Spain: suicide the first cause of violent death, largely because of economic desperation

Most Spaniards who die violently do not fall in traffic or labor accidents but they kill themselves. The statistical data is just dripping with clear delay but in 2011 alone more than 3000 citizens killed themselves. It is estimated that some 32% of them do because of effects derived from the socio-economic crisis. 

The most notorious cases are surely those who lose their homes to foreclosures, invariably leaving them with huge debts, because in barbaric Spain, unlike in most other places, the mortgage debt is not canceled by foreclosure but remains forever (growing because of interests and other charges). Private bankruptcy is not a right in this infamous state. 

But there have been other notorious cases, some have killed themselves after being evicted for non-payment of rent, others in protest for not being attended in a family health emergency. Recently in Málaga, Leandro C.M.G. set himself on fire before the regional administration in protest for the death of his mother who had been denied aid. The government washed its hands: the documentation provided was not sufficient... the body count countinues. 

The media barely covers these tragedies, while instead dedicates lots of space of a couple of notorious murders that seem to monopolize media attention since many years ago, as if we could care anymore.

A very incomplete list of suicides for economic causes can be found in the wiki[es] created by 15-M activists.

Sources[es]: Webguerrillero, Público, 15-M Wiki.

Turkey: protests keep their numbers and spirit, police attacks at night

Protests have continued today in Turkey, with demonstrations going on for hours in Istanbul (best covered city) even before the massive meeting at Taksim was scheduled to take place.

Similarly in Ankara, after a day of peaceful protests, with tens of thousands gathered in Kugulu Park, police has begun their attacks against the citizens concentrated at Kizilay Square with tear gas and water cannons. As result the concentration moved to Dikimen (also in Ankara).

In Adana, a major port to the South of the state, police had barricaded the streets as of 21:45 local time, preparing to attack the uprising population.

Martyrs

So far only two mortal victims have been confirmed among demonstrators (some initial reports were more alarming). They are Mehmet Ayvalıtaş and Abdullah Cömert.

Mehmet, 19, was murdered by a fascist cab driver who run over him with his car on June 3rd, Abdullah, 22, was shot dead by a policeman using rubber bullets. He was dramatically determined to fight for freedom in his country, as we mentioned earlier.

Policemen are killing themselves

At least six policement have shot themselves since these riots began, denounced the police union, blaming the extreme conditions they are enduring, doing overtime day after day, of as much as 120 hrs without stop, sleeping on their shields or on cardboard pieces like homeless people, not getting adequate food and suffering the counter-attacks of protesters, who are hating them more and more.

Erasmus students assume compromise with the Turkish Revolution

In spite of the risks that imply for them and their careers, several dozens of students within the Erasmus program, from Europe and Egypt, have publicly declared their compromise to spread the word about what is happening in Turkey, defeating bourgeois censorship. 

Working class profile of the uprising

Olga Rodríguez explains[es] that this revolt is not only about middle class secularist youths, irritated by the Islamist involution, much less about alcohol. 

She puts the example of Ümaniye, a worker neighborhood in the Asian side of Istanbul, where 10,000 people set up barricades just a few days ago. That is not "middle class". It was in Ümaniye where a car killed Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, a manufacture worker and, apparently, member of the Anonymous-linked cell Red Hack, which recently revealed the names of 35,000 Mossad personnel. Red Hack has suffered inquisitorial persecution in Turkey (as many other mostly harmless organizations) on the farcical grounds of "terrorism".

Another point she raises is the police state that Turkey actually is under a thin varnish of "democracy". Turkish police is infamous for its brutality and as a point example, in a single night in Ankara 441 people were injured, 15 of them remaining in critical condition. 

Rodríguez also explains that Erdogan wants to become Turkey's Putin. He wants to run for the Presidency next year and concentrate all power in his hands, something that seems most unlikely to happen anymore.

A key point of discontent is, as we have already mentioned, the dramatic privatization policies of Erdogan and the AKP (telecommunications, airlines, tobacco companies, electric network, banks, public lands, highways... and even the water). In fact the Gezi Park controversy that sparked the uprising was yet another mafioso sellout of Turkish collective property, which was (is still as of now) to benefit relatives and personal friends of Erdogan at the expense of society. 

The relative economic stability of the country, with the fastest growth rate of Europe, has not benefited at all the popular classes but just concentrated the wealth within a small oligarchy. In 2011 the 20% richer segment had more than 50% of all wealth, while the 20% poorer had only 6%. 

There is anyhow some fear of military intervention. Erdogan has purged the ranks of the Army, traditionally secularist and Kemalist. Left wing organizations would not trust such an exit, which is more and more considered an option. 

Sources: Occupied Taksim (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4), Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2).

Basque Country, Gascony: two more pushed to death by Capitalism

A neighbor of Ibarrekolanda, Bilbao, jumped through the window of his home (a 4th floor apartment) as police and judicial agents were attempting to access the building to evict him for nonpayment of the rent. This new victim of the Capitalist violence, Jose, was 45 or 50 (different sources disagree on his exact age) and leaves a teenage daughter (who lives with his former wife in another home). It happened this very morning.

This Monday in Pau (Bearn, Gascony), an unnamed former employee of France Télécom, 41, set himself on fire in his apartment. He and other colleagues had been laid off (or alternatively only temporarily "suspended of job and salary") by the communications giant in the course of an investigation for alleged fraud.

In Baiona (Bayonne, Northern Basque Country), the post service has been suspended for days by an strike triggered by the suicide attempt of a worker who blamed work conditions. 

Millions for a royal visit but salaries of just €700

Also, among many other worker protests that are becoming almost routine as companies push their workers to the limit one after the other, it is particularly noticeable the one held yesterday by the workers of Indesa, who protested the visit of the heir to the Crown of Spain, Felipe Borbón, denouncing their poverty salaries of barely 700 or 800 euros/month. Another aggravation is that they have been deprived from one monthly payment. 

Sources[es]: Naiz Info, Gara (link 2, link 3)

Slavery, rape and murder in luxury cruises

LINyM[es] has a striking report borrowed from REL-UITA[es], on the horrors that many young workers, particularly women, suffer while working in luxury cruises. While everything may look like leisure in the passenger areas, in the lower cabins where the crew lives the situation is often very different. 

With the expectation of a decent salary many young people are eager to work in these leisure ships for the rich and upper middle classes, most often however they end up being slaved out in endless 14-16 hours journeys under moral and even sexual aggression from the people in charge.

The most extreme cases are those that end in death, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. A Brazilian worker apparently killed herself (? under investigation) after such abuses jumping to the sea near Italy. Another horrific case happened to a girl who was brought to hospital bleeding from all her orifices (you can imagine why), dying soon after. Witnesses also report the murder of a young female worker in another cruise but no investigation was ever carried on. 

These cruises, being owned by Brazilia, British or Danish companies, for example, have however convenience flags from lawless states like Liberia or Panama. This makes legal intervention harder, along with the principle of the captain being the sole ultimate commander on any ship.

Many workers are from poor countries, typically South and SE Asian. While the minimal salary in that sector in Brazil is $800, Filipinos for example accept to work for as little as food and $300 and often they don't even get paid at all.

Lack of class consciousness and therefore unionization is another cause of this abusive situation.

Basque Country: another Capitalism-caused suicide - and update on the recent death of Cordoba

Borroka Garaia da! (It's time of struggle!) reports today[es] that a worker from Basauri, just a few kilometers from where I live, took his life at the age of 56 under the threat of eviction from his home and after electricity and water supply had been cut to him. He had contacted Stop Evictions! but never arrived to the office.

Update on the death of José Lema Bretón (Córdoba, Andalusia)

The article at Borroka Garaia da! however deals mostly with the better documented case of the Andalusian construction worker, José Francisco Lema Bretón, who, quite ironically, had built his home himself (but had to ask for a loan because a work accident left him handicapped for a whole year). José was active in the Stop Evictions! association that offers assessment to victims of the mortgages' usurary deadly scam and sometimes also organizes nonviolent resistance actions against evictions. After years of struggling, in a desperate attempt he cut his own throat before the bank that squeezed him and his family (his parents are also under threat). That time he did not die... but the bank, Kutxabank-Cajasur, continued his murderous activity until they got their corpse (previously reported here).

Here there is the video-testimony of this victim, one of many, before the fatal blow (in Spanish):

There are many ways to kill. One can stab a knife in your guts, take away your bread, deprive you of a cure for your illness, put you in a miserable housing, torture you to death with work, take you to war, etc.

Only a few of these are prohibited in our country.

Bertolt Brecht.

Andalusia: another Capitalism-caused desperate suicide

An Andalusian citizen killed himself in Cordoba after getting an eviction notice. The exact circumstances are unknown to me at the moment but the Spanish mortgage law, which overprotects Capitalist interests to limits not reached in any other advanced state (or any other country I know of), allowing the mortgage debt to persist even after foreclosure, is surely to blame in part. Beyond it, the inability of the Capitalist socio-economic and political regime to provide citizens with their basic human needs (a dignified job, a decent home, health care, etc.) is clearly the murderer because, as Brecht famously wrote:

There are many ways to kill. One can stab a knife in your guts, take away your bread, deprive you of a cure for your illness, put you in a miserable housing, torture you to death with work, take you to war, etc.

Only a few of these are prohibited in our country.

The Platform Against Evictions has called for a demo in Pamplona (Navarre, Basque Country) for February 16th in solidarity and in demand that the Spanish mortgage law is abolished for good and the remaining debt is condoned retroactively for all its victims.

Source: Ateak Ireki[es].


Update: the name of the victim is José Lema Bretón, a member of the Stop Evictions! platform. The name of the culprits is Kutxabank-Cajasur and the Bourgeois Regime in general.

José killed himself jumping from a 4th floor after receiving notification for his eviction. Months earlier he had given back the home to the bank in payment but he was actually required to pay €22,000 even after losing all.

A protest was held today before the Kutxabank see in Bilbao. 

Source: Bilboko Branka[es] (incl. video of the protest).

Was Aaron Swartz murdered?

Ah Mephistophelis! has a most intriguing entry today on how a lot of evidence seems to point that Internet pioneer Aaron Swartz was murdered and did not kill himself.

Because of its interest, I reproduce the article in its entirety, including the many source links:

The 'Apparent Suicide' of Aaron Swartz: Must-Read Reading List

courtesy of cryptome

Make up  your own mind.  Take a moment, look at the picture above.  Even if you haven't been living under a rock, you might not have yet seen it. Look at that smile.  Under what conditions would you smile like that? How about while you were being raided by the Feds?  Surrounded by agents of your government, acting under orders to attempt to throw the book at you?
Did you know that Aaron H. Swartz

• had been offered a plea deal of only six months incarceration -- and turned it down?
• had been investigated by the FBI and gotten his dossier and posted it online in 2009?
• wrote the supposed 'suicide note' in 2007, when he was really sick (probably food poisoning), not because he was depressed but to feel better?
• did not do anything normally thought of as hacking in order to download the JSTOR files?
• got the attention nevertheless of the Secret Service, who personally took over his case, evincing a great interest in the hardware upon which the files had been copied?
• was 'killed,' according to his father?
• was not intended to have had the book thrown at him, according to the lawyer for the prosecution?
• joins two other young internet activists fighting for free speech and privacy who have committed suicide recently?

(...and in the above I avoid the more conspiracy-minded, hypothetical, or fringe.  In my opinion, or rather, my opinion of what should be the general opinion, which is to say, yours.)      
All of this in the links below, and even more, as of what I avoided above I include the choicest yet encountered.  All of which I also have made available for download as PDFs, links appended.  In case something were to, you know, get, uh, misplaced.

Aaron Swartz was Murdered – He Faced 3 Months in Jail Not 35 Years! « American Everyman Tom Dolan, Husband Of Aaron Swartz's Prosecutor, Defends Her On Twitter MIT hacking case lawyer says Aaron Swartz was offered plea deal of six months behind bars - Boston.com https://twitter.com/tomjdolan/status/291018637274390528 - Google Search Aaron Swartz: US attorney says she only sought six-month jail term | Technology | guardian.co.uk Wanted by the FBI (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought) Reddit pioneer Aaron Swartz wrote 'suicide note' blog in 2007 Cannonfire Carmen Ortiz’s Case Didn’t ‘Kill’ Aaron Swartz | Cognoscenti Caught Red-Handed, Aaron Swartz Was Prepping For Key Federal Court Evidence Hearing | The Smoking Gun MIT and Aaron Swartz — Crooked Timber The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime” « Unhandled Exception Twitter Trackbacks for @mkapor Truly incredible that in their own son's obit they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6-month offer. [twitter.com] on Topsy.com Twitter profile for tomjdolan - Topsy https://twitter.com/tomjdolan/status/291018637274390528 - Google Search Twitter / ggreenwald: Carmen Ortiz's husband, IBM ... Lame Cherry: The murder of Aaron Swartz Lame Cherry: Aaron Swartz Murdered Twice Done aangirfan: JEWISH HERO AARON SWARTZ; EXPOSING ELITE CHILD ABUSE

 boston_com_metrodesk_2013_01_14_mit_hacking_case_lawyer_says.pdf

 cannonfire_blogspot_com_2013_01_is_there_hidden_side_to_swar.pdf

 cognoscenti_wbur_org_2013_01_18_ortiz_swartz_eileen_mcnamara.pdf

 crookedtimber_org_2013_01_13_mit_and_aaron_swartz.pdf

 ggwald-re-swartz-lawyer-husbandtweets-.pdf

 mail_attachment_googleusercontent_com_attachment__ui_2_ik_83.pdf

 topsy_com_twitter_com_tomjdolan_status_291018637274390528 (2).pdf

 topsy-com.pdf

 unhandled_com_2013_01_12_the_truth_about_aaron_swartzs_crime.pdf

 Untitled document

 webcache_googleusercontent_com_search_q_cache_topsy_com_dolan.pdf

 webcache_googleusercontent_com_search_q_cache_topsy_com_twit.pdf

 willyloman_wordpress_com_2013_01_16_aaron_swartz_was_murdere.pdf

 www_aaronsw_com_weblog_fbifile.pdf

 www_huffingtonpost_com_2013_01_15_tom_dolan_aaron_swartz_n_2.pdf

 www_thesmokinggun_com_buster_secret_service_aaron_swartz_evi.pdf

   
  Be seeing you.

Source: Ah Mephistophelis!

RSS inventor kills himself after copyright political persecution

A. Swartz campaigning against copyright tyranny
(cc Daniel J. Sieradski)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is to blame, according to the family of the victim, for the suicide of Aaron Swartz, 26, who, among other things, co-invented the RSS feed that we use so often these days.

Swartz was a dedicated activist for open access and open source, taking part at the tender age of 15 in the launch of the creative commons license format. As Wikipedian he was critical of the arrogance of Jimbo Wales, who famously claimed that all the open encyclopedia was created by a petty club of enthusiasts, demonstrating with facts how wrong Wales was (and is - never read any retraction and his claim is still often quoted, wrongly). 

He was crucial in the struggle against copyright madness legislation in the USA, founding Demand Progress, which fought against the SOPA/PIPA acts a few years ago.

As Internet activist, he championed the cause of open access by means arguably illegal, sharing online thousands of articles from MIT-owned publicator JSTOR. The publication did not push charges but MIT and Massachusetts state prosecutors did bringing Swartz to a very difficult emotional situation. 

He faced up to as much as 35 years in prison if convicted (plus a hefty fine of $1 milion). He was found dead by hanging on January 11.

Refs.

• Wikipedia: Aaron Swartz
• The Laboratorium: Aaron Swartz, he was 26 
• Aaron Swartz' blog: Raw Thought

Update: Matt Stoller has today at Naked Capitalism a very interesting obituary that describes Aaron as a very comitted activist, who fought intensely not just in the issue of intellectual property robbery but also in many other fields, creating a website that lists every single person who dies in USA for lack of free health care. It is an obituary that reclaims Swartz as a radical liberal* (and not an anarchist) but it is anyhow a very interesting (and only punctually emotional) read on the many merits of this young activist and computer genius pushed to death by the Capitalism he (vainly) hoped to improve.

*Liberal: in the USA rough equivalent to socialist or socialdemocrat. 

Update: Details on the non-crimes that Swartz committed are discussed in detail at Unhandled: apparently he only used what was given to him freely... automating the process. He did not break any conditions of use which were non-existent altogether. He was just a scapegoat for copyright fascism, championed by MIT this time.

Also a memorial archive collection can be found at the Internet Archive.

Europeans set themselves on fire while their governments plunder the public resources

Ex-SKF calls my attention today to the last spat of bonzo-style suicides in Spain and other European countries. 

Last ones have been in Málaga (Andalusia), where a 57 year-old man of Moroccan origin who was homeless and did not even have anything to eat set himself alight and died later at hospital (→ El País in English). Another person, 67, also set himself alight with his last possession, a car, under a bridge also in Málaga. He survived (→BBC).

Previously, in October, a German (→ Zero Hedge) and then a Romanian resident in Italy (→ Zero Hedge) set themselves alight before the Bundestag of Berlin and the Presidential Palace of Rome respectively.

The Italian immolation

I have already commented of other suicides caused by economic desperation in the State of Spain and Greece in this blog, although they are clearly only the tip of the iceberg. Most just don't make it to the news, even if locally.

The situation is very bad and growing worse by the moment. 

In the same article Laprimavera, the author of Ex-SKF blog, also mentions this article at Zero Hedge, which explains how the State of Spain has been lowering its credit ratings by using up to 90% of our Social Security fund (paid in advance by workers and employers) into bonds, bonds that may well default some day not too far into the future (let's get real). 

Meanwhile the military budget has been risen by 11%, thousands of new jobs as police agent have been created and the subsidies to the Catholic Church and their huge network of public funded private schools remains untouched.

They kill us, they pee on our corpses and they laugh while raping a child under an icon of a crucified man of times long gone, drinking champagne and eating caviar. That's the reality in Europe right now. 

Basque Country: another poverty-triggered suicide

Manuel Reguera, 59, killed himself when he was to be evicted from his rented home for nonpayment (he owed €4200). He had lost all economic resources previously and the last thing he had was that home. 

It happened today at Doneztebe, Navarre. 

Every day two people are evicted in Navarre while 50,000 homes remain empty

Capitalism kills!, decent homes and jobs for all!

Thousands gather in Barakaldo against banksters' terrorism

Some 10,000 people (around 10% of the population) gathered this evening in the Basque town of Barakaldo, near Bilbao, to vent their anger for the bankster-induced suicide of a neighbor this morning, when her apartment was going to be foreclosured.

No to unemployment - No to foreclosures
For social protection

The protesters have marched through the industrial town crying slogans like Amaia, we remember you, Banker remember: we have a rope [implicit: to hang you with it] or No eviction without response!

Some protesters painted the offices of several banks with the wording: Assassins!

Culprits - Murderers

Similar protests are taking place today or along the weekend in other Basque towns and also in Spain, where the death, accumulating with the judicial challenges at European level, seem to have triggered some debate on the extremely abusive reality of the Spanish law on mortgages. 

Source: Elkartzen Bilbo[es], Naiz Info[es].

But mortgages are just the tip of the iceberg. While the "rights" of banks and other large companies (electric providers for example, employers in general) are defended with with the worst police brutality and judicial mercilessness, the true fundamental rights of people to the basics of life... those are simply destroyed. 

They hope that we just die silently in a corner without making much noise but, while many may do that, many others simply won't. And the anger is growing. Each of these abuses means more people ready to accept the guillotine working again against the new aristocrats.

And even to take justice in their own hands, as happened with some man from Sotopalacios who, after losing property to the banksters (well above the value of what was owed), decided to make them lose some as well, and burned the bank office (source[es]).

Bank burnt in Sotopalacios two days ago

Another foreclosure-caused suicide

It happened today in the Basque town of Barakaldo (just a few minutes in the subway from where I live): a woman jumped from the balcony of her home to her death, just as she was about to be evicted from her home.

The victim is Amaia Egaña, is the wife of a former local councilor, J.M. Asensio (PSOE, both pictured above right).

Stop Evictions! (a popular movement that tries to block or at least delay foreclosures by means of nonviolent resistance) declared that they knew nothing about this case beforehand.

In nearby dates local judges and European ones have issued several sentences in which they declare the Spanish mortgage law, which allows banks to keep citizens in debt servitude for life even after getting their homes, is illegal or unconstitutional. But while judges and politicians debate, more than 500 families are evicted every day in the Kingdom of Mr. Bourbon. 

In some cases with an obvious and direct result: death.

But these foreclosure-caused suicides are just the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that at least one of every three suicides nowadays in the European state are directly caused by misery and the desperation it causes. 

Ironically the Spanish Constitution guarantees the right to a home and a dignified job. These fundamental rights should be above private property, which is considered by that same constitution subservient of the social needs. However all that is nothing but toilet paper in practical terms.

Sources[es]: Bilboko Elkartzen, Herri Kolore.

Spain: three suicides in few hours caused by foreclosures

Capitalism kills and the two suicides of the last days in Andalusia and the Valencian Country, just before foreclosure was enforced, are just the tip of the iceberg:

Miguel Ángel Domingo, 53, was found dead by hanging yesterday at his home of Granada. Police confirmed that the eviction of his home was scheduled to take place in the next few days.

Also yesterday Manuel G. B., also 53 y.o., answered the bell at his home of Burjassot, Valencian Country, and, finding out it was the judiciary agent with order of eviction, kissed his son, 23, on the cheek and jumped out the balcony, dying hours later at hospital. 

In Spain, even if you lose your home to foreclosure proceedings, you remain indebted for life to the banksters. 

Update: a third man, this one younger, killed himself on Tuesday in Tenerife (Canary Islands) by jumping from a bridge as he lost job, girlfriend and home (foreclosured) all in a row.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3).

"After The Media Has Gone: Fukushima, Suicide and the Legacy of 3.11" (M. Segawa at TAPJ)

After The Media Has Gone: Fukushima, Suicide and the Legacy of 3.11 

Makiko SEGAWA

For the media, time is of the essence in a news story.  The March 11, 2011 disaster attracted thousands of reporters and photographers from around the world.  There was a brief deluge of Japanese and international media coverage on the first anniversary, this spring.  Now the journalists have packed up and gone and by accident or design Japan’s government seems to be mobilizing its agenda, aware that it is under less scrutiny.

The press pack has disappeared like a ghost since this April.  The influx of foreign media has suddenly stopped, as I can attest since I worked as a translator and aid to many foreign journalists in the year up to the 3.11 anniversary in 2012.  Using the keywords ‘Fukushima’ and ‘nuclear plant’ in Japanese to scour the Nikkei TELECOM 21 search engine shows 9,981 domestic news items in April 2012, just over half the 17,272 stories the previous month.

As if to take advantage of the precise timing of the media evacuation, the municipal government of Minami-soma city, Fukushima Prefecture began implementing a blueprint planned some time earlier.  In the dead of night on Monday April 16th, the city lifted the no-entry regulations and changed evacuation zone designations that had stood since March 12, 2011.  The decision allowed people to return to the district of Odaka and some parts of the Haramachi district.

... full story at The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Manifesto of Savas Metoikidis, who took his life on April 21st, out of desperation and rage, in Athens

As mentioned back in the day, Savas Metoikidis (pictured), who had been active fighting against the socio-economic destruction of Greece by Capitalism, eventually took his life on April 21st. It was known that he had left a manifesto of sorts but the contents have not been known until today:

Who are, after all, the hoodlums? 

Violence is to work for 40 years for crumbs and to wonder whether you will get to retire.

Violence are the financial bonds, the looted insurance funds, the stock exchange scam.

Violence is to be forced to take out a mortgage which you end up paying as if it was made out of gold.

Violence is your boss’ right to sack you at any moment they please to do so.

Violence is unemployment, precarity, the 700 euros [monthly wage] with or without insurance contributions.

Violence are the labour “accidents” because bosses cut down their running costs at the expense of the safety of the workers.

Violence is to take psychiatric drugs and vitamins in order to cope with the exhaustive schedules.

Violence is for you to be a female migrant, to live with the fear that you might be kicked out of the country at any moment and to live through a constant insecurity.

Violence is for you to be a worker, housewife and mother at the same time.

Violence is for you to be groped at work and for them to tell you, ‘smile dammit, is that too much to ask?’

What we lived through I call a revolt. And just like any revolt it looks like a Civil War rehearsal; it smells of smokiness, tear gas and blood. It cannot easily be harnessed or controlled. It ignites consciousnesses, it reveals and polarises contradictions, it promises, at least, moments of camraderie and solidarity. It traces paths toward social emancipation.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the metropolises of chaos! Install secure doors and alarm systems to your homes, turn on the TV and enjoy the spectacle. The next revolt will sure be fiercer even, as the rottenness of this society deepens… Or, you can take out to the streets on the side of your kids, you can strike, you can dare to assert the life they are robbing you of, you can remember you once were young people who wanted to change the world.

Savas Metoikidis

Source: Occupied London - From the Greek Streets.

"Little stories from IMF-run Greece: another political suicide as teacher and left-wing activist Savas Metoikidis ends his life" (OL-FTGS)

In the evening of April 21, 45-year old teacher and left-wing activist Savas Metoikidis hanged himself in his hometown of Stauroupoli, near the city of Xanthi in northern greece. Savas was a committed political individual and he has left behind a long manuscript explaining the reasons for his suicide, which will most likely be published in due course. According to early information about the manuscript, it is a manifesto against the memorandum and its effects upon greek society.

From Occupied London - From The Greek Streets.

Cuban exile kills himself after subsidy retrieved

Albert Santiago du Bouchet Hernández, a Cuban exile who was living from subsidies from the Spanish regime and saw them suppressed with the recent draconian cuts killed himself in Canary Islands after being faced with the harsh reality of Capitalism. 

Another exile, Juan Herrera Costa, declared months ago that he was willing to return to Cuba since he was being deprived, just like anyone else in this death camp of the European Union, of means of subsistence under the Capitalist system. 

That would not have happened to them in Cuba, where every citizen is guaranteed the basics, including home, food and healthcare. However, as Disidente del Capitalismo points out, these people were, it seems, hoping to live like rock stars out of their status of "Cuban dissidents". The reality is very different: they have to survive as any worker and that's anything but easy.

As La Polla Records sang already in the 1980s:

Come jumping over the Berlin Wall,

come to this free world smiling,

soon you will see with your tired eyes, 

our blessed freedom!

The truth: I do not know

what you come here for.

The truth I will tell you:

there's nowhere to run to!

In this paradise life sucks

what's wrong with you, kid, are you crying?

When are you going to find out

that the Wall is a lie!

Source: Disidente del Capitalismo, various TV channels.

'Our name is Resistance' - Letter of the daughter of Dimitris Christoulas

My father’s handwritten note left no room for misinterpretation. He has been a leftish activist throughout his life, a selfless visionary.

This specific act of his ending is a conscious political act, entirely consistent with his beliefs and actions during his lifetime. In our country, Greece, they are killing the self-evident.

For some, for “the stubborn children of the chimera”, in such a situation, suicide seems to be the obvious act, not as a getaway, but as an awakening scream.

For this reason, it (the suicide) takes on another meaning, the meaning of that song we first sang together, at the concert of our beloved Mikis (Theodorakis), in 1975, the song we always sang at our own celebrations and for our own dead… Go to sleep father and I am heading to my brothers and sisters with your voice.

This is the only thing you were dreaming for the youth and I think you’ve accomplished it. At the site where you left, there is a note of a youth: “The name of the dead today is Democracy… But it’s 11 million of us that are still alive and our name is Resistance”.

Source: downloadable text at TwitDoc, via SA[es].

Class War again in the streets of Greece after two desperate people killed themselves

The most striking case was that of Dimitris Christoulas who shot himself dead at the age of 75 in Syntagma Square. His denunciation of the traitor government who stole his pension, duly paid through a life of hard work, to pay the banksters in France, Germany and elsewhere, and foresight of the armed uprising of the Greek youth have really touched the people in Greece and, I'd dare say, of all Europe and the World. 

As Bertolt Brecht memorably wrote:

There are many ways to kill:
they can stab a knife in your guts,
take away your bread,
not to cure you from an illness,
put you in a miserable home,
torture you to death 
by means of work,
take you to war, etcetera.
Only some of these are 
prohibited in our city.

Yesterday in Euronews we could listen to a woman explaining that she is in the same desperate situation, after her pension of some €400 per month (extremely low income!) was cut radically to a mere €180 (= $235).

The blame of these deaths therefore lays in the Quisling Papademos government but also in the bourgeois dictatorship of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the overall imperial organization of NATO, neither of which is democratic at all.

And I say deaths, plural, because another man, aged 38, killed himself[es] yesterday in Ierapetra as he saw himself unable to feed his children anymore. 

Dimitris made his last contribution to Greece with his death, which was not just a silent one but a cry of anger and a rally call fro revolution:

The Tsolakoglou* [Quisling] occupation government literally nullified my ability to survive on a decent pension, for which I had already paid (without government aid) for 35 years.

I am of an age that prevents me from offering a decent individual response (without of course ruling out the possibility of being the second person to take arms, should one person decide to do so), I find no solution other than a dignified end, before resorting to going through garbage in order to cover my nutritional needs.

One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms and hang the national traitors at syntagma square, just like the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 (at Milan’s Piazzale Loreto)

–Dimitris Christoulas, Syntagma, Athens, April 4th, 201

Little stories from IMF-run Greece: 77-year old Dimitris Christoulas commits suicide at Syntagma Square. “One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms” (OL-FTGS)

UPDATE, 20:17 GMT+2 A translation of the suicide note left by Dimitris Christoulas, the 77-year old man who commited suicide at Syntagma Square in Athens earlier today (see below for background to his story).

The Tsolakoglou* [Quisling] occupation government literally nullified my ability to survive on a decent pension, for which I had already paid (without government aid) for 35 years.

I am of an age that prevents me from offering a decent individual response (without of course ruling out the possibility of being the second person to take arms, should one person decide to do so), I find no solution other than a dignified end, before resorting to going through garbage in order to cover my nutritional needs.

One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms and hang the national traitors at syntagma square, just like the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 (at Milan’s Piazzale Loreto)

–Dimitris Christoulas, Syntagma, Athens, April 4th, 2012

[*Georgios Tsolakoglou was a Greek military officer who became the first Prime Minister of the Greek collaborationist government during the Axis Occupation in 1941-1942.]

Suicide rates have doubled in Greece since the government signed the loan agreement with IMF/EU/ECB. This morning (Apr 4), a 77-year old retired pharmacist shot himself dead at Syntagma, Athens’ central Square (his suicide note is translated above).

 

Yesterday evening, a 38-year old father of two and long-term unemployed, jumped off the roof of his housing block in the town of Ierapetra, Crete.

There are calls circulating for a rally tonight on Syntagma Square at 18:00. One of the calls is accompanied by this flyer:

‘Scumbags, one suicide per day because of you, but the day is coming when the desperate ones will choose to take the law into their own hands: you shall pay’

From Occupied London - From the Greek Streets.