The three-day commemoration of the 38th anniversary of the 17 November 1973 Polytechnic students’ uprising, which led to the collapse of the seven-year military dictatorship in Greece, passed off more peacefully than expected on Thursday, with a march from the downtown campus to the US embassy. An estimated 50,000 citizens, many bitterly opposed to further austerity measures, took part in the demonstrations in what was the first public test for the new national unity government.

The afternoon march passed shuttered stores en-route to the embassy of the United States, which protesters blame for supporting the seven-year military dictatorship. A total of 78 people were detained in police sweeps before, during and after the demonstration in what authorities described as a preventative measure.

Later, a total of 11 arrests were made along the protest rally route, especially after hooded youths threw firebombs at nearby riot police near parliament and further north at Mavili square, next to the US embassy. Police fired tear gas at the rioters, who set light to dumpsters along the route. A separate Communist Party of Greece (KKE) rally went off peacefully.

WREATHS

The gates of the Polytechnic, which opened to the public on Tuesday at the commencement of the memorial events, closed shortly after noon, ahead of the march to the embassy. Beforehand, members of the public and officials laid wreaths and placed flowers at the Polytechnic monument. Among them was the aide-de-camp of President Karolos Papoulias.

Linking the past with the present after he laid a wreath on behalf of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza), Alexis Tsipras said: “The youth uprising in November 1973 shows that the international and European centres of the economic elite have selected the wrong people for a guinea pig”. Tsipras, who was accompanied by the leader of the German Left party Klaus Ernst, said the Greek people are now facing a new attack against their rights, adding that the banks and the banking system should pay the price of the crisis, and not the citizens. A wreath was also placed by Democratic Left representative Spyros Lykoudis.

Last Wednesday, Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou said the heavy policing made necessary by the troublemakers that marred events each year had made the symbolic remembrance ceremonies “meaningless”.

“I refuse to participate in this process that constitutes a deep insult to the historic memory and converts the essence and meaning of the Polytechnic anniversary into a spectacle of violence and sensationalism. Instead of laying wreaths we all have a duty to present the truth,” she said. According to the education minister, the truth was that in the conditions created for several years by the actions of dynamic minorities acting outside democratic boundaries “there is absolutely no point in laying wreaths with an escort of either police or party supporters”.

UNION CALL

Civil servants federation Adedy had urged mass participation in the 17 November commemorative events. In a statement released on Wednesday, the federation said: “Thirty-eight years after the uprising of student youth that led to the overthrow of the seven-year junta government, the slogan ‘bread, education, freedom’ is exceptionally relevant today”. “In an era of now generalised economic crisis caused by a globalised and completely bank and market-controlled system of governance, trapping governments and countries, the central slogan of the Polytechnic uprising is the start for new struggles by workers and our people with the aim of overthrowing the neoliberal policies in Greece and Europe” the statement continued. Up to 7000 police officers were drafted into Athens ahead of the protests.

Source: AMNA, Athens News, Reuters