Tens of thousands of youth, students and workers participated last Friday evening in fiercely anti-government marches and rallies, held in Athens and ten other large Greek cities.
The angry marchers demanded justice and the punishment of all those responsible for the crime of the 57 dead of the 28th February, 2023, Tempi collision of a passenger and goods trains operated by Hellenic Train, the privatised Greek railways.
In all the rallies, people chanted slogans against privatisation and accused the right wing government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of a cover-up of the circumstances of the train crash.
Up to now, no date has been set for a trial. This fact has infuriated the Greek people and the Association Tempi2023, of the parents and relatives of all those killed in the train crash.
The marches were held as a no confidence vote was debated in the Vouli (Greek parliament) last Friday night.
The 157 government deputies rejected the no confidence vote, a majority of seven.
Seven deputies refused to vote.
Early last week, the Vouli voted overwhelmingly for setting up a parliamentary committee to investigate responsibilities on the train crash of the then Minister to the Prime Minister Kristos Triantopoulos and of the General Secretary of the Climate and Civil Protection Ministry, Vassilis Papagheorghiou. Both have resigned their portofolios.
The Association Tempi2023 stated that the setting up of such a parliamentary committee was totally inadequate.
The Association demanded a trial of all those ‘politically and criminally’ responsible, including Prime Minister Mitsotakis and the members of the Cabinet, along with the Hellenic Train management and the executives of OSE, the state Organisation of Greek Railways responsible for the rails network and for development and maintenance works.
Once again, as in the previous mass marches, the armed riot police of the Mitsotakis regime attacked the evening rallies in Athens and Thessaloniki with tear gas making dozens of arrests.
Earlier on Friday midday, over 8,000 students participated in a militant march in Athens and other Greek cities demanding ‘justice for the Tempi crime’ and shouting rhymed slogans against privatisation and the government cover-up of the train crash.
A section of the march, made up of several Athens University and Athens Technical University (Polytechnic) schools shouted ‘Murderers!’, ‘Resign!’ and ‘Down with the News Democracy! (government party)’.
On Friday night, over 15,000 workers and youth participated in a rally outside the Vouli called by trades unions affiliated to PAME, the Greek Communist Party’s (KKE) trade union section.
Inside the Vouli, the no confidence vote against the Mitsotakis government was debated.
Students, parents of victims of the crime in Tempi and trade unionists spoke at the rally.
The President of the National Trade Union of OSE workers Vassilis Zavogiannis stressed that the railway unions had repeatedly warned in writing to both the Hellenic Train and OSE about the risk of train accidents.
‘When we struck demanding proper modern safety conditions,’ Zavogiannis said, ‘OSE went to the courts and our strike was declared illegal, thanks to government legislation.’
In the Tempi crash, 11 railway workers were killed, Zavogiannis said, and demanded a ‘unified public railway’.
Also speaking at the rally were Panagiotis Papageorgopoulos, a member of the Executive of the Athens Trade Centre and Markos Berkris President of the Piraeus Trades Centre, both leaders of PAME, who called for a ‘struggle to overthrow the government’s policy and system’.
This is a repeatedly used formula by the PAME and KKE leadership to avoid calling for the overthrow of the Mitsotakis’ government.
Their rallies are designed as simple protest mobilisations to let off steam.
These leaderships consider that the working class and the youth are not ready to overthrow the government and go forward to a workers’ government.
All this, just days after the colossal rallies of hundreds of thousands in a 24-hour general strike, the largest ever mobilisation in Greece!
The PAME speakers did not demand either the re-nationalisation of the railways nor the organisation of a General Political Indefinite Strike to overthrow the parliamentary junta of Mitsotakis.
The PAME speakers made no reference of Mitsotakis’ full support of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, nor of his support of NATO’s war in Ukraine.
Following the speeches, the banners of the trade unions, supporters of PAME, left Syntagma Square in front of the Vouli.
About 5,000 students and young workers remained in the square.
Now the rally changed character as people started shouting ‘Resign!’, ‘Murderers, murderers!’, ‘Down with the government!’ and ‘Mitsotakis scum’.
It was time for the hated armed riot police to attack.
After some stones and petrol bombs were thrown, the riot police squads along with motorcycle units and a water cannon vehicle, moved in to disperse the rally and clear up the square in front of the Vouli which was saturated with tear gas.
The riot police attacks spread along the main avenues of the Athens city centre. Dozens of people were arrested.
Last Saturday 8 March, International Women’s Day, mass rallies and marches were held in Athens and Thessaloniki.
There were three separate rallies in Athens, by the ADEDY (the public trade unions federation), left wing trades union branches and parties and by the OGE (Greek Women’s Organisation) which is supported by the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
Trades unions – mostly hospitals, teachers and banking workers – feminist groups, students’ associations, anarchist collectives, left wing factions and refugee-immigrant women’s groups participated in the mobilisations.
About 5,000 workers, students and youth marched from the two rallies in the Athens city centre to Hellenic Train HQs to protest of the Tempi train crime. The OGE march followed a different route.
When the march reached the Hellenic Train headquarters it was attacked with tear gas grenades by the armed riot police who had barricaded with police buses access to the front of the HQ’s building.
Despite the vicious attack to disperse the march, demonstrators kept discipline and shouting slogans against the police and the government, proceeding to the near by Panteio University where a meeting was held to decide on further mobilisations and university occupations.
