The recent fires in Attica, with its tragic consequences, the loss of dozens of human lives (more than 90), the dozens of wounded and missing persons, the destruction of property and of forest regions, constitutes a time-predicted crime. A crime whose main culprit is the politics applied for many years by all the bourgeois governments, the current SYRIZA-ANEL government among them.

The KKE has uncovered the cause of this situation: it is the politics that sacrifices the works necessary for the protection of human life to the altars of profit and is responsible for the chaotic urban expansion and for the commercialization of the land, for the nonexistence of a spatial plan that will serve the people’s needs, for the undermining of the sectors of forest protection and firefighting, for the cut-down of the public spending having as a result tremendous deficiencies in means, substructures, staff.

In the meantime, the measures announced by the government for the support of the affected are not even enough to heal the wounds, to rebuilt homes and to help these people stand on their feet again. This is what our experience teaches us from similar situations and calamities, when this kind of measures were taken.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), with a Question to the relevant ministers of the government, presents in Parliament the demands already proposed by trade-unions and other mass organizations of the region. In concrete, among others, we demand:

• To deal with the lacks in the sectors of forest protection and firefighting, to create a plan to confront similar phenomena.
• Urgent measures for the support of the local public health-care structures, for the treating of those in need.
• Measures of safe housing, health and sanitation, clothing and feeding of the families affected by the fires.
• Works to deal with the floods and the potential contamination of the atmosphere and of the aquifer in the fire-affected areas.
• Building of a modern village under the responsibility of the state, with spatial plan that will serve the people’s needs.
• Immediate reestablishment of the water and electricity networks, without charging the consumers.
• Support and compensation of the citizens and professionals of the area to 100% of the total loss.
• Full support for the people that lost their jobs due to the fires by the Organization of Occupation of Work Force (OAED). Full and immediate payment of their salaries, their social security and health-care benefits.
• Immediate payment of unemployment benefit to all the self-employed that lost their businesses to the fires, without terms and conditions.

1/8/2018