International Monetary Fund are ‘criminals’, Greek Prime Minister says

This video says about itself:

Spain: Former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato arrested on money laundering charges

16 April 2015

Former IMF Managing Director Rodgrido Rato has been arrested under suspicion of money laundering after a court ordered a search of his residence in Salamanca district of Madrid, Thursday.

Spanish Justice Minister Rafael Catala has stated that Sepblac, the Spanish financial crime agency, is investigating the potentially illicit origins of money Rato brought into Spain using a tax amnesty program introduced by his former colleagues in the governing People’s Party.

This 2013 video says about itself:

Two French heads of the IMF in a row in legal scandals of different kinds begins to reflect embarrassingly on their country of origin. Christine Lagarde, when she was shortlisted for the job after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned in disgrace, did mention there was a risk of her past career resurfacing, but she got the post anyway.

The International Monetary Fund, as this blog reported before, has torpedoed a compromise plan for Greek finances, in which the lowest Greek pensions would not be cut further to the starvation level of 300 euros a month, as was the original plan of the European Commission–European Central Bank–IMF ‘troika’; but in which, instead, Greek government finances would be balanced by a 400 million euros cut in military expenses.

From daily The Guardian in Britain (with live updates):

Greece crisis: PM blasts ‘criminal’ IMF in defiant speech – live updates

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras has told his MPs that the IMF has “criminal responsibility” for the damage caused by Greece’s austerity programmes

Tuesday 16 June 2015 14.39 BST

IMF has ‘criminal responsibility’ for Greek crisis: PM

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said the International Monetary Fund had “criminal responsibility” for Greece’s debt crisis on Tuesday, and called on the country’s European creditors to assess the IMF’s policies.

“The time has come for the IMF’s proposals to be judged not just by us but especially by Europe,” Tsipras told his parliamentary group, two days after the failure of debt talks with the IMF and the European Union brought Greece closer to a possible default.

“The IMF has criminal responsibility for today’s situation.”

Acrimonious talks over the past five months have seen the Fund insist on further cuts to Greece’s pension system and a rise in value-added tax on basic goods, like electricity, which Athens says will only deepen hardships for ordinary Greeks.

“Right now, what dominates is the IMF’s harsh views on tough measures, and Europe’s on denying any discussion over debt viability,” Tsipras said, adding:

“The fixation on cuts… is most likely part of a political plan… to humiliate an entire people that has suffered in the past five years through no fault of its own.”

“The time has come for the IMF’s proposals to be judged in public.. .by Europe,” he told the MPs of his radical left Syriza party.

By Robert Stevens today:

Syriza also proposed to counter any pension spending cuts by cutting €200 million from the military budget. With Greece a key member of NATO, which is escalating its encirclement of Russia, such measures would also be intolerable [to the NATO and European Union militarist elites].