INTERNATIONAL POLITICS GREECE:
HUGE DEMONSTRATIONS MARK NOV. 17 IN GREEK CITIES:



On November 17, 1973 the military invaded the occupied Polytechnic University in Athens. This was the ostensible end of a student revolt against the military dictatorship in Greece. The events, however, were actually the beginning of the end of the Junta which collapsed early the next year. Since that time November 17 has been a holiday in all educational institutions in Greece, and commemorative marches are held annually.




This year the demonstrations were far larger and more militant than usual as Greeks took the opportunity to protest the government's austerity program and EU/IMF interference in Greek affairs. Here's the story from the Supporting Anarchists In Greece group.
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November 17th: Demonstrations all over Greece..
November 17, 2010. 37 years after the Polytechnic uprising, dynamic demonstrations took place almost nationwide. The state put thousands of cops and secret cops to enforce the “order” with brutal attacks in most cities but the state terrorism did not pass.

The mass media did one-minute (and of course one-sided) reports about the demos, placing them in the 6th place in the news, although there were notable demos throughout Greece reminding somehow the uprising days.. But even if there was an uprising here, you would never hear it on the news.

Athens: Despite the police terrorism, with thousands of all kinds of cops scattered in every corner of Athens and three main metro stations deliberately out of order, making the access to the pre-demo gathering spots difficult, tens of thousands people (60-100000) marched towards the U.S. embassy participating in one of the largest, if not the largest in volume and pulse marches in recent years. The mass number of the demonstrators showed that even after the 5th May numbness, there are people who want to act powerfully and contest the choices of the local and global capital.



Before the beginning of the demo, anarchists and other youths, attacked the PASP block (youth branch of PASOK – the social-democrat party in power) with marbles and sticks, forcing them to disorderly retreat and follow the great demo from adjacent lanes. At the same time the block of PAME (syndicalist branch of the “communist” party KKE) marched fast (almost running) from a parallel street in order to place themselves on the front part of the demo, as they commonly do..


The anarchist-antiauthoritarian blocks were impressive in size, numbering more than 6,000 people.

Near the U.S. Embassy, the police forces attacked the demo using tear gas and flash bang grenades to break the massive anarchist and leftist blocks. The clashes extended to the surrounding streets and later in Exarchia. We should notice that during the demo and later in the evening in Exarchia district, two police helicopters with headlights were flying continuously in the Athenian sky facilitating the moves of the repressing forces.

More than 100 people were detained and 22 people were arrested by the cops. The 15 are prosecuted in felony degree, and they face charges for covered face (the “hooded law”), while the others face misdemeanor charges. It should be noted that one of them was falsely accused of bearing a molotov cocktail. Many people got seriously injured by the cops and had to go to the hospital.


Thessaloniki : Before the demo, there were clashes between leftist/anarchist students and members of PASP (youth branch of PASOK – the party in power) who tried to attack people in the University campus, and eventually they ran away.

Around 6000 people marched in the demo with a great pulse, and one bank was attacked. After the demo, clashes took place outside the University campus while numerous cops and secret cops managed to arrest 6 people and detain 17 during the day.


Volos: dynamic demonstration of about 1300 people. The cops were extremely aggressive using countless of asphyxiating chemicals, tear gas and flash bang grenades against the blocks. Many bank-cameras were broken while clashes took place outside the local police station with stone throwing, some molotov cocktails and barricades.



Ioannina: Demonstration of 2-3000 people in the city center with provocative cops presence on every street.

Heraklion (Crete): demo of about 1500 people with the anarchist block numbering almost the half of the demonstrators. During the demo, bank cameras and the offices of the fascist party LAOS were attacked, while members of PASOK Youth were abused.


Patras: Morning demo of self-organized pupils with stone-trowing against the cops and around 5 arrests. In the afternoon, the main demo took place in the city center with 2-3000 people marching on, one of the most massive demos in recent years. Cops attitude was extremely aggressive, firing countless tear gas on the demonstrators heads, while they attacked and broke the demo’s blocks and went on arrests and injuries. The protesters defended themselves clashing with numerous cops and secret cops that were deployed in the city.
more photos here.



Mytilene: Dynamic demonstration of 300 people

Kavala: Demonstration of 200 people and abuse of PASOK Youth members

Xanthi: Dynamic demo of about 600 people, one of the most massive demos for Polytechnic uprising ever held in the city

Serres: Demo in the city center under the rain with the anarchist block numbering about 60 people.

Rethymnon (Crete): Demo of about 250 people

Arta: Demo in the city center.

Komotini: Dynamic demo in the city center with the anarchist block numbering around 40 people that marched towards the prisons. Secret cops were hanging around the city.

Larissa: Dynamic demo of about 200 people, accompanied by several cops, while there were attacks with paint and eggs against government buildings.


sources: http://www.facebook.com/l/0d587Vy_4XFhnn4sCNMCnboUs4A;athens.indymedia.org , http://www.facebook.com/l/0d587Kh_ww_Io5jybrFvLwryakw;www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/ , http://www.facebook.com/l/0d587tgC07ypL13u-37DjfunX0g;candiaalternativa.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/l/0d587-i1uaHG3FlRAXjgCrfoFvg;contrainfo.espiv.net


pictures from all the Demonstrations in Greece here http://www.facebook.com/l/0d587DyLjRGaxY25ga2odqOAdDw;merrybabes.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/november-17th-demonstrations-all-over-greece/

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

ANARCHISTS TO THE RESCUE:

It's amazing where reports of anarchists will turn up, often quite unexpectedly. For some years now Molly has been a subscriber to 'The Economist'. However much I might disagree with their politics The Economist is rightly famed for good news and commentary. The Greek anarchists have been mentioned before in its pages, without the customary tirades that one would usually expect from a "right wing" publication, but also with the usual, probably fully justified, comment that they lack any sort of visible plan or strategy.

So, here I am, reading the May 16th edition when I come across a brief article entitled 'Fear and Loathing in Athens. The article is basically about the recent (May 9) attack on an abandoned court building in Athens(squatted by immigrants) by members of the neo-fascist organization 'Golden Dawn'. As per usual there were accusations that the police involved in "controlling" the mob did little to protect the people inside the building. There were, however, those who did. Here's a excerpt from the article:

"One resident, Moncef. a mechanic from Morocco, says, "The police stood there and did nothing". It took a group of Greek anarchists to come to the rescue"

This sort of thing is good publicity that no amount of money could buy. There is some peripheral comment in the English language section of the Athens Indymedia site ( see http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=en&article_id=1028974 ) by an American apparently visiting in Greece. The comment, however, misses a point that is quite obvious to me. The author seems quite thrilled with the level of militancy in Greece, but he misses the glaring fact that a lot of it is "useless"(to put it kindly). The defence os the immigrants squatters, however, is far from useless. It is the sort of productive way that bravado of street fighting should direct its energies to- rather than pointless, endlessly repeating ritual combat with the police with no imaginable goal besides...more confrontations.

I know that there are some floating about the anarchist milieu to whom the word "effective" might as well be spoken in some sort of obscure dialect of a tiny tribe in Mongolia for all the effect it has. There are, however, many others to whom it makes a good sense as it would to any person possessed of common sense. The action described above actually had a point to it- the defence of the immigrants- and the fact that it can elicit favourable comment even from The Economist might give some pause for thought as to why it should be imitated rather than pointless ritual street dances with the police. I like it a lot.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

THE END OF THE ATHENS OPERA HOUSE OCCUPATION:

When, in late January, people occupied the opera house in Athens Greece, declaring it liberated, the news became, if somewhat belatedly, widespread across the "anarchonet". Since then nothing. Perhaps that might be because the occupation ended 5 days ago.

It is perhaps not unexpected that news can travel slowly, and nobody is to faulted for not being "up to the minute". Even so the spectacle of one anarchist news site reporting the occupation a day after it had ended was jarring (NO, it wasn't LibCom, one of the earlier publishers of the news-we'll leave the offender nameless). Molly is certainly not without sin, even if I do my best to check before putting into print, in this sort of thing, and I'd be a hypocrite to criticize others too severely.

What is worse than being late is to leave the matter hanging in the air. I think that reporting the end of a protest may be just as important in many cases as reporting its beginning. Often far more can be learned from the end than from the beginning. I certainly saw a similar thing around the German 'Strike Bike' occupation in 2007. Huge publicity at the beginning, and not even a "closed sign" when it ended. Once the matter had ended it seemed to be dropped like a hot potato by its most enthusiastic publicists. I remember doing a post script months after the end of the occupation then, entitled, I believe, "What Happened to Strike Bike ?"

So, to not let the Athens Opera House occupation suffer that fate here is the statement of the occupiers when they abandoned the occupation last Saturday. the following is from the Tapes Gone Loose blog, produced by a Greek presently resident in England (I believe). See LibCom for the original report on the occupation in English.

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End of the Opera House Occupation:

Today, Saturday 7 February, the Assembly of the Rebelling Opera House, decided to depart from the Opera House, having won 9 days & nights of autonomy, liberty, creation, & self-organization in practice.

1st Act

We liberated the Opera House as a response to the strangling of free expression, to the imposition of counterfeit[/fake] desires, to the cement bombing of public spaces & to oppression. When even elementary rights are being trampled underfoot with chemicals, bullets, & sulfuric acid, the time to assume a stance has arrived.

2nd act

We made ours a symbol of status-quo art, redefining the relations between creator & spectator, teacher & pupil. For 9 days, a human mosaic that met each other in December, took shape through direct-democracy procedures & united politics with art, inside & outside the Opera House. We are not divided into artists & non-artists; we are life's budding flower.

Whoever thinks that the end of the occupation means the end of dissent should check their glee. We do not surrender culture to Niarchos, Lamprakis, or any other "specialist". It doesn't belong to them anyway. Our presence & actions in the Opera House shows that not only is the distinction between "high level" & "low level" culture nonexistent, but also that [this assumed distinction] is an expression of authority-related structures which divide us & fence us off. For us, art is a combat field.

3rd act

We continue getting self-organized, expressing ourselves & acting in public spaces, acting & creating in togetherness on the basis of autonomy & self-organization.

This occupation has come full circle once already, [a circle] which contained us all. We'll continue as centrifugal cells, diffusing our common experience & dynamics outwards in every neighborhood, park, or street.

Along the lines of our mobilization, the workers & artists of Buenos Aires's Teatro Colon Opera expressed their solidarity to our experiment during their mobilizations against 500 job cuts &, in essence, the dissolution of the Opera.

Messages of solidarity arrived also from the Universidad National de Rosario in Argentina, from the movement 'Rebellious Women Of Brazil,' from Venezuela, & from the Popular Artists' Union of Ecuador (UNAPE). We stand in solidarity towards all these [people], & we extend a call to every worker to redefine his role inside the dominant relations & structures.

The artists of life are not the jokers of authority, We do not want to become human flashbang grenades in the artillery of psychological repression, but [rather] fireworks of joy & deep feeling on the road towards societal liberation. We invite people to assume the initiative for analogous experiments, to meet & to shape together autonomous experiments.

Solidarity to Konstantina Kouneva & to everyone continuing the struggle.

Support those injured during the uprising.

Immediate release of those apprehended.

Reclaim the public spaces. [Say] no [to] cement-bombing.

We stand in solidarity to the Palestinian people.

The streets are our theater - the uprising is our art.

Coming up: 4th act.

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What follows is an account of the march that was the last act of the occupation. It comes from, of all places, a Finnish Trotskyist site, the Marxilianen Työväenliito. Try to get past the unintended comedic picture of the Trots' EEK (all ten of them) spinning their feet wildly to get to the front of the demo and make sure their banners were photographed there to make it seem like they were leading the crowd behind. How little things have changed in the world of Leninist sectarianism in the decades that I have lived and how similar these people, in their innocent "seriousness", are the world over ! Things are the same the world over and "forever and ever, Amen". Don't get me wrong. I actually have some residual affection for Trotskyists. In their deadpan, clean-cut way they can be quite amusing, sorta like a Boston Terrier. I would be very much more pissed off if a Maoist sect tried the same trick which they do, of course. It's all the difference between what I see as naive and misguided and what I see as thuggery, a Boston Terrier versus a Rottweiller with a toothache. In the brave new world, post Marxist revolution, the Trots and I would be sharing the same jail cell. The only differences would be that the winners in the power contest would get the Trots first and, for some bizarre reason (known amongst the cognoscenti as "dailectics") the Trots would still be arguing that the dictatorship that was going to murder them was "progressive".

In any case the article actually provides a good picture of the spirit of the march, and its bows to leftist sectarianism are rather minor. I have edited the following, as per usual, for English grammar.

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OCCUPATION OF THE NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE ENDS WITH A TRIUMPHANT MARCH:

The artists and workers who have occupied on January 30th the National Opera House-Ethniki Lyriki Skini (ELS) and renamed it the Eksegermeni Laiki Skini (ELS)- Popular Opera in Rebellion- decided to end the occupation last Saturday February 7th . But they left the area that they had liberated not defeated; by their own decision they will continue the struggle in other places the next period. They departed from the Opera with a triumphant march in the streets of Athens to celebrate their success of attracting, for a week, thousands of people to an unique experience in recent Greek history of unification of art and revolution, despite the constant threats of the bosses and of the capitalist State, despite the conspiracy of silence of all the mass media.

More than 2000 people, mainly very young artists, participated in the march. The official Left, including the so-called “radical, extra-parliamentary left” was absolutely and shamefully absent. The demonstrators were non –organized revolutionary artists and workers, anarchists and the Trotskyists of EEK, with their leadership in front.

The three banners, which were for a week raised in the front of the Opera House, led the march: the main banner saying “Our theater is the streets, our art is the revolt!”, the banner calling for “Solidarity with Konstandina Kuneva”, the Bulgarian immigrant worker savagely attacked by acid, and a banner for “Freedom for the arrested of the December revolt”. During the 2-3 hours march, the symbol of the Popular Opera in Rebellion was reproduced on the walls of the buildings of the main streets: a ballerina on her pointes with a Molotov cocktail in her hand, an gas mask protecting her face and the inscription over her head, in Spanish, Viva la Revolución!

Thousands of leaflets were distributed to the passengers of the buses and to those in the streets, explaining the content of the struggle and expressing also solidarity for the artists and workers of Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires who were fired, thanking the comrades of Lucharte in Argentina who introduced the issue of the occupied Opera in Athens to the workers of the Teatro Colon and organized solidarity from all over Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador). The leaflet of the artists in rebellion expressed also their full solidarity to the people of Palestine.





Behind the banners, many artists were dressed as for a show or as clowns. In front, marched a very beautiful, very young, ballerina with the two wings of an Archangel on her back, with her left fist raised while she was shouting revolutionary slogans- a really messianic figure! There was an orchestra playing music and supporting the songs of the marchers: a Cretan revolutionary song that we used to sing during the last military dictatorship of the colonels and in the 1973 Polytechnic uprising, “Bella Ciao”, ‘Commandante Che Guevara”, the International, but also the Toreador from the opera Carmen by Bizet, Ravel’s Bolero, as well as jazz (“When the Saints go marching in”), music from the popular theater of shadows Karaghioz, etc. There was also a caserolazo producing a fantastic noise.





The march has passed first from the place where the young Alexis Grigoropoulos had been assassinated by the police on December the 6th, a site which has been transformed into a popular shrine. At that point there was absolute silence, and, suddenly 2000 youth started to shout with what is called by the Bedouins in the Arab lands, “the Scream of the Desert”. It was like the simultaneous cry of 2000 wounded cubs. Nothing else. No slogans, no songs, just a scream for Alexis.





The march continued through the streets and the main square of Exarcheia, and then passed to the Polytechnic University. The marchers wrote a long inscription in its walls saying “Over the ruins of bourgeois civilization, we plant the forests of our dreams”.





The demonstration marched in the central avenue of Patission and it was directed to its final destination: a park which was destroyed by the right wing Mayor of Athens who cut all the trees of that popular place (the same Mayor had sent the riot police to guard the hideous Christmas Tree in Syntagma square during the December clashes) . The park was destroyed to make a parking lot for a big capitalist company. The people of that area (Kypseli) revolted last week, the mayor sent the riot police- and three kids were sent to the hospital (including one young comrade of ours who saw three toes of his foot cut off by a smoke grenade of the police).





When the march arrived at the destroyed park (where the people now try to plant new trees and they are camping there all night to prevent the building of the private parking) a popular fiesta started, full of joy, during all Saturday night, interrupting, of course, the traffic in own of the main avenues of the Greek capital!
La Luta continua!

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS-GREECE:

UNREST PERSISTS IN GREECE:

Unrest continues to persist in Greece. This week Greek farmers have been staging protests and road blockages over the low price of their products. At the same time fresh clashes have broken out between anarchists and the police in Athens. Here's what's presently happening with the farmers' protests via the AFP news.

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Greek farmers pledge to maintain highway blockades:
ATHENS, Greece (AFP) — Thousands of Greek farmers on Saturday hunkered down for a fifth day of highway blockades in an ongoing tug-of-war with the government over the low price of produce.

The farmers, who are demanding higher prices for cotton, corn and wheat than those set by the European Union, threatened to escalate their protest despite a 500-million-euro (646-million-dollar) package offered by the state last week.

"We're not leaving unless the government clarifies how the money will be divided per crop," a farmer union member told state TV channel NET at a roadblock in Promachonas near the Greek-Bulgarian border.

Hundreds of tractors continue to occupy key junctions on the Athens-Thessaloniki highway and other roads in northern Greece, effectively slicing the country in two.

The disruption is expected to spread to the Peloponnese on Monday where farmers intend to block the bridge over the Isthmus of Corinth, one of the two road access points to the southern peninsula.

The farmers have also blocked border routes to Bulgaria and Turkey where freight traffic has slowed to a trickle, with the protesters only making exceptions for perishable goods and medical emergencies.

The Bulgarian government on Friday formally protested to the Greek embassy in Sofia, noting that the blockade compromises free travel and trade principles enshrined in the two countries' common European Union membership.

On Friday night, a group of Greek farmers attempted to cross the border into Bulgaria for unspecified reasons but were blocked by Bulgarian police, the semi-state Athens News Agency (ANA) reported.

A similar farmer protest cut Greece in half in 1997 for several weeks, forcing the government to sabotage the tractors, puncturing their tyres at night to get traffic running normally across highways.

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Meanwhile in Athens and Patras anarchists and others continue to clash with police. Here's the story of today's events from the Reuters news agency.

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Anarchists clash with Greek police in Athens march:
ATHENS (Reuters) - Anarchists threw fire bombs and clashed with Greek police in Athens on Saturday during a march to parliament by more than 1,000 demonstrators protesting over the police killing of a teenager last month.

"About 150 anarchists who broke away from the rally threw rocks at the police who responded with teargas," said a police official, who declined to be named. "Later, they threw fire bombs at the offices of the defense minister."

The anarchists set on fire a newspaper kiosk and a bus station and caused minor damages to four banks in the center of the Greek capital. Police chased small groups of youths around the city center and detained at least two people.

Protests also took place in the southwestern Greek port of Patras, where three newspapers' buildings, a journalists union and three banks suffered slight damage.

Greece witnessed the worst riots in decades in December, triggered by the fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old boy and fueled by anger at economic hardships and government scandals.
On Thursday, a protest march against an acid attack on an immigrant cleaner, who was a union activist, caused vandalism by groups of anarchists, who clashed with police.

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Here's another take on the story from the British libertarian communist site LibCom.

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Protests resume in Athens:
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Protesters and riot police have clashed in central Athens today during a protest calling for the release of prisoners arrested during last month's riots, as farmers continued a week-long road blockade over prices.

The clashes occurred outside the University of Athens, as police charged with batons and pepper spray, while protesters used sticks and stones. Several hundred people were involved in the protests, and around 300 continued a march through the town centre. The International Herald Tribune reported that most participants were anarchists.

Also this week, around ten thousand farmers have been blocking major highways and border crossings with tractors over prices, after government talks broke down. Protests at Greece's third largest airport in Crete finished earlier this week, after the runway was blockaded by tractors and burning tires on Tuesday.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT- GREECE:

MORE PROTESTS IN GREECE:

The occupations of Greek universities and high schools may have ended, excepting the occupation of the trade union centre in Thessaloniki of course, but protests still continue in Greek cities. As they have for years actually. The following from the Anarkismo website is how some Greek anarchists rang in the New Year, by protesting the prisons as well other things.

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Greece: Prisoners support:
And more actions on New Year's eve
New year's eve, most of the people choose to stay in their houses or go to bars, all celebrating the coming of the new year. However there are people who at these times choose to stand close to those who are alone, locked away and forgotten and there are people who believe that the social struggle never ends.

In Athens, around 1000 took part. They first started at the men's prison and then continued to the women's. There was a small demonstration on which some banks' ATM machines and surveillance cameras were destroyed. The 6-7 riot squads did not react.

Photos from Koridalos prison (Athens):

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_...59017

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCm4EVN8R7I

and some more:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_...59426

Photos from Ag. Stefanos prison (Patras):

http://patras.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_...#3655

At the same time, at the Sintagma square (Athens), a gathering against the bombings of the Israeli army in Gaza and the occupation in Palestine was taking place with many migrants (Palestinians and others), members of peace movements and left wing organizations and parties.

Moreover, arson and other attacks took place in many cities after midnight sending a message for 2009.

In Athens, 7 banks, 3 car dealerships, 7 cars and 15 garbage bins were set on fire.

In Thessaloniki, bank offices, and a women's' clothes store were burned. During a demonstration, 23 garbage bins (used as barricades) were burned and the police fired teargas and flash-bang. In another part of the city, municipal police cars and office were attacked and burned.

In Larissa the city's Christmas tree was half-burned.

In Serres, the nationalist right-wing party offices were attacked, the windows were smashed and paints were thrown.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

ACROPOLIS REDECORATED:

This just in from yesterdays events in Greece. See the picture above. Greek protesters have unveiled a banner on the Acropolis calling for solidarity demonstrations in support of their cause throughout Europe today. Rather brief notice. We'll see what the news says later today. For now this strikes me as a brilliant tactic. The picture will be displayed in news media throughout the world. You couldn't buy such advertising. Now Molly awaits the next banner on the Aeropagus where the Athenians used to debate and St. Paul preached. Here's the story from the British newspaper The Telegraph.

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Greek protesters unveil banner on Acropolis:
Greece's most famous ancient monument, the Acropolis, became the latest stage for the country's deep political crisis on Wednesday when protesters draped it with banners calling for anti-government demonstrations across Europe.

By Nick Squires in Rome
On the twelfth day of unrest since a police officer's fatal shooting of a schoolboy triggered riots and arson, protesters unfurled two large pink banners from the stone walls of the ancient hilltop citadel, which looms over Athens.

"Thursday 18/12 demonstrations in all Europe," one banner read in Greek, English, Italian and German, while the other simply bore the word: "Resistance".

"We chose this monument to democracy, this global monument, to proclaim our resistance to state violence and demand rights in education and work," said one protester, who declined to give his name. "(We did it) to send a message globally and to all Europe."

A government spokesman, Evanguelos Antonaros, said the protests were "inexcusable" and accused the protesters of tarnishing Greece's image abroad.

The riots, which caused millions of pounds' worth of damage in Athens and a dozen other Greek cities, were fuelled by intense anger and frustration among young Greeks over low wages, high unemployment, police brutality and government corruption.

They have already inspired sympathy protests in cities across Europe, from Spain and France to Italy and Turkey. European leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have expressed concern that they might spread as the global financial crisis worsens unemployment and economic hardship.

Nearly two weeks after the Dec 6 shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the edgy, graffiti-plastered Athens district of Exarchia, the anger of the protest movement shows no signs of abating.

In the latest violence, a gang of youths threw petrol bombs at a riot police bus in central Athens. The driver managed to escape unharmed but the vehicle was damaged, police said.

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MORE NEWS ON GREECE FROM THE MASS MEDIA

**Greece's Riots reveal the signs of a society in the throes of decomposition

**Greece faces uncertain new year

**Greek activists call for Europe-wide protests on Thursday

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS-GREECE:

GREECE- THE PEOPLE VERSUS THE STATE:

Politics in Greece has always been highly confrontational and this is especially true recently. Here are two articles from the LibCom site about recent struggles in that country.

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Residents clash with police in Greek refuse dump row:
October 16th, 2008

by taxikipali

Local resistance to open-refuse dump near Ioannina escalates to clashes after an army of 230 riot policemen charges barricades
On the 15th of October the residents of Elliniko village near the city of Ioannina, North West Greece, blockaded the construction of the open-refuse dump (XYTA) to which they have been opposed for over 18 months. The response of Athens was to send 19 battalions of riot police forces (MAT), that is about 230 policemen, to open the way for the bulldozers.

Faced with what they termed "an occupation force", local people erected barricades. Riot police resorted to tear gas and attacked the residents who responded by pelting officers with stones and molotov cocktails.

The situation remains tense, with three residents and five riot policemen in hospital as a result of the clashes, thus opening yet another front of local environmental resistance on the confrontational model set by Lefkimi in the island of Corfu.

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Meanwhile students in Greece continue to occupy over 300 secondary and high schools in protest against conservative education "reforms". Here's another article from Libcom on this struggle.

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Occupied schools in Greece face repression:
October 19th, 2008

by taxikipali
As the tide of secondary and high-school squats rises again across Greece, the state responds with repression
More than 300 secondary and high schools (that is 1/6 of the national total) around Greece are currently occupied by their pupils who are demanding the reversal of several articles of the conservative educational reform that caused widespread revolt by students and university staff during the academic years of 2005-2006-2007. The renewed resistance to the law which has been rejected by the entire school and academic community and is considered to be the first step towards the abolition of student-pupil participation in management, is being faced with unprecedented measures of repression. There have been consistent efforts by the government and the local authorities to criminalise the school squats, whereas neonazi attacks against squatted schools in Athens have been reported.

Most recently, on the 17th of October, the president of the pupil's council and one more pupil of the 4th high-school of the city of Karditsa were arrested on charges of obstructing the function of a public service, after the pupils of the squatted school staged a demo against the installation of an iron fence around the premises, with the central slogan being "School is not a Prison". After the reaction of the Teacher's Union (OLME) the pupils were released.

While the repression escalates, several schools in Athens and Thessaloniki have opposed the annual election of representatives, opting for direct-democratic procedures without the realm of state-recognised legality. In the city of Peiraeus, on the 17th of October the Autonomous Coordination Squat Committee, held a protest march for "Liberatory free and public education".

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-GREECE/BANGLADESH:

IMMIGRANT BANGLADESHI WORKERS IN ATHENS FIGHT BACK WITH INDUSTRIAL ACTION:

The following report is from the LibCom website, a British anarchist communist board. It's about an industrial action in Athens, Greece over sweatshop conditions and physical attacks on the workers.

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Clothing company beating of Bangladeshi workers in Athens met with wildcat collective action

Bangladeshi workers in clothing sweatshop in Athens, Greece, were attacked by company thugs for refusing to work on Sunday. When their co-workers walked out in solidarity, the company fired 120 out of 180 of the working force. In response the workers have sealed the factory off forcing the company to withdraw the lay-offs and negotiate.

On Monday 23 of June 2008 Bangladeshi foremen and thugs in the pay of the “LADY FASHION” clothing sweatshop in Votanikos, Athens, attacked Bangladeshi immigrant workers who had refused to work in the previous day (Sunday being an official day-off in Greece), using iron bars and wooden clubs.

In response to the violence, 100 out of 180 workers walked out, with the consequence of them being declared laid-off by the company. Workers claim that on the 20th of June, The Union of Bangladeshi Workers (which has close links with PAME, the rather authoritarian Communist-Party controlled union umbrella) had managed to secure unpaid salaries of 1,5 month, a fact that infuriated the direction of the company which has persistently refused to pay the immigrant workers on time.

Working conditions in the sweatshop have been known to be appalling: up to 12 hours of daily work, 10 hour work on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday, without the company paying the workers social security (IKA) monthly dues as is obliged by the law. As further response to the bosses’ violence and lay-offs, on following day,Tuesday the 24th, the workers gathered early in the morning and sealed the factory gate, inhibiting all production in the company’s premises.
As a result, all 120 lay-offs have been recalled with the direction promising to pay all worked hours and social security debts so far, and refrain from further violence.