Greek armed riot police repeatedly attacked with tear-gas and stun bombs 1,500 protesting farmers from Crete in the port of Piraeus on Tuesday morning.
Farmers had attempted to cross the police blockade and reach their tractors parked next to the ferries that had brought them to Piraeus early on Monday morning, when they were viciously attacked by riot police.
Cretan farmers decided not to march to Athens without their tractors.
They demanded that the riot police be withdrawn from the port and called on all political parties to send their representatives to the port for discussions with the Cretan farmers’ leaders.
The social-democratic leader of the PASOK party, Yiorghos Papandreou, visited the Cretan farmers in the Piraeus port and condemned the police attacks, but he refused to speak in support of the farmers’ demands and struggles.
Not a single ferry sailed on Monday from Piraeus to Crete as crews refused to work, in solidarity with the Cretan farmers.
The whole western section of the Piraeus port remains closed down.
On Monday evening Cretan small farmers’ representatives met in the Piraeus port with the Deputy Finance Minister Thanassis Bouras and the Deputy Minister for Agriculture Michalis Papadopoulos, but the Ministers refused to meet the farmers’ demands – for government subsidies on their produce, less VAT, checks on agricultural imports, reduced production costs and the planning of a ‘proper’ agricultural policy.
Earlier, farmers had attacked the Athens office of the Public Order Minister Markoyiannakis who had made statements against the Cretan farmers’ demonstration plans.
About 500 left-wing Piraeus workers and students marched on Monday evening to the port in support of the Cretan farmers’ struggle.
But there was no mobilisation by the Piraeus Trades Council leaders nor by the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
The Piraeus Area Council offered food and drinks to the farmers and organised a Cretan music concert in the port.
This is the first major armed riot police operation inside a major Greek port.
Up to now it was the Port Police security forces who were operating within the port.
These are armed military forces who had in the past attacked striking port and sea workers.
In the main cities in Crete farmers occupied government buildings while local authority leaders closed down town halls in solidarity with the farmers in the port of Piraeus.
On Tuesday morning farmers and workers demonstrated in all Cretan cities against the police violence.
In the north of Greece thousands of farmers with their tractors have blocked the main crossing point between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia.
Nikos Lambakis, from the village of Khoudhetsi in central Crete, travelled on Sunday night on the ferry from Heraklio to Piraeus along with his tractor.
He spoke to the News Line about the hard life of small farmers in Crete and the current struggle.
‘We travelled from Crete to demonstrate with our tractors as we promised we would but early on Monday morning the armed riot police attacked us with tear-gas.
‘So we stayed here until we had decided what to do next.
‘We have put up our demands, so everyone can see what we are fighting for.
‘We are forced to sell our produce at very law prices and then when we go and buy things, everything is more expensive and prices have gone up!
‘This government hate us! We won’t give in, we will fight for our rights and lives.’
Armed riot police units also attacked demonstrators on Monday afternoon outside the Athens Town Hall, as protestors tried to enter the building.
Two persons and a reporter were seriously injured as their clothes caught fire from the tear-gas and smoke-bomb grenades thrown by police.
Demonstrators were furious over the Athens Mayor’s decision to cut down large trees to build a car park.
In between all this, police announced that the ‘Revolutionary Struggle’ group had carried out a shot-gun attack on a police station in a Piraeus suburb.
The trade union bureaucrats of the GSEE (Greek TUC) met on Monday with Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis asking for no mass sackings.
Karamanlis promised nothing.
Both the GSEE and ADEDY (public sector trades union federation) are to vote for a general strike on February 25.
