There is an international conspiracy to complete the destruction of my country. They started in 1975 aiming at the contemporary Greek culture, they continued with the distortion of our recent history and our national identity and now they are attempting to physically eliminate us through unemployment, hunger and misery. If the Greek people as one body do not rise up in arms to stop them, the risk for the extinction of Greece is real. I place it within the next ten years. The only thing to be left will be the memory of our civilization and our struggles for freedom.

Until 2009 there wasn’t a serious economic problem. The great plagues of our economy were the overspending to buy military armaments and the corruption of a portion of our political and financial-journalism sectors. But for both wounds, partly responsible were also the foreign, such as the Germans, the French, the English and the American powers, who earn billions of euros at the expense of our national wealth from the annual sale of arms to Greece. This constant bleeding kept us on our knees and not allowing us to move forward, and offered our wealth to foreign nations. The same happened with the problem of corruption. For instance, German Siemens has a special branch for the bribing of Greek mediators, in order to place its products in the Greek market. Thus the Greek people were a victim of this predatory duo, Greeks and Germans, who get rich at the expense of the public.

It is obvious that these two large bleeding wounds could have been avoided if the party leaderships of the two pro-US government parties had not been eroded by corrupt elements, who, in order to conceal the drain of wealth (which was the product of the Greek people’s labor) to the coffers of foreign countries, resorted to excessive borrowing, resulting in a gross debt reaching 300 billion, or 130% of GNP (Gross National Income).

With this scam, the foreign powers that I mentioned, gained two-fold. First, from the sale of weapons and their products to Greece; and secondly, from the interest on money lent to Greek governments and not the Greek people; because as we saw, the people were the main victims in both cases. One example alone will convince you. Interest on the loan of one billion dollars made by Andreas Papandreou in 1986, from a major European country, reached 54 billion and it was finally repaid in … 2010!

Mr. Juncker stated that a year ago he had noticed the profuse Greek financial bleeding from excessive (and forced-upon) purchase of military equipment from France and Germany specifically; and thus he concluded that these sellers were leading Greece to certain disaster; but still he confessed that he took no action, as to not harm the financial interests of his friendly countries!

In 2008 the great economic crisis hit Europe; so it was bound to affect the Greek economy. However, the standard of living, high enough to have ranked among the 30 richest countries in the world, remained essentially unchanged. But there was rising public debt.

Yet, debt does not necessarily translate into economic crisis. The debts of large countries such as the U.S. and Germany are estimated at trillions. The problem is whether there is economic growth and production. Then you can borrow from large banks at an interest rate of 5% until the crisis is over.

In this position we were in 2009, just when the change of government took place in November and Prime Minister George Papandreou took over. To understand what we the Greek people think today for the disastrous policies, I quote two numbers: In the 2009 elections, PASOK won 44% of the votes. Today, the polls give the party 6%.

Mr. Papandreou could confront the economic crisis (which, as I said, reflected the European economic situation) with loans from foreign banks at the usual rate of below 5%. If he had done, there would be no problem for our country. The opposite would have happened, because we were in a phase of economic development and thus we would have certainly gone up in our standard of living.

But Mr. Papandreou had already started the conspiracy against the Greek people from the summer of 2009, when he had met secretly with Strauss-Kahn, with the aim to take Greece under the leadership of the IMF. The information for this meeting was published by the same former President of the IMF himself.

But to get there the real economic situation in our country had to be distorted, in order to scare the foreign banks into raising lending rates to prohibitive figures. This atrocious operation began with the false skyrocketing of the government deficit from 9.2% to 15%. For this villainous act, Attorney Mr. Peponis has 20 days ago referred Messrs Papandreou and Papaconstantinou (Minister of Finance) to Justice.

This was followed by the systematic campaign of Mr. Papandreou and his Minister of Finance in Europe that lasted for 5 months, during which they tried to persuade the foreign countries that Greece was a Titanic about to sink, and that the Greeks are corrupt, lazy and therefore unable to cope with country’s needs. With every such statement the interest rates went up, so that we could not borrow anymore, in order to make our subjection to the IMF and the European Bank to look like our salvation, but in fact it was the beginning of our death.

In May 2010 the infamous Memorandum that is our complete submission to our lenders, was signed by a single Minister. The Greek law in these cases requires the adoption of such an important agreement by three-fifths of the House of Parliament. So basically the Memorandum and the Troika that now virtually govern us operate illegally, not only under Greek but also under European law.

From then until now, if the steps leading to our death were twenty, we have already gone more than half the distance. Imagine that the Memorandum has bestowed foreign powers upon our National Independence and our Public property, i.e. ports, airports, roads, electricity, water, underground and undersea wealth etc. etc. And even our historical monuments like the Acropolis, Delphi, Olympia, Epidaurus etc., since we have resigned from all relevant objections.

Production has stopped, unemployment rose to 18%, 80,000 shops closed down, hundreds of thousands of artisans, craftspeople and industries went out or work. A total of 432,000 businesses were put under padlock. Tens of thousands of young scientists leave the country, sinking us every day more and more into medieval darkness. Thousands of formerly wealthy people are reduced to scavenging in rubbish bins and sleeping on the sidewalks.

Meanwhile we are supposed to live thanks to the generosity of our lenders, the European Banks and the IMF. In fact every package of dozens of billions with which the entire Greece is charged, is returned in its entirety back to whence it comes, and we end up carrying the unbearable new interest. And because we have to maintain the State Hospitals and Schools, the Troika loads the middle and lower economic strata of our society with exorbitant taxes, which lead us directly to famine. Such widespread famine situation we only had in the beginning of the German occupation in 1941, with 300,000 dead in six months. Since then the hunger returns now to our unfortunate and much maligned and slandered country.

If you think that the German occupation cost us one million dead and the complete destruction of our country, how can we the Greek people accept the threats of Merkel and the German intentions to impose on us a new Gauleiter … this time wearing a tie …

And to prove how rich a country Greece is and how conscious and hardworking are the Greek people (conscious of the Duty to Freedom and the love for the homeland), the time of German occupation from 1941 until October 1944, when the SS and famine killed one million people and Vermacht systematically destroyed the country, stealing agricultural production and gold from the banks, the Greeks saved the public from starvation by creating the Solidarity Movement and a partisan army of 100,000 strong, which stopped 20 German divisions dead in their tracks in Greece.

At the same time not only were the Greeks able, thanks to their hard work, to survive, but there was great development of Greek art even under the conditions of occupation, particularly in the fields of literature and music.

Greece has chosen the path of sacrifice for freedom and survival simultaneously. They hit us then like they do now, we responded with Solidarity and Resistance and we survived. Exactly the same as we are doing now, with the certainty that the final winner will be the Greek people. This message I send to Mrs. Merkel and Mr Schaeuble, declaring that I remained a friend of the German People and admirer of their great contribution to science, and art and Philosophy and especially to music! And perhaps the best proof of this is that I entrusted all of my musical production to two German publishers, Schott and v. Breitkopf, who are two of the largest publishers in the world and my collaboration with them is extremely friendly.

We are threatened to be evicted from Europe. If Europe does not want us once, then we, this Europe of Merkel – Sarkozy, do not want it want ten times.

Today Sunday, February 12, I am preparing to take part, together with Manolis Glezos, the hero who took down the swastika from the Acropolis, thus giving the signal for the beginning not only of Greek but also of European resistance to Hitler, to the protests. The streets and squares will be flooded by hundreds of thousands of people who will demonstrate their anger against the government and the Troika.

I heard yesterday the Banker -Prime Minister addressing the Greek people by saying that «we have come almost to zero.» But who brought us within two years at ZERO? Themselves, who instead of being in jail, are extorting their MPs to sign a new Memorandum worse than the first, to be applied by the same people and the same methods that led us to zero. Why? Because it was required by the IMF and the Euro Groups, blackmailing us that, unless we obey, we will be lead to bankruptcy … Here we see the theater of the absurd played out. All these circles (Greek and foreign) that actually hate us and that are solely responsible for the dramatic situation to which they led the country, threaten and blackmail in order to continue their destructive work, which is to drive us below zero, to our final extinction.

We have survived in very difficult conditions through the centuries and it is certain that even if we are lead by force to the penultimate step before death, the Greeks will not only survive but will regrow. Currently I devote all my strength to the effort of dynamically uniting the Greek people. I try to convince them that the Troika and the IMF is one way; that there is another solution. And this is to change radically the course of our nation and turn to Russia for economic cooperation, and to create partnerships that will help us to promote and explore the wealth of the country in terms of ensuring our national interest. As for Europe I suggest that we stop buying military products from Germany and France. And we do everything possible so that Germany should pay the war reparations due to us, which today with interest may amount to 500 billion.

The only force that can make these revolutionary changes is the Greek people joined in a huge Resistance and Solidarity Front to drive off the Troika (IMF and European banks) from the country. While also all illegal actions (loans, debts, interest, taxes, purchases of public wealth) should be considered null and void. Of course the Greek partners to this, who have already been convicted in the minds of our people as traitors, should be punished.

To this purpose (the unification of the People in a single front) I am totally and completely dedicated and I believe that ultimately we will be vindicated. I fought with arms in hand against Hitler’s occupation. I have known the dungeons of the Gestapo. I was condemned by the Germans to death and miraculously lived. In 1967 I founded the PAM, the first resistance organization against the military junta. I fought underground. I was caught and imprisoned in the «slaughterhouse» of the Junta Security headquarters. I survived again.

Today I am 87 years old and it is very likely that I will not live to see the salvation of my beloved homeland. But I will die at peace with my conscience, because I still do my duty towards the ideals of Liberty and the Law, to the end.

Athens, 12.2.2012

Mikis Theodorakis

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