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Greece: Report on the 19th's General Strike and demonstration

g* | 23.03.2008 09:43 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | World

Demonstrations were organized after a call by workers unions and syndicates in Greece's larger cities, against the new law on the pension system. Below are gathered some of the reported direct action.

Actions during the strikers demo

(Athens Thessaloniki Heraklion Larissa, 19-20/3/2008)

Source: Athens.indymedia.org,

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/
and some e-mails.

Demonstrations were organized after a call by workers unions and syndicates in Greece's larger cities, against the new law on the pension system. Below are gathered some of the reported direct action.

Athens: Workers initiatives and anarchist/antiauthoritarian collectives shut down luxurious shops that were working on a strike day (photos of an action at repo-zine.blogspot.com). The marches start with more than 200.000 people in several blocs. Clashes begin near the parliament, where some surveillance cameras and a few bank glass windows were broken down. Street battles continue near the universities (Propylaia) and Exarcheia area where people build up a few barricades. The cops shoot plastic bullets against the protesters. Around Exarchia square, people attack the riot-police brigades. It's worth mentioning that syndicalist leaders left the marches so as to intimidate people participating. Some photos at:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=844341

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843464
Βίντεο:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843444

http://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/7raqdkx.jpg

Thessaloniki: More than 20.000 protest in the city center. During the demonstration a collective throws garbage and paints against shops that stayed open during the strike (Photos at stasiepisfaleias.wordpress.com).
Also, glass windows and cameras of banks were broken, while an ATM was set on fire. During these actions, leftists clashed with demonstrators who had their faces covered, participating or encouraging such actions. Photos at:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843289#843299

Heraklion, Crete:

Around 4.000 persons participated in the city center, where since early in the morning strikers had forced shops to close down for the strike. During the march groups of anarchists/antiauthoritarians broke down several surveillance cameras outside banks and threw paint at the Nea Dimokratia (ruling party) offices. The march headed towards the Prefecture of Crete offices, where many attempted to occupy the building, while some syndicalist bureaucrat's (friendly to PASOK, ex-ruling and currently opposition party) prevented them and clashed with anarchists who at last broke the Prefecture's entrance.

More photos:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843525#843526

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843569

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843758
Video from a camera sabotage:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=843435

Larissa: Clashes erupted when the PAME (a frontal organization of the KKE "communist" party) attacked against anarchists/antiauthoritarians, autonomous and leftists in order to keep their blocs away from the march, though the PAME tough guys were repelled succesfuly.

20/3: During a demonstration outside the parliament, an initiative attempted to break the police line but was repelled with exessive tear gas and riot-policemen attacks. Many demonstrators responded covering their faces and attacking the policemen with stones, while starting fires to minimize tear gas effects. The syndicalist bureaucrats once more, left the area.

Here are some videos:
From the 19/03 demonstration

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=844142#844221
Ftom the 20/03 demonstration

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=845205

g*
Homepage: http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2008032204532082

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Hit small businesses or encourage cooperativism?,syndicalist bureaucrats??

23.03.2008 11:28

Is attacking shops that stay open effective?,
ESE,AK are anarchosyndicalist unions in Greece but I doubt they tried to oppose you physically & they would have defended you in a major attack. Personally if I saw a group of students or anyone on strike attempting to smash a small businesses I definetely try to discourage it. Small businesses can be reactionary many of them can also be big libertarian supporters & struggle to survive. They often do better on all angles when co-operativised, or join with larger shops to form regional coops & all coops also are active in the labour movement struggles.

General strikes are necessary to stop predatory bosses, though cooperativism is also another very valid tactic without the dodgy risks.
When strikes happen some workers in emergency services & healthcare stay open,
maybe they should consider withdrawing labour for politicians or adults who support socially negative policies.
On longer strikes in which we often loose support, we need to encourage withdrawal of service from the rich & or negative sectors like police stations known to be oppressive & the nuclear arms industry rather than the whole population. During the winters of discontent in uk,unions lost alot of support.
Some anarchists encourage disorder in times like this seeing it as a small chance to redistribute wealth etc, rather than aiming for the big social issues & policies, I believed in this short term tactic myself once, but it often leads to confusion & destroys our support.

green syndicalist

THEY ARE NOT SYNDICALISTS

23.03.2008 12:41

sorry if the person who posted this is Greek. But if they are english or english speaking perhaps they could remember in English they are called 'Trade Unions' not 'syndicates'.

Syndicalist means 'revolutionary syndicalist' in english, quite different from the trade unions. The people who you are talking about in this article being friendly with the ex ruking party and stopping anarchists from aking action are certainly NOT syndicalists.

check your engrish
Homepage: http://iww.org.uk

reply to green synsyndicalist

24.03.2008 17:00

Hi, where in the article does is mention small businesses being attacked? for sure it mentions shops, but this is in the city centre, go into any city centre in europe these days and it's mainly big business that owns the shops, if they are not chains, they will be certainly owned by someone who owns a whole string of shops and is sickeningly wealthy.

and shutting down these shops during a general strike is a good thing.

Fly posters

also....

24.03.2008 17:03

just reading through the post again Green Syn. it says: "Workers initiatives and anarchist/antiauthoritarian collectives shut down luxurious shops that were working on a strike day" - definately big business shops.