TENS of thousands of Greek university and higher education college students from all over the country demonstrated last Saturday in the northern city of Thessaloniki along with workers and the unemployed in a most defiant anti-government march of more than 40,000.
The march was called by the trades unions and by the students’ unions against the ‘junta of the IMF-European Commission’, as the Greek government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou is branded.
Papandreou was in Thessaloniki to deliver a speech of total submission to the diktats demanded by the international bankers.
The march took place through the almost deserted city centre of Thessaloniki as the Greek police had imposed no-go areas and thousands of riot police were posted at all road junctions.
Taxi drivers were on strike and all the restaurants, tavernas and take-aways were shut in protest over the 23 per cent VAT imposed on food and drinks.
Students headed the mass demonstration with large banners bearing the names of the occupied university and college departments.
The banner of the University of Patras occupation was held by four students and determinedly declared on its top ‘We will come out of this fight as winners!’ then listing the students’ demands for the withdrawal of the recent Education Law and for the overthrow of the Papandreou junta of IMF-EC.
Throughout the march students kept on shouting slogans the most popular being ‘We want proper degrees – not passports to unemployment!’
Behind the students’ contingents marched about 5,000 workers with the banner of the Co-ordination of Trade Unions, which declared ‘For workers’ struggle to overthrow the junta of government-IMF-EC-employers!’, ‘Forward people for uprisings everywhere – to throw out the government of EC and IMF!’, ‘There will be havoc and panic – we won’t allow capitalism to kill us!’.
A large contingent of ‘autonomous immigrants and refugees’ carried a banner declaring ‘We are not going to live like hunted animals!’
Hundreds of armed riot police escorted on both sides the march as demonstrators shouted ‘Police-murderers!’ and ‘Police get out of our march!’.
The march passed through the rally held by the GSEE (Greek TUC) of about 5,000 workers mostly from the big public sector trades unions such as electricity, mines, energy, transport, post, refineries, water authorities, media and others.
But these were small delegations and their banners called for the defense of the public sector but not for the overthrow of the government.
As the students passed through the GSEE rally they shouted ‘GSEE is Papandreou’s shop’ and ‘Trade union bureaucrats are scum!’.
The march, with the GSEE-led workers in the back, headed for the Thessaloniki International Trade Exhibition where Papandreou was making his speech backing the call of his Health Ministry for a ‘revision’ of the Greek constitution to accommodate the destruction of public servicesd and state education and ‘restructure’ the judicial system to allow business to cut wages and sack at will.
Papandreou also announced yet another tax on all households based on the size of homes and houses, payable immediately through the electricity bills.
The president of the electricians union said that this won’t be allowed.
The area around the entrance to the International Fair became a battlefield in the evening as thousands of striking taxi drivers and so-called anti-state demonstrators, in separate marches, were attacked by the riot police with tear gas.
Later police announced 94 arrests and on Sunday nine persons were to appear in court charged with various offences.
As the huge students’ and workers’ march approached the entrance to the Fair, the riot police formed a corridor forcing the march through it.
At the same time fresh street battles with petrol bombs and tear-gas canisters broke out.
It was a critical moment for the march which had to reach the Fair’s entrance and then move on to the occupied Thessaloniki University.
The students at the front with courage, determination and discipline formed ‘chains’ (holding one another) and pushed through the riot police showing that they were ready for everything.
The riot police had to retreat as the masses of students and workers stormed through the entrance to the Fair.
Riot police positioned themselves in front of the entrance and they dared not attack the marchers who passed by in their thousands with their banners high up and shouting slogans against the police and the government.
The march showed that if the government is determined to enforce the Education Law then Papandreou has to order the riot police and the army to attack the students’ occupations as the military junta did in the Athens Polytechnic in 1973.
The Greek government will now try to split students and lecturers and isolate them in order to attack.
That is why the government want to revise the Greek Constitution, already revised twice in the last decade, so as to send the riot police and the army against striking workers too under the pretext of a declared ‘state of emergency’, that is dictatorship.
Students and trades unions have called for demonstrations throughout Greece this Thursday as the students’ fight is of paramount importance for the defense not just of state and free education, as stated in the Greek Constitution, but also for the defense of jobs, wages, pensions and public services.
The European Commission announced that the Greek deficit for this year will reach over nine per cent while public debt will be 157,7 per cent of the GNP rising to 166,1 per cent in 2012. By Monday lunchtime the Athens Stock Exchange dived again over three per cent.