A COLOSSAL anti-government rally took place in Athens last Sunday, called by the Association of Relatives of the Tempi Victims, demanding ‘justice’ for the 57 people, half of them students, who were killed on 28 February 2023 in a horrendous train crash in Thessaly, central Greece.
Workers, youth, students, families with their young children, and pensioners shouted: ‘Murderers, murderers!’
Following the end of the rally, the Greek riot police attacked people with tear-gas and noise grenades.
On orders of the European Union-dictated Austerity Accords imposed on Greece, railways were privatised in 2017.
It is estimated that over 150,000 people participated in the Athens rally. Mass demonstrations, reported as the biggest ever, took place in over 180 other cities and towns throughout Greece, even in the small Aegean islands.
Rallies also took place in Toronto, Brussels, London, Paris, Vienna and several German cities.
‘I have no oxygen’, stated the posters for the rally. Early last week audio documents were released of the train crash where trapped and terrified passengers were crying out for oxygen.
In his Report on the train crash, the engineer Vassilis Kokotsakis states that dozens of people survived the train collision but were then were burned by the fire caused by the flammable liquid that the freight train, which collided with the passenger train, was illegally transporting.
These stunning revelations have outraged the parents of the train crash victims as the Prime Minister Mitsotakis had assured them, in a television appearance, that there were no flammable liquids transported.
At the Athens rally, parents of those who died in the Tempi crash condemned the Mitsotakis government for ‘covering up’ and lying about the train crash.
Maria Karystianou, a lawyer and President of the Association of Relatives of the Tempi Victims, delivered a fierce speech against the government stating: ‘Our society has witnessed the most mafia-like operation of erasing evidence’ of the crash.
She accused the system and the judges carrying out the investigation for doing nothing. She pointed out that the following day of the train crash, on government orders, the soil around the collision of the two trains was removed.
For two years now, Karystianou pointed out, the investigation has been dragging its feet and no-one has been charged and imprisoned.
She said she was outraged when she learned that the Mitsotakis government has proposed K Tasoulas, the ex-Speaker of the Vouli (Greek parliament), for the new President of the Greek Republic.
Recently, Karystianou published a most damning criticism of Tasoulas. She wrote: ‘Mr Tasoulas was the one who, as President of the Parliament, kept in his office the file of the European Public Prosecutor for the 717 agreement and the file for the Tempi and did not immediately give it to the members of the Parliamentary Investigative Committee … kept in his office the lawsuits concerning the responsibilities of the Ministry of Transport and two files against members of the government and did not forward them directly to the Parliament as the Constitution stipulates and his position requires.
‘Tasoulas ignores the extrajudicial statements of the relatives of the Tempi victims and is complicit in the cover-up that the Parliament’s Investigative Committee ceremoniously sought and achieved… Mr.Tasoulas is the one who is abetting and obstructing the revelation of the truth about the Tempi crime.’
A few months ago, the Vouli’s (Greek parliament’s) Investigative Committee into the Tempi crash exonerated the government through the votes of the government’s own MPs who made up the majority of the Committee members.
Maria Karystianou ended her speech stating that the fight will go on for ‘justice’.
Another Tempi rally was organised for yesterday, 28 February, the second anniversary of the crash.
The huge crowd listened in silence to Karystianou’s speech, which was only interrupted by shouts of ‘Murderers! Murderers!’ against the government. Workers with their families, school and university students, youth and pensioners took part in the Athens rally one of the biggest in living memory.
Following the Athens rally, squads of armed riot police attacked with tear-gas and noise grenades some youths who had thrown fruit and rubbish at them. The clashes spread through Athens city centre and police arrested over 20 people.
The well-known Greek photojournalist Marios Lolos was hit on the head by a police grenade and needed medical attention.
In statements, both the Greek Press Photo Union and the Foreign Press Correspondents Association ‘categorically condemn the use of force against the former president of the Greek Photojournalists’ Union.’
Workers and youth in Greece, thrown into poverty and desperation by the barbarity of the EU’s Austerity Accords, have seen their hopes for a better life absolutely destroyed by the incredible rises in the cost of living.
Food prices have skyrocketed as well as rents and household bills. Wages are the lowest in the whole of the EU, along with Romanian and Bulgaria, and youth unemployment is around 30%.
They participated in the Tempi rallies in their tens of thousands, to vent their anger, to protest and to fight against the ‘murderers’ and the government’s austerity and police oppression.
The Mitsotakis government is not going to provide ‘justice’ and in fact it will carry on and increase the attacks on workers and youth, to try to rescue bankrupt Greek capitalism from collapsing.
Mitsotakis and his bosses in Brussels are facing a most determined and outraged workers, youth and small farmers who have made it clear that they are on the path of an insurrection.
Yet neither the GSEE (Greek TUC) nor the ADEDY (public sector trade unions) have made any calls for an indefinite general strike to topple the hated Mitsotakis parliamentary junta.
Along with the treacherous trade union bureaucracy, the Greek Communist Party also refuses the call for a general strike, instead calling for a parliamentary session devoted to the Tempi crash. This is a diversion and indeed another cover up.
The working class is faced with the immediate task of forming a leadership to unite and mobilise workers, youth and small farmers in the course of overthrowing the corrupt capitalist regime of Mitsotakis and to go forward to a workers’ government.
In a statement, the Executive Committee of the Greek Press Photo Union said it ‘condemns the injury to our colleague photojournalist Marios Lolos by the repressive forces during the incidents at Syntagma Square following the grand rally against the crime at Tempi.
‘We are receiving complaints from our colleagues who were also attacked by police forces in the course of their work. The government chose to suffocate the rally with chemicals and to exercise unjustified violence and repression to the demonstrators and to our colleagues.’
The Athens Foreign Press Association stated: ‘The Foreign Press Correspondents’ Union has categorically condemned the use of force against the former president of the Greek Photojournalists’ Union.
‘Related videos also show other incidents, where extensive use of force is made by the police forces against photojournalists who were at Syntagma to cover the march.’
The Union is also asking the Ministry of Citizen Protection to order an ‘immediate and full investigation of the incident and the punishment of everyone responsible.’
