Elite Greed Causing ‘Austerity Suicides’
Brit Dee, Contributor
Activist Post.com
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Yesterday saw the obscene consequences of the corrupt financial and political elite’s insatiable greed, as a 77-year-old Greek man publicly committed suicide outside Parliament in Athens. The man, named locally as Dimitris Christoulas, reportedly pulled out a handgun and shot himself in the head during rush hour, having shouted “I’m leaving because I don’t want to pass on my debts.”
A note found on Mr Christoulas’s body explicitly confirmed that his suicide was a desperate response to the life of poverty he faced, due to EU- and IMF-imposed “austerity measures” that had caused his standard of living to plummet. Following a career as a pharmacist he said that the Greek government had “nullified any chance of my survival which was based on a decent salary that for 35 years I alone (without state support) paid for”, and that “I see no other solution than a decent ending before I start looking in the garbage to feed myself”.
He went on to compare the current Greek government to the collaborationist administration that ruled when the Nazis invaded and occupied the country during the second world war.
Mr Christoulas’s suicide is the most public expression of despair to date, by a population who are seeing their living standards drop massively due to cuts and “readjustments” demanded by international financiers.
Pensions and benefits have been cut by up to 25%, salaries and public services slashed, whilst taxes have been raised and unemployment is high, as the Greek people are made to suffer for debts incurred following years of complicity between corrupt officials and global loan sharks like the IMF.
The Rest…HERE
