IMF blackmails Cyprus into making people homeless

This music video from Ireland is called Lough Sheelin Eviction, by the Wolfe Tones.

The song tells about one of many similar tragedies in nineteenth-century Ireland.

The Wikipedia article about the lake Lough Sheelin writes about it:

Lough Sheelin (from Irish: Loch Síodh Linn meaning “lake of the fairy pool”) is a limestone freshwater lough (lake) in Ireland located in County Westmeath, County Meath and County Cavan near the villages of Finnea (also spelled Finea) and Mountnugent and the town of Granard, (County Longford).

The lake is naturally populated by brown trouts whose native stocks had depleted in recent years, hence the Central Fisheries Board stocking with farm reared the lake for the pleasure of anglers.^[1] Trout stocks are estimated to be over 100,000.

It is also the setting of the song “Lough Sheelin Eviction”, made popular by The Wolfe Tones. The lyrics tell the sad, but unfortunately, too typical story of a family being evicted from their home by an unforgiving & merciless landlord. Absentee landlords were common in Ireland and for many landlords the main interest was income rather than the conditions of their tenants. Many landlords realized that they could get a higher income by turning their properties to pasture than to continue with the old practice of collecting rents from tenant farmers. Evictions were the most common way of getting rid of unwanted tenants. In the song the woman, Eileen, dies in the cold and the man is forced to flee his native land in order to find a new home.

It seems that the International Monetary Fund of Ms Christine Lagarde now want to bring back the horrors of nineteenth century Ireland to the twenty-first century. Not only in Ireland, but in other countries as well.

Often, one hears that decisions by parliaments are expressions of democracy. To hell with democracy, the International Monetary Fund apparently thinks; if such a parliament’s decision benefits poor people who are threatened with homelessness, instead of Big Banking for which the IMF stands.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

IMF holds back Cyprus bailout funds

International Monetary Fund says expected tranche of €88m will not be paid after parliament suspended new foreclosure law

Friday 19 December 2014 02.56 GMT

The International Monetary Fund has said it will not release a further €88m (£69m/US$108m) in bailout money for Cyprus on Friday after the country’s parliament delayed a key foreclosure law that was due to take effect at the end of December. …

The eurozone released its latest tranche of bailout loans to Cyprus in November after the government amended laws on foreclosures and on forced sales of mortgaged property in line with the conditions of the loan. The original laws would have made it easier for the country’s hobbled banks to start collecting on bad loans, which account for around half of all loans. …

Lawmakers said they approved the suspension to give the government time to draft additional insolvency legislation that would act as an extra buffer protecting those who lost jobs or saw their income slashed amid the country’s near financial meltdown from also losing their homes. …

This is the second time that Cyprus has run into trouble with its creditors over the foreclosures law. In September Cyprus’s eurozone partners refused to release a bailout instalment after parliament passed additional legislation weakening the law. The hurdle was overcome after lawmakers backtracked and amended some of the legislation while the supreme court struck down other pieces as unconstitutional.