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After Brutal Assault, Yanis Varoufakis Urges Progressives to Focus on 'What Really Matters'
"I will recover," the Greek leftist said. "But those 57 from the train accident in Tempi won't, and their families' pain cannot be treated."
Mar 15, 2023
Recovering from a brutal assault that left him with a broken nose and cheekbone, leftist Greek lawmaker Yanis Varoufakis on Tuesday urged progressives "not to get distracted" from the railway accident that killed 57 people last month or the neoliberal "privatize everything doctrine" he blames for the disaster.
Appearing on ANT1's "Kallimera Ellada" (Good Morning, Greece) on Tuesday, Varoufakis—the parliamentary leader of the left-wing MeRA25 party and former finance minister—told hosts Giorgos Papadakis and Maria Anastasopoulou he needs to "thank the public hospital staff" because "they worked miracles" to treat his fractured cheekbone and nose, which was broken in six places during the Friday evening assault by a group of young men the lawmaker described earlier as "hired thugs."
"The oligarchic establishment is trying to exploit my injuries in the most hideous, Goebbels-like manner."
"I will recover," he said, brushing off more questions about the attack. "But those 57 from the train accident in Tempi won't, and their families' pain cannot be treated," a reference to the February 28 collision of passenger and freight trains in Larissa.
Many observers have linked the disaster to austerity measures imposed upon Greece from abroad, especially by the so-called "Troika" of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. These institutions are widely reviled due to the suffering their policies forced upon Greece and other economically ailing European Union members after the 2007-08 global financial meltdown.
In a Tuesday letter thanking supporters for "showering" him with "solidarity" following the attack, Varoufakis called for focusing on "what really matters."
"The Greek railway tragedy, that claimed 57 lives, has triggered a remarkable youth movement which is undermining the hegemony of the neoliberal 'privatize everything' doctrine," he wrote.
"The oligarchic establishment is trying to exploit my injuries in the most hideous, Goebbels-like manner," Varoufakis continued, referring to the Nazi propaganda chief. "They are insinuating that I, an anti-systemic politician, [have] fallen victim to the anti-systemic mood that politicians like me have inspired in our youth."
"We must not let them succeed in sullying a pristine, spontaneous, peaceful, progressive youth movement," he added.
Ekathimerini reported Tuesday that two people have been arrested in connection with that attack—a 19-year-old described by Greek Citizen Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos as an "anarchist," and a 17-year-old who allegedly recorded the assault on his phone.
Varoufakis was attacked Friday evening outside a restaurant in the Athens neighborhood of Exarchia. According to the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25)—which Varoufakis co-founded—the leftist lawmaker was at the restaurant with members of the movement from around Europe.
"A small group of thugs stormed the place shouting aggressively, falsely accusing him of signing off on Greece's bailouts with the Troika," DiEM 25 said in a statement. "Varoufakis stood up to talk to them but they immediately responded with violence, savagely beating him while filming the scene."
During his appearance on "Kallimera Ellada," Varoufakis said that after he left the eatery, one of his assailants was "pushing me and hitting me and I said to him, 'I'm trying to respect you, to listen to what you want, and you're hitting me?'"
When asked why he did not have a police or security escort, Varoufakis said police make him feel "imprisoned" but that "things will probably change now, due to my wife's demand... 'From now on, you will have police officers.'"
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'It's Not an Accident, It's a Crime': Thousands March for Justice After Greek Train Disaster
The deadly collision "has further brought the negligence and corruption of the Greek government under scrutiny, and rightly so," said DiEM25. But "it was the E.U. and its institutions who forced Greece to sell off public utilities for a pittance."
Mar 08, 2023
Tens of thousands of people marched throughout Greece on Wednesday—amid a nationwide walkout organized by labor unions and student associations—to demand accountability and reforms in the wake of the country's deadliest train disaster, which has been attributed to austerity imposed from abroad.
The February 28 crash that killed 57 people and injured another 72 has sparked public outrage over the deteriorating quality of the rail network. As Reutersreported, "Striking workers say years of neglect, underinvestment, and understaffing—a legacy of Greece's decade-long debt crisis—are to blame."
"Greece sold its state-owned railway operator, now called Hellenic Train, to Italy's state-owned Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in 2017 during its debt crisis," the news outlet noted. "The sale was a term in the country's bailout agreements with the European Union and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund."
More than 40,000 workers and students hit the streets of Athens, where they chanted "murderers!" and "we are all in the same carriage." Demonstrators in Greece's capital and largest city also waved signs reading, It's not an accident, it's a crime" and, "It could have been any of us on that train."
Another 20,000-plus people rallied in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city. Meanwhile, near the scene of the train collision in Larrisa, protesters declared, "No to profits over our lives!"
The demonstrations coincided with a daylong strike called by trade unionists. Greece's largest public sector union participated in the work stoppage, disrupting a wide range of transit services, while a teachers' union made clear that "it's not the time to fall silent."
Rail workers, for their part, "have staged rolling, 24-hour strikes since Thursday, bringing the network to a halt," Reuters reported. "The workers say their demands for improvement in safety protocols have gone unheard for years."
Police have responded to protests held across Greece since the disaster occurred with violent repression.
\u201cEarlier today, our MeRA25 party members demonstrated peacefully against the hideous privatisation of our railways that led to a foreshadowed tragedy. Here is how the police treated us. Democrats of the world beware: Greece is sliding into a quasi-fascist condition.\u201d— Yanis Varoufakis (@Yanis Varoufakis) 1678047067
Many of the roughly 350 passengers aboard an intercity train that collided with a freight train while traveling on the same track—including 12 victims—were university students returning to Thessaloniki from Athens.
The stationmaster was arrested hours after the crash and is facing felony charges for disrupting transport and endangering lives.
"You feel angry because the government did nothing for all of those kids," 19-year-old Nikomathi Vathi told Reuters. "The public transport is a mess."
The main rail workers' union has vowed to "impose safe railways so that no one will ever experience the tragic accident at Tempi ever again," adding that "we have an obligation toward our fellow humans and our colleagues who were lost in the tragic accident."
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis this week accused the Greek government of trying to "cover-up the real causes of our railway tragedy... by bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and appointing arbitrarily its own three-member investigative committee—on which, remarkably, they included a gentleman who oversaw the botched privatization of our railways—not to mention the prime minister's pronouncement that the cause was human error."
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of Greece's conservative government who is up for re-election this year, orginally blamed the crash on human error before apologizing Sunday and "acknowledging that decades of neglect could have contributed to the disaster," Al Jazeera reported.
Hours after the collision, former Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned. Mitsotakis appointed one of his closest allies, George Gerapetritis, to replace him.
At a Wednesday morning press conference, Gerapetritis said that he understands why people are angry, apologized for the crash and promised to identify its causes, and announced that rail services are being suspended until at least the end of March while the government conducts a safety review.
"No train will set off again if we have not secured safety at the maximum possible level," said Gerapetritis. Greece's new transport minister said the government plans to invest in upgrading infrastructure and hiring more staff.
According to Al Jazeera correspondent John Psaropoulos, the press conference raised "more questions than answers" and is likely to make "the families of the victims even angrier."
As the news outlet reported:
“First of all, we've learned that some of the automated systems that should have been in place throughout the Greek network, were in fact operational on the night of the accident in Larissa station," said Psaropoulos.
He explained that an automated optimal route selection for the train would have been possible, but was not used.
"Secondly, it also doesn't answer why two additional station masters who should have been on duty until 11:00 pm took off at 10:00 pm without permission. Thirdly, it does not answer why the train was about 15 minutes late in leaving," he added, explaining how all these things contributed to the collision.
"It suggests enormous problems in the operation and training of personnel," said Psaropoulos.
E.U. Railway Agency executive director Josef Doppelbauer toldEuronews on Wednesday that his organization repeatedly warned Greek authorities of the need to shore up rail safety prior to the deadly crash.
Despite years of warnings from regulators and the provision of funding to modernize the country's railways, Doppelbauer said, Greek officials failed to fully implement an automated rail traffic management system and other recommended changes. If they had, he added, the disaster likely would have been averted.
European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to provide technical support. Gerapetritis was set to meet with Doppelbauer and other transportation experts from the bloc later on Wednesday.
Varoufakis, who served as Greece's finance minister in 2015 when the "troika"—the EC, the European Central Bank, and the IMF—rammed through a devastating "structural adjustment" program, balked at Leyen's offer, arguing that she helped bring about the crisis in the first place.
The EC was part of the unelected troika that "railroaded the Greek government into the botched privatization that caused the tragedy," he noted. "Keep your assistance dear Ursula. We have had enough."
\u201cWhat, the same Commission which, as part of the troika, railroaded the Greek gvt into the botched privatisation that caused the tragedy? Keep your assistance dear Ursula. We have had enough\u201d— Yanis Varoufakis (@Yanis Varoufakis) 1678117844
Last week, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), which was co-founded by Varoufakis, argued that "the E.U. has blood on its hands."
The deadly collision "has further brought the negligence and corruption of the Greek government under scrutiny, and rightly so," the group said. "However, the role of the European Union in the tragedy cannot go unmentioned either, as it was the E.U. and its institutions who forced Greece to sell off public utilities for a pittance to private—and in the case of the railways, bankrupt and incompetent—companies."
Erik Edman, spokesperson of the European Realistic Disobedience Front (MeRA25), a left-wing Greek political party founded by Varoufakis, denounced the E.U.'s posturing after it lowered its flags to half-mast on Friday in a symbolic tribute to the victims of the crash.
"The architects of the permanent impoverishment of the Greek state and the disastrous privatization of its public property are lowering their flags today," said Edman. "The EC were the brains behind the haphazard privatization that forced the Greek state to sell the entirety of its national railways to the bankrupt (!) Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane for—I kid you not—a measly 45 million euros."
"They view demonstrations, such as those by Greek rail workers, as backward unionists opposing the efficiency of privatization," Edman continued. "People who had been warning of an inevitable accident as a result of underinvestment. Their colleagues had been injured in past years, and now."
"They constantly praise the corrupt government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis as a 'success story,'" he added. "So, they should either stand by the policies they've been supporting and keep the flags up, or take them down and put them away in shame. Anything else is hypocrisy of the worst kind."
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Anger Aimed at Troika's Ruthless Neoliberalism as Greece Exit Looms
With banks shuttered, capital controls in place, and democracy under threat, the world's eyes turn toward what the Greek people will decide
Jun 29, 2015
President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker delivered a speech in Brussels on Monday that observers say has dramatically escalated the tensions surrounding a referendum vote in Greece next Sunday--a vote that could ultimately result in the country's exit from the Eurozone.
With global financial markets responding to Sunday's announcement that Greece's banks and stock exchange would be closed this week and the imposition of capital controls has been ordered, the crisis in Greece--or 'Grisis,' as its become known--has now reached a fevered pitch. On top of that, the people of the financially devastated nation have been asked to vote "yes" or "no" against a deal put forth by the so-called Troika, which consists of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank, in exchange for the continuation of cash infusions and extended credit.
Telling Greek voters to vote "yes" to accept the Troika's proposal, the Guardian's Graeme Wearden called Juncker's speech "jaw-dropping" in its implications. By telling the Greek people "not to commit suicide for fear of death," Wearden says Juncker has "effectively told the Greek people that they are choosing between the euro and the exit door on Sunday, that their government has lied to them, and that he has been their friend and ally at the negotiating table."
Meanwhile, on Monday the Syriza-led government announced that public transportation would be free this week in order to soften the blow of the economic situation and that certain banks would be offering unique access to pensioners who might otherwise face difficulty accessing their funds.
On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made a televised address to the Greek people in order to explain the latest developments--including the decision to close the banks in the days ahead and to implement restrictive measures on withdrawals--and said, "the more calmly we confront difficulties, the sooner we will overcome them."
Watch:
Contrasting Tsipras' message with that of Juncker's on Monday, the Syriza Party has made it clear they are opposed to the terms of the deal on the table and will urge people to vote "no" on the proposal.
What happened over the weekend, according to New York Times columnist and Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, was what he termed a "reverse Corleone" -a reference to The Godfather film--in which the Troika made the Syriza government an offer it "couldn't accept." The commissioners, he argued, "presumably did this knowingly" to exert overt pressure on the left-wing government. Put aside the economics of the deal, explained Krugman, and "the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don't like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals."
"The EU and the IMF seem to be hell-bent on ruthlessly punishing Greece for daring to stand up against grossly unfair debt conditions that are causing enormous amounts of suffering. Refusing to allow a short delay for the referendum to take place is a brutal enforcement of unfettered capitalism over democracy and the needs of people."
--Nick Dearden, Global Justice Now
Nick Dearden, executive director of the UK-based Global Justice Now, slammed the Troika's collective behavior, specifically its refusal to allow a short extension of its bank liquidity program leading up to next Sunday's referendum vote.
"The hardline, inhumane policies of the EU now threaten to provoke a world crisis," Dearden told Common Dreams. "The EU and the IMF seem to be hell-bent on ruthlessly punishing Greece for daring to stand up against grossly unfair debt conditions causing enormous amounts of suffering. Refusing to allow a short delay for the referendum to take place is a brutal enforcement of unfettered capitalism over democracy and the needs of people."
With people across Europe calling for debt relief for Greece, Dearden continued, refusing to treat the Greek people with dignity is simply unforgivable. "This violent imposition of austerity in Greece will leave yet more blood on the hands of the EU's financial class," he said.
As the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis tweeted over the weekend, what's at the heart of the debate right now is making sure that the people of Greece--the ones who have already sacrificed much at the altar of imposed austerity and the ones who will be most impacted by the acceptance or rejection of the deal--should be allowed to weigh in on the decision. In the wake of the referendum's announcement, he said:
\u201cDemocracy deserved a boost in euro-related matters. We just delivered it. Let the people decide. (Funny how radical this concept sounds!)\u201d— Yanis Varoufakis (@Yanis Varoufakis) 1435359316
Later, in a blog update posted on Sunday, Varoufakis described what happened on Saturday at the European Commission meeting:
The Eurogroup Meeting of 27th June 2015 will not go down as a proud moment in Europe's history. Ministers turned down the Greek government's request that the Greek people should be granted a single week during which to deliver a Yes or No answer to the institutions' proposals - proposals crucial for Greece's future in the Eurozone.
The very idea that a government would consult its people on a problematic proposal put to it by the institutions was treated with incomprehension and often with disdain bordering on contempt. I was even asked: "How do you expect common people to understand such complex issues?". Indeed, democracy did not have a good day in yesterday's Eurogroup meeting! But nor did European institutions. After our request was rejected, the Eurogroup President broke with the convention of unanimity (issuing a statement without my consent) and even took the dubious decision to convene a follow up meeting without the Greek minister, ostensibly to discuss the "next steps".
Can democracy and a monetary union coexist? Or must one give way? This is the pivotal question that the Eurogroup has decided to answer by placing democracy in the too-hard basket. So far, one hopes.
As tensions soar and fears of a financial panic set in, however, it's not just high-level Syriza officials who are saying that Greek voters would be right to reject the Troika's continued imposition of austerity, even if it means leaving the Eurozone's single currency.
In his Monday column at the Times, Krugman gave three reasons why Greece should vote "no" against the deal:
First, we now know that ever-harsher austerity is a dead end: after five years Greece is in worse shape than ever. Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened. With banks closed and capital controls imposed, there's not that much more damage to be done.
Finally, acceding to the troika's ultimatum would represent the final abandonment of any pretense of Greek independence. Don't be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn't about analysis, it's about power -- the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.
So it's time to put an end to this unthinkability. Otherwise Greece will face endless austerity, and a depression with no hint of an end.
Costas Panayotakis, associate professor of sociology at the City University of New York, argued much the same on Monday. "Since its election in January the Greek government has, in its attempt to reach an agreement, made many concessions to the eurozone's austerity agenda," explained Panayotakis. "The fact that, during the negotiation, Greece's European partners always asked for more suggests that they may not have truly desired an agreement, instead preferring to squash the only European government with the audacity to criticize the neoliberal consensus openly. The European response to Tsipras' announcement of a referendum also displays the long-standing aversion of European economic and political elites to democratic processes that allow European people to have a say over the future of the European project."
Meanwhile, Guardian foreign correspondent Jon Henley spoke with some of those Greeks who have been most affected by many years of financial ruin. As Henley reports:
After seven years of a crisis that has left 26% of Greece's workforce unemployed, 30% of its people below the poverty line, 17% unable to meet their daily food needs and 3.1 million without health insurance, it is hard to see how anything decided in Brussels or in Athens in the coming week will do much to change the lives of a large number of Greeks any time soon.
"Those that were already on the margins have been pushed right to the very, very edge, and those who were in the middle have been pushed to the margins," said Ioanna Pertsinidou of Praksis, a charity that runs day centres for vulnerable people and offers legal and employment advice.
"So many people - ordinary, low-to-middle income people with jobs and homes and their lives on track - have seen their lives go drown the drain so fast," Pertsinidou said. "People who never dreamed that one day they would not be able to pay their electricity bill, or feed their children properly."
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