__No to repression!
__Solidarity with Greek workers and youth!
Day 4 of the revolt in Greece
Today at 15.00 pm took place in Palaion Faliron, in a suburb cemetery of Athens, the funeral of the unfortunate 15 years old boy Alexis Grigoropoulos murdered in cold blood by a policeman on December the 6th, a State crime that triggered the biggest revolt on a national scale from the end of the Second World War. Thousands of people, young and older, participated in the funeral raising the left fist in revolutionary salute. But at the end of the funeral, the riot police attacked the crowd, targeting the youth. Clashes erupted. The big scandal now is that the Police used again guns, shooting at least 15 bullets apparently on the air to disperse the crowd!
Before the funeral, at noon, thousands of schoolchildren, students, teachers and University professors demonstrated in Athens and violent clashes again took place in Syntagma Square, in front of the parliament, with the riot police attacking savagely 13-14 years old young boys and girls.
The time of the funeral, protest marches took place in all the main cities of Greece which ended invariably to violent classes with the State repression forces. In Patras, the city with the harbor connecting Greece with Italy and Western Europe, behind the police were forces of the “Golden Dawn” fascist paramilitary group and goons of the New Democracy youth organization( that have assassinated in 1991 the left wing teacher Temboneras). Important clashes took place also in Thessalonica, Volos, and Crete. In many occasions very young schoolchildren stormed the Police headquarters of their respective town.
The Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis met with the President of the Republic, the leaders of the Opposition parties in parliament, and the Chairman of the Parliament. Although he did not succeeded to receive their direct endorsement for the declaration of a State of Emergency, the government is moving towards this direction, namely to declare a ‘state of exception” using the article 11 of the Constitution to forbid demonstrations and occupations. The hysteria campaign of the bourgeois mass media against the “hooligans” is a part of these preparations.
Tomorrow is the day of the long ago announced 24 hours General Strike against the government budget. In collaboration with the Right, the PASOK leadership of GSEE (General Confederation of Labor) has cancelled the rally in front of its headquarters as well as the march. In replacement it will held an “all democratic memorial meeting” in Syntagma Square.
The PASOK leadership of George Papandreou limits itself to verbal criticisms that “the government does not use effectively the police to protect social peace, the property of the citizens and the public buildings”…
The Stalinist KKE leadership goes farther to the right, by denouncing together with the government and the far right … Synaspismos (the ex-Eurocommunists) as “protector of the hooligans and provocateurs”. The General Secretary of KKE, Aleca Papariga described the young rioters as “Talibans” created by the secret services of the State under the governments of PASOK and of New Democracy and now becoming uncontrollable!! She received an enthusiastic praise by the right wing government and the fascist anti-Semite leader of the far right.
The KKE organizes its own separate meetings, in other place and hour, absolutely respecting the social peace that the current government of boy killers wants to impose.
Synaspismos, forming with its allies in the extra-parliamentary left the “Alliance of radical Left”-SYRIZA, calls for “the democratic re-organization of the police” and other mild reformist economic measures to raise the living conditions of a young generation with a miserable present and without a future. Being under constant pressure from the right, Synaspismos/SYRIZA cancelled its previous decision to hold the rally in front of the GSEE headquarters and then participating in a popular march of the strikers. It will hold a rally nearby Syntagma Square.
So, the only march tomorrow in Athens will be that organized by a number of far left organizations, including EEK, from the Polytechnic University to Parliament. The situation, of course, is precarious, open to all dangers for a police attack, but we will not yield to State terrorism and the cowardly pressures by reformists and Stalinists.
December 2008
eek@ath.forthnet.gr
Day 5 of the revolt in Greece
While the clashes between the riot police and the people, particularly the youth, five days after the killing of the 15 years old Alexis Grigoropoulos continue without interruption, a General Strike called by GSEE( General Confederation of Labor) and ADEDY( National Federation of Public Employs) for December the 10th took successfully place. The Strike was particularly successful in the Public, Education, Health, and Transport sectors.
The Prime Minister Karamanlis made a public call and sent an official letter to the leadership of the Confederation to cancel not only the march, which traditionally follows the central rally the day of the General Strike, but the rally in Syntagma Square as well and the strike itself “because of the tense situation”. The trade union bureaucracy had already cancelled the march and transferred the rally from the traditional place in front of the headquarters of GSEE to Syntagma Square, in front of the Parliament “in support of parliamentary democracy”… But the GSEE leadership dominated by PASOK did not dare to cancel the Strike or the rally, as Karamanlis demanded, fearing that the mass workers movement will mobilize independently and against the bureaucrats.
Under the combined pressures of the New Democracy government, of PASOK, and above all, of the Stalinist KKE which accused the reformist Synaspismos and its allies in SYRIZA to cover up for the “hooligans destroying social peace and private property”, SYRIZA cancelled its march and transferred its rally near Syntagma Square.
The Stalinists of KKE( who recently rehabilitated officially not only Stalin but also the verdict of the Moscow Trials and the purges of the ‘30s in the Soviet Union) have become the main slanderers of the youth revolt calling the young rebels “Talibans”, “gangsters”, “drug dealers”, “ prostitution dealers”(!!), “police agents” etc. Today in all mass media, the Right and particularly the fascists of the far right party LAOS praised, quoted approvingly, and repeated ad nauseam all the despicable slanders of the Gen. Sec. of KKE, A. Papariga against the revolt.
For the General Strike, they organized their own separate rally in Omonia Square and then they moved two blocks in the other direction and dispersed! They were less than 4.000.
So the only march in Athens in the day of the General Strike was that organized by the far left organizations of MERA( Front of Radical Front, which includes EEK) and of ENANTIA (United Anti-capitalist Left), joined by two Maoist groups and the Anti-Authoritarian Movement (anarchist). Some class struggle sections of the trade union movement, particularly in the Public sector, Health, Education, technical engineers etc., including the Federation of the high schools teachers refused to go neither with the PASOK-led GSEE or the Stalinists and joined us putting themselves in the first ranks of our march. It was the most impressive march of the Greek far left for decades: about 25.000 people! EEK had its strongest contingent for all its recent history. The Italian TV( which took also an interview by Savas Michael of EEK) as well as other foreign TV channels have showed our march- but not the Greek State TV, which nevertheless showed the tiny rally of GSEE in Syntagma and the Stalinist gathering in Omonia…
There were only small clashes with the riot police during the march, which, of course, geometrically escalated after the end of the march, and still continue this hour (around midnight, Greek time) around the Polytechnic University under occupation. The police use there tonight also goons of the paramilitary fascist group “Golden Dawn” – as they already did yesterday in Patras injuring with a knife a young girl- and threaten to attack also our Independent Action Center in the occupied Law Faculty in the Athens University.
In the Law Faculty under occupation, after the march, two General Assemblies took place: a Workers Assembly joined by hundreds of class struggle trade-unionists and a Student Assembly joined by representatives from nearly all the student unions of the Athens University. The traditions of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising against the CIA junta are revived: at that time too there were a Workers’ and a Students’ Assembly coordinating their actions as we do today. The Independent Action Center is precisely this Coordination.
A Statement was drafted and voted with a series of demands (for the abolition of anti-trade union, anti-pension, police state legislations, for wages increases, against privatizations, for nationalizations under workers control etc.), a call for an indefinite General Strike to overthrow the government, and a solemn decision for civil disobedience, demonstrations, strikes etc. against the State of Emergency prepared by the New Democracy government. The Statement, of course called also for the immediate release of all arrested, whose number until now is higher than 150 people, most of them young boys and girls around 15 years, the first target of this horrendous capitalist government of kid killers.
Another provocation became public today: the Medical –Legal Department of the Police wants to issue a verdict declaring the killing of Alexis …an accident. At the same time the two police murderers in their deposition in the Interrogator, made public by their lawyer (a notorious lawyer of the mob), accused their young victim to be “a nasty hooligan with a disturbed behavior”, “kicked out from his school” (the school rejected officially the slander). This character assassination- the Second Murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos- undoubtedly will provoke a new wave of explosions, keeping in mind that in the forefront of the struggle is 14-15 years schoolchildren.
Tomorrow there will be another student and schoolchildren demonstration. The same, the day after tomorrow. The mobilization will not stop until victory.
On December 18, the government budget is voted in parliament and another General Strike is planned for that day.
Venceremos!
December 10, 2008
___Savas Michael
Day 6 of the revolt in Greece
Six days after the murder of the young boy Alexis Grigoropoulos by a policeman triggering the biggest revolt of the last six decades in Greece, the rebellion of the youth continues, with the schoolchildren in the vanguard. More than a hundred of schools and faculties are under occupation. Demonstrations of school children erupted in the morning in most of the neighborhoods of Athens, police stations were attacked, and public buildings were occupied. The provocative attitude of the murderer and of his infamous lawyer Kouyas attempting a character assassination of the victim, presenting him as a hooligan with a disturbed behavior etc., and the attempt of the police to present the crime as an accident gave anew impulse to the mass revulsion and rebellion. In the afternoon a new demonstration of thousands of youth took place in the center of Athens, and another one will follow tomorrow.
Outside Athens, the revolt is engulfing the entire country; demonstrations take place even in regions traditionally conservative such as Laconia in the South.
News for actions of international solidarity from Moscow to Buenos Aires, and from Tokyo and Istanbul to Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Bologna, Paris, Grenoble, Copenhagen, Stockholm, etc. is received here with enthusiasm. The European bourgeoisie, on the contrary and its press show great concern and fear for the contagious effect of the Greek revolt to other European countries. Particularly the French bourgeoisie and Sarkozy himself expressed their fears. The paper “Minute” wrote that there is a danger for a new May 68 starting this time from the revolt in Greece. Financial Times wrote that the rebellion in Greece is an anomalous situation for the European Union”…
As the Greek schoolchildren say “Let’s make real ‘their’ worst nightmares!”
11 December 2008
___Savas Michael
