Uma tragédia grega

Down the road from my studio, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, there is a small cafe next door to a tobacconist. Both are owned by Australians of Greek heritage. The week before the people of Greece voted on whether they wished to accept the new round of austerity measures demanded by the Troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) in order to release bailout funds, the shop owners plastered a series of black-and-white A4 sheets across their windows. Each sheet contained one bold word, OXI – Greek for “no”. On the morning of 6 July I awoke before dawn, fired up the internet and switched on the television, both anxious for and dreading the news: the outcome would have consequences not only for Greece’s membership in the eurozone but also for the very definition of a united Europe. The referendum result was an overwhelming OXI. An hour later, still trying to identify why I felt this combination of fear and trembling and ecstasy as I watched images of the jubilant crowds in Athens, I realised that I was experiencing sensations that I had almost forgotten could exist: political hope and political optimism. The Greek nation had refuted an almost universal economic logic, one that exonerated the financial system responsible for the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. It was a logic that demanded that ordinary people pay for the miscalculations of the global markets, a logic that cleared the debts of the banks but allowed no such leniency regarding the crippling effects of debt on individual nations. Within a week my hope and optimism had dissipated as Greece’s six-month-old coalition government, led by the left-wing Syriza party’s Aleksis Tsipras, seemed on the verge of accepting bailout terms that had been rejected by its own people. Yanis Varoufakis is on the phone. Greece’s charismatic finance minister had resigned his position immediately following the referendum result. Varoufakis, an economist with an extensive academic career, has dual Greek and Australian citizenship after a decade-long stint working at the University of Sydney. His outsider status in the European Union political club, his refusal to use technocratic language or conform to bureaucratic style, was a constant sore spot in the negotiations with the Troika. But in many ways, the strong referendum result can be seen as a validation of his tactics and directness. The first thing I ask him is how he felt on the night of the vote, and how he feels now, a week later. “Let me just describe the moment after the announcement of the result,” he begins. “I made a statement in the Ministry of Finance and then I proceeded to the prime minister’s offices, the Maximos [also the official residency of the Greek prime minister], to meet with Aleksis Tsipras and the rest of the ministry. I was elated. That resounding no, unexpected, it was like a ray of light that pierced a very deep, thick darkness. I was walking to the offices, buoyed and lighthearted, carrying with me that incredible energy of the people outside. They had overcome fear, and with their overcoming of fear it was like I was floating on air. But the moment I entered the Maximos this whole sensation simply vanished. It was also an electric atmosphere in there, but a negatively charged one. It was like the leadership had been left behind by the people. And the sensation I got was one of terror: What do we do now?” And Tsipras’ reaction? Varoufakis’ words are measured. He insists his affection and respect for the beleaguered Greek prime minister are undiminished. But sadness and disappointment are evident in his reply. “I could tell he was dispirited. It was a major victory, one that I believe he actually savoured, deep down, but one he couldn’t handle. He knew that the cabinet couldn’t handle it. It was clear that there were elements in the government putting pressure on him. Already, within hours, he had been pressured by major figures in the government, effectively to turn the no into a yes, to capitulate.” Out of loyalty to Tsipras, and to honour a promise he made, Varoufakis won’t name names. But he does tell me that there were powerbrokers within the fragile coalition government “who were counting on the referendum as an exit strategy, not as a fighting strategy”. “When I realised that, I put to him that he had a very clear choice: to use the 61.5% no vote as an energising force, or [to] capitulate. And I said to him, before he had a chance to answer, ‘If you do the latter, I will clear out. I will resign if you choose the strategy of giving in. I will not undermine you, but I will steal into the night.’” Though Varoufakis is circumspect, he makes clear that exiting the eurozone was something that he, Tsipras and their like-minded colleagues in the coalition would not countenance. “We always thought that the European project, despite all its flaws … would be an opportunity for Europeans to get together, that maybe there would be an opportunity to subvert the original intentions and turn it into a kind of united states of Europe. And within that, to agitate for left-wing progressive politics. This was our mindset, how we were nurtured from a very young age.” This mindset goes a long way to making sense of the compromised decision Syriza has made since the referendum. It was not being disingenuous in its commitment to Europe, for all the scaremongering in the mainstream European media. But for Varoufakis, honouring that pledge could not be conditional on accepting the suffocating terms of the proposed debt relief, the continuing social devastation being legitimised in the name of austerity. “Tsipras looked at me and said, ‘You realise that they will never give an agreement to you and me. They want to be rid of us.’ “And then he told me the truth, that there were other members of the government pushing him into the direction of capitulation. He was clearly depressed. “I answered him, ‘You do the best with the choice that you’ve made, one that I disagree with wholeheartedly, but I am not here to undermine you.’ “So then I went home. It was 4.30 in the morning. I was distraught – not personally, I don’t give a damn about moving out of the ministry; it was actually a great relief. I had to sit down between 4.30 and 9 in the morning and script the precise wording of my resignation because I wanted on one hand that it was supportive of Aleksis and not undermining him but on the other hand [to] make clear why I was leaving, that I was not abandoning ship. The ship itself had abandoned the course.” I ask Varoufakis if there were members within the Eurogroup, the 19 finance ministers of the eurozone, who were agitating for a Greek exit. His answer is swift and blunt. “Not the Eurogroup. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble.” I want him to be clear on this, for the dominant media portrayal of the unfolding crisis is as a battle between the intransigent Greeks and a desperate Europe trying to keep the eurozone together. The reality is much more complex. I have wondered if the unworkable austerity conditions the Troika was demanding from this new left-wing Greek government suggested that, behind the scenes, members of the Eurogroup were preparing for a Greek exit. If this is the case, does it imply bad faith on the part of Schäuble? Again, Varoufakis’ response is immediate. “It wasn’t bad faith, it was a very definite plan. I called it the Schäuble plan. He has been planning a Greek exit as part of his plan for reconstructing the eurozone. This is no theory. The reason why I am saying it is because he told me so.” Five years of austerity have seen the Greek economy contract by 25% and one in four Greeks unemployed, and debt conditions that economists from both the right and left argue can only mean increasing economic and social devastation. It strikes me that there is a desire to punish the Greek nation for the well-documented sins of its political structures, its clientelism and its corrupt public services. But for Varoufakis the ruthlessness of the austerity measures is part of a political game the European Commission is playing in order to frighten other member states. “This is Schäuble’s way of exacting concessions from France and Italy, that was what the game always was. The game was between Germany, France and Italy, and Greece was – not so much a scapegoat – we have an expression in Greece …” We have been conducting the interview in English but on his hesitation I prompt him to speak in Greek. He answers, and though Varoufakis’ tone is that of an educated Athenian and he speaks English with the cosmopolitan accent of someone who has studied in the UK, and worked in Australia and the US, for a moment I hear my father’s voice; for a moment the rural and the urban conflate, the past and the present are one: The jockey strikes the whip for the mule to hear. Then the urbane voice returns. “It is a clear strategy for influencing from Paris and from Rome,particularly from Paris, the kind of concessions towards creating a disciplinarian, Teutonic model of the eurozone.” Possibly because of that moment of dissonance, the switch between English and Greek, I am reminded that I am not a disinterested participant in this interview. Since 2010, I have been returning to my parents’ country to try to make sense of the experiences of family and friends, to comprehend the economic paralysis, and to be witness to its human costs. No Australian of my heritage is unaware of the deleterious effects of long-term state corporatism, of nepotism and corruption, in Greece. Many of us were lamenting the lack of serious reform in Greek politics long before the nation entered the eurozone in 2001. Whatever the ideological differences, whatever the compromises and limitations of realpolitik, did Varoufakis’ fellow ministers in the Eurogroup, did the people he was negotiating with in the Troika, understand the extent of the humanitarian crisis in his country? “It was a combination of indifference and self-interest. You have to understand, for some of them, the Greek [austerity] program was their life’s work, it was their baby. It was like Dr Frankenstein: a monster but nevertheless it’s your monster. It was something their careers depended on. For example, Poul Thomsen, who ran the Greek program on behalf of the IMF from 2010 to 2014, was promoted on the basis of that work to being now the IMF’s European chief. When these people look at the effects of what they have done – the people on the streets eating out of rubbish bins, the phenomenal unemployment – what kicks in is that normal process of self-rationalisation: either saying that it had to be done as there is no other way or blaming the Greek government for not carrying out the reforms sufficiently.” Did they really believe austerity was the only way to keep Greece within the eurozone? “It is a very cynical, utilitarian view that in order to forge the future you have to sacrifice unproductive people who are good for nothing. Now, the smarter ones – and there are very few smart ones – can see that this is all rubbish. They could see that the program they were implementing was catastrophic. But they were cynical. They thought, I know which side my bread is buttered. “Interestingly enough, the finance minister of Germany is a man who understands this better than anyone. In a break during a meeting, I asked him, ‘Would you sign this, this agreement?’ and he said, ‘No, I wouldn’t. This is no good for your people.’ This is the most frustrating part of it, that at the personal level you can have this human conversation, but in meetings it is impossible to bring it up, it is impossible to have humanity inform policy-making. The policy debate is structured in such a way that humanity has to be left outside the room.” Varoufakis has made clear that self-interest and careerism are at play within these negotiations. But if statespeople are making decisions based on policies they don’t believe in, isn’t there also cowardice at play? “Let me try to answer as accurately as I can by saying this. Of my colleagues in the Eurogroup …” – he corrects himself – “former colleagues in the Eurogroup – I am no longer in the Eurogroup, thank God – it was often said it was 18 against one, that I was alone. It’s not true, it is not true. A very small minority, led by the German finance minister, pretended to believe – pretended to believe – that the austerity that was being forced on the Greeks was the only way out, was the best thing for the Greeks, and if we were only to reform ourselves along the lines of that austerian logic then we would be fine, that we are not getting out of the woods because we are lazy, we live off other people’s kindness, etc. etc. But they were a minority. There were two other groups that were more significant. “One group consisted of the finance ministers who don’t believe in these policies but who had been forced in the past to impose them on their own people with great detrimental consequences. Now, this group was terrified of the prospect that we would succeed because they would have to answer to their own people … Why were they such cowards?” “And there was a third group, France and Italy. These are important countries, frontline states of Europe, and the way I would characterise it is that their finance ministers neither believed in austerity nor had they practised it seriously. But what they feared was that if they sided with us, if they are seen to be sympathetic to the Greeks, they would encounter the wrath of the Teutonic group and maybe austerity would be imposed on them. They didn’t want to be seen supporting us in case they would be forced to suffer the same indignities.” Varoufakis offers a precise and compelling account of the missteps of the eurozone, the lunacy of “creating a single common currency that was to be run by a central bank that had no state to back it, [and] states with no central bank to back them”. “It was as if we were removing the shock absorbers from the euro area, the shock absorbers being the exchange-rate flexibility. The moment that banks stopped lending to places like Ireland and Greece, the bubble burst … In the old days the drachma would be devalued and the situation would be corrected. But we didn’t have the drachma, and so we had to replace the loans from the banks with loans from taxpayers.” There was hubris in the structuring of the euro, a short-sighted euphoria prompted by the end of the Cold War and the victory of neoliberal ideology. Those mistakes have been compounded by a betrayal of any trans-European communal aspirations, the very notion of Europe that Varoufakis has tried to defend. This betrayal has reignited old nationalist stereotypes of a disciplined north and a slothful south, setting European taxpayer against taxpayer and shifting attention away from the financial elites that created this disaster. But for all of Europe’s mistakes, there remain the noxious deficiencies of the Greek state itself. Many of us who supported Syriza hoped that the new government would begin dismantling the corrupt systems of patronage, whole-scale tax evasion and public-sector venality. In his writing, Varoufakis has referred to it as a “kleptocracy”, a state of thievery. What were the obstacles in confronting the kleptocracy? “Huge! We had to confront an unholy alliance of vested interest and oligarchic practices, what I call the triangle of sin within Greece. Firstly, the banks, the bankrupt banks that are kept alive by the Greek taxpayers but without the Greek taxpayers having any say in the running of [them]. Secondly, the mass media, particularly the electronic media and the press, which were fully bankrupt. But they were controlled by the banks, which used bailout money to bolster the newspaper and electronic media to make sure the media is doing their dirty work in the form of propaganda. And thirdly, procurement, public-sector procurement. To give you an example, a motorway in Greece costs …” He stops, again a correction. “… cost, in the past, three times as much per kilometre compared to a motorway in Germany or France. It was not that people worked less hard or that the private companies were less efficient; they were plenty efficient. If you want to know why it cost so much, you just have to look at northern Athens and examine the villas in which the owners of these companies live.” I remember being taken for a walk through Kifisia, one of Athens’ wealthiest neighbourhoods, in the late 1980s. The ostentatious houses were a shock. “What do these people do?” I asked my cousin. She said, resignedly, patting her back pocket, “We pay for them.” Varoufakis continues. “On top of that, we had the Troika, which was in cahoots with this triangle.” Is Varoufakis argiung that the Troika was hypocritical in its dealings with the Greek government over the past five years? That the new Tsipras government was held to a different standard than that applied to the coalitions led by Pasok or New Democracy? “The Troika did challenge the previous governments of Pasok and New Democracy. They did that plenty of times. But not once did they threaten to switch off liquidity to them because the governments had failed to sufficiently tax the oligarchs, or because [they] had failed to tax the television channels, or failed to catch the big fat tax cheats with bank accounts in Switzerland. The Troika would only threaten to withdraw its liquidity if the lowest of the low of pensions were not cut, if the minimum wage was not cut. It only threatened those previous governments if they dared give a little bit of money to the poorest of Greeks.” The rage that shoots through me is clear in my interjection, an obscenity. In part, the rage comes from a fury at a country that has failed to restructure itself. I detest the bloated public sector that made employment contingent on who you voted for. I don’t want to excuse the rampant tax evasion practised across the Greek population. I am as appalled as anyone at a pension system that too was structured on patronage. Reform in these areas is necessary, essential. The rage also arises because a lack of compassion, born from 50 years of systematic corruption, is now visited on those in Greece who can least afford it. I feel it here in Australia, with friends who curl their mouth in pious disdain at stories of tax evaders and 50-year-old pensioners. In the past five years Greece has undergone a radical experiment that has caused the economy to cease. There is no social-security safety net, and unemployment and working without payment have become the norm. Fine, the pensions were too generous. Let’s cut them. But if there’s no dole, no work, what do you want the 50-year-old to do? Starve? Let me assure you it is happening. Varoufakis senses my fury. He says quietly, “The class consciousness of the Troika was mind-boggling.” “Our state apparatus had been contaminated by the Troika, very, very badly. Let me give you an example. There is something called the Hellenic Financial Stability Facility, which is an offshoot of the European Financial Stability Facility [EFSF]. This is a fund that contained initially €50 billion – by the time I took over it was €11 billion – for the purpose of recapitalising the Greek banks. This is money that the taxpayers of Greece have borrowed for the purpose of bolstering the banks. I didn’t get to choose its CEO and I didn’t get to have any impact on the way it ran its affairs vis-à-vis the Greek banks. The Greek people who had elected me had no control on how the money they had borrowed was going to be used. “I discovered at some point that the law that constituted the EFSF allowed me one power, and that was to determine the salary of these people. I realised that the salaries of these functionaries were monstrous by Greek standards. In a country with so much hunger and where the minimum wage has fallen to €520 a month, these people were making something like €18,000 a month. “So I decided, since I had the power, I would exercise that power. I used a really simple rule. Pensions and salaries have fallen by an average of 40% since the beginning of the crisis. I issued a ministerial decree by which I reduced the salaries of these functionaries by 40%. Still a huge salary, still a huge salary. You know what happened? I got a letter from the Troika, saying that my decision has been overruled as it was insufficiently explained. So in a country in which the Troika is insisting that people on a €300-a-month pension now live on €100, they were refusing my cost-cutting exercise, my ability as a minister of finance to curtail the salaries of these people.” Varoufakis, 54, left Greece after high school to study economics in the UK. In 1988, he left a position at Cambridge to take up an academic job at the University of Sydney. He tells me, laughing, that the people who recruited him thought he was a right-winger as he used game theory and mathematics in his published articles. “The left at Sydney Uni were actually dreading my coming.” Knowing that Varoufakis has lived for periods among the Greek diaspora in the UK, the US and Australia, and spent time with that generation of immigrants who arrived in the 1950s and ’60s, I ask him if he thinks that during the decades of prosperity and the integration into the EU the Greeks had forgotten the trauma of emigration. “Of course they had. During that period that I came to Australia and up to the beginning of the crisis, any Greek Australian that visited Greece felt a deep sense of betrayal. [Because] the Greeks were almost embarrassed by the Greek Australians. They reminded them of a past when Greece was poor, when Greece was the Albania of the 1950s.” I mention that I recall being in Greece in the late 1990s and telling my cousins, “I am the Albanian.” I was appalled at the casual racism they were directing towards the eastern European migrants. I recall, too, the implication that my parents and other migrants of their generation were still peasants: salt of the earth, of course, but nothing to do with the new, cosmopolitan Europe. It was then that I realised I had a different history to those of the Greeks. Mine belonged to a history of immigration, not to Europe. Varoufakis agrees. “But now that the Greeks have had that smack by history, we have realised that it was all a façade, that we are still a nation of migrants, that we never really made it into first-class European citizenship.” The new wave of Greek emigration has certainly begun. On the high street near my home, there has been a resurgence in spoken Greek. It is 20-somethings, 30-somethings, 40-somethings: those fortunate enough to have been born here, those whose parents retained Australian citizenship. I ask Varoufakis to reflect on the similarities and differences between the two waves of immigration. “In the 1950s and ’60s Greece lost a great deal of human capital, but it was unskilled labour. The great investment that has happened in Greece from the 1950s onwards has been in education. We have managed to become a supremely well-educated nation. In terms of our public sector, our private sector, we’ve done very little – even the environment we’ve managed to make a mess of, to deplete. But when it comes to human capital, we have created a great deal of it, and the tragedy of the current crisis is that we are exporting it. Young, well-qualified people whose education was paid for by the state primarily – and their families, but primarily by the state – are now offering their services all over the world, including in Australia. And this is a kind of loss that simply can’t be retrieved. Buildings you can rebuild, highways you can fix, but this depletion is irreversible.” On the morning after my interview with Varoufakis, I receive a frantic call from a friend in Athens. She has not been paid for months and her husband is unemployed. They are terrified for their children’s futures. They both have university degrees; he has studied in the UK. Her voice is hushed, shamed. She apologises again and again. She asks me, “Please, please, is there any work possible in Australia? I am scared of what’s happening here, my friend. I am terrified of what’s coming.” CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS

Sissi: Salvador do Egipto?

L'espoir retrouvé des Égyptiens et de la communauté internationale semble reposer sur un seul homme. Comme Pharaon ceignait sa couronne bleue pour aller en guerre, le maréchal Abdel Fattah al-Sissi a revêtu, le 4 juillet, son uniforme militaire pour la première fois depuis qu’il est président. « Par reconnaissance et par respect », il partait dans le nord du Sinaï saluer l’armée là où elle avait mené bataille pendant cinq jours contre 300 jihadistes. « Un vrai Égyptien ! » Ce compliment ultime sur les bords du Nil lui est aussi adressé par opposition à son prédécesseur, l’islamiste Mohamed Morsi, accusé d’avoir servi les intérêts des Frères musulmans au détriment de ceux du peuple (et condamné le 16 juin à la prison à vie pour espionnage et haute trahison). Comparé à de Gaulle ou à Bonaparte par les intellectuels « Sissi, qui pâtit d’une regrettable hostilité de la presse européenne, a sauvé l’Égypte du fondamentalisme des Frères musulmans », estime l’ancien secrétaire général des Nations unies Boutros Boutros-Ghali qui, né en 1922, a connu tous les régimes de l’Égypte moderne. Volontiers comparé à de Gaulle ou à Bonaparte par les intellectuels, Sissi incarne pour la foule des quartiers populaires le digne héritier de Nasser, le père d’une nouvelle Égypte. Et son défi le plus ardu sera certainement de ne pas décevoir les maints espoirs placés en lui. Sans doute en avait-il entrevu la difficulté. « Il a beaucoup hésité à prendre le pouvoir en 2013. Il l’a fait parce qu’il n’y avait pas d’autre solution », poursuit Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Classes populaires et classes moyennes, technocrates et hommes d’affaires, libéraux et nassériens, coptes et salafistes : canalisées par leur rejet unanime des Frères musulmans, des tendances contradictoires ont porté Sissi à la magistrature suprême. Fatalement, le raïs devra prendre des décisions qui déplairont aux uns quand elles satisferont les autres. Réussite de bon augure, dès juillet 2014, le gouvernement est parvenu à réduire drastiquement les subventions aux carburants sans susciter le mécontentement populaire dont la crainte avait, pendant des décennies, retenu ses prédécesseurs de prendre une telle décision. Prendre le pouls de la population Mieux qu’un Moubarak vieillissant ou qu’un Morsi aveuglé par sa pieuse idéologie, le militaire sait prendre le pouls de la population. N’avait-il pas annoncé en 2010, dans un rapport au chef de l’état-major, les désordres à venir en Égypte ? Il était alors chef du renseignement militaire et en a gardé une certaine culture du secret. Si son entourage proche reste un mystère, ainsi que le regrettent les Égyptiens les mieux informés, tous s’accordent à constater que le président est homme de consultation et de réflexion. « Il aime prendre ses décisions en parfaite connaissance de cause, se souvient Ehab Badawy, ambassadeur d’Égypte en France, qui fut son porte-parole. Il est capable de tenir des réunions pendant des heures, il se renseigne sur les questions qui se posent dans les moindres détails et prend son temps avant d’adopter une opinion définitive. » Une prudence salutaire. Laurent De Saint Perier Jeune Afrique

Chade: Julgamento de Hissène Habré

Pour le premier jour de son procès à Dakar, l'ancien président tchadien Hissène Habré a multiplié les provocations à l'encontre de ses juges. Il doit comparaitre de force face à la cour ce mardi matin. Il était bien là. Boubou blanc immaculé et turban sur la tête ne laissant entrevoir que ses yeux derrière ses lunettes, Hissène Habré, 72 ans, a finalement été conduit de force dans la salle du tribunal de Dakar où s’est ouvert, lundi 20 juillet, un procès inédit et historique : celui du premier chef d’État africain jugé par des Africains dans un pays africain. Accusé de crimes de torture, de crimes de guerre, et de crimes contre l’humanité lorsqu’il a dirigé le Tchad de 1982 à 1990, Habré a rapidement provoqué un esclandre. Peu après son arrivée dans la salle, acclamé par des partisans venus le soutenir bruyamment, il a bondi de sa chaise, chapelet à la main, et hurlé « À bas l’impérialisme et le néocolonialisme ! ». Affirmant depuis son inculpation et son arrestation, il y a deux ans, qu’il ne reconnaît aucune légitimité aux Chambres africaines extraordinaires (la juridiction ad hoc mise sur pied par l’Union africaine et le Sénégal pour le juger) ni à ses magistrats, il a finalement été évacué de la salle sans ménagement par d’imposants gardiens de l’administration pénitentiaire.  Ses victimes nous écoutent et le monde nous regarde, car ce procès concerne l’humanité toute entière » L’ancien président tchadien mis au silence dans une salle attenante à celle du tribunal, le procès pouvait démarrer. Présidée par le juge burkinabè Gberdao Gustave Kam, la cour a notamment donné la parole à la coordinatrice du collectif des avocats des victimes, la Tchadienne Me Jacqueline Moudeina. « Hissène Habré a été le bourreau de son peuple, qu’il a martyrisé à travers un système de répression dont il a été l’instigateur et le pivot, a-t-elle déclaré, visiblement émue par ce moment qu’elle affirme avoir tant attendu. Aujourd’hui, ses victimes nous écoutent et le monde nous regarde, car ce procès concerne l’humanité toute entière, la même humanité que Habré a bafoué pendant des années. » Les avocats de la défense, eux, étaient absents. Dans les couloirs du Palais de justice de Dakar, ils affirmaient, dans un discours calqué sur celui de leur client, qu’ils ne voulaient pas « comparaitre devant une cour qu’ils ne reconnaissent pas ». « Nous refusons de participer à une procédure dont l’arrêt de condamnation est déjà écrit », s’exclamait ainsi Me François Serres, dénonçant un procès « inéquitable » et financé par « le président Idriss Déby Itno et les Tchadiens ». Comparution de force Cette stratégie de défense de rupture totale a provoqué une interruption de séance. Prié de comparaitre devant la cour par un huissier en début d’après-midi, l’accusé a répondu à ses juges par une lettre qu’il n’a pas pris la peine de signer. « Ces chambres sont illégitimes et illégales. Ceux qui y siègent ne sont pas des juges mais de simples fonctionnaires exécutant des décisions politiques. Je n’ai à répondre à aucune demande de leur part. » Ne goûtant visiblement pas aux attaques de l’ex-chef de guerre tchadien, la cour a donc décidé de le faire comparaître de force ce mardi matin à 9h00 heure locale. Si ces avocats refusent toujours d’assurer sa défense, un avocat commis d’office devrait être désigné. Le procès pourrait alors être ajourné de deux à trois semaines, le temps pour son nouveau conseil de prendre connaissance du dossier. Dénonçant une stratégie de pourrissement de la procédure, les avocats des victimes et leurs soutiens ne semblaient guère étonnés par l’attitude provocatrice de Habré. « C’est un despote qui a martyrisé et tué des milliers de personnes. Il doit désormais avoir le courage de regarder ses victimes dans les yeux. De toute façon, qu’il soit là ou non, cela ne changera rien à la dimension historique de ce procès », affirmait Reed Brody, conseiller juridique et porte-parole de Human rights watch (HRW), qui épaule les victime depuis 1999. Restées calmes et dignes malgré les hurlements de Habré, la plupart d’entre elles considéraient que ce premier jour de procès constituait, déjà, une première victoire symbolique contre leur bourreau. Jeune Afrique

Guiné-Bissau: Ainda muito frágil

Na primeira quinzena deste mês de Julho de 2015, o primeiro-ministro português, Pedro Passos Coelho, efectuou uma breve deslocação à Guiné-Bissau, entre o Trópico de Câncer e o Equador, na África Ocidental, a fim de aí prometer 40 milhões de euros, ao abrigo de um Programa Estratégico de Cooperação delineado para o período quinquenal que vai até 2020. Explicou então o chefe do Governo português que estas verbas se destinam à defesa, à justiça, à educação, às empresas, à saúde (actualmente tão dependente de médicos marroquinos), à administração, ao ambiente, à energia e ao desenvolvimento rural. Os 40 milhões de dólares idos de Lisboa irão sendo aplicados à medida que os diversos sectores da vida guineense sejam capazes de os utilizar, se não se perder muito tempo em questiúnculas entre os diferentes órgãos de soberania, como tantas vezes tem acontecido. Pedro Passos Coelho fez-se acompanhar, além da mulher, Laura Ferreira, de origem africana, pelo ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros, Rui Machete, cujo homólogo, Mário Lopes Rosa, se encontra proibido pelo Ministério Público, de se ausentar da Guiné-Bissau, por alegado envolvimento em venda ilícita de licenças de pescas, durante o Governo de Transição que se seguiu ao golpe de estado de 2012. A situação de Mário Lopes Rosa, antigo ministro das Pescas, e os projectos de uma remodelação governamental dizem bem dos constantes problemas que se deparam ao país, entretanto também visitado pelo primeiro-ministro de Cavo Verde, José Maria Neves. A disponibilidade portuguesa, o empréstimo de 24 milhões anunciado pelo FMI, para a implementação de reformas, e o financiamento de 16,7 milhões de dólares do Banco Africano de Desenvolvimento (BAD) para a rede eléctrica de uma capital tantas vezes mergulhada na escuridão são pequenos indícios de que alguém quer acreditar na solidificação da estabilidade política, na retoma das reformas estagnadas e na sempre adiada reforma do sector da segurança, entre outros. Os problemas de infraestruturas e a pobreza generalizada fazem com que não se possa lançar precipitadamente foguetes a assinalar o desejável renascimento e viabilização de um território de 36.125 quilómetros quadrados onde vivem um pouco mais de 1,6 milhões de pessoas. Acontece que, se bem que calma ao longo deste último ano, a Guiné-Bissau continua a ser, não o esqueçamos, apenas um resquício do velho Reino do Gabu, que por seu turno pertencia ao império do Mali, dominado pelos mandingas. Dêem-se as voltas que se derem, a verdade é que não se trata de um Estado devidamente enraizado, com 300 ou 400 anos de tradição e com toda a gente a falar a mesma língua, a ter a mesma cultura. Se bem que pelo menos uns 45 por cento dos guineenses se consigam entender num crioulo próprio, a verdade é que nem sequer um terço da população fala a língua oficial do país, o português, e que determinadas franjas quase que só se expressam em balanta, fula, mandinga, manjaco, papel, beafada, mancanha, bijagó, felupe ou outros idiomas de âmbito regional. Enquanto o crioulo não for a língua veicular de bem mais de 90 por cento da população, e enquanto no mínimo 30 por cento dos cidadãos não conseguirem falar e escrever correctamente português, não se pode falar de unidade nacional nem de consolidação do Estado unilateralmente proclamado em 1973. A diversidade linguística, cultural e religiosa que se nota na Guiné-Bissau, um dos Produtos Internos Brutos mais baixos do mundo e, também, um dos piores Índices de Desenvolvimento Humano fazem com que, ainda durante muito tempo, tenhamos de ouvir falar dela como uma entidade estatal bastante frágil, ainda nos seus primórdios. Faz hoje 41 anos que o país pediu formalmente a sua adesão à Organização das Nações Unidas, mas a verdade é que ainda o não podemos considerar adulto nem resgatar do lote dos mais infelizes ao cimo da Terra. Bissau, Bafatá, Gabu, Bissorã, Bolama, Cacheu, Bubaque, Catió, Mansoa e Buba são as cidades (em muitos dos casos mais diríamos vilas) de uma República incipiente, a meio caminho entre o Trópico de Câncer e a linha do Equador. Jorge Heitor **************************************16 de Julho de 2015

A Grécia refém do Euro

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is focused on completing a bailout deal agreed with the eurozone despite setbacks in a crucial vote to push through tough reforms, his spokesman has said. Gabriel Sakellaridis was speaking after Mr Tsipras won the late-night vote convincingly, but with more than 30 of his own MPs voting against him. The vote means the government lost its majority but is expected to survive. Eurozone finance ministers are due to discuss the vote in a conference call. On Wednesday the European Commission proposed a €7bn (£5bn) "bridging" loan to help Greece pay debt interest due in several days. Alexis Tsipras said he was forced to accept the reforms. The bailout deal provides for Greece to receive up to €86bn. Under the terms agreed in Brussels on Monday, the first tranche of legislation relating to tax and pensions had to be passed by Wednesday. The Greek parliament discussed the bailout deal beyond a midnight deadline into Thursday morning. Mr Tsipras won the vote by 229 votes to 64, with the support of some opposition MPs. Analysis: Mark Lowen, BBC News, Athens The measures passed comfortably - but not without a major rebellion within the government. Alexis Tsipras said he'd had to choose between a deal he didn't believe in or chaotic default. He has been weakened and will now need a reshuffle or a vote of confidence. Of immediate concern for eurozone finance ministers on Thursday is how to fill Greece's short-term cash needs, with the country facing a big payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next week. It could be financed from an EU-wide fund, which Britain opposes. And so there's still a long road ahead. But one big obstacle here has been cleared.

Chade: Boko Haram mata 15

Un kamikaze déguisé en femme s'est fait exploser samedi sur le marché central de N'Djamena, faisant au moins 15 morts, un attentat revendiqué par le groupe islamiste Boko Haram. Même affaibli par l’opération régionale en cours, le groupe islamiste nigérian reste une menace pour les pays riverains du lac Tchad et d’abord pour le nord-est du Nigeria, où 13 personnes ont été tuées dans deux attaques distinctes depuis vendredi. Boko Haram a revendiqué l’attentat de N’Djamena et l’une des deux attaques commises au Nigeria, a rapporté le centre de surveillance des sites islamistes SITE, basé aux États-Unis. La revendication, faite sur Twitter, était signée « État Islamique, Province d’Afrique de l’Ouest », appellation que se donne Boko Haram depuis qu’il a fait allégeance en mars dernier au groupe État Islamique (EI), a indiqué le centre, qui a son siège aux États-Unis. « La Province d’Afrique de l’Ouest (anciennement Boko Haram) de #ISIS (acronyme anglais de l’EI, ndlr) a revendiqué les attentats suicide d’aujourd’hui au Tchad et au Nigeria », écrit SITE sur Twitter. Pour l’attentat de N’Djamena, le « bilan provisoire » est de 15 morts et 80 blessés, dont quatre graves. Neuf commerçantes et six hommes ont été tués, dont un gendarme tchadien, a déclaré à l’AFP le porte-parole de la police nationale, Paul Manga. Le kamikaze a également péri dans l’explosion. « Pas de doute, il s’agit de Boko Haram », a assuré une source policière avant que ne soit connue la revendication du groupe islamiste. Le groupe avait revendiqué une double attaque ayant fait 38 morts mi-juin à N’Djamena, la première du genre. Samedi, c’est un homme habillé en femme, le visage dissimulé par un voile intégral, qui « a voulu infiltrer le marché. (…) Il a été intercepté par les gendarmes, qui lui ont demandé de se démasquer. (…) C’est à ce moment qu’il a déclenché sa ceinture (d’explosifs) », a raconté le porte-parole de la police. La tête voilée de l’auteur présumé de l’attentat, arrachée par l’explosion, a été retrouvée près du lieu de l’attentat, et montrée à des journalistes sur place. Invoquant des raisons de sécurité après la double attaque de juin, les autorités tchadiennes avaient dans la foulée totalement interdit le port du voile intégral (niqab, ne laissant apparaître que les yeux) dans ce pays majoritairement musulman. Elles avaient en représailles bombardé des positions de Boko Haram au Nigeria. A proximité immédiate du lieu de l’attentat, des morceaux de chair humaine étaient éparpillés au milieu de flaques de sang. Aussitôt après l’attaque, commerçants et badauds ont fui le marché dans un mouvement de panique. « Tout le monde est très choqué », a confié un responsable policier, d’autant que « nous sommes en pleine période de ramadan », le mois de jeûne musulman. Le quartier du marché central, situé au cœur de la capitale, a été entièrement bouclé par les forces de sécurité tchadiennes. Selon des sources sécuritaires, le Premier ministre Kalzeube Pahimi Deubet a convoqué une réunion d’urgence. Dans un communiqué, le ministre des Affaires étrangères français, Laurent Fabius, a « condamné avec la plus grande fermeté » l' »odieux attentat » de samedi. Le président tchadien Idriss Déby est un allié de poids pour Paris dans la lutte contre les groupes jihadistes en Afrique sahélienne, et l’armée française a établi à N’Djamena l’état-major de son opération Barkhane contre ces groupes. Le « terrorisme » qui frappe aussi « les pays du Bassin du Lac Tchad doit être combattu avec détermination », a ajouté le ministre. Village attaqué au Nigeria L’armée tchadienne est en première ligne dans l’opération militaire régionale contre les insurgés de Boko Haram, qui ont multiplié les attentats-suicide ces dernières semaines dans le nord-est du Nigeria. Vendredi soir, 11 personnes ont été tuées lorsque des islamistes ont envahi un village reculé de l’État de Borno, à moitié incendié. Et samedi matin à Maiduguri, deux kamikazes ont fait deux morts en visant une gare routière bondée, où ils ont percuté un bus, un attentat revendiqué par Boko Haram. Ces attaques soulignent la capacité de nuisance du groupe islamiste, malgré les succès militaires revendiqués ces derniers mois par l’opération régionale à laquelle participent le Nigeria et ses voisins tchadiens, nigériens et camerounais. Le nouveau président nigérian Muhammadu Buhari a érigé en priorité la lutte contre Boko Haram qui, depuis son entrée en fonction le 29 mai, a multiplié les attaques, faisant près de 580 victimes au Nigeria, selon un décompte de l’AFP. « Il y a peu de chances que la lutte contre Boko Haram trouve son terme rapidement », a déclaré à l’AFP Ryan Cummings, analyste chez Red24. « Boko Haram reste perçu comme un problème nigérian, mais l’évidence montre que la menace a pris des proportions régionales qui réclament une solution régionale », selon lui. L’insurrection et sa répression ont fait au moins 15 000 morts depuis 2009 et plus de 1,5 million de déplacés. Jeune Afrique

A resignação de Varoufakis

The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage. Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great capital bestowed upon our government by the splendid NO vote be invested immediately into a YES to a proper resolution – to an agreement that involves debt restructuring, less austerity, redistribution in favour of the needy, and real reforms. Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today. I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum. And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride. We of the Left know how to act collectively with no care for the privileges of office. I shall support fully Prime Minister Tsipras, the new Minister of Finance, and our government. The superhuman effort to honour the brave people of Greece, and the famous OXI (NO) that they granted to democrats the world over, is just beginning. Yanis Varoufakis