Eyewitness account Part 2-48 Hour General Strike
Whilst the govts IMF package Mk2 passed with 155 votes and just as the KKE’s parade ended the police using its riot police launched a brutal teargas war with the hundred odd thousand in the main square. Tear gas was thrown right in the middle of crowds right above the heads of protestors, Chinese made bomb sounding pellets were also thrown to create maximum confusion and panic. But the protestors didn’t panic. They stood firm, as most were prepared with gas masks and sea goggles to avoid the effects of the tear gas which is stinging eyes and burning sensation in all skin surfaces left uncovered. Alongside the tear gas they threw gas which meant you couldn’t also breathe. Brute force without the use of police provocateurs was the order of the day after they had a trial run the night before.
More than 500 people were injured, the police wanting to disperse the top end of Sindagma Sq also in order to ensure the bottom end of the square sections of which are funded directly by the Ford Foundation and Soros in the USA weren’t to be left out. By dispersing the bottom end of the square they revealed that their aim was to show that a banana republic has to crush all resistance to the IMF in order to prove to the banksters that have them on the payroll as to what a good protectorate they are. What they achieved on the ground, they lost in the spirit of the people, who faced the riot police unarmed, with plastic water bottles and their arms.
Whilst the battles lasted for up to 8 hours yesterday and the riot police must have thrown the equivalent of 6 months use of tear gas, they created another set of problems. By dispersing the crowds they set them further afield at least half a mile from the centre and created at least five zones of conflict. Pavements were ripped up and the marble was broken to be used as rocks against the riot police. Fires were set at the central Post Office, the Economics Ministry at a certain 4x hotel, phone booths and bus stations. For hours the youth fought and the riot police returned the rocks throwing them back. At various times they brought the mobile police units on motorbike who drove past the crowds on the side streets and they threw tear gas at them. They even attacked people eating in restaurants and in cafes who didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the demo. They threw tear gas into the main metro station right where there was a standby area for injured people creating a gas storm ensuring the injured became even more injured and hoping that someone may die.
During the day two members of Parliament were attacked (one a member of the KKE and another a member of PASOK). The political situation has now changed irrevocably beyond the pale. The peaceful nature of the protests so far reached their limit. One cannot confront the praetorian guards of the IMF with plastic water bottles or with bare hands. The IMF hasn’t usually departed peacefully anywhere on earth. It arrives sucks the blood out of the people leaves behind chaos disaster and despair and provokes rebellion. It appears what happened in Athens yesterday was the last chance for the IMF to leave peacefully. It didn’t happen. Next time the parliamentary junta will be overthrown and the 300 Quisling MP’s will be thrown out. People learn quickly in Greece. In the first six months of the IMF 80’s abstained from local elections, and in another six months 2 million took to the squares. In the next six months they will chase and hound every politician wherever they are, their local offices, their electoral offices, they will refuse to pay for all the new tax rises and they will confront the IMF banksters head on.
As they say on the square with the large banner and the slogans they chanted against the riot police
Bread Peace Freedom, the Junta Didn’t Die in 1973
In this square we will Bury the IMF
From words to deeds will be the next phase. Just as in the Russian Revolution the masses unorganised demonstrated in their thousands with peaceful intentions against the Tsar and were met brutally head on by the praetorian guards of the era, so in our times, the IMF will be buried in Greece. We witnessed the future in the events of yesterday and it is clear the people can no longer be ruled and those who rule can no longer rule in the old way. Greece will be reborn on the ashes of the IMF, the EU and the Euro.
Greece belongs to the Greeks and will remain so despite the giveway nature of the new measures. For that no one who demonstrated had a different opinion and the mood of the masses wasn’t one of defeatism, but resistance till victory.