“The scene was not only horrifying, but it was also heartbreaking,” reporter George Hatzimanolis told Neos Kosmos after witnessing first-hand Thursday’s events unfold in Syntagma.
“It’s hard to fathom how this once proud city has been turned into a battle zone between the youth and the police.” One of the estimated 50,000 people outside the Greek parliament on the second day of the strike, Neos Kosmos’ correspondent Hatzimanolis described how a minority of protestors turned a demonstration of peaceful solidarity against the government’s policies into a flaming battlefield.
“What I saw was some very angry and frustrated people, mostly aged between 16 and 21 and most of them male, who used what was a largely peaceful protest as a catalyst to cause havoc. Wearing motorcycle helmets, dressed in black and covering their faces, they wielded sticks and baseball bats and used large pieces of marble as ammunition.”
Hatzimanolis’ criticisms of the perpetrators of Thursday’s violence do not stop at the hooded youths bent on injuring whoever they feel is deserving of their anger. “The police overuse the tear gas, and at times chase and hit anyone they can get their hands on,” says Hatzimanolis.
“They appear to be enticing the youth to react violently. It’s almost as though it’s a territorial battle with neither side willing to back down. One has the numbers, the other has the weapons.” “The disappointing thing is that these riots have overshadowed the peaceful protesters’ message. But they have sent another message out, not only to the Greek leaders, but also to the world, that the Greeks will not take further austerity measures lying down. They are willing to fight this to the end.
Many of the young people today spoke only of getting more reinforcements, of becoming more violent, and of standing up to what they call a new junta.” Office worker Christina Ioannou went to Syntagma on Wednesday to show her solidarity with around 80,000 others who turned out to oppose the Government’s austerity program.
Christine told Neos Kosmos: “Greek people of all classes feel that their future, and the future of their children has been mortgaged indefinitely.”
“The nation’s sovereignty has been given to the markets, and the opposition of all colours, is numb and moronic – they offer no sustainable or logical alternative.” Christine believes the only positive that can be taken from the crisis, “is that at long last, the nation may actually pass from adolescence to full maturity, and become more circumspect of all politicians.”
“The country is at a standstill . Our capacity to dream and work towards one’s goals has not only been compromised but pulverised.” Meanwhile, Christine, like her fellow Athenians, must pick her way through the tangible effects of the crisis on the streets: “The rubbish is reaching mountain peaks on each sidewalk and many have seen the first scavenger rats rumbling through.”
Despite the protests in Syntagma, in which one man died reportedly of a heart attack, the Greek parliament endorsed the latest austerity measures required to meet the conditions of the EU/IMF bailout plan. The measures approved last week include a new pay system covering Greece’s 700,000 civil servants, cuts in public sector wages, the suspension of some 30,000 public sector workers, along with wage bargaining, and monthly pensions above 1,000 euros being cut by 20 per cent. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos described the dilemma facing Greece as a choice between, “a difficult situation and a catastrophe.”
“We have to explain to all these indignant people who see their lives changing that what the country is experiencing is not the worst stage of the crisis,” said the Pasok minister. “It is an anguished and necessary effort to avoid the ultimate, deepest and harshest level of the crisis.” Louka Katseli, a fellow Pasok MP who voted against the new measures has been expelled from the party by Prime Minister George Papandreou.