It must have been an awesome experience: to be a SYRIZA supporter, to have joined the anti-austerity protest and to be teargassed by the same government that you support. This interpretation of the incidents as it appeared in several Greek media is wrong. Police did not fired teargas against the unionists protesters but against the rioters who for one more time tried to create havoc.
Most probably the protest would have ended peaceful with the usual condemning of austerity, the creditors and the neoliberalism. The protest would have been peaceful, if it wasn’t for the “usual suspects”, the people wearing hoods, who mingle with protest rallies, create havoc and provoke police intervention. The consequence is always the same: the rally dissolves, protesters suffering form the teargas go home.
At Syntagma square, a group of some 200 people wearing hoods and masks reportedly started to throw dozens of stones and molotof cocktails against the riot police squads. the answer of police was quick: teargas.
The group described by state ERT TV as “a group of “independent anti-authoritarians” [sic] then moved to smash windows of banks, bus stops and set garbage bins on fire.
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The hoodies moved towards Exarchia, the district of Athens famous for being the ‘castle’ of anti-authoritarians. On their way there they set some more garbage bins and a van from the Greek telecommunications company on fire and smashed some private cars.
One policeman has been injure din the head and is being hospitalized.
Some 30,00 people, workers, pensioners, jobless, young and old gathered together in the usual rally battlefield, outside the Greek Parliament at Syntagma Square in downtown Athens. They gathered together in order to protest the austerity, the poverty and the unemployment, the collapse of the welfare state.
Unionists complained mainly about the upcoming cuts in pensions and the social insurance reforms, the Communists of KKE about capitalism.
Frustrated protesters’ banner: “Stop to policies of poverty and social deprivation” by the Union of Airlines pensioners. KTG hopes, it not the Olympic Airways Pensioners’ Union, when thousands of people went into early retirement with several thousand euros per month when OA ceased operation in 2009.
The general strike of Thursday was the first since left-wing SYRIZA won both elections of last January and September. It is not quite clear whether it was a pure anti-government or an general anti-austerity protest, as also SYRIZA had urged people to participate. But apparently Mercy Time is over and new cuts in comes and pensions are under way.
Mercy time for the government, it is understood. Then Greek unions have still mercy time for themselves. Workers at Metro, Tram and urban train ISAP will launch a 24-hour strike on Sunday, November 15th 2015 in order to facilitate workers to join the general convention of their union that starts at 11 a.m.! The workers are angry because the government plans to further cut their wages.
PM Tsipras and Chancellor Merkel at EU leaders Summit in Malta. It is not clear, whether they burst into laughter upon hearing the reason for Sunday’s public transport strike.
There are times when a Greek wishes everything public should privatized.