Greek pro-corporate police brutality

From daily News Line in Britain:

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Anti-terror units attack town!

SQUADS of the Greek anti-terrorist units and riot police armed with automatic weapons, early on Thursday morning occupied the small coastal town of Ierissos in northern Greece, about 100km east of Salonica.

The armed police raided houses in the town of those accused of attacking the installations of the gold mining company Greek Gold last week.

For over two years, Ierissos’ inhabitants have been fighting against the Greek Gold mining activities which they say destroy the forest and pollute the environment. The vast majority of the people of Ierissos make a living out of agriculture and tourism.

The police operation, likened by the town’s inhabitants to a ‘foreign army occupation’, triggered off mass protests with people confronting the armed police and demanding that they be withdrawn from the town.

Instead the police attacked them, making extensive use of tear-gas. People then set up barricades and made fires to lessen the tear-gas’ effects. The clashes between the town’s inhabitants and the armed police spread to the fields around the town.

Tear-gas choked up the town and a canister hit a boy in a school yard. Students came out in the streets and were confronted by riot-police. Four 15-year-old students were arrested. Despite the Ierissos’ school headmaster’s protests to the town’s police station, the military-style operation continued all day.

The Salonica director of the office of public prosecutor Panagis Yiannakis called a joint meeting for yesterday morning of Ierissos representatives, the area’s Mayor Christos Pakhtas and the chief of police Athinagoras Pazarlis.

The meeting did not take place as both the Mayor and the chief of police refused to attend. The Ierissos people’s committee issued a statement saying that Mayor Pakhtas is not welcome in the town. In 2003, Pakhtas resigned as deputy Finance Minister after being accused of involvement in illegal negotiations for the sale of the gold mines.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Salonica on Thursday against the police operation at Ierissos.

In Athens on Thursday about 3,000 college and university students marched through the city centre against the government’s scheme to close down at least one third of all college and university departments throughout Greece.

On Friday workers in the archaeology and monuments sectors staged a one-day national strike and all museums and sites remained shut.

More than 10,000 people took to the streets of Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki on Saturday to protest against a gold mine being developed by a Canada-based transnational: here.

See also here.

Related articles

• Police use tear gas to break up Halkidiki demo (ekathimerini.com)
• Heroic Ierissos Revolts Against Graecokleptocracy (venitism.blogspot.com)
• Skouries mine dispute intensifies as riot police move in on nearby village (ekathimerini.com)
• Greek Granny goads riot police at gold mining protest with wartime song (video) (keeptalkinggreece.com)
• Skouries Gold Mine: Clashes between residents & police, tear gas in school (keeptalkinggreece.com)
• Greece: Corruption, Police State and Struggle in Skouries (worldnewscurator.com)
• Greek police anti-farmer violence (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Greece and gold: Fast money, but at what cost? (greenfudge.org)
• Nine injured in Greece gold mine protest (bigpondnews.com)
• Gold Mine Protesters Cut Off Ierissos (greece.greekreporter.com)

Greek government’s oppression of workers

From daily News Line in Britain:

Thursday, 7 February 2013

CIVIL CONSCRIPTION DEFIED!

THE Greek coalition government ordered the forced ‘civil conscription’ of the seafarers on Tuesday on the sixth day of their 100 per cent solid national strike.

Two weeks ago the Greek government imposed the dictatorial ‘civil conscription’ on the Athens Metro and tram workers who were on strike.

The GSEE (Greek TUC) have called a 24-hour Athens-wide general strike; the Piraeus Trades Council also called a 24-hours strike.

The government said that it will issue ‘conscription papers’ to all seafarers who will then be obliged to go back to work. If they don’t they can be arrested and put to jail.

In a statement the PNO federation of seafarers states that it ‘defies’ the government’s orders. It is the fourth time in the last 10 years that striking seafarers have been conscripted. In all past occasions the PNO had ordered seafarers back to work.

The government action came after the PNO had taken a majority decision to extend the strike for another 48-hours.

Over 1,000 striking seafarers along with many trades unions delegations held a rally in the Piraeus port on Tuesday night. PNO’s general secretary Yiannis Khalas said that they have called off the strike in the provinces to concentrate the struggle on Piraeus and the two other Athens ports from which 90 per cent of all ferries sail.

See also here. And here.

Related articles

• Greeks back ferry strikers (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Greek Seamen End Strike After Government Order (gcaptain.com)
• Greece: Emergency Civil Mobilization Orders Forcibly End Dock Worker’s Strike (99getsmart.com)
• Greeks strike ahead of national walkout (morningstaronline.co.uk)

Greek subway workers fight for their rights

This video from 2009 is called Greek Worker Protest.

Dutch NOS TV reports today that the Greek government threatens subway workers with up to five years in jail for striking to defend their rights.

By Robert Stevens:

Striking Athens subway workers defy court ruling

24 January 2013

The strike by Athens subway workers continued into its seventh day yesterday in defiance of a court ruling declaring the work action illegal. The ruling handed down Monday night allows the government to invoke emergency powers to force the strikers back to work by means of a “civil mobilisation,” which effectively conscripts the workers into the armed forces.

The main metro workers’ union, SELMA, called the strike in opposition to massive pay cuts being imposed as part of a restructuring of civil service wages. The implementation of the cuts is a condition laid down by the “troika”—the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank—for Greece receiving further loans from the European Union. The New Democracy-led coalition government has pledged to impose the wage reductions along with many other attacks on Greek workers.

In December, the Greek parliament passed a new package of austerity measures that had been agreed by euro zone finance ministers as the condition for further loans to Greece.

The metro workers are employed by state-run Urban Rail Transport, which manages Athens’ metro, tram and electric railway services. The government measures slash the salaries of all employees at public enterprises, known as DEKOs, in accordance with a new pay system for civil servants. The Urban Rail Transport wage bill is to be reduced from €97.7 million in 2012 to €74.6 million this year (a 25 percent cut). Average gross monthly wages without overtime on the metro will fall from about €2,500 to €2,038.

Other workers employed by the Athens Mass Transit System (STASY) have also gone on strike. On Tuesday, the bus, trolley and tram systems joined the strike, carrying out four- and five-hour work stoppages. There was no service on the Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway or the tram between noon and 4 p.m. Wednesday. Workers at firms not controlled by STASY have also struck.

Coinciding with Monday’s ruling, euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels backed the pay-out to Greece of a fresh loan instalment worth €9.2 billion (US$12.3 billion), following on from the €34.3 billion agreed on last month.

The attack on metro workers and other civil servants is part of the decimation of the living standards of the entire Greek working class. Workers, young people and pensioners are living in poverty conditions not witnessed since the Nazi occupation and face still more brutal austerity measures. In contrast, the bankers and ruling elite in Greece and Europe continue to have massive amounts of money shovelled at them. The vast bulk of Greece’s loans from the EU is immediately repatriated to the country’s international creditors, led by German and French banks, and most of what is left ends up in the coffers of Greece’s own banking elite.

On Tuesday, several transport workers’ unions, not including SELMA, met to discuss the dispute. Unable to contain the anger of workers at this stage, the union bureaucrats endorsed a strike by workers in all sections of public transport to be held between noon and 4 p.m. on January 29. A further 24-hour strike is being planned for January 31, according to reports.

The smashing of the strike is a priority of the New Democracy-PASOK-DIMAR (Democratic Left) coalition government, which is determined to set a new benchmark for wages and pensions that have already declined in value by 40 percent and more.

New Democracy Transport Minister Costis Hatzidakis declared at the outset of the strike that “no group of workers will be exempted from the unified salary structure.”

“There is no scope for concessions,” Hatzidakis warned. “The government cannot back down on this.” Threatening to issue a civil mobilisation order, he added, “There are limits and terms for strikes that I fear have been trampled on.”

The right-wing newspaper Kathimerini noted in regard to Hatzidakis’s intervention that “the measures must be implemented as part of the country’s commitments to foreign creditors.”

On Wednesday, the government reiterated its threat to break the strike. Speaking to Radio Vima, spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said, “If the instigators of the strike do not comply with the court’s decisions by tomorrow, they will have to face the legal repercussions. The law foresees what should be done with those leading the strikes.”

The ruling elite is well aware that such attacks cannot be imposed on a militant and angry population by democratic means. Hence its resort to authoritarian measures such as a civil mobilisation order, which would bring in the army.

Since the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008, the Greek ruling class has repeatedly relied on the army to suppress working class opposition. In 2010, the government, then headed by the social democratic PASOK, issued a civil mobilisation order and brought in the army to smash the truckers’ strike. The following year, the army was placed on standby to intervene against the refuse workers’ strike.

…

What is required is an appeal to the entire Greek working class to rally behind the metro workers and take up a struggle to bring down the austerity government of the bankers and big business.

The transport workers’ stoppage is the latest in a series of strikes testifying to profound social tensions. Last week, Hellenic Postbank workers struck for 48 hours to protest the state-owned operation’s privatisation and sell-off. Doctors and other medical staff have taken strike action.

On Tuesday, Elefsina Shipyard workers, who have not been paid for six months, began a series of 25-hour rolling strikes. The workers are also protesting the fact that only a portion of their wages from 2010 have been paid, as well as the threat of the shipyard being closed down due to the government’s failure to pay for the construction of three navy vessels.

From Keep talking Greece today:

Disagreement among Greek coalition government partners and escalation of the public transport workers-government conflict are emerging from the decision to impose the measure of ’civil mobilization’ against striking Metro workers. The proposal of civil mobilization was submitted by Transport Minister Costis Hadjidakis and was accepted by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. While coalition government partner PASOK supports it, junior partner Democratic Left rejects it as ‘extreme crisis management option’.

Update: here.

After using emergency powers to break a nine-day strike by Athens subway workers, the New Democracy-led coalition government in Greece extended its “civil mobilization” order to 2,500 rail and tram workers. Rail, tram and bus workers struck on Friday to protest the state repression against the subway workers: here.

Greek seamen on 48h strike, Jan 31-Feb 1/2013: here.

Related articles

• Greek workers keep fighting austerity (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Against Greek nazis, in Athens and Britain (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Athens’ striking subway workers defy court order (seattletimes.com)
• New pay cuts trigger transport strikes in Greece, protesters defy court order to resume work (timescolonist.com)

Athens military parade without the people

This video is called Independence Day in Athens, Greece. March 25th 2012.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Athens authorities block city off for parade

Sunday 25 March 2012

Riot police cordoned off streets in central Athens on Sunday to prevent protesters from mobbing the annual military parade for Independence Day.

For the first time most of the march’s route was barred to the public, including Syntagma Square outside parliament where MPs gathered to watch.

Teams were sent out before the parade to strip fruit from the orange trees that line many of the city’s streets, for fear they would be picked and thrown at police, soldiers or MPs.

Ordinarily thousands come out to watch the parade, which marks the start of the war against Ottoman occupation in 1821 – but public fury at the government’s EU-imposed austerity drive meant authorities were reluctant to take chances.

Protester Nikolas Blezas, who with others was driven off Syntagma Square in the morning for shouting “Traitors!” at the president and his entourage, said: “Look what we’ve come to. It’s as if we’re living under who knows what kind of regime.”

See also here.

The official Greek independence day celebrations last Sunday were another disaster for the government: here.

THE Greek Assistant Minister for Public Order M Othonas said on Wednesday morning that the first concentration camp for alleged ‘illegal immigrants’ could be ‘ready to function within 30 to 45 days’: here. And here.

Athens police detained 501 people on Friday in an operation authorities say will be repeated “on a daily basis” to combat undocumented migrants and illicit trade: here.

Greek government plans to intern ill migrants: here.

Judging by the content of the debate in Greece over the past few days, one might think that the most pressing issue facing the country ahead of the upcoming general elections is illegal immigration rather than the economy. The two coalition partners, New Democracy and PASOK, have attempted to outdo each other by trying to appear determined to tackle a matter that is gaining relevance as a result of the crisis: here.

Greeks eat garbage, bankers eat caviar

Keep Talking Greece blog writes about this video:

Shock in Athens: People Find Food in Garbage Bins

Fish eggs, rotten vegetables, cracked eggs, expired dairy products, a loaf of old bread… They pick everything they think they can eat from the big garbage bins standing outside super-markets and restaurants. They set aside their dignity and dig deep in the stinking bins to secure something to eat.

There is a song, Stray Cat Strut, by the Stray Cats, with the line “Get my dinner from a garbage can”. While eating garbage may be really unhealthy even for cats with nine lives, it is horrible to see the results of Friedmanite-Thatcherite voodoo economic experiments on human beings with just one life.

A piece, a handful of something eatable. Old and young, jobless and pensioners, Greeks and immigrants. People who cannot even afford to buy a loaf of bread for 0.80 euro. Scenes of a society sinking rash in desperate poverty. Scenes that take places in more and more suburbs of the Greek capital.

This shocking video was broadcast on Friday night by private Alpha TV.

“For us poor, it’s always difficult” an old man tells the reporter as he nears a garbage bin outside a super market in Vrilissia suburb in the north of Athens, at 9.30 pm. ” I live here in the last 15 year, I got sick, I lost my job” tells him another woman, apparently a migrant.

Around a garbage bin, there is a “fight” for expired croissants. “Give me two for my child” a man asks the younger who normally manage to get the ‘best’ bites from the trash.

“There are people who cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread and they ask us to keep a loaf for them for the next day” says a baker.

And a food vendor adds “People who used to spend 20 euro for food, now ask me to keep for them our waste. An aubergine, two tomatoes, some oranges for their children.”

A fish seller at the open market tells the reporter, that there are people who ask for the bag with the leftovers after he has cleaned the fish. “They try to get some tiny fish we threw away, or even fish eggs”.

The rich eat fish eggs as well. Unlike the rotting eggs for the hungry poor of Athens, in their case it is caviar, the extremely expensive eggs of sturgeon threatened with extinction.

He assures that the people who “beg” for the fish leftovers are Greeks. In the majority old. Pensioners.

Shadows in the dark. People with no face and name. People who get something to eat when the supermarkets lights are out. And the waste is taken to the streets.

….And this reminds me of a powerful poem by Manolis Anagnostakis.

New laws will be needed to stop so-called “vulture funds” from using the British courts to try to undermine Greece’s new debt agreement, campaigners have warned: here.

Greece under Franco-German occupation: here.