Greek resisters show the way

[david bangs]

Apparently the link doesn't work, so below is the text,
Dave Bangs


I don't pay' revolt challenges Greek coalition 

graeme smith  <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/graeme-smith/> 
NEA IONIA, GREECE- From Friday's Globe and Mail 
Published Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011 8:57PM EST

The world's leading financiers are betting they can prevent bankruptcy in Greece with a bailout deal that will force strict austerity on its citizens, but that plan does not account for stubborn people like Olga Katimertzis.

The 58-year-old has served as a deputy mayor in the Athens suburb of Nea Ionia for more than three decades, and she embodies the way this country has started to fight itself. Wearing an old leather jacket in her chilly office, and chain-smoking cigarettes, she proudly describes how her municipality is offering free legal advice to anybody who refuses to pay new taxes imposed by the central government. Her offices are even organizing human barricades to prevent the electrical utility from disconnecting people who fall behind on their bills.

Ms. Katimertzis does not smile when asked whether there's any irony in the fact that she's a public servant organizing a tax revolt.

"I work for the people," she said. "My allegiance is with the people, against the state."

This is perhaps the most fundamental threat to Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a former banker who won a vote of confidence Wednesday for a coalition government that promises to push ahead with financial reforms. European lenders have frozen payments until Greece shows a viable plan for cutting spending, and without those loans the government will run short of cash on Dec. 15. The two largest political parties support Mr. Papademos, and their votes should give the austerity package a comfortable majority in parliament.

No matter what the government decides, however, implementation may prove difficult. Thousands of Greeks marched through the capital on Thursday, chanting "I don't pay" and other slogans against the reforms. Police outside the parliament fired tear gas and stun grenades; masked youths fought back with petrol bombs.

Legal battles are looming, as well. In the month since Ms. Katimertzis convinced her city council to fight the austerity measures, at least 10 other municipalities have joined the rebellion. Nea Ionia's staff lawyers are planning to send formal notices to the public electric company, warning that new laws requiring the utility to include tax payments on monthly bills are "unjust, illegal and unconstitutional." A draft of the legal text says, "We are declaring our intention to resist," and threatens lawsuits on behalf of anybody whose electricity is cut for failure to pay the new taxes.

One court has already sided with the protesters, as a judge in the southern Peloponnesian town of Kalamata reportedly gave an order on Thursday to prevent electricity being cut to a farmer who complained about an inflated tax bill.

In case such legal challenges don't work, municipal technicians in Nea Ionia are now reaching out to contractors and dissident utility workers, planning ways of reconnecting the power in case of a shutdown. The union at the electrical company has promised to pass intelligence to the municipality about any planned cutoffs, so local activists can arrange peaceful demonstrations aimed at thwarting them. A cherry-picker truck has been placed on standby for guerrilla tinkering with utility poles.

Iraklis Gotsis, 60, the city mayor, said that elderly people could freeze to death without some kind of intervention; in some cases, the new levy added to electrical bills exceeds the amount of their monthly pension cheques. "So far, it's only the poor who have been forced to pay," he said. "Is that fair? If a lot of municipalities join this resistance, we can also make the bankers pay."

Predictably, the stand against taxes has made the local administration highly popular. People flooded into the council chambers on a recent morning with copies of their electrical bills, registering their names as part of the resistance. Stratos Teloniatis, 40, owner of a small grocery shop, said his taxes doubled in the last two years.

"Please understand, we're not taking up arms," the shopkeeper said. "We are non-violent people. We don't expect things to get ugly."

 


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