ΕΜΠΡΟΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΓΕΝΙΑΣ ΜΑΣ ΤΑ ΠΟΛΥΤΕΧΝΕΙΑ
ΧΑΙΡΕΤΙΖΟΥΜΕ ΤΗ ΜΕΓΑΛΕΙΩΔΗ ΑΝΤΙΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΤΙΚΗ-ΑΝΤΙΜΝΗΜΟΝΙΑΚΗ ΔΙΑΔΗΛΩΣΗ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ 40η ΕΠΕΤΕΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΕΞΕΓΕΡΣΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΥΤΕΧΝΕΙΟΥ
ΟΙ ΦΑΝΤΑΡΟΙ ΕΣΤΕΙΛΑΝ ΤΟ ΔΙΚΟ ΤΟΥΣ ΜΗΝΥΜΑ
ΟΙ ΦΑΝΤΑΡΟΙ ΕΣΤΕΙΛΑΝ ΤΟ ΔΙΚΟ ΤΟΥΣ ΜΗΝΥΜΑ
Leftist militants claim Golden Dawn killings as rally honours 1973 uprising
As demonstrators commemorate... anniversary, anti-establishment leftists vow to move far-rightists to 'the dustbin of history'
Athens: protesters commemorate a 1973
student uprising that led to the overthrow of a military dictatorship.
Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA
Thousands
of Greeks, marking the 40th anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic
uprising – an event that would trigger the end of military rule in Greece – took to the streets on Sunday after socialist militants claimed responsibility for the murder of two members of the extremist Golden Dawn party.
As
demonstrators prepared to commemorate the symbolic date, a previously
unknown group of anti-establishment leftists raised the political
temperature by vowing to relocate the far-rightists to "the dustbin of
history".
"The Militant People's Revolutionary
Forces assumes responsibility for the political executions of … the
neo-Nazis," said the gang in an 18-page proclamation sent to a local
news portal.
"The armed attack-response … is the
starting point of the people's campaign to send the neo-Nazi scum of
Golden Dawn where they belong, the dustbin of history."
Amid heightened fears of escalating violence in the debt-stricken
country, the assailants described the drive-by shootings as retribution
for the fatal stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, a leftwing rapper killed by a
self-confessed Golden Dawn supporter in September. And, in chilling
language, warned more attacks would follow.
"The revolutionary movement has to
proceed with the material destruction of the infrastructure of Golden
Dawn and in a coordinated [fashion] attack those who belong to it …
their heads should be cracked open with a hammer, their hands cut off,
by way of example, with a sickle."
Some 8,000 policemen were seconded to
patrol the boulevards of Athens as a sea of Greeks paid tribute to those
killed when the military junta sent a tank crashing through the
polytechnic's gates to repress a student revolt.
At least 24 are believed to have died in
the bloody suppression with most of the casualties among the 150,000
non-student civilians who had converged on the streets outside the
campus in an unprecedented display of opposition to the regime.
For a nation that has become
increasingly polarised in the midst of economic crisis, the event is a
defining moment, hallowed in the minds of many as the catalyst of the
collapse of seven years of military rule only decades after a brutal
left-right civil war.
"The mood this year is very similar to
1973 when there was a feeling that the junta was disintegrating and
people were full of expectation," said Panos Garganas, a prominent
leftist and editor of the newspaper Workers Solidarity.
"After five years of worsening levels of
austerity and poverty there is a sense that things are coming to an
end, that the situation cannot continue," he told the Guardian as he
marched through the streets. "We give the government six months at
most."
Dissatisfaction with an administration
called to enforce deeply unpopular spending cuts in return for
international funds to prop up the country's moribund economy has been
reflected in rising support for the radical left main opposition Syriza
party.
A poll released on Saturday showed the
neo-fascist Golden Dawn also gaining in strength in the aftermath of the
November 16th attack, which saw two of its members gunned down outside a
local party branch in Athens.
Despite accusations of being a criminal
organisation – and a government crackdown that has seen its leader and
two other deputies imprisoned pending trial – backing for the
anti-immigrant group grew by 2.2 percentage points over the past month.
With 8.8% of the vote, the far-rightists remained Greece's third biggest
political force according to the survey conducted by Alcofor for the
weekly Proto Thema newspaper.
As in 1973, radio broadcasts were boomed
from the campus on Sunday – only this time by fired employees from the
former public broadcaster ERT denouncing the belt-tightening policies of
prime minister Antonis Samaras and his two-party coalition.
The protest march, which traditionally
ends at the US embassy to denounce Washington's controversial support
for the regime, followed two days of unusually poignant commemorations
at the polytechnic, with politicians, unionists and ordinary Greeks
laying wreaths at the site.
"With our country basically under
foreign occupation, the slogans and lessons of the uprising are as
relevant today as they were back then," said Christina Minassa, selling
leftist literature at a stall outside the campus. "The battle against
fascism goes on. In Greece those on the left have suffered greatly."
President Karolos Papoulias, who has
become an increasingly vocal critic of the austerity meted out by the EU
and IMF in exchange for aid, called the student rebellion "deeply
didactic".
"The way in which they laid claim to the
freedom of all of us … is deeply didactic," he said. "Their battle was
decisive and dynamic but peaceful, they didn't promote violence, they
suffered violence," he said in a clear reference to the resurgence of
political violence now haunting the country.
ΔΙΚΤΥΟ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΩΝ ΦΑΝΤΑΡΩΝ ΣΠΑΡΤΑΚΟΣ
ΕΠΙΤΡΟΠΗ ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗΣ ΣΤΡΑΤΕΥΜΕΝΩΝ
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ΕΠΙΤΡΟΠΗ ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗΣ ΣΤΡΑΤΕΥΜΕΝΩΝ
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