The Greek Intifada continues and the government is unable to impose its control in the country, spreading fears among the ruling classes all over the European Union. In the EU Summit in Brussels, Sarkozy but also the other bourgeois leaders demanded to the Greek right wing Prime Minister Karamanlis “to arrest immediately those responsible for the chaos”. So in today’s demonstration in Athens of tens of thousands of schoolchildren, students, parents, teachers and professors, the riot police tried to make mass arrests of 12-15 years boys and girls. The teachers and parents intervened to save the kids, fought with Police and liberated most of them apart from 3(more or less kids of 12-13 years old) who are added to the 176 already officially arrested.
Clashes between schoolchildren and riot police took also place in front of the parliament in Syntagma Square. The repressive forces of the State attacked afterwards the Law Faculty under occupation where our Independent Action Center is functioning. The center of Athens has been suffocated with the chemical gazes used by the riot police. But the police had to retreat as the students defended themselves with stones and a few Molotov cocktails. Then the Students Assembly took place and a new program of actions was decided for the next days.
The Karamanlis government was unable to have the support of other bourgeois parties and the official Left to declare the stage of the siege. The government itself is split on that crucial issue. Nevertheless, the real State of Emergency was declared by the schoolchildren who have put under siege tens of Police Stations in Athens and all over the country.
The Stalinist KKE continues to escalate not only its attacks against Synaspismos /Syriza accused to be “protectors of the hooligans”, but the revolt itself. Officially the leaders of KKE insist that there is no… any revolt! Today, at the same time that the schoolchildren waged their battles with the riot police in front of the Athens University and in the Syntagma Square, the Stalinist bureaucrats kept their supporters away, in Omonia Square and rapidly dispersed them in a few blocks distance from that Square. Nevertheless, KKE deputies and their newspaper Rizospastis repeated their slanders against the revolted - to be hooligans, Talibans, drug dealers, prostitution racketeers( 12-13 years old boys?) , police agents- adding now a new slander: that those fighting the police are agents of imperialist agencies namely of CIA!!!
As the political crisis intensifies, the economic crisis is exacerbated. Today’s news show that over-indebted Greece finds more and more difficult to get new loans to pay both its past debts and its deficits. To give an idea: the spread( the difference between the interest rates) of the Greek State bonds in relation to those of Germany has escalated to 202, while in the beginning of 2008 was just 20. Until March 2009 it is expected that the spread will grow to 500 or more. Greece is de facto bankrupt. It is the weakest economic link in the chain of the Euro-zone countries, and now it is proved above any doubt that it is also the weakest political link. The global capitalist crisis not only destabilizes all social relations but produce now explosions and a tendency towards a pre-revolutionary and/or revolutionary situation.
Savas Michael Athens, 12/12/08
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