Political call of the Autonomous Meeting of the Struggle in Acheloos
(Mesochora Trikala, August 8-11, 2024) ---- Against "green" capitalist
development, dams and diversion... Acheloos will win, Mesochora will
live! ---- "Development was, is and will be first of all an uprooting.
Development is the economic war, with its winners and even more so with
its losers, the unrestrained plundering of nature, the destruction of
different local cultures".
Nowadays, the gigantic aggressive planning of the Greek state to plunder
the natural environment and society in order to serve the interests of
the domestic and multinational political and economic elites, and the
energy needs of the bankrupt state-capitalist way of organizing society,
it brings incalculable destructive consequences to natural ecosystems
and to the possibilities of decent living of people in their places.
In addition to the pharaonic projects that are being attempted today,
such as the dams in Acheloos and the open-pit gold mines in Halkidiki, a
series of other destructive projects for nature and local communities
are constantly announced or already implemented: such as the
installation of industrial "wind farms" in Ochi , Agrafa, Vermio,
Varnouda, Oiti, Taygetos, Ziria, Erymanthos and in almost all the
mountain complexes and many islands, the photovoltaic industrial zone
programs, the construction of hundreds of dams on rivers and streams,
the delivery of innumerable of natural habitats in the tourism industry,
the plans for hydrocarbon mining in marine and terrestrial areas along
the country -from Epirus and the entire Ionian Sea to the marine areas
of Crete, with wider geopolitical dimensions-, the burning of garbage in
Volos as an "alternative" fuel and way of managing the over-accumulation
of waste and waste produced by the over-consumption system itself, the
usurpation and privatization of water that is already taking place or is
underway in a number of areas (such as in the waters of Pelion with a
focus on Stagiates) ...
These designs come to be added to a more comprehensive and unprecedented
aggression towards nature and society, which has been developing in
recent years in the Greek reality, with the foundation of the
restructuring of the political and economic system in the name of
"development", which appears in "periods of crisis" as a case of
"national" interest and necessity, to cover up the incalculable social
and environmental costs it entails. A restructuring with characteristics
of a generalized business of divesting social needs (education, health,
etc.), public spaces and natural resources to private capital, carried
out by the Greek state under the tutelage of the EU. and evolves in
parallel with the corresponding synchronizing the relevant legal
framework. Such as the law on "FastTrack" and a number of other laws and
ministerial decisions, in order to remove institutional commitments and
restrictions on the exploitation and commercialization of the natural
environment, such as the protection of forests and Natura areas, the
public character of the coast, the obligation of environmental studies
and controls in large construction projects, etc.
The anti-environmental laws, such as 4685/2020, reflect the elimination
of any substantial protection of the natural world and its surrender to
the generalized attack of capital, on mountains and forests, on rivers
and waters, on coasts and the bottom of the sea, on name of "green"
growth and attracting investment to counter the economic downturn. The
foreordained result will be the merciless plundering and destruction of
the remaining natural world from the mountaintops to the seabeds and the
annihilation of the adjacent local societies, at least as we have known
them to date.
As for the so-called "green growth" it is nothing more than an
advertising wrapper to beautify the well-known destructive machine of
capitalism, so that it seems friendlier to the environment, at the same
time that it plunders and destroys it mercilessly sacrificing it on the
altar of profit.
After all, and on a global level, the conditions of wild exploitation of
nature and society bring further degradation of human life and the
natural world, exhausting natural resources and reaching the extreme
limits of jeopardizing survival itself, as indirectly acknowledged by
the same government officials now talking about an irreversible climate
and environmental crisis. From the Amazon to Siberia and from one end of
the earth to the other, the deforestation and forest fires, the
pollution of the seas, the melting of the eternal ice at the poles and
in the high mountains, climate changes, the greenhouse effect, the
shrinking of biodiversity and the disappearance of many animal species
are only some parts of the overall environmental crisis caused by
state-capitalist encroachment. Thus, both the future reserved and
imposed by the state-capitalist culture of contamination and development
that passes through the intensity of the attack on the environment and
human societies, as well as its economic, social, health and
environmental impasses that lead to to brutality and war.
It is a fact that, in our time, the natural world is under an
unprecedented destructive and predatory attack with disastrous
consequences, in the name of development. This attack does not take
place on a single point of the natural world or on certain elements of
it (mountains, forests or waters) and does not generally and
indefinitely have humans as its bearer. The attack is on the natural
world as a whole and is being done by a hierarchical and exploitative
political-economic system for the benefit of the oligarchy at the top,
at the expense of nature and humanity. Every point where this attack
manifests itself and every element that is used every time for its
exploitation in the name of development, is part of the wider
destruction that the environment is suffering and must be treated as
such. In other words, it does not only have its local dimension so that
the reaction concerns exclusively and limitedly a local community, but a
much wider dimension affecting many more social groups, the entire
society of oppressed and exploited people.
The defense of the natural world and an organization of social life in
harmony with it, as well as the defense of urban public-free spaces, is
an important element of the evolution of social struggles from below, in
the direction of freedom, autonomy, collectivization and creativity.
Today, the struggles to defend the natural world as well as public
spaces, which break out in many places now where their looting and
destruction are planned and even the livelihood of local communities are
affected, are often trapped in the narrow limits of locality, of
institutional protest , delegation, representation and mediation.
However, in many cases they mobilize a large number of residents of the
affected areas, while several times they go beyond the institutional
framework of protest, questioning state and local agencies and actors as
best they can.
Against this condition of generalized attack, looting and destruction, a
broad social awakening and a total social critique of the impasse and
bankrupt system is required, the overcoming of delegation, mediation and
inertia, the strengthening of social-class struggles, the formation of
self-organized, anti-institutional fronts of resistance - with
reciprocity, solidarity and consistency in common agreements and the
creation of every possible embankment at the points where state and
capitalist aggression manifests itself.
Faced with the dystopian future that the elites of power and wealth have
in store for us, there is the choice of struggle, when people
collectively take their lives into their own hands and resist organized,
en masse and militantly against their designs.
LET THE DAM BREAK DOWN LET THE VILLAGE LIVE - LET THE WATER RUN FREELY
FOREVER!
The now imminently threatened final destruction of the Acheloos river
through the operation of the dam of the Y/H factory and the artificial
reservoir in the area of Mesochora, as well as its partial diversion, in
the next year, towards Thessaly, will bring additional incalculable
devastation both in its mountain valleys, its natural ecosystems and
human settlements by drowning them in mud, as well as in the vulnerable
delta of its estuary in the Ionian where unique wetlands are formed.
In particular, for the historic village of Mesochora Trikala, the
removal of its inhabitants and its forced expropriation by PPC is
planned, as a large part of it, like the riverside settlements, will be
flooded by the waters of the artificial reservoir, while the rest will
be threatened by erosion .
Today, this destructive prospect for the region is more visible than at
any other time since the giant dams began to be built in the mid-1980s.
It should be noted that in 1985 agents of the then PASOK government and
PPC visited Mesohora , manipulating the residents with promises that the
project would be for the advancement of the place and concealing its
true pharaonic dimensions and its disastrous consequences for the
village and the mountainous valley of Acheloos. After the strong
reactions of the residents (when they realized the destructive
consequences of the dam) and the constant appeals to the CoE, the
project (which was designed based on political expediency without
technical, environmental and social impact studies) "froze". Until 2006,
when the then Minister and Member of Parliament of Thessaly Souflias
brought it back to the agenda, and since then the long-term struggle of
the people of Mesochora took on wider political and social dimensions
and Mesochora became the focus and point of reference for many defenders
of nature from all over the country.
The SYRIZA/ANEL government, fully aligned with the neoliberal policies
of looting the natural world and the world of work (imposed by all
governments without exception, the EU and the IMF, and which includes
the completion of the U/N projects and the privatization them),
completed the procedures to release
the Mesochoras H/H dam from the overall project of the diversion, which
has been blocked by the S.t.E., so that it can operate immediately.
On August 2, 2017, it was signed by the then Deputy Minister of
Environment, Sokr. Famelo, the AEPO (Environmental Conditions Approval
Decision) of the Mesohora dam. In a press conference given at the time,
the methods of the state officials for the operation of the dam were
presented and according to the timetable set at the time, the blocking
of the river should be done no later than July 2019.
At the same time, PPC, whose full privatization is a fixed goal of the
state, approved then, following the order of the Ministry of Energy, the
required budget for the completion of the dam and the Mesochora H/O
factory, as well as for the payment of compensation for the forced
expropriations, procedure which is opposed by many struggling residents.
In other words, it is the continuation of the state's embezzlement of
huge amounts of public (social) wealth for the operation of construction
projects that will have disastrous effects on the environment, local
communities and society as a whole, and which will then be returned for
exploitation and profit to private entrepreneurs along with the
exclusive right to exploit the water of the river, the energy produced
as well as the adjacent lands.
In exactly the same direction as the SYRIZA government, for the
immediate operation of the Mesochoras dam, with the prospect of the
partial diversion of the Acheloos always open. the ND government also
moved in the summer of 2019, which found the way wide open for the
destruction of Achelou and the annihilation of Mesochora with the AEPO
of 2017. After all, from the first announcements of the new government
during Mitsotakis' speech at the TIF, in September of 2019, it was the
planned damming of the river to fill the artificial reservoir and
operate the dam as a Y/H project, while the former regional governor K.
Agorastos, one of the men responsible for the incalculable disasters
caused by the floods in Thessaly, had set clearly also the issue of
diversion, defiantly saying "give me Achelous to divert him"!
In the same direction, of constant and suffocating pressure on the
residents of Mesochora to surrender the place to destruction, PPC
ultimatums are communicated every year asking them, based on the law on
Forced Expropriations, to leave their homes.
On November 26, 2020, the Council of State accepted the appeal of the
Association of Flood Victims of Mesochora for the annulment of the AEPO
of the SYRIZA government and with it all the declarations of the ND
government regarding the operation of the Mesochora dam were cancelled.
Mitsotakis tried to entertain the impressions of the reversal of his
announcements and announced that he will make an emergency visit to
Mesochora on January 30, 2021, to announce for the third time in 1.5
years the operation of the dam. However, citing the weather conditions,
he finally avoided going to the Mesochora dam, which was built without
any environmental study and disregarding the social costs, wasting
500 million euros for the benefit of private interests, destroying and
looting untouched landscapes, ecosystems and natural resources.
He remained in Trikala, where he made his well-known announcements to
government officials about the irrational, anti-environmental and
anti-social project of blocking and diverting the Acheloos, instructing
the Minister of the Environment K. Skrekas to proceed as soon as
possible with a new AEPO, in order to implement a plan that haunts the
place for 35 years.
The new updated EIA was done in record time and the government's new EIA
was issued on December 22, 2021, with its immediate implementation and
the filling of the artificial reservoir for the operation of the Y/H
plant by mid-2024. Two months later, in February 2022, the Association
of Flood Victims of Mesochora filed a new appeal to the SC, the 8th in a
row since 1994.
The final decision of the SC on 31/1/24 was rejecting the residents'
appeal, approving the government's AEPO and offering legally the green
light for the operation of the Mesochora dam, which means the
annihilation of the unique river ecosystem of Achelou in Pindos over 20
km long and its transformation into an artificial lake, the destruction
of many thousands of acres of riparian and mountain forests, the deluge
and annihilation of Mesochora and other coastal settlements.
Let us add that, in addition to these, other harmful plans are being
made for the area, in order to grant permits and grant public lands to
private individuals, for the installation of industrial "wind farms" on
the Aspropotamos mountain ranges that surround the Acheloos valley.
As well as that, according to the Regional Development Program of
Thessaly 2021-2025, the entire mountainous western Thessaly
(Municipalities of Kalambaka, Pyli, Argithea, Karditsa and Sofadon) is
marked as a zone for siting industrial wind installations and as a zone
for siting dams, in addition to those of of giants in Meso Chora and
Sykia of the mega project of the diversion of the Acheloos.
Referring in particular to the issue of the partial diversion of the
Achelous to Thessaly, a project illegal according to European standards
where the transfer of water from one hydrological basin to another is
prohibited
and blocked by a series of decisions of the CoE, continues to be a
central objective of the Greek state, with the continuous financing for
the maintenance of the projects that have already been constructed (the
diversion tunnel, part of the dam in Sykia, etc.) so that it can proceed
in sections.
Here we should underline that the non-functioning of the Mesochora dam
to this day, and thus the protection of the upper reaches of the
Acheloos and its mountain valley in Pindos, is primarily due to the
long-standing resistance of the Mesochoras themselves, who do not
surrender their homes and do not leave their village in the plans of the
state. This resistance of Mesochora, which has been held hostage for 35
years and threatened with annihilation, became the focus of a wider
struggle of solidarity, and the village a meeting point for many people
fighting against the looting and destruction of nature.
And let us note that our belief is that, after the recent legal decision
of the SC, it is absolutely necessary to restart the struggle with the
widest possible rallying of all struggling Mesohorites and solidarity
workers from all over the country, on a common front, so that with their
mobilizations to repel the political decision to destroy the river and
the village. Far from any idea of cooperation with self-governing
institutions and actors who co-sign and support the condemnation of
Acheloos and Mesochora.
*
On our part, as an Autonomous Struggle Meeting, expecting nothing
substantial and useful from institutions and their mediators - and being
aware of the fact that the logic of delegation and trust in political
mediation leads to demobilization, disillusionment and defeat - we
continue to steadily organize our resistances from below and raise every
possible barrier to the advance of state and capital, with the aim of
strengthening the bonds of solidarity of the struggling people,
coordinating actions and synthesizing their principles and positions in
the direction of a more comprehensive choosing to break with power and
its antisocial imperatives.
We support the local resistance initiatives that are essential to the
dynamics and development of the struggle, and we appeal more broadly to
the whole world of social-class struggles believing that the struggle
against the mega-project of the dams and the diversion of the Achelous
is not about a local social/environmental issue, but a central political
issue, the defense of nature and society from state and capital.
Perceiving the river Acheloos as a part of the natural world that is
mercilessly plundered and destroyed, the common belief of those of us
who have been in Mesochora since 2007 was to intervene exactly where the
destructive activities are evolving, to contribute to the constant
resurgence of the struggle both against the dams and the river
diversion, as well as sandbanks and riparian forest deforestation, as
well as against the overall assault on the natural world.
Many struggling residents of Mesochora from the mid-1980s until today
have chosen the dignified path of struggle and it is up to them to
continue it today, in the face of the powers (central, regional and
municipal) that are conspiring against the village, the interests that
played on their backs for the sake of the state, PPC, construction
companies and the future buyers of the dam, but also beyond
institutional, party and factor logics that cultivate delusions.
On our part, not trusting the institutions that sooner or later (as the
recent final decision of the Council of State has shown) finally align
with the plans of the state and capital, trusting only the movements of
struggling people and seeking the radicalization and coordination of
social resistance from below, we stand in solidarity with all those who
struggle collectively, with strength and dignity against the plundering
and destruction of nature.
And we consider the self-organized competitive presence of the ASA in
the place where the crime of the pharaonic dams on the Acheloos is being
committed and its diversion is planned, necessary and useful for the
awakening of consciences and the development of both the struggle for
the defense of the river and local societies, as well as and for the
defense of the natural world and society as a whole.
EXPLOITATION AGAINST NATURE - A FIGHT FOR THE LAND AND FREEDOM!
INDEPENDENT RACE MEETING,
August 2024
https://landandfreedom.gr/el/agones/1669-oxi-fragmata-eksorykseis-kai-aiolika-eleythera-potamia-eleythera-vouna
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
(Mesochora Trikala, August 8-11, 2024) ---- Against "green" capitalist
development, dams and diversion... Acheloos will win, Mesochora will
live! ---- "Development was, is and will be first of all an uprooting.
Development is the economic war, with its winners and even more so with
its losers, the unrestrained plundering of nature, the destruction of
different local cultures".
Nowadays, the gigantic aggressive planning of the Greek state to plunder
the natural environment and society in order to serve the interests of
the domestic and multinational political and economic elites, and the
energy needs of the bankrupt state-capitalist way of organizing society,
it brings incalculable destructive consequences to natural ecosystems
and to the possibilities of decent living of people in their places.
In addition to the pharaonic projects that are being attempted today,
such as the dams in Acheloos and the open-pit gold mines in Halkidiki, a
series of other destructive projects for nature and local communities
are constantly announced or already implemented: such as the
installation of industrial "wind farms" in Ochi , Agrafa, Vermio,
Varnouda, Oiti, Taygetos, Ziria, Erymanthos and in almost all the
mountain complexes and many islands, the photovoltaic industrial zone
programs, the construction of hundreds of dams on rivers and streams,
the delivery of innumerable of natural habitats in the tourism industry,
the plans for hydrocarbon mining in marine and terrestrial areas along
the country -from Epirus and the entire Ionian Sea to the marine areas
of Crete, with wider geopolitical dimensions-, the burning of garbage in
Volos as an "alternative" fuel and way of managing the over-accumulation
of waste and waste produced by the over-consumption system itself, the
usurpation and privatization of water that is already taking place or is
underway in a number of areas (such as in the waters of Pelion with a
focus on Stagiates) ...
These designs come to be added to a more comprehensive and unprecedented
aggression towards nature and society, which has been developing in
recent years in the Greek reality, with the foundation of the
restructuring of the political and economic system in the name of
"development", which appears in "periods of crisis" as a case of
"national" interest and necessity, to cover up the incalculable social
and environmental costs it entails. A restructuring with characteristics
of a generalized business of divesting social needs (education, health,
etc.), public spaces and natural resources to private capital, carried
out by the Greek state under the tutelage of the EU. and evolves in
parallel with the corresponding synchronizing the relevant legal
framework. Such as the law on "FastTrack" and a number of other laws and
ministerial decisions, in order to remove institutional commitments and
restrictions on the exploitation and commercialization of the natural
environment, such as the protection of forests and Natura areas, the
public character of the coast, the obligation of environmental studies
and controls in large construction projects, etc.
The anti-environmental laws, such as 4685/2020, reflect the elimination
of any substantial protection of the natural world and its surrender to
the generalized attack of capital, on mountains and forests, on rivers
and waters, on coasts and the bottom of the sea, on name of "green"
growth and attracting investment to counter the economic downturn. The
foreordained result will be the merciless plundering and destruction of
the remaining natural world from the mountaintops to the seabeds and the
annihilation of the adjacent local societies, at least as we have known
them to date.
As for the so-called "green growth" it is nothing more than an
advertising wrapper to beautify the well-known destructive machine of
capitalism, so that it seems friendlier to the environment, at the same
time that it plunders and destroys it mercilessly sacrificing it on the
altar of profit.
After all, and on a global level, the conditions of wild exploitation of
nature and society bring further degradation of human life and the
natural world, exhausting natural resources and reaching the extreme
limits of jeopardizing survival itself, as indirectly acknowledged by
the same government officials now talking about an irreversible climate
and environmental crisis. From the Amazon to Siberia and from one end of
the earth to the other, the deforestation and forest fires, the
pollution of the seas, the melting of the eternal ice at the poles and
in the high mountains, climate changes, the greenhouse effect, the
shrinking of biodiversity and the disappearance of many animal species
are only some parts of the overall environmental crisis caused by
state-capitalist encroachment. Thus, both the future reserved and
imposed by the state-capitalist culture of contamination and development
that passes through the intensity of the attack on the environment and
human societies, as well as its economic, social, health and
environmental impasses that lead to to brutality and war.
It is a fact that, in our time, the natural world is under an
unprecedented destructive and predatory attack with disastrous
consequences, in the name of development. This attack does not take
place on a single point of the natural world or on certain elements of
it (mountains, forests or waters) and does not generally and
indefinitely have humans as its bearer. The attack is on the natural
world as a whole and is being done by a hierarchical and exploitative
political-economic system for the benefit of the oligarchy at the top,
at the expense of nature and humanity. Every point where this attack
manifests itself and every element that is used every time for its
exploitation in the name of development, is part of the wider
destruction that the environment is suffering and must be treated as
such. In other words, it does not only have its local dimension so that
the reaction concerns exclusively and limitedly a local community, but a
much wider dimension affecting many more social groups, the entire
society of oppressed and exploited people.
The defense of the natural world and an organization of social life in
harmony with it, as well as the defense of urban public-free spaces, is
an important element of the evolution of social struggles from below, in
the direction of freedom, autonomy, collectivization and creativity.
Today, the struggles to defend the natural world as well as public
spaces, which break out in many places now where their looting and
destruction are planned and even the livelihood of local communities are
affected, are often trapped in the narrow limits of locality, of
institutional protest , delegation, representation and mediation.
However, in many cases they mobilize a large number of residents of the
affected areas, while several times they go beyond the institutional
framework of protest, questioning state and local agencies and actors as
best they can.
Against this condition of generalized attack, looting and destruction, a
broad social awakening and a total social critique of the impasse and
bankrupt system is required, the overcoming of delegation, mediation and
inertia, the strengthening of social-class struggles, the formation of
self-organized, anti-institutional fronts of resistance - with
reciprocity, solidarity and consistency in common agreements and the
creation of every possible embankment at the points where state and
capitalist aggression manifests itself.
Faced with the dystopian future that the elites of power and wealth have
in store for us, there is the choice of struggle, when people
collectively take their lives into their own hands and resist organized,
en masse and militantly against their designs.
LET THE DAM BREAK DOWN LET THE VILLAGE LIVE - LET THE WATER RUN FREELY
FOREVER!
The now imminently threatened final destruction of the Acheloos river
through the operation of the dam of the Y/H factory and the artificial
reservoir in the area of Mesochora, as well as its partial diversion, in
the next year, towards Thessaly, will bring additional incalculable
devastation both in its mountain valleys, its natural ecosystems and
human settlements by drowning them in mud, as well as in the vulnerable
delta of its estuary in the Ionian where unique wetlands are formed.
In particular, for the historic village of Mesochora Trikala, the
removal of its inhabitants and its forced expropriation by PPC is
planned, as a large part of it, like the riverside settlements, will be
flooded by the waters of the artificial reservoir, while the rest will
be threatened by erosion .
Today, this destructive prospect for the region is more visible than at
any other time since the giant dams began to be built in the mid-1980s.
It should be noted that in 1985 agents of the then PASOK government and
PPC visited Mesohora , manipulating the residents with promises that the
project would be for the advancement of the place and concealing its
true pharaonic dimensions and its disastrous consequences for the
village and the mountainous valley of Acheloos. After the strong
reactions of the residents (when they realized the destructive
consequences of the dam) and the constant appeals to the CoE, the
project (which was designed based on political expediency without
technical, environmental and social impact studies) "froze". Until 2006,
when the then Minister and Member of Parliament of Thessaly Souflias
brought it back to the agenda, and since then the long-term struggle of
the people of Mesochora took on wider political and social dimensions
and Mesochora became the focus and point of reference for many defenders
of nature from all over the country.
The SYRIZA/ANEL government, fully aligned with the neoliberal policies
of looting the natural world and the world of work (imposed by all
governments without exception, the EU and the IMF, and which includes
the completion of the U/N projects and the privatization them),
completed the procedures to release
the Mesochoras H/H dam from the overall project of the diversion, which
has been blocked by the S.t.E., so that it can operate immediately.
On August 2, 2017, it was signed by the then Deputy Minister of
Environment, Sokr. Famelo, the AEPO (Environmental Conditions Approval
Decision) of the Mesohora dam. In a press conference given at the time,
the methods of the state officials for the operation of the dam were
presented and according to the timetable set at the time, the blocking
of the river should be done no later than July 2019.
At the same time, PPC, whose full privatization is a fixed goal of the
state, approved then, following the order of the Ministry of Energy, the
required budget for the completion of the dam and the Mesochora H/O
factory, as well as for the payment of compensation for the forced
expropriations, procedure which is opposed by many struggling residents.
In other words, it is the continuation of the state's embezzlement of
huge amounts of public (social) wealth for the operation of construction
projects that will have disastrous effects on the environment, local
communities and society as a whole, and which will then be returned for
exploitation and profit to private entrepreneurs along with the
exclusive right to exploit the water of the river, the energy produced
as well as the adjacent lands.
In exactly the same direction as the SYRIZA government, for the
immediate operation of the Mesochoras dam, with the prospect of the
partial diversion of the Acheloos always open. the ND government also
moved in the summer of 2019, which found the way wide open for the
destruction of Achelou and the annihilation of Mesochora with the AEPO
of 2017. After all, from the first announcements of the new government
during Mitsotakis' speech at the TIF, in September of 2019, it was the
planned damming of the river to fill the artificial reservoir and
operate the dam as a Y/H project, while the former regional governor K.
Agorastos, one of the men responsible for the incalculable disasters
caused by the floods in Thessaly, had set clearly also the issue of
diversion, defiantly saying "give me Achelous to divert him"!
In the same direction, of constant and suffocating pressure on the
residents of Mesochora to surrender the place to destruction, PPC
ultimatums are communicated every year asking them, based on the law on
Forced Expropriations, to leave their homes.
On November 26, 2020, the Council of State accepted the appeal of the
Association of Flood Victims of Mesochora for the annulment of the AEPO
of the SYRIZA government and with it all the declarations of the ND
government regarding the operation of the Mesochora dam were cancelled.
Mitsotakis tried to entertain the impressions of the reversal of his
announcements and announced that he will make an emergency visit to
Mesochora on January 30, 2021, to announce for the third time in 1.5
years the operation of the dam. However, citing the weather conditions,
he finally avoided going to the Mesochora dam, which was built without
any environmental study and disregarding the social costs, wasting
500 million euros for the benefit of private interests, destroying and
looting untouched landscapes, ecosystems and natural resources.
He remained in Trikala, where he made his well-known announcements to
government officials about the irrational, anti-environmental and
anti-social project of blocking and diverting the Acheloos, instructing
the Minister of the Environment K. Skrekas to proceed as soon as
possible with a new AEPO, in order to implement a plan that haunts the
place for 35 years.
The new updated EIA was done in record time and the government's new EIA
was issued on December 22, 2021, with its immediate implementation and
the filling of the artificial reservoir for the operation of the Y/H
plant by mid-2024. Two months later, in February 2022, the Association
of Flood Victims of Mesochora filed a new appeal to the SC, the 8th in a
row since 1994.
The final decision of the SC on 31/1/24 was rejecting the residents'
appeal, approving the government's AEPO and offering legally the green
light for the operation of the Mesochora dam, which means the
annihilation of the unique river ecosystem of Achelou in Pindos over 20
km long and its transformation into an artificial lake, the destruction
of many thousands of acres of riparian and mountain forests, the deluge
and annihilation of Mesochora and other coastal settlements.
Let us add that, in addition to these, other harmful plans are being
made for the area, in order to grant permits and grant public lands to
private individuals, for the installation of industrial "wind farms" on
the Aspropotamos mountain ranges that surround the Acheloos valley.
As well as that, according to the Regional Development Program of
Thessaly 2021-2025, the entire mountainous western Thessaly
(Municipalities of Kalambaka, Pyli, Argithea, Karditsa and Sofadon) is
marked as a zone for siting industrial wind installations and as a zone
for siting dams, in addition to those of of giants in Meso Chora and
Sykia of the mega project of the diversion of the Acheloos.
Referring in particular to the issue of the partial diversion of the
Achelous to Thessaly, a project illegal according to European standards
where the transfer of water from one hydrological basin to another is
prohibited
and blocked by a series of decisions of the CoE, continues to be a
central objective of the Greek state, with the continuous financing for
the maintenance of the projects that have already been constructed (the
diversion tunnel, part of the dam in Sykia, etc.) so that it can proceed
in sections.
Here we should underline that the non-functioning of the Mesochora dam
to this day, and thus the protection of the upper reaches of the
Acheloos and its mountain valley in Pindos, is primarily due to the
long-standing resistance of the Mesochoras themselves, who do not
surrender their homes and do not leave their village in the plans of the
state. This resistance of Mesochora, which has been held hostage for 35
years and threatened with annihilation, became the focus of a wider
struggle of solidarity, and the village a meeting point for many people
fighting against the looting and destruction of nature.
And let us note that our belief is that, after the recent legal decision
of the SC, it is absolutely necessary to restart the struggle with the
widest possible rallying of all struggling Mesohorites and solidarity
workers from all over the country, on a common front, so that with their
mobilizations to repel the political decision to destroy the river and
the village. Far from any idea of cooperation with self-governing
institutions and actors who co-sign and support the condemnation of
Acheloos and Mesochora.
*
On our part, as an Autonomous Struggle Meeting, expecting nothing
substantial and useful from institutions and their mediators - and being
aware of the fact that the logic of delegation and trust in political
mediation leads to demobilization, disillusionment and defeat - we
continue to steadily organize our resistances from below and raise every
possible barrier to the advance of state and capital, with the aim of
strengthening the bonds of solidarity of the struggling people,
coordinating actions and synthesizing their principles and positions in
the direction of a more comprehensive choosing to break with power and
its antisocial imperatives.
We support the local resistance initiatives that are essential to the
dynamics and development of the struggle, and we appeal more broadly to
the whole world of social-class struggles believing that the struggle
against the mega-project of the dams and the diversion of the Achelous
is not about a local social/environmental issue, but a central political
issue, the defense of nature and society from state and capital.
Perceiving the river Acheloos as a part of the natural world that is
mercilessly plundered and destroyed, the common belief of those of us
who have been in Mesochora since 2007 was to intervene exactly where the
destructive activities are evolving, to contribute to the constant
resurgence of the struggle both against the dams and the river
diversion, as well as sandbanks and riparian forest deforestation, as
well as against the overall assault on the natural world.
Many struggling residents of Mesochora from the mid-1980s until today
have chosen the dignified path of struggle and it is up to them to
continue it today, in the face of the powers (central, regional and
municipal) that are conspiring against the village, the interests that
played on their backs for the sake of the state, PPC, construction
companies and the future buyers of the dam, but also beyond
institutional, party and factor logics that cultivate delusions.
On our part, not trusting the institutions that sooner or later (as the
recent final decision of the Council of State has shown) finally align
with the plans of the state and capital, trusting only the movements of
struggling people and seeking the radicalization and coordination of
social resistance from below, we stand in solidarity with all those who
struggle collectively, with strength and dignity against the plundering
and destruction of nature.
And we consider the self-organized competitive presence of the ASA in
the place where the crime of the pharaonic dams on the Acheloos is being
committed and its diversion is planned, necessary and useful for the
awakening of consciences and the development of both the struggle for
the defense of the river and local societies, as well as and for the
defense of the natural world and society as a whole.
EXPLOITATION AGAINST NATURE - A FIGHT FOR THE LAND AND FREEDOM!
INDEPENDENT RACE MEETING,
August 2024
https://landandfreedom.gr/el/agones/1669-oxi-fragmata-eksorykseis-kai-aiolika-eleythera-potamia-eleythera-vouna
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