SOME 3,000 mostly young people marched to the European Commission offices in Athens on Thursday evening calling for a ‘NO’-‘OXI’ vote in Sunday’s referendum.
A protester climbed up to the balcony of the EC offices and hung a banner stating ‘NO to EC, IMF, ECB’ signed by ANTARSYA the anti-capitalist formation. Greek armed riot police then attacked marchers with tear gas and noise bombs. But marchers stayed put and a European Union flag was set on fire.
Earlier, a rally was held in front of the Athens University central building in the Athens city centre. A speaker of the Revolutionary Marxist League (RML) called for a massive ‘NO’ vote in Sunday’s referendum and insisted that the fight must be continued after that with a workers’ and poor farmers’ government replacing the SYRIZA-ANEL capitalist coalition that has fully accepted the troika barbaric austerity diktats.
The RML speaker stated that the stand of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and of the GSEE (Greek TUC) constitutes a betrayal of the working class fight against austerity of enormous historic significance. He called on those trade unions who have called for a ‘NO’-‘OXI’ vote and on militants to organise to kick the trade union bureaucracy out of the GSEE offices and constitute there a national Workers Conference to push the struggle forward with an indefinite political general strike.
Nearby, a rally of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) attracted over 10,000 people. The KKE has called for a spoiled papers vote on the referendum with the logic of rejecting both the EC-IMF-ECB troika’s and the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government’s austerity programmes.
Many tens of thousands were expected to participate in mass ‘NO’-‘OXI’ rallies scheduled for Friday evening in Athens and all Greek cities. SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) had organised a ‘NO’-‘OXI’ concert of many top Greek musicians and singers in front of the Vouli (Greek parliament).
The counter-revolutionary ‘YES to the referendum’ movement ‘We stay in Europe’ has organised a rally at the Athens Stadium. The capitalist mass media is hysterically supporting a ‘YES’ vote with terrifying reports on how bank savings will be sequestrated by the government in case of a ‘NO’ vote at the referendum.
An ANEL (the Independent Greeks junior coalition partners) deputy has resigned his seat stating that he would be casting a ‘YES’ vote. Three other ANEL deputies have expressed scepticism. The SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government has a majority of 11 in the Vouli, made of the 149 SYRIZA and the 12 ANEL deputies.
The coupist calls from the European Union leaders have continued with Martin Schultz, the German social-democratic leader and President of the European Parliament, calling for a ‘YES’ vote and for the SYRIZA-ANEL government to be replaced immediately by a ‘government of technocrats’.
