Brief – S. da Silva (30/May/2011)

On Sunday evening, May 29, Greeks mobilized for the fifth day in a row to protest the latest round of austerity measures being imposed by the Greek government. The latest round of austerity is seeking a sell-off of $50-billion in public assets in order for Greece to qualify for the $12-billion next installment of its bailout package, which it will need to re-finance its debts in July.

International financial institutions are fearing that a Greek default on its debts will lead to the collapse of their own interests. The solution: Make the workers pay for the crisis.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou over the weekend during his G8 trip in Europe, and Harper endorsed the Greek government’s austerity attacks on the people. Harper said: “We have every confidence that our Greek hosts here and that our European friends will continue to deal with these matters so that the global economy can continue moving forward.”

The austerity package is part of the conditions accepted by the Greek government after it took out loans imposed upon it from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF is a financial body made of the 184 member states to stabilize the international capitalist financial system, and has a notorious history of imposing odious debts on its weakest member states as a means to extract painful structural reforms that benefit big capitalists and hurt the vast majority.

It was no surprise that Harper endorsed the austerity measures, not only considering the Federal Conservatives’ own plans to impose austerity measures in Canada, but also because Canada is the 8^th largest financial contributor to the IMF and given Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney is seeking the Presidency of the IMF in the wake of the scandal of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Canadian imperialism, based in Canadian monopoly-finance capital, has a direct stake in the austerity measures against Greek workers and all others coming under attack by the IMF.

Related posts:

1. Italian Maoists Beat Back Anti-Immigrant Patrols : …and mobilize against Berlusconi regime’s attempts to criminalize their work
2. Canada’s Bailouts: A Whole New Round of Attacks on the Working-Class
3. Harper Gov’t Approves $490 billion in New Military Spending
4. Harper in Colombia: Free Trade Coming Ahead of Human Rights
5. Who’s Who in the Harper Regime: a people’s guide

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