the judge invoked a provision in Greek law by which if the victim is a relative of the accused the judge could rule that the accused has suffered enough and no further punishment would be necessary (or just) and promptly dismissed all charges. But the greek state decided that this is not good enough and initiated deportation proceedings against the woman, who is a Serbian national, giving her 30 days to leave the country, proving once again that in the land of austerity “justice” can be swift and heartless, if of course you are weak and powerless (investigations into tax evasion, corruption and other criminal charges against the rich, powerful, and well connected have been notoriously dragging on for years). She had been in the country legally but had fallen behind in paying the necessary resident permit fees since she was unemployed and broke.
There has been enough outrage in Greece over this that the government finally relented under the pressure and has given a 6-month extension to the woman for “humanitarian” reasons. But with temperatures dropping and at least 350,000 people throughout Greece who have had their electricity turned off permanently for non-payment and many more who cannot afford the cost of heating oil (which doubled a couple of years ago when the government significantly raised the taxes on it) I am afraid that stories like this will keep coming. Because we are told that the cost of “rescuing” Greece (see rescuing the banks and politicians) is to relegate a huge part of the population to abject poverty, hunger, ill health, evictions, foreclosures, unemployment, carbon monoxide poisoning, despair, and suicide.
Maybe one day we will have real justice and the politicians, bureaucrats, bankers and troika negotiators who are pushing austerity will be the ones who will be charged with the murders that they are bringing down upon the people. In the meanwhile, every morning I wake up and hope that I will not read any news about another person who didn’t.
#DispatchesFromTheAusterityFronts
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