Greece: Solidarity with the NO TAV movement from Corfu

Solidarity with the NO TAV movement in Italy - Development is not for the peoples but for Mafiosi and bosses

In the evening of April 10th, 2012, an initiative of comrades from social centres/squats on Corfu held a gathering in Georgaki Square in solidarity with the NO TAV movement, including related screenings from the ongoing struggle, distribution of counter-informative texts and a banner.

If you ask why the NO TAV movement in Italy concerns us, one reason is the obvious similarities with the Greek reality. In Italy (Monti) as in Greece (Papademos) the prime ministers are appointed bankers. In both countries they want us to believe the same lies about ‘development’ being a ‘benefit to society’. Their ‘development’, whether it’s the TAV or the wind turbines on Mount Pantokrator on Corfu, is always trampling upon local populations’ lives and nature, and only the Capital benefits from all this. This type of construction and mining works are undertaken in favor of big contractors who ‘happen to be’ the Mafia in Italy, and national contracting companies in Greece, such as those of Bobolas.

In both countries the corporate media play the same role, always favoring each owner and boss; slandering and distorting every social struggle; dividing protesters into ‘violent’ and ‘peaceful’; trying to turn public opinion against every resistance movement, and projecting the one and only truth, that of police and each contractor.

On April 11th the process of forced land expropriation was scheduled to begin in the Susa Valley; landowners were summoned to allocate their land to the project’s developers on that day, in their presence or in absentia. In this way the Italian State attempted to give a facade of legitimacy to the violent occupation of the area by police forces and the violent imposition of a useless, destructive and costly project. The NO TAV movement called for international solidarity, asking us to spread the resistance.

The media build a wall of silence around each base of resistance everywhere, trying to convince us that the economic crisis and its treatment are a ‘national cause’. We break this wall of silence to demonstrate that the looting of our lives has no national dimension, but only a classist one. From Keratea to Kulon Progo, and from Lefkimi on Corfu to the Susa Valley, the Capital and the State may change many names but have always the same face, that of money and death.

Development is not for the peoples but for Mafiosi and bosses.
Strength, comrades! We learn from your fight!

Solidarity initiative with the NO TAV–Corfu
Elaia squat & Draka squat

Luca Abbà’s letter for April 11th