Thursday 24 February 2011

GREEK RIOT POLICE, PROTESTERS CLASH DURING CRIPPLING STRIKE

I WON'T PAY' MOVEMENT 
SPREADS ACROSS GREECE 

People around the world are reaching the "I won't take any more" stage although today's riots in Greece took a particularly nasty turn. There is no excuse for setting a person on fire with a Molotov Cocktail, policeman or not.

A passenger passes a covered ticket machine with a plastic bag during a protest by PAME, a Communist Party-backed labor union, at the Syntagma Metro station in Athens.

 
Young demonstrators hurled rocks and fire bombs at riot police as clashes broke out Wednesday in Athens during a mass rally against austerity measures, part of a general strike that crippled services and public transportation around the country.

Police fired tear gas and flash grenades at protesters, blanketing parts of the city center in choking smoke. Thousands of peaceful demonstrators ran to side streets to take cover. A police officer was attacked and his uniform caught fire in the city's main Syntagma Square, and his motorcycle was burned.

Some 15 policemen were injured, and nine suspected rioters were arrested, including a man who was allegedly armed with a longbow, arrows and an axe, police said.
One group of rioting youths smashed paving stones in front of the central Bank of Greece, but there were no immediate reports of any serious damage.

The rally before it turned violent.

More than 30,000 protesters attended the Athens rally, which had been calm before the clashes. Protesters chanting "Don't obey the rich ~ Fight back!" marched to parliament as the city center was heavily policed. A brass band, tractors and cyclists joined the rally.

"We've reached our limits! We can't make ends meet," said 60-year-old Yannis Tsourounakis, who has three children and is unemployed. "Our future is a nightmare if we don't overturn these policies." 

 

Government facing international pressure

The rally was part of Greece's first major labor protest this year as Prime Minister George Papandreou's Socialist government faces international pressure to make more lasting cuts after the nation's debt-crippled economy was rescued from bankruptcy by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The 24-hour strike halted trains, ferries and most public transport across the country, and led to the cancellation of more than 100 flights at Athens International Airport. The strike also the closed the Acropolis and other major tourist sites.

State hospital doctors, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, lawyers and tax collectors joined school teachers, journalists and thousands of small businesses as more middle-class groups took part in the protest than have in the past. Athens' main shopping district was mostly empty, as many small business owners shuttered their stores.

 

'Harsh and unfair' 
 
Unions are angry at the ongoing austerity measures put in place by the Socialist government in exchange for a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout loan package from European countries and the IMF.

Stathis Anestis, deputy leader of Greece's largest union, the GSEE, said workers should not be asked to make more sacrifices during a third straight year of recession.

"The measures forced on us by the agreement with our lenders are harsh and unfair. ... We are facing long-term austerity with high unemployment and destabilizing our social structure," Anestis told The Associated Press. "What is increasing is the level of anger and desperation ... If these harsh policies continue, so will we."

A motorcycle policeman burns as his colleague tries to help him after protesters throw a petrol bomb in Athens, Wednesday, Feb. 23. Scores of youths hurled rocks and petrol bombs at riot police after clashes broke out Wednesday during a mass rally taking place as part of a general strike. 

Elsewhere, about 15,000 people rallied and minor scuffles broke out in Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki, while Anestis said around 60 demonstrations were being planned in cities and towns across Greece. He said the GSEE was in talks with European labor unions to try and coordinate future strikes with other EU countries.

Earlier this month, international debt monitors said Greece needed a "significant acceleration" of long-term reforms to avoid missing its economic targets. It also urged the Socialist government to embark on a euro50 billion ($68 billion) privatization program to pay for some of its mounting national debt that is set to exceed 150 percent of the GDP this year.

The IMF has said some of the frequent demonstrations against the Greek government's reforms were being carried out by groups angry at losing their "unfair advantages and privileges."
 
"I don't think it's part of the Greek character. Greeks, when they see that the law is being applied in general, they will implement it too," said Nikos Louvros, the 55-year-old chain-smoking owner of an Athens bar that openly flouts the smoking ban.

"But when it isn't being applied to some, such as when there are ministers who have been stealing, ... Well, if the laws aren't implemented at the top, others won't implement them."

 
 IN LIGHT OF AUSTERITY MEASURES,
CITIZENS IGNORE TOLLS, 
TRANSIT TICKET COSTS, 
EVEN BILLS FOR HEALTHCARE

By ELENA BECATOROS
2/22/2011
ATHENS, Greece 

They blockade highway toll booths to give drivers free passage. They cover subway ticket machines with plastic bags so commuters can't pay. Even doctors are joining in, preventing patients from paying fees at state hospitals.

Some call it civil disobedience. Others a freeloading spirit. Either way, Greece's "I Won't Pay" movement has sparked heated debate in a nation reeling from a debt crisis that's forced the government to take drastic austerity measures ~ including higher taxes, wage and pension cuts, and price spikes in public services.

What started as a small pressure group of residents outside Athens angered by higher highway tolls has grown into a movement affecting ever more sectors of society ~ one that many say is being hijacked by left-wing parties keen to ride popular discontent.

A rash of political scandals in recent years, including a dubious land swap deal with a rich monastery and alleged bribes in state contracts ~ has fueled the rebellious mood.

At dawn last Friday, about 100 bleary-eyed activists from a Communist Party-backed labor union covered ticket machines with plastic bags at Athens metro stations, preventing passengers from paying their fares, to protest public transport ticket price hikes.


Other activists have taped up ticket machines on buses and trams. And thousands of people simply don't bother validating their public transport tickets when they take the subway or the bus.

"The people have paid already through their taxes, so they should be able to travel for free," said Konstantinos Thimianos, 36, an activist standing at the metro picket line in central Syntagma Square.

In one of their frequent occupations of the toll booths on the northern outskirts of Athens recently, protesters wore brightly colored vests with "total disobedience" emblazoned across their backs, and chanted: "We won't pay for their crisis!"

The tactic has cropped up in the health sector, with some state hospital doctors staging a blockade in front of pay counters to prevent patients from paying their €5 flat fee for consultations.

Critics deride the protests as yet another example of a freeloading mentality that helped lead the country into its financial mess.

"The course from initial lawlessness to final wanton irresponsibility is like a spreading cancer," Dionysis Gousetis said in a recent column in the respected daily broadsheet Kathimerini.

"Now, with the crisis as an alibi ... the freeloaders don't hide. They appear publicly and proudly and act like heroes of civil disobedience. Something like Rosa Parks or Mahatma Gandhi," Gousetis wrote. "They're not satisfied with not paying themselves. They are forcing others to follow them."

Many accuse left-wing parties and labor unions of usurping a grassroots movement with legitimate grievances for their own political ends.

"You think that lawlessness is something revolutionary, which helps the Greek people," Prime Minister George Papandreou said recently, lashing out in Parliament at Coalition of the Left party head Alexis Tsipras. "It is the lawlessness which we have in our country that the Greek people are paying for today."

But there is something about the "I Won't Pay" movement that speaks to something deeper within Greek society: a propensity to bend the rules, to rebel against authority, particularly that of the state.

It is so ingrained that many Greeks barely notice the myriad small, daily transgressions ~ the motorcycle driving on the sidewalk, the car running the red light, the blatant disregard of yet another government attempt to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

Less innocuous is persistent and widespread tax avoidance despite increasingly desperate government measures.

 
Greece is hit with another general strike against austerity as Prime Minister George Papandreou seeks to convince the cash-strapped country's eurozone partners to extend the repayment of a massive rescue loan. 

"There is a general culture of lawlessness, starting from the most basic thing, tax evasion or tax avoidance, which is something that Greeks have been exercising since their state was created," said social commentator Nikos Dimou.

But many see the "I Won't Pay" movement as something much simpler: the people's refusal to pay for the mistakes of a series of governments accused of squandering the nation's future through corruption and cronyism.

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