Signalfire

( translated by “act for freedom now!”)

The Sect of Revolutionaries arms itself again. In today’s world the most violent thing is to remain passive. All our lives are overwhelmed by violence. And when it’s not the violence of the cops, the detention centres, the prisons, then things are even more treacherous. We are talking about violence without blood. The violence of the image, advertising, the consumerist high, the psychological dead end and loneliness. We live in squalid cities, eat plastic food, we inform ourselves with prefabricated news, buy brand products, we work in disgusting jobs, admire phony standards, we create small private cells inside our homes with cheerful furniture.
We are tired of this empty life. We said enough is enough … no more lost days … no more humiliation at work … no more borrowed prayers for goodnight …

So a year and a half ago we formed the Sect of Revolutionaries, which became the vehicle for our escape from the fucking calm of the world-prison we live in. Two or three guns to start with, some books and some delinquent knowledge from experiences of the past, combined with several “kilos” of determination and the confidence of a conscience that said: either human or pig, either fighter or enslaved, either revolution or compromise with resignation.

And so we began.

When you live in an unending struggle it makes you sharpen your skills and your thoughts, while at the same time you get the pleasure of having opposed the fate that was reserved for you.

But we wanted something more …

We wanted make the leap to storming the heavens. After our third hit, we put to ourselves the question of stepping up our action, which entailed a number of necessary requirements. So we went into creative obscurity in order to re-emerge more capable, more effective, more dangerous. During this time many of us trained in weapons, learned new techniques, read, informed ourselves of struggle situations unknown until now, we exchanged experiences and viewpoints with other fighters and refuelled in the logistics sector.
At the same time the rest of our fighters did not remain inactive. They created a network of essential information, collected evidence,
took care of our conscious inactivity and offered their services to the cause of the Revolution and the dignity of themselves.
So from now on we want to be terribly consistent in what we say and to pass on a message to all the main faces of society and their
gorillas. “The Revolutionary Sect will not leave one millimetre of safe ground in your life.

Our guns are full and ready to “speak” … If the arguments make sweat flow, the evidence will make blood shed …».

We are not merely talking about armed propaganda, but are putting it into practice. Our recent attack did not rely on propagandistic reasons, but the decision to terminate the miserable career of this guy.
Armed struggle does not apologize and does not invoke the hypocrisy of humanitarianism and the ideal of human life.
The revolution is war to build an autonomous existential code away from the hypocrisy of modern-day life.
Human life is a variable, a commodity in the world of entertainment that is sometimes torn to pieces by being exiled into the dungeons of prisons, in lonely dead-ends, in substance dependencies, and is sometimes defended as the “ideal” that was lost by the guns of terrorists.

But it is not just important that you live but also how you live. The real value is in the choices made by each individual in their life.
That’s where we are all judged. Socrates Giolias made his choices and we made ours. He chose to live like a rodent in the kingdom of mud of his kind and we as wolves outside the herd.

Let’s see who the “unaware” and “unguarded” Socrates Giolias really was.
From early on deeply involved in the tricks of the journalistic plague, he served for several years under the master of supposedly independent “revelatory” journalism Makis Triantafyllopoulos as a friend, collaborator and editor of his shows.
At the same time he was a “member” of the new school of Greek championism. A championism that had specialized in the illegal trade of dopaine (Best friend of Christos Tzekos that knows a lot about “powders” [*1] ) in doped records (best man with athlete Kostas Kenteris, offering media coverage in the famous “accident” he had with the other sport-junkie Katerina Thanou [*2]) and of course the dealing of official positions – recuperating the whole known championship clique either into the security forces, or the
political arena (buddies with the athlete-MP Kostas Koukodimos, the failed candidate Voula Patoulidou and others [*3]). Of course anyone can imagine the scams of all of those with a valuable partner like Socrates Giolias in the company called SEGAS that the above were all distinguished personalities of. Especially when the air was full of the “national vision” of the 2004 Olympic Games, a feast was set up in the Athletics Federation with “golden” sponsorships and government grants and secret financial deals under the table with contractors and construction companies.

But the “unaware” Socrates Giolias was a pluralist. He was a known religious bigot in some circles and was a permanent visitor-member of another well-known company. He was a trusted associate of the Othonic state clergy, while at the same time the man of the cloth, the weasel Ephraim, was his spiritual advisor. This is why when the known scandal about the slimy priests in Vatopedi broke out,[*4] Giolias always stood in front as a shield to support their little shop.
The guy was literally with the cross in his hand.

Beyond all that, the main reason for our visit to his home was his dominant position in the electronic form of new journalism.
With the rapid spread of internet and an ever-increasing preference of young people in particular to inform themselves from it, it was
not long before its exploitation by the known lowlife journalists began. Apart from the official news sites that are usually already known electronic newspapers, the first informative blogs were created. The immediacy of the information they offered was the key feature that turned them into popular websites. This greater freedom of expression has been used by people living under totalitarian regimes as an attempt to heist the censorship imposed by the government.
In contrast to these people, the same anonymity was exploited by systematic journalists such as Giolias, Papagiannis etc. as a means
of extortion and slandering to support the specific business interests that finance them.

Our action has nothing to do with our opposition to the anonymity of blogs since on the contrary we propose it and we consider it necessary as a shield to protect enemies of the regime and as a healthy condition of genuinely alternative, self-organised means of information. The only sure thing is that Giolias was not among the enemies of the regime, but was the boss behind the anonymous blog “troktiko”(rodent) exercising his propaganda for the system.

Giolias, former associate of the “fighter” Makis Triantafylopoulos and worthy partner of the Kostopoulos–Anastasiadis “school” of journalism [known journalistic figures](removing guilt from the modern lifestyle motivated by economic success and modern Greek Macho-ness) had what was needed. On one side the journalism of “social sensitivity”, “revelations” and “complaints” and on the other a macho service, a cocktail of audacity, lifestyle with an opinion, modern neo-conservatism, a hidden (or obvious) fascism, supposedly satire, not just against authority, but especially against those who have no voice to reply to the mud he threw at them.

The most hideous insults and slanderous lies about urban guerilla warfare entered the first line of the “troktiko” blog publications.
Even his brother Pericles, as director of “Prince Oliver”, responded defiantly, ironically paraphrasing the slogans of the uprising in
December as an act of arson that targeted his company.
The same boss of “troktiko” had set himself as judge and awarded penalties to those arrested, through his blog.
After the divorce from his mentor Makis Triantafyllopoulos, Giolias now independent and in the most powerful position in the
journalistic blogo-sphere becomes special adviser to Dimitris Kontominas, who is included in the financial mafia of Greece, known by his involvement in the “interamerican” [*5] scandal. He also recently worked as general manager of radio station THEMA that belongs to the big-bellied scum Themos Anastasiadis. The list of dirty stories of this journalism clan and the internal battles of the “big” journalists and publishers, exemplified by the trio Anastasiadis-Giolias-Kontominas and the brotherhood Hadjinikolaou-Triantafyllopoulos-Kouris, could fill several pages.

The journalistic world is a bucket full of shit and with our action we just simply made it a bit lighter.

Of course the boss of “troktiko” as a professional snitch knew the consequences and the “accidents” that could befall him. Socrates
Giolias was so “unaware” that he made sure of confirming himself as a target. Especially after the bomb in Patissia and the death of
an Afghan boy, he himself, and the bastards he had for colleagues used the camouflage of supposedly anonymous reader comments
on “troktiko” to openly threaten anyone opposed to the sewer of lies that they systematically unleashed. Specifically after publishing
exclusive photos of the slain child, a privilege thanks to the loyal cooperation of Giolias with the “anti-terrorists”, a ‘reader’ of
“troktiko” wrote in concerning the rage that was gathering against the face of the “unaware” – so, what should Giolias and every
Giolias do. Carry a gun and shoot at anyone moving suspiciously to protect his life? -

But let’s not exaggerate.

Giolias did not need to shoot to protect himself. It would be taken care of by the two police security escorts that had been allocated to
him and used alternately until the pig’s death on Katehaki Street. (meaning the death of the military man by the letter bomb sent to
the offices of the minister of citizens protection.)

Specifically, the “unguarded” Giolias, the journalist who denounced the protection of public figures saying that the police should be combative in the street and not escorting potential targets like ‘Filipino sevants’, had his own armed gorillas.

Fucking wankers of the “anti-terrorist” let’s see if you can dispute the following evidence …

From Monday to Friday the boss of “troktiko” used for his daily transport a Smart car with numberplate IHP 5121 (which was changed in recent weeks for another Smart with plate numbers IMP 3142), always accompanied by motorbike secret police.
More specifically Giolias set off daily from his home in Daedalus Street 21 between 12.10-12.25 always to arrive late for his radio
show. 20 minutes before that, a bike approached his house and parked in the hidden corner of Nymphs and Daedalus Street with a security escort, who followed the Smart at a 5 to 10 metre distance when it set off. Giolias had two servants-gorillas who usually alternated every other week. The first guy was young (25-30 years old) with a fitness look, usually gazing into space while playing with his cell phone camera and silver-black TDM bike, while the second was more experienced, a grey-haired 40 year-old, his favorite habit was to read his newspaper on his bike and to walk around like he had watermelons under his armpits, whilst he also used the same type of off road Transalp motorbike, plate number XXK 389. We stress that Giolias, to avoid being stigmatized in the neighbourhood by the fact that he had escorts, obliged them to park in the hidden corner so they were not seen, not to seem inconsistent with what he wrote.

Things changed when the fool died in Katehaki Street. Obviously the new instructions and powers given to security escorts to
regulate their position and the route of the proposed target, enabled the gorillas to change position.
So for the last period of time the first bike arrived and parked just opposite the apartment building of “troktiko”, checking out
everyone that passed by, while a few minutes before Giolias set off the second bike arrived. Giolias took a few minutes to wish them
good morning and then they all started together like nice “companions.” Usually the first was the TDM checking the route at a distance of 5 to 10 metres, in the middle was Giolias with the Smart and last was the 40-year-old with the Transalp.

Our original thought was to hit them all together. Using a heavy vehicle we would ram the first bike by running over the gorilla and
another firepower force would “mow” down the other two. More targets, more efficiency. We knew their exact route and Ethnarchou
Makariou Street which they took after Daedalus Street with the flowerbeds was convenient for the “crash” and cornering them. Soon however, we rejected this scenario because this particular road, which was ideal for such a trap, has a moderate to dense flow of vehicles, passers by and two traffic flows, so there was a danger to other people and we never pursued it. Because the fact that we are sharply critical of social decadence is one thing, the process of targeting is another. Our targets are always clear and our gun’s target specific, heads, this is why we would not risk hitting the wrong man. So we’d rather go to his home than let something happen in a gunfight in the street and hit someone irrelevant. What exactly was said through the intercom to ensure not only that he would come down, but would come alone without being accompanied by his wife, is something that does not need not be made public for several reasons. But here, we would like to add that the famous tv persona Yiannis Marakakis, lawyer of Giolias, who goes on the tv-“windows” [a regular feature on Greek tv, the screen is divided into multiple 'windows' allowing vociferous remote discussions among 'experts' on 'topical subjects'] to book a job, should not bust our balls about the Sect ‘as a front for a contract killing’, because we will carve his face up, as our bullets are worth more than such idiots. Returning, we would like to note that we also
rejected the possibility of breaking into his block of flats and executing Giolias in his apartment. Our main concern was for not the slightest thing to go wrong with his wife and of course the young child.
Everyone gets the end they deserve and these people have done nothing to us. Furthermore, the practice of political execution is very clear and specific. There will never be any danger from our attacks for any family members or family environment of a target that does not have any involvement in their dirty options and interests, even if this obliges us to cancel our plans. An urban guerrilla is not a cold murderer. When he chooses to shoot, he does not hit the face itself, but the choices of the specific person, the position he holds, the decisions he has taken, the interests he serves.
It’s not a personal thing. The armed fighter fights the operators of the system who no longer have their own separate face, but a
particular job they are defending. The armed fighter does not shoot people, he shoots against the system itself.

Giolias was one of the many names of big time journalists we collected information about their homes, their vehicles, their security, their favorite hangouts, restaurants, even where they play tennis (you get the hint Hadji-wanker from Alter channel ?).

All those judges who have microphones and make speeches in front of tv cameras, judging and sentencing, will know what it means for fear to pass over into their own side. At this point we would also like to advise all witnesses that the answer to any question, should be one alone: “I don’t know, I didn’t see, I didn’t hear … ” – whatever else will be seen as cooperation with the police and this is not acceptable.

Finally we would like to recall that in our third announcement we wrote that “The supreme planning and duty of an urban guerrilla is
to disrupt the interior of his country, hurt the national economy, damage the public external image …».

Greece for months now is in the eye of the cyclone by turning to the IMF and the financial deficit. One of the most lucrative sources of
money inflow is the summer tourism season. The execution of the journalist in conjunction with the guerrilla actions of the last year
we believe creates a negative image abroad for the safety of Greek territory and hits the national tourism industry. Tourists need to
know that Greece is no longer safe ground behind the lines of capitalism. We seek to become a war zone with revolutionary
processes with arsons, sabotage, militant marches, bombings, armed executions, not a vacation destination. We are at war with your
democracy. As for the financial crisis and the whining of society about the bleak future, we do not give a damn. We don’t care about a world that protests the new unbearable economic measures without first having rebelled against the cheapness of the meaning of life inside the system; it deserves its fate.

We did not borrow anything from your world to feel that we are losing or owe something.

If what is at stake in the consciousness of people now is the loss of a fixed salary and a secure pension, that shows that this world
has already died. Because first it lost its hopes, its dignity, its selfishness, its dreams, its conscience, its feelings, and then no one
really cared. But when its borrowed prayers for the miserable delusion of property are threatened and it rebels, then its days are
numbered. Because they have been weighed up and found meaningless.

We in the Sect of Revolutionaries believe that only through the complete destruction of the state and the current structures will a new perspective of life be able to dawn. A life of new human relationships, without authority, without borders, without religion without divisions. A life that money does not govern neither will property rule. A life away from false idols, compulsions and conventions.

We are promoting a new civilization with values such as equality, dignity, honour, mutual respect, solidarity, liberation. Man can and
must create a new way of life and expression. Harmonize with the natural environment, overflow with emotions, abandon himself to
pleasures, be the creator of his own world … Human communication must be liberated from phone lines and flat screens, human
gestures should regain their warmth and be relieved from formalities and repeatability, life should become an adventurous wandering
and free itself from the bureaucratic version. Of course all this sounds utopian, if you invest all your action on a future vision and
ignore the present.

The answer is given by the mirror itself…

So, don’t ask how things will change. Be yourself the answer to your question. We recommend the total annihilation and destruction
of authority relations and dominant civilization. Only through the rubble and ruins of modern urban centres will a new way of life
flourish. The rebel groups are but a small prefiguration of such a future. But as we said in a previous text, even if this future does not
come, we will have tasted it, living our own unorthodox way in today. And this adventure, the journey towards liberation is worth
every moment …

Hence our proposal is now clear. To the people who want to actively refuse the tyranny of the system, go from words to action.

Comrades, organize, create groups, collectivise your wishes, arm yourselves, read, communicate, deny roles and leaderships,
abolish slavery and go into the strategy of armed struggle.

Today’s urban guerillas must overcome the legacy of the socialist proletariat and proclaim as a revolutionary subject they
themselves, their comrades and all those who actively deny the coup of power in our lives, giving a substantial advantage to life and
not economic analysis. In procedures that promote armed struggle we win moments of liberated time, as only those allow the
recovery of lost dignity and pave the way for inner freedom.

Thus anyone can rewrite his individual identity in social life and become an armed warrior of the revolution.

“Enough is enough. Winter fills us with sadness, we spring pollutes us and summer suffocates us. For a long time now our nostrils
are choking on the stench from the offices, reactors, factories and highways. Our muzzles no longer taste good, it is like a sausage
wrapped in plastic cable. The beer we drink is stale, like bourgeois morality.
We do not want to do the same job and wear the same expression throughout our lives. They have given us enough orders, they have
controlled our thoughts, ideas, home and our passports enough, they have smashed our faces enough. We will not let them mold us,
oppress us, crush us. – WE WILL SMASH THEIR FACES -

…until the beach of tun nichts (I do nothing …)
(call of German autonomists)

Y.G.1. Because we know that an angry pig stinks more than usual, we would like to say a few words to the wankers of the DIAS group.
“You little pricks because you pretend to be macho, at some point we will open new buttonholes in one of your suits. And bear in
mind, we have a little “problem” … We are terribly consistent in what we say …».
Indeed, indicative of our intention is where we chose to leave our announcement, at a distance of 30 metres straight shot from the
guard post and the front of Nikaia police station.

P.S.2 To all prison officials, directors, prosecutors, prison officers and social workers we warn you that if you do not immediately
change your attitude towards suffering tortured imprisoned people you will join the priority list to become an example to the others.
Especially for some of you, we even know what time you take your pills. Cut the shit you’re doing with ban on leave days and cutting
visiting rights to prisoners, respect and do not violate their rights because otherwise at an unsuspected moment you will receive a
visit from fighters of the Sect of Revolutionaries with a final transfer to the other world.

Fighters of the Revolution, the enemy has a name, search for addresses …

ARMED STRUGGLE FOR REVOLUTIONARY AUTONOMY

SECT OF REVOLUTIONARIES.

[*1]
Track and field officials targeted Greek athletes during the 2004 Olympics for surprise testing of a previously undetectable steroid after learning they had connections to Balco Laboratories, owner of which is Christos Tzekos a coach and main figure in the sports industry. An e-mail included in the evidence that U.S. authorities made public when announcing the indictments implicated the Greeks, although the names of the coaches and athletes were not revealed.

[*2]
Greek sprinters Konstantinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou were billed as the great hopes of the Athens Olympics after their
respective gold and silver medals in Sydney four years earlier.
But on the eve of the 2004 Olympics the duo became embroiled in the one of the biggest scandals to date after missing drugs tests.
Dumb-founded upon hearing the news in the media, Kenteris and Thanou staged a motorcycle accident to provide the authorities
with an excuse for missing the test. On August 18, the sixth day of the Games, the pair withdrew from the Olympics, claiming they
were acting in ‘the interests of their country.’
That was their third violation of the summer and they were subsequently suspended by the IAAF in December 2004.
In June the following year however, the Greek Athletics Federation cleared them of all charges, with their coach Christos Tzekos
taking the blame with a four-year ban.
After a long-standing legal battle, which was about to reach the Court of Arbitration for Sport, they were reinstated by the IAAF in
December 2006.

[*3]
Many athletes pursued a career in politics.

[*4]
The scandal is that some of Vatopedi’s monks deviously mishandled the real estate holdings of the monastery. As is well known, the
Orthodox Church is the largest single landowner in Greece, and the Athonite monasteries are especially well endowed.
Vatopedi Monastery has traditionally held great estates all over Greece. Over the past decade, however, it has managed to swap
some of these locations for other land – in high-value places like Athens – and then resell these acquisitions, making a tidy profit in
the process.

[*5]
The former president of the Interamerican insurance company, Dimitris Kontominas, as well as the firm’s board members, were
questioned by a magistrate in connection with the embezzlement of funds between 1996 and 1998. The case came to light following
complaints from Greeks living in Germany, South Africa, Belgium and the Netherlands that they had taken out insurance with
Interamerican but their policies were later declared worthless.

AP

ATHENS, Greece – Domestic terrorism increased “significantly” in Greece last year following riots in Dec. 2008 sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager, the U.S. State Department says in an annual report on terrorism.

Experts and law enforcement officials argue new terror groups appear to have broken with the past tradition of militancy in Greece and no longer claim to espouse any clear objectives or political ideology.

The U.S. report noted more than 430 “security incidents” — including incendiary attacks and those using explosives, guns and grenades — in 2009, more than those recorded any other year for the past two decades.

“Local extremists increasingly targeted businesses and Greek law enforcement, and there was an increasing use of infantry-style weaponry in terrorist attacks,” said the State Department report, issued late Thursday.

While the document deals with last year, the issue of domestic terrorism came to the fore once more after one of the newer groups to emerge, which has dubbed itself Sect of Revolutionaries, claimed responsibility last week for gunning down a journalist outside his home in July.

The group issued a proclamation last week vowing to turn the country into a war zone and warning tourists that Greece was “no longer a safe haven of capitalism.” It has pledged to kill police, businessmen, prison staff and journalists.

Sect of Revolutionaries emerged in the wake of the Dec. 2008 riots, carrying out gun and grenade attacks against an Athens police station in Jan. 2009 and a private TV station the following month. Although those caused no injuries, the group soon escalated their attacks, killing an anti-terrorism police officer guarding a witness in a terrorism trial in June 2009, and the journalist last month. Both were shot more than a dozen times and died on the spot.

While militant groups have been active in Greece for decades, previous organizations had sought to portray themselves as urban revolutionaries fighting for the oppressed, emerging from the resistance to the 1967-74 military dictatorship that left a legacy of deep-rooted mistrust of authority.

Greek authorities insist the group has a background of common crime rather than political violence. What has alarmed some analysts about Sect of Revolutionaries is their lack of any clear ideology and their propensity to kill.

Their latest proclamation — a rambling diatribe against society that doesn’t seek to outline any particular cause or aim beyond causing bloodshed — is a clear break with those issued by previous groups who would put forward attempts at justifying political violence.

“The principles that these groups used to have has been completely overturned,” said criminology professor Vassilis Karydis. Rather than trying to win over public opinion like their predecessors, they are contemptuous of it.

“That is also a new element. They don’t care about consent,” Karydis noted.

A Civil Protection Ministry official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity in line with ministry policy pointed to “important developments” earlier this year, with the arrests in April of several people suspected of involvement in militant and anarchist groups, including six people charged with membership of Revolutionary Struggle, which fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in 2007 and planted a powerful bomb blast outside the Athens Stock Exchange last September. They also planted a massive car bomb outside Citibank offices in Feb. 2009, but the device failed to explode.

Yet despite the arrests, authorities have found themselves battling increasingly deadly — and brazen — attacks.

A letter bomb killed a senior ministerial aide in June inside the heavily guarded Civil Protection ministry — which also houses the country’s intelligence service — three months after a 15-year-old Afghan boy was killed and his 10-year-old sister was seriously wounded when they opened a bag containing a bomb planted outside a management institute in Athens. Authorities say they have not received any credible claim of responsibility for either bombing.

30 July 2010

Greece is to mobilise military vehicles to restore fuel supplies cut by a lorry drivers’ strike, officials have said.

Army lorries and naval vessels will ensure the supply of fuel to “critical sectors”, the government said after a crisis cabinet meeting.

Earlier, lorry drivers defied an emergency order from the government to end their strike.

The stoppage, now in its fifth day, has led to widespread fuel shortages and caused tourists to cancel holidays.

“The armed forces with their own means are already assuring the supply of critical sectors such as airports, electricity plants and hospitals,” a government statement said.

“Navy landing craft will also contribute if necessary to cover the needs of islands by transporting tanker trucks.”
Clashes

On Friday, baton-wielding riot police clashed with strikers outside an oil refinery in the city of Thessaloniki.

Union leaders wanted to test whether the government’s tough talk was a bluff. Prime Minister George Papandreou has now demonstrated he is deadly serious.

In a country with fresh memories of the military dictatorship it is an enormously grave step to break a strike with the army.

Military experts here say the move is full of risks as it will aggravate those on the left who believe that Greece has already been taken over by the IMF and the EU.

But a senior government source told me there was no danger of this development increasing social unrest.

He said the lorry drivers were isolated and had no support. He said the Greek people oppose the hauliers’ blockade and would support the government.

The strikers were trying to stop a truck from leaving the refinery, Reuters news agency reported.

“We exhausted every limit of good faith,” said Transport Minister Dimitris Reppas following the cabinet meeting.

“The state is not unfortified and society is not defenceless,” he added.

But strike leaders remained defiant.

“We will continue [the strike] in dynamic fashion,” said George Tzortzatos, the head of the Greek truck-owners’ confederation, following a union meeting.

The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the strike has been the most serious challenge to the government during Greece’s eight-month financial crisis.

The tourist industry – critical to Greece’s economic survival – has been in despair and the strike has triggered countless cancellations, he says.

Hoteliers across the mainland have been worst hit, because they rely on holidaymakers driving to their destinations, he adds.

On Thursday, riot police clashed with protesters outside the transport ministry in Athens.

The rare emergency order signed by Prime Minister George Papandreou on Thursday meant drivers who refused to work could be arrested or lose their licences.

Talks between the two sides continued on Friday.

Lorry drivers are protesting against plans to cut licence charges – part of reforms to boost competition and one of the conditions of an International Monetary Fund bail-out.

Correspondents say road freight is one of the most closed professions in Greece with no new licences issued for nearly 40 years. Instead, licences are sold from person to person for hundreds of thousands of euros.

English.news.cn   2010-07-28

ATHENS, July 27 (Xinhua) — Greek terrorist group ” Revolutionary Sect” on Tuesday afternoon claimed responsibility for the murder of Greek investigative journalist Sokratis Giolias on July 19 outside his residence in Athens.

In a declaration sent to local newspaper Ta Nea, the group claimed that it was linked to the murder, which shocked the Greek society as the first terror attack against an editor in the past four decades.

The statement was delivered in a CD and is due to be published on Wednesday by the daily, which has received many such statements by Greek terrorists in the past few years.

“Revolutionary Sect” also took the responsibility for the murder of a 40-year-old policeman last June with a similar letter sent to the newspaper, carrying threats to political, police and business targets.

Police investigation so far has shown that many of the 16 bullets which killed 37-year-old Giolias were fired from two guns used by the group in the past. The guns are linked to the murder of policeman Nektarios Savvas last June and two armed attacks against a police department and a television channel in February 2009.

A shell from the same guns was found in February last year on the grave of a teenager who was killed by police fire in December 2008. The teenager’s death sparked the worst riots in Greece in three decades.

Giolias was shot dead at the entrance of the blocks of flats where he lived with his family in an Athens district. Eyewitnesses, including his wife who is pregnant with their second child, said that three men in police-like uniforms rang the doorbell of his apartment early in the morning to notify him that someone had tried to steal his car.

As soon as he went out of the building, Giolias was gunned down in a brutal attack that was condemned by the political world and Greek citizens.

It was the third fatal terror attack this year in Greece. In March an Afghan teenager died in the explosion of a bomb outside a state building and in June a policeman was killed when a parcel bomb meant for the minister responsible for public order exploded inside the ministry building in an unprecedented attack.

Greece has suffered a lot due to domestic terrorism. Currently “Revolutionary Sect” is considered the most dangerous local guerrilla group after the dismantling of “Revolutionary Struggle” in the wake of a series of arrests of its key members this spring.

Since 2003 “Revolutionary Struggle” had been linked to a dozen attacks on Greek government buildings, as well as one on the American embassy in Athens in January 2007. It was regarded as a branch of the November 17 organization which was disbanded in 2002 after killing 23 people in more than a hundred attacks in two decades.

July 21

ATHENS — When Socrates Giolias, a little-known journalist and blogger, was killed outside his home in a gangland-style shooting early Monday, homicide detectives began to work on the case amid speculation that it was a reprisal by shady underworld figures.

But several hours later, counterterrorism officers joined the investigation after tests on the cartridge cases of the 16 bullets fired at Mr. Giolias were linked to weapons used in attacks by Greece’s deadliest active guerrilla group, the Sect of Revolutionaries.

Now the killing has led the authorities to fear a resurgence of domestic terrorism, a scourge that has haunted Greece since the early 1970s and that has seen a gradual revival over the past year and a half with the emergence of several new militant organizations.

An official at the Greek police headquarters, which itself became a target last month when a letter bomb killed the assistant to the public order minister, confirmed Tuesday that the force was treating the murder of Mr. Giolias as a terrorist act.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, gave no details about the investigation but simply stated that the 16 cartridge casings found at the scene of the shooting had been fired from two 9-millimeter pistols used in previous attacks in Athens claimed by the Sect of Revolutionaries: the slaying of police officer in June last year and two attacks four months earlier, one on a police station and the other on a private television channel.

Killings of journalists are rare in Greece. The last was in 1985, when the Marxist guerrilla group November 17, now disbanded, shot Nikos Momferatos, publisher of a conservative newspaper.

But the Sect of Revolutionaries had warned that journalists were on its hit list. In a proclamation issued in February last year, the group accused the media of “manufacturing news to keep the public docile and subservient.”

“Journalists, this time we came to your door, next time you will find us in your homes,” the document said, referring to the armed attack on the private television channel, in which no one was hurt.

The reason that Mr. Giolias was a target remains unclear, although some Web sites have linked him to comments critical of militant groups. Angelos Tsigris, a professor of criminology at Greece’s police academy, said Mr. Giolias might have been singled out because he did not employ bodyguards like many of Greece’s prominent investigative journalists, with whom he had cooperated. “They might have chosen him because he was an easy target,” Mr. Tsigris said.

Mr. Giolias, head of news at Thema, a private radio station, and one of the journalists behind the dirt-digging news blog Troktiko, was shot in Ilioupoli, an eastern suburb of Athens, at 5:30 a.m. on Monday. A witness quoted by state television said she had seen the killers wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms reminiscent of private security firms.

One of the group buzzed the intercom to Mr. Giolias’s apartment and told him that thieves were trying to break into his car, according to statements made later to the police by his wife. The journalist, taking the bait, came down and was showered with bullets as he opened the main door to the building.

Neighbors told state television that they saw Mr. Giolias’s wife, who is pregnant with their second child, emerge onto the balcony screaming.

On Tuesday, readers posted hundreds of messages on Troktiko, which claims to attract six million visitors daily. Entries referred to Mr. Giolias as a “hero” or an “intrepid and daring journalist.”

Other contributors lamented the implications of the murder. One said: “Is this the Greece we dreamed of? Are we prey to paid killers?”

Describing Mr. Giolias as “insubordinate, free and independent,” colleagues suspended the blog to attend his funeral Tuesday afternoon.

Troktiko had drawn stinging criticism from other anonymous bloggers when it published disparaging comments about Revolutionary Struggle, a more established terrorist organization, after six people suspected of being members of the group were arrested in April; that group is best known for firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in Athens in January 2007.

Anarchist Web sites have also said Mr. Giolias was responsible for scathing comments about the Sect of Revolutionaries that were posted on Troktiko last year but quickly removed.

While some officials say the latest attack could signal a return of domestic terrorism, some analysts drew a distinction between the style and methods of the Sect of Revolutionaries and the type of terrorism that flourished in Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, chiefly the attacks of November 17, which cited Marxism as its driving influence.

The Sect of Revolutionaries’ proclamation bluntly states its stance: “We are not interested in politics, but guerrilla warfare.”

Mr. Tsigris, the criminologist, said what worried him most was that Sect of Revolutionaries was just one of several militant groups, many of which formed early last year in reaction to the killing of a teenager by a police officer in December 2008.

These groups have “different outlooks, goals, methodology,” which complicates the task faced by the Greek police, he said.

“Monday’s attack shows that terrorism is alive and kicking in Greece today,” he said, “as it was yesterday and the day before.”

Greek unions disrupted transport and state services for a second time in as many weeks Thursday after Parliament backed Prime Minister George Papandreou’s overhaul of the pension system in a vote that tested the unity of his socialist government.

The plan, which includes lower pension payments and later retirement, was carried by a majority of votes in the Parliament after an article- by-article debate. A final vote on the entire bill will be conducted at a later sitting.

Papandreou, who expelled three members of his Pasok party for defying him in a May vote on austerity measures, won support from his deputies. Late Wednesday, Papandreou secured passage of the bill in principle, with 159 votes in favor.

“Yesterday, Parliament took a historic decision,” Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told the chamber before the vote. “The reform of the pension system, this specific bill and the bill on pensions in the public sector, is historic not because it solves the country’s economic problem, not because it solves the social-security problem, not because it was written somewhere in a memorandum but because it is a right and fair reform.”

The country’s two biggest unions, representing more than 2 million Greeks, held a rally and march to Parliament in Athens as lawmakers continued their debate on the bill. Papandreou committed himself to the pension overhaul to secure $139 billion in emergency loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund that allowed Greece to avert a default on its debt.

The walkout grounded flights for most of the day, kept ferries docked and shut down banks, hospitals and news media. Parliament workers were also striking, with a skeleton staff assisting the pension debate. Protesters ringed the finance ministry, preventing employees from entering.

ATHENS, Greece — Greek investigators examining last week’s assassination attempt on a government minister are unraveling evidence of a network of urban guerrilla groups operating across Greece, Spain and Italy.

Europe’s international police agency, Europol, in its 2010 report noted a 43-percent increase over the past two years in what it terms “terrorist” strikes in these three countries.

In the latest attack in Greece, the minister for the protection of the citizen, Mihalis Chrysochoidis, was sitting just meters away from a bomb that blew up inside his offices last Thursday, killing his deputy.

Despite a drumroll of low-intensity terrorist attacks in recent years, this marked the gravest incident since the Greek Marxist guerrilla group 17 November was broken up by police ahead of the Athens 2004 Olympics. The granddaddy of Greek terrorist groups had been responsible for killing several Greek politicians, a CIA Athens station chief, a British military attache and a Greek former intelligence chief.

As much of western Europe concentrates its efforts on curbing Islamic extremism, analysts have identified common threads linking several of the groups operating across southern Europe, chiefly anarchism and anti-state sentiment.

A leading Italian anarchist theoretician, Alfredo Maria Bonanno, himself currently serving time in a Greek jail for bank robbery, points to an informal affinity among groups attracted to violence by specific social causes and with an ulterior motive of paralyzing the state.

Brady Kiesling, a former U.S. diplomat and author of “Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower,” meantime identifies a clear link between Greek and Italian activists ready to resort to violence to achieve their aims.

“The personal friendships between Greek and Italian anarchists are clear at every level,” he said. “Greek police have seen so many people go back and forth from Italy — and Italian anarchists have historically been armed — that they’re right to look into this.”

Italian security forces defused three suspicious packages in March and April posted to the offices of the Italian prime minister and minister of interior as well as an older one targeting a military base outside Rome. A group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for those packages as well as package bombs sent to Greek targets in Spain, including to the embassy in Madrid and a Greek-owned bank. Greece’s counterterrorism force announced that it was collaborating with Italian and French police.

However, Maria Alvanou, a lecturer in asymmetric threats at the Hellenic Military Academy, warned against attempts to draw a pattern of groups working in unison. “It seems there is a link but it’s too early to say if this is actual collaboration with abroad or just a copycat phenomenon,” she said.

“While the rest of Europe is busy dealing with jihadi terrorism, leftist terrorist networks are being resurrected in Greece,” Alvanou said. “They are coming back because Greece now has the kind of problems that Europe faced in the ’70s: injustice, corruption weak infrastructure and democratic participation issues.”

The Greek-based anarchist group 325 often carries out Robin Hood-style supermarket raids and issues proclamations declaring that they want to “tear a hole in the guts of the European Union” through “an anarchism long based in the South European Mediterranean Triangle of Greece, Italy and Spain, [and] finding fertile ground to spread within many more minds not held by any borders and … receptive to the anarchist vision of a future world without Church, State and Capital.”

An alphabet soup of at least half a dozen groups make up Greece’s urban guerrilla scene, the most prominent being Revolutionary Struggle and the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei. Secondary groups are Popular Revolutionary Action, the Guerrilla Terrorist Group, Popular Will and Ambush.

Urban guerrilla organizations prefer low-intensity bombs that usually explode outside commercial or political targets and are detonated in the early hours to avoid casualties. As the economic crisis impacted Greece last year, violence spiked with the killing of a counterterrorist policeman in a bombing claimed by a group called Revolutionary Sect.

Targets have included everything from the U.S. Embassy to the offices of security contractors, a television station, a forest authority facility, the house of an explosives specialist and local police stations. Last month, twin bombings targeted Athens’ Korydallos jail and a judiciary complex in the city of Thessaloniki.

“The whole anarchist movement in Greece is focused around solidarity with imprisoned comrades,” Kiesling said. “So it was clear that with enough people in jail there had to be some kind of retaliation against the police.”

Greek police arrested several suspected members of Revolutionary Struggle in March and claimed they had decapitated the group. Overnight, messages daubed on walls and distributed in the cafes of traditional anti-authoritarian neighborhoods disputed this and pledged revenge.

Last Thursday’s bombing of Chrysochoidis’ office was seen as the promised retaliation. Half a kilo of professionally assembled explosives were secreted inside a metal box disguised as a vanity publication of the type regularly sent to Greek ministers, according to press reports. Once it reached the Ministry for the Protection of the Citizen, the A-3 sized package looked so harmless that it was left lying around the office for a full two days. Its humdrum appearance saved lives; by the time the minister’s deputy opened it at 8.30 p.m. last Thursday, most of the office’s employees had left.

Suspicions over last week’s ministry bombing is centering on a group calling itself Popular Will. The group, which dispatches its bombs through the mail, tried assassinating Chrysochoidis at his private office in February.

The name of Christos Karavelas — a businessman allegedly involved in a security scandal involving Virginia-based company Science Applications International Corporation, Germany’s Siemens and Greek politicians — was symbolically written on Thursday’s fatal package.

Popular Will may have appeared in a previous incarnation just before the Athens 2004 Olympics under the guise of a terrorist group calling itself Popular Rage. It may derive its name from Narodnaya Volya, the group set up by Lenin’s brother in Russia prior to the overthrow of the czar and which has the same meaning in Russian.

Anti-terrorist officials believe that a core of activists is responsible for terrorist attacks in Greece but use multiple organizational names to cover their operational tracks.

Despite an emotional funeral and wall-to-wall coverage by Greece’s media, there have been few public displays of anger about the June 24 attack. Greek society’s attitudes to terrorist strikes are ambivalent and range from nonchalance to tacit support of urban guerrilla groups.

“Terrorism is basically a kind of public entertainment in Greece,” Kiesling said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with ordinary people at this point, so it’s become an empty spectacle, like watching Greek Idol.”

June 17

Athens faces transport chaos after another 24-hour strike by rail workers, Greek media reports.

Commuters will be severely affected on June 17 as the city’s metro employees continue the previous day’s industrial action over the redundancy threat facing nearly 300 co-workers.

According to a report by the Greek Kathimerni, the metro stoppage will be in conjunction with a five-hour strike by employees on all public transport, starting at 11am.

The workers are protesting because of the new round of austerity measures introduced by the Government, heralding pension reforms and salary cuts.

Metro workers have vowed to carry on with their protests over the next few days unless the decision to terminate the contracts of their colleagues is reversed.

WHO KILLED THE UNBORN BABY, ALSO? [ crossposted from act forfreedomnow  slightly edited for clarity]
An insurrectionary destructionist perspective on the dead bodies of the uprising which were in a burned/locked bank in Greece;
Let’s cry for the baby, too
And have rage against capital and capitalist moralists, in order to attack better!

The workers who were locked in a bank, why did they not break down the door of the bank when they saw that people, -COMRADES- were shouting and fighting with the “weapons” that they had decided to use; stones, molotovs, bottles, sticks of the banners etc…
Were they afraid of losing their job? Were they afraid of losing their job when they knew better than anyone that the building had no fire-exit; they could also die because of an electrical fault, couldn’t they? Were they afraid of living in hunger? Other than the pregnant woman did they have children to feed? Were they afraid of living in a worse situation; getting less money then the -present-, when compared with the unemployed situation/unemployment? Do they really like to count the meaningless amounts of the capitalists’ profits? Who forced them to be inside and why? What kind of guard is this? Do they like to have money for their holidays which is like paying money for making love?
Or were they waiting for a revolution which is in a process by: “revolutionaries, marxists & socialist parties, anarchist pacifists, unions, intellectuals; the ones who have the map for the way that goes to the “free society”, the ones who are sitting in the “bourgeouis-homeland of pacifism”?
We are, and we will just think and discuss it, but for sure, it’ll be impossible for us to learn,because they are – all  “four”- dead. And nobody can speak for them, anarchists included. But we have a letter from another worker who was in the same bank on the same day, too. And we know also, when comrades wanted to burn the TV station vans they forced them to get out; they forced the “workers”: journalists, to get out of the van, and AFTERWARDS they burned the van as happened many weeks ago, also.

“All great things must first wear a terrifying mask
in order to inscribe them in the heart of humanity”
Nietzsche

Did the comrades do something “bad” in burning the bank? Of course not, we wish we could destroy them all, along with prisons, courts from now on, too. But also we would prefer, – as comrades- when they are empty as we can see and we are sure about that; when there are no innocent people, unborn babies. But if the situation is different, if it is fascist police that we are talking about, isn’t it something practical, isn’t this desire of destruction poetic, full of the desire for life?

Did the comrades really burn the bank when they knew that there were workers, who did not want to join the protests, and the feast of destruction? We are sure we can say no. But also we are sure, and ready to ask, what about the locked doors? What about the bastard ones, “anarchists” or leftists who are blaming the – comrades -, – if they did it for sure- that they burned them all, laughing at them and shouting and attacking the police at the same time?

To make a “critique” like this, especially if they are “comrades”, they must be in a situation which is encircled not only with fear, which stops their thinking. It should be the State and society attacking pyschologically masking themselves as fears too; more than just one that blocks faced with the realities of chaos’ feast.

There are also some voices who are afraid of crying. And manipulating the purposes and for sure, this is a moral of order, and it’s also to have the present order again, the order of things, the order of this world, something totally different to the natural order of things; chaos, destructionist and creative anarchy at the same time body and soul.

To fight and destroy – this world -, we should just be ourselves to feel, to think, to attack.

To take back our lives into our hands again, to destroy “everything”, everything which is beautiful when dying, when it lives in the other form. As it was happening and as written on a wall in December 2008, after Alexis’ murder…

For a poetic life with love. With tears and rage, with attack and escape.

You are not forgotton Alexis, along with the unborn and unnamed children. The murderers and planners of murders are clearly on the other side of the doors.

If we can’t cry – with or without a voice -, how we can live and enjoy life?

Let’s stop negotiation and attack the bosses of the power and prisons. Greetings to the comrades who are fighting more than symbolically.

Then, radical self critique is always necessary.

Guerilla Group Of Libertarian Destructionists and Terrorists, Rain Cell

Harry Truman said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” In modern Athens, though, some of the dogs themselves have become political animals.

In the Greek capital, any dogs found roaming the streets are taken in, neutered, and given vaccinations. Then they’re outfitted with a blue collar, denoting their “stray” status, and released back into the city where they sleep peacefully on the streets, sidewalks, and even at the Parthenon, where they’ve become something of a tourist attraction.

Greece has been rocked recently by violent protests over the government’s “austerity program1.” And some of the city’s stray dogs have now seemingly joined the rioters, perhaps in a show of solidarity.

The AP reports: “Photographers have documented the presence of several yellowish dogs at boisterous anti-government protests over the years, barking and baring their teeth at police in what appears to be canine political statements. One, Kanellos … was a constant companion for over a decade to anarchist rioters until he died, in July 2008.”

Kanellos still has his own Facebook page, with 10,000+ fans and a song dedicated to him. According to the New York Post, one fan asked, “What brings him to the riots? Does he believe in the overthrow of private ownership? Does he see the rioters as his pack?”

Since not all the stray dogs in Athens have joined the protesters, and since we don’t have enough details on how the two or three dogs who have are behaving, it’s a mistake to try and draw any conclusions about all canine behavior from this phenomenon. Nevertheless, whenever we come upon a unique, naturally-occurring behavior in dogs (i.e., one that happens spontaneously and isn’t induced in a laboratory experiment designed to prove how “smart” dogs are), it gives us an opportunity to examine whether the current models of behavior can satisfactorily explain the anomaly.

The Pack Leader Perspective.
We’re told by alpha theorists that dogs have a deeply-embedded instinct to obey a strong authority figure, or alpha male. If that instinct were holding true in Athens, wouldn’t the dogs be obeying the police, and not siding with the protesters? And if these dogs see the protesters as alpha males, which is possible, I suppose – as long as you ignore the fact that dogs can’t think conceptually or symbolically – then why are these animals acting in such a highly independent manner? They never look to the rioters for cues on how to behave. No one is telling them what to do. They just show up on their own and do whatever they feel like.

The Behavioral Science Explanation.
Behavioral scientists would tell us that the dogs’ behaviors are being reinforced. “It doesn’t matter what the reinforcement is,” they would tell us. “If it’s a learned behavior, then there must be some form of reinforcement taking place.” Yet according to the AP, the dogs “are very frightened when riot police use stun grenades.” If the dogs still attend these demonstrations, despite such strong aversive experiences, what could be so reinforcing for them?

The Dog-as-Predator, Police-as-Prey Theory.
Both the alpha theory and operant conditioning have lost much of their sheen in the scientific community recently, if not in the dog training world. For the alpha theory this may be due, in part, to the fact that wolves who live near garbage dumps don’t form packs. And since coyotes sometimes do, but only when they need to hunt large prey, pack formation is now seen as a function of prey size, nothing more.

Still, we usually think of prey as running for their lives. In this case, the police are standing their ground and moving toward, not away from, the protesters. They’re also firing tear gas and stun guns at them. Still, in most cases the police are more passive in nature (a prey-like quality), while the protesters are more animated. Could this be the answer?

An Energy Theory.
As most readers know, I’m a proponent of an energy theory of behavior; one that states that all canine behavior and learning can be described through some very simple principles of energy, such as attraction and resistance, and tension and release. Are these dogs feeling the tension in the streets, and trying to find a way to release their own tension? This seems plausible. But why are these dogs so attracted to the protesters?

The Darwinian Perspective.
Since evolution is a continuous process, could we find an answer to the puzzle here? If so, perhaps the following syllogism might explain things:

1) Evolution is a process of change, where overall tendency is for simpler forms evolve into those that are more complex. 2) The complexity of modern human culture is the result of evolutionary changes, some of which came about because of our close relationship with domesticated dogs. 3) Since the goal of the protesters is to implement change, and the goal of the government is to resist it, dogs are acting as agents for change/evolution.

The Freudian Perspective.
Sigmund Freud’s ideas on consciousness were derived, in part, from Darwin’s theory. I’ve written a few articles here explaining why I think Freud is relevant to understanding dogs, in part because the human/canine bond is a reflection of the Freudian dynamic of the Id and Ego, i.e., the dog’s owner acts as a governing mechanism for the dog’s wildest impulses2. I also wrote an article explaining how I think  dogs are capable of sensing our desires and acting on them. With all this in mind:

1) Human consciousness operates via two energetic mechanisms, the Id and the Ego, a dynamic that can also be seen in how dogs relate to their owners. 2) Every society has its own Id (the unrestrained impulses of its people) and Ego (a government designed to keep a lid on the aggressive energies of its citizens). 3) Since dogs are almost pure Id, they gravitate more toward the side of the anarchists than to the police.

Quite frankly, we may not have enough data to come to any solid conclusions about why the “riot dogs” have joined the protesters. Still, it’s clear that the old ways of looking at canine behavior and learning, fall terribly short in explaining what’s going on.

In my article, “Why Do Dogs Like to Kiss Us?” I said that a wolf makes a living with his teeth while a dog makes a living with his heart. On the face of it, this sounds like a feel-good homily you’d find stitched on a pillow at a doggie boutique. But it’s actually true. In order to be accepted into our homes dogs had to sublimate their urge to bite into pro-social behaviors, just as anyone living in a civilized society has to sublimate their aggression to avoid being ostracized or sent to jail. And while no dog has the mental capacity to understand what it means to submit to a human being’s superior rank or status, neither does any dog have the ability to not submit to our wishes and desires, even when we’re unaware that we’re communicating those things to our dogs.

The protesters want change. Dogs are designed to help them out.

ATHENS — Panagiotis became an anarchist at 15, a middle-class Athenian kid attracted to anti-authoritarianism and the gritty central Exarcheia neighborhood, where Greece’s activists came of age. Over the last 26 years, he says he has thrown stones, bottles and Molotov cocktails during hundreds of anti-government demonstrations.

His identity is often hidden behind a mask and hood and layers of black clothing, the dress code of koukouloforoi, the “hooded ones” that Greek police say regularly turn peaceful protests here violent.

Three people died during the last big demonstration on May 5, when a band of koukouloforoi broke away from the largely peaceful crowd of 100,000 and firebombed Marfin Egnatia bank, killing three young workers. Many Greeks call the dead martyrs of the financial crisis, and their hooded attackers murderers.

Panagiotis, now a burly 41-year-old, says he understands. He, like virtually all the anarchists, would not give his full name for fear of reprisals, but says he and other Exarcheia activists are appalled and saddened at the deaths.

“We are not against violence,” he said, over a shot of raki at a popular Exarcheia anarchist hangout. “But when we decide to use it, we will think a hundred times about how and why. These kids on May 5 didn’t even think for a minute. They only destroyed, only for the sake of destroying.”

In a country where taking to the streets is part of national culture, the koukouloforoi have long been tolerated as urban guerrillas splintered from anarchists, far-left activists and anti-globalization campaigners, who articulate deep frustrations about Greek cronyism and corruption.

On the eve of Greece’s fourth general strike and another planned demonstration against austerity measures, they have become a leading force in what many here fear is the beginning of a long, hot summer of social unrest that could hurt the country’s economic recovery.

But the koukouloforoi are by no means a unified force. In recent years, they have grown to include vigilantes and petty criminals who are not tied to any ideology, according to police and security experts. “They are not a disciplined group that’s easy to profile,” said Mary Bossis, a professor and security expert at the University of Piraeus. “Many are hooligans or robbers or just very angry young people who want to damage anything. These days, it’s hard to know how many are activists.”

Wearing black clothing, helmets and masks and carrying clubs, the koukouloforoi hijack some of the hundreds of peaceful demonstrations that take place in Greece annually.

Their favored targets are banks, government buildings and other symbols of wealth and power.

In Greece, anti-state protest has its roots in the civil war of 1946-49 and especially the military dictatorship of 1967-74, when tens of thousands of students helped overthrow the junta.

Most anti-authoritarians in Greece are not violent, though experts note that the movements tend to attract some disaffected teenagers and twentysomethings from comfortable Athenian suburbs. They rail against authority on Facebook groups like “I want to blow up Parliament (when everyone’s in there).” Like protest movements from Ukraine to China, they communicate and organize themselves using the Internet and cell phone text messages.

Many anarchists approached since the May 5 demonstrations declined to be interviewed, saying they felt unfairly targeted by the Greek police and mistreated by the news media. Only a few, like Panagiotis would go so far as to provide their first names.

In an interview last month, Kostas, a 21-year-old university student and anarchist who declined to give his full name because he feared police reprisal, said that he sympathized with koukouloforoi, even if he had never donned their garb.

Kostas said he lived with his parents in the upper middle-class suburb of Halandri. He was outraged that the Greek government applied for billions in loans from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, which he likened to “two faceless, soulless bosses.”

Greek politicians “are the criminals, not the koukouloforoi,” he said, after an anti-I.M.F. protest on April 23 where he had broken shop windows in central Athens with pieces of broken marble.

A spokesperson for Public Order Minister, Michalis Chrysohoidis, said the minister, who in 2002 led the arrest of the long-elusive 17 November terrorist group, wanted to protect Greeks’ “sacred right” to protest peacefully. But because of what the ministry called a “zero tolerance” policy toward violence, the police have also stepped up patrols in Exarcheia — often unfairly, activists say.

On the evening of May 5, police officers raided the center of a prominent leftist and anti-authoritarian group called Diktio, or the Network of Political and Social Rights, injuring several people, said Yianna Kourtovik, a lawyer and longtime Diktio member. “They called us murderers,” she said.

In December 2008, Athens was shaken by weeks of rioting after a police officer shot and killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos after a standoff in Exarcheia. The teenager, who lived in a wealthy Athens neighborhood, is considered a victim of police brutality by many Exarcheia activists.

Though the activists have widely denounced the May 5 violence, they acknowledge that their call to revolution is often misunderstood by young people. Some anarchists say the movement has created a “monster.”

Vassilis Chajiakovou, the 44-year-old manager of the Ianos bookstore in central Athens, faced down one of the koukouloforoi who bombed Marfin Egnatia bank and his own bookstore on May 5. The bookstore was already in flames when a wiry young man in the hood and mask threatened Mr. Chajiakovou with a gasoline bomb.

“I’ll burn you alive,” Mr. Chajiakovou recalled the young man yelling in a shrill, boyish voice. But when Mr. Chajiakovou charged him, the young man ran away.

Across the street at the bank, employees trapped inside were screaming for help. Soon, two women and a man in their 30s were dead from smoke inhalation.

That day’s protests had a particular resonance to Mr. Chajiakovou. A former anarchist and anti-authoritarian himself, he recalled how, at 19, he had thrown rocks at the French nationalist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was visiting Athens in 1985, while his friends lobbed Molotov cocktails.

Years later, his bookstore, which suffered €100,000, or $126,000, in damages during the recent attack, became a popular hangout for counterculture intellectuals. Yet now he fears that a legitimate protest movement that once was motivated by social justice has become consumed by hate.

“I don’t want to believe the people who threw bombs at us and murdered three people across the street belong to any legitimate ideology,” he said. “The people who stormed into our store wanted to kill for the thrill of it. There’s nothing revolutionary about that.”

Bomb explodes near Greek prison

A bomb exploded Thursday night near a prison in Athens, Greece, police said.

Only one slight injury was reported.

The bomb was placed outside the Zalaxias supermarket about 660 feet (200 meters) from the Korydallos prison, authorities said.

Warning calls had been made around 9:50 p.m. – 27 minutes before the explosion – to the Eleftherotypia daily newspaper and Alter television station, police said, and authorities evacuated the area.

A 22-year-old woman was injured slightly by broken glass from the door of her first-floor home, police said.

Korydallos blast
There were reports late last night that an explosive device had gone off near Korydallos Prison in southwestern Athens. There were no initial reports of casualties but many windows in the area were smashed by the force of the explosion. Reports suggested that the device had been planted in a dumpster near the jail.

THESSALONIKI, Greece – A powerful bomb exploded inside a courthouse in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki Friday, sending smoke billowing in the building and wounding one person.

It was the second bombing in two days — after a blast Thursday outside a jail in Athens that also wounded one person — raising concern that a recent crackdown on Greek militant groups could spur a new series of attacks.

Bombings and other militant attacks are frequent in Greece, but they usually occur at night and rarely target buildings during working hours.

Police had evacuated most of the court building after a Greek newspaper and television station received an anonymous call warning that a bomb had been planted in the toilets in the building’s basement.

Dozens of people inside the building were seen running out the court moments before the blast.

Lawyer Babis Apostolides said one man sustained leg injuries, and he had transported him to a nearby hospital, where he received stitches.

“The man was bleeding and was in shock … fortunately he got medical attention quickly and he’s OK,” Apostolides told private Alpha television.

He said many people inside the building had been reluctant to leave, because bomb hoaxes at the court are common.

“Police were virtually pulling people out … there were a sense of panic because the blast was very strong and the dust and smoke was terrible.”

Police said the blast knocked down some walls inside the building. A police investigator, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media, described the damage to the lower part of the building as “extensive.”

Court officials said the building will be closed Monday and Tuesday.

The attack came less than a day after a powerful bomb exploded Thursday night outside Greece’s largest prison, Korydallos, in the Greek capital, Athens. One woman was slightly injured in that blast, cut by flying glass. That blast had also been preceded by a warning call to a newspaper.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack, but suspicion fell on radical Greek militant groups that have stepped up attacks in recent years and have been targeted in a recent police crack down.

Last month, authorities arrested and charged six people with membership of Greece’s most active militant left wing group. The Revolutionary Struggle organization fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. embassy in Athens in 2007, causing no injuries.

Several suspected members of that group are being held at Korydallos on pretrial detention.

Municipal protest leads to garbage piling up on streets

Piles of trash are building up on the streets of Thessaloniki as residents of the Lachana municipality continue to block the operation of the Mavrorachi landfill. Their protest is in reaction to plans by the government to unify their municipality with that of Lagada. Thessaloniki Deputy Mayor Constantinos Kazantzidis, who is responsible for sanitation, said that 400 tons of garbage are building up on a daily basis and today there are over 7,000 tons of uncollected waste littering the streets of the city. He appealed to residents to refrain from depositing their garbage bags in overflowing bins and asked them to temporarily keep them on their balconies. Concerned that the volume of trash, coupled with high temperatures, may pose a public health hazard, Kazantzidis also filed a petition with the Thessaloniki prosecutor to intervene.

Supermarket robbery

Two armed robbers held up a supermarket in Nea Krini, Thessaloniki, just before closing on Thursday night. The unidentified gunmen got away with 600 euros in takings from the Kountouriotou Street store before fleeing. Police who arrived at the scene are investigating the incident.

DNA clue in sombrero raid

Police believe they have cracked who was behind a bizarre armed attack on a bus containing riot police officers in Exarchia, central Athens, in 2009, when a man wearing Bermuda shorts and a sombrero opened fire on the vehicle.

Sources said yesterday that DNA evidence taken from the 34-year-old, known only as A.S. for legal reasons, who was arrested with suspected “robber in black” Symon Seisidis on Monday following an armed robbery, matches that recovered from the scene of the July 2009 shooting.

In last year’s incident, the suspect allegedly approached the bus and opened fire with a handgun. None of the bullets hit their intended target and the assailant ran off. However, in his effort to evade arrest, he dropped a surgical mask he had been wearing to cover his face.

It appears that forensic experts have been able to match the DNA on the mask with that taken from the 34-year-old following his arrest.

cross posted from http://thisisourjob.wordpress.com/

From Liberación Total:

April 30, 2010

Nikos Maziotis
Responding to the question “Do you accept or deny the charges?”:
“I am a revolutionary, and I am fighting an unjust, criminal regime known as the state and capitalism. If anyone should make a plea in defense, it is not me but those who are accusing me: the police and judges who serve the rich. I, for my part, am in the right, and I will not apologize for myself.”

Panagiota “Pola” Roupa
Responding to the same question:
“I am a revolutionary, and I do not recognize your proceedings. The criminals and terrorists are you and the system you serve: the state and capitalism.”

Sarandos Nikitopoulos
“I am being singled out for my political activity. I have been politically active in the anarchist and antiauthoritarian milieu ever since I was very little, and I can assure you that I as well as hundreds of others before me were already in the authorities’ sights, and that will continue. I consider the legal persecution against me to be based on and a product of my own political activity, as well as that of the entire anarchist milieu. Cases like Thessaloniki—in which even video recordings show police planting bags containing “illegal” items near people in order to charge them—or the imprisonment of demonstrator Mario Z. in Athens, and many others, must put an end to this blind faith in police accusations.”

Kostas Gournas
The prosecutor: “What do you say in your defense? Do you accept or deny the charges?”
Kostas: “I am not going to answer. I do not recognize these proceedings. Since the age of 20, I have been a worker and have taken part in the social and class struggle in Greece. I am against the regime, the political system, and the economic system. I am not a terrorist. The terrorists are the ones on the 12th floor of police headquarters who gave me a beating and threatened to kill my children.”

Vaggelis Stathopoulos
“Mixing me up in the Revolutionary Struggle case is a consequence of my political convictions. I do not condemn any type or method of struggle. My political activity has always taken place in broad daylight.”

Christoforos Kortesis
Through his lawyers, he said that he will testify alone under certain specific conditions. He demanded in writing that “they have to clearly specify the charge common to all six of us that refers to my involvement in specific actions claimed by Revolutionary Struggle.” He also demanded an itemization of the evidence for each action.

_____

Our comrades were quickly transferred to different prisons: Kostas Gournas and Vaggelis Stathopoulos to Trikala, Christoforos Kortesis to Corinth, Panagiota “Pola” Roupa to Eleona womens’ prison near Thebes (let’s remember that our comrade is seven months pregnant), and Nikos Maziotis and Sarandos Nikitopoulos to Korydallos prison in Athens. On Sunday, April 25, simultaneous solidarity demonstrations and marches took place outside Trikala, Corinth, and Eleona prisons (where, apart from Pola, Konstantina Karakatsani is also locked up after her arrest in the Fire Cells Conspiracy case).

On April 29, three of the charged comrades (Maziotis, Roupa, and Gournas) published a statement in which they proudly claim their participation in the actions of Revolutionary Struggle (Epanastatikos Agonas) and recognize that comrade Lambros Foundas, who was murdered by police bullets over a month ago, was part of the group. The letter is very long (11 pages; excerpts here), and a translation will be attempted in the coming days.

_____

Revolutionary Struggle are thought to be responsible for the following attacks, all in Athens:

• September 5, 2003: Bombing at courthouse.
• March 14, 2004: Bombing at Citibank subsidiary in Psychico neighborhood.
• May 5, 2004: Bombing at police station in Perissos neighborhood.
• October 29, 2004: Bombing of police buses.
• June 2, 2005: Bombing at Labor Ministry.
• December 12, 2005: Bombing at Finance Ministry in Syntagma Square, near Parliament.
• May 30, 2006: Attempted assassination of Georgios Voulgarakis, former Minister of Public Order, now Minister of Culture.
• January 12, 2007: Wasp 58 LAW rocket attack on United States Embassy.
• April 30, 2007: Shots fired at police station in Nea Ionia neighborhood.
• October 24, 2008: Bombing at Shell offices in Palaio Faliro neighborhood.
• December 23, 2008: Shots fired at riot police bus near Athens University in Goudi neighborhood.
• January 5, 2009: Shots fired at police guarding Culture Ministry in Exarcheia neighborhood. One riot cop critically wounded.
• February 18, 2009: Car bombing at Citibank headquarters in Kifissia neighborhood. Bomb fails to detonate.
• March 9, 2009: Bombing at Citibank subsidiary in Nea Ionia neighborhood.
• May 12, 2009: Bombing at Eurobank subsidiary in Argyroupoli neighborhood.
• September 2, 2009: Car bombing causes serious damage to Stock Exchange building.

(Reuters) – A bomb exploded at a branch of HSBC bank in Athens on Sunday, damaging the entrance but causing no injuries, police said.
“It appears a home-made bomb comprised of gas canisters and fuel caused small damage to the bank’s facade,” a police official said.

Gas canister bomb attacks are common in Athens and are usually staged by leftist and anarchist groups against business and political targets.

Sunday’s bombing against the U.K.-based banking group was the first since the Socialist government announced tough new austerity measures in exchange for international aid to cope with a debt crisis.

Opinion polls show the public opposes the measures and more than half of those asked in a recent survey said they would join protests against them.

Demonstrators have attacked police officers with a petrol bomb and set fire to vehicles in violent confrontations on the streets of Athens during a May Day protest.

Officers in riot gear retaliated with batons before quickly backing off after each repeated wave of attacks.

As tension escalated, officers fired tear gas at protesters who covered their faces with scarves while others dodged petrol bombs.

A Greek national TV van was also set on fire by rioters.

Meanwhile in Thessaloniki, in the north of the country, police have been firing tear gas at demonstrators attacking banks and businesses.

Sky News’ Europe correspondent Alex Rossi, who is in Greece, said: “We were expecting it to turn a bit ugly – and it has.”

The face-offs come amid May Day protests in the Greek capital that started with peaceful marches when people gathered for a rally at the central Syntagma square.

The Greek government is introducing a series of spending cuts to bring the country out of massive amounts of debt – but the Greek people are furious about what they see as draconian measures.

However, the government must introduce severe structural changes to society for an EU and IMF bail-out to succeed.

Some benefits to employees, such as a two-month bonus each year and extra pay for workers employed outside, are ripe for slicing.

Rossi said: “Things are going to get fairly tough here. These people are very, very angry with their government.”

And he went on: “To give you an idea of the seriousness of the situation, the Greek prime minister has described it as a matter of national emergency and he has even compared it to a war-time situation.”

Trouble has erupted across the world during rallies on May Day, traditionally seen as a day of celebration for workers.

Scuffles broke out in Turkey as tens of thousands of people filled a central square in Istanbul for the first May Day celebrations at the site after dozens were killed there 33 years ago.

Arson attack on Greek embassy in Prague, likely by anarchists
Prague – Unknown perpetrators hurled a flammable substance in the garden of the Greek embassy in Prague early Thursday, likely to protest the jailing of an anarchist in Greece, officials and an embassy source said.

The resulting fire consumed a bush and damaged the embassy’s entrance door, said Pavlina Adamcova, a spokeswoman for the city’s firefighters.

Police said the embassy was empty during the attack, which took place shortly after midnight and caused damage amounting to 20,000 koruny (1,036 dollars).

The attack appeared to have been committed by anarchists protesting the imprisonment of Giannis Dimitraki, a Greek anarchist activist sentenced to 35 years in prison for a bank robbery in Athens in 2006. Dimitraki currently is appealing the case in Greece.

The protesters sprayed an anarchist sign – the encircled letter A – and the tried man’s first name on the building’s wall, an embassy employee told the German Press Agency dpa.

“They obviously wanted to draw attention to … the trial in Greece,” said the employee, who asked that her name be withheld, as she is not authorized to speak to the press.

Reports said that a similar attack in support of Dimitraki’s release also took place at the country’s embassy in Buenos Aires, where police detained five people after a brief scuffle.

Four Injured in Attack on Greek Embassy in Argentina
BUENOS AIRES – Four people were injured and five others arrested in a clash between police and a group of protesters who threw stones and fire bombs at the Greek Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentine police said.

The protesters are members of an anarchist group that is demanding the release of Giannis Dimitrakis, a Greek anarchist sentenced to 35 years in prison for a 2006 attack on a bank in Athens.

Three police officers and one of the detained protesters were hospitalized for treatment of wounds sustained in the disturbance.

The clash started when demonstrators tried to set fire Tuesday to the door of the embassy, which is located in the La Recoleta district.

Anarchists used the Internet to organize protests in several countries.

The Greek government plans to decide on Wednesday whether Dimitrakis will remain in prison. EFE

6 charged with left-wing terrorism in Greece

ATHENS, Greece — A Greek prosecutor on Monday charged six people with membership in the country’s most active far-left terrorist group, which has claimed a string of bombings and a rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Athens.

The five men and one woman, aged between 30 and 41, were also charged with multiple counts of attempted homicide, causing explosions, and arms offenses linked with the Revolutionary Struggle organization.

Each faces a maximum 25-year sentence if found guilty on the main charges.

The suspects were arrested in and around Athens Saturday. Police said they found Revolutionary Struggle proclamations and plans for future attacks in one of the detainees’ homes, but have located no weapons or explosives.

Revolutionary Struggle first appeared in 2003, a year after authorities eradicated Greece’s deadliest left-wing group, November 17, and has bombed banks, government buildings and the Athens Stock Exchange, in three cases causing minor injuries to bystanders. Its most spectacular hit was the 2007 rocket-propelled grenade attack on the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy, which caused minor damage but no injuries.

The U.S. government subsequently offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Revolutionary Struggle members.

The group also shot and severely wounded a riot policeman last year. That attack came during a spike in anarchist and far-left violence that followed the fatal police shooting of an Athens teenager in December 2008 and days of rioting in Greek cities.

The six suspects arrived at the main Athens court complex escorted by anti-terrorist police, and were whisked into the prosecutor’s office. When they exited, dozens of people who had gathered to chant slogans in support of the detainees threw plastic bottles and scuffled with police, who responded with pepper spray. Two people were arrested for the disturbance, which followed anarchist groups’ calls for a show of solidarity.

Police said the suspects included Nikos Maziotis, 39, a self-described anarchist jailed for three-and-a-half years for planting a small bomb — which did not explode — outside a ministry building in 1997. According to court documents, authorities believe Maziotis played a leading role in the group.

Maziotis’ pregnant partner, Panayiota Roupa, 41, was also arrested.

Domestic far-left terrorism waned after the eradication of November 17, during a security crackdown ahead of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Since then, Revolutionary Struggle have been the most prominent militants, although since the December 2008 riots two new groups have carried out a string of bomb and gun attacks on symbols of wealth and authority, killing a policeman.

Associated Press Writer Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this report.

Greek police arrest suspected leftist guerrillas

ATHENS, April 11 (Reuters) – Greek police have arrested six people suspected of belonging to one of the country’s most militant guerrilla groups and taking part in bomb attacks, officials said on Sunday.

The arrest of the suspected members of the Revolutionary Struggle appeared to be a major strike against groups which have stepped up attacks against police, public buildings and businesses since riots that paralysed Athens in December 2008.

“They have been arrested and will be led to the prosecutor on charges of participating in a terrorist organisation,” police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis told a news conference.

Kokkalakis said police found a wealth of evidence at the residence of two of those arrested, including a hard disk containing pamphlets claiming attacks by Revolutionary Struggle as well as handwritten texts about past and intended attacks.

Police said in a statement they had arrested six people, revising the number down from media reports of seven arrests.

They raided dozens of suspects’ homes over the weekend, officials said, adding they had not yet found weapons or explosives. They were investigating whether the suspects had taken part in bomb attacks claimed by other guerrilla groups.

On Sunday, about 60 leftists threw stones and plastic bottles at police who raided a home in central Athens. Police fired tear gas to disperse them.

Revolutionary Struggle emerged in September 2003, about a year after the capture of the urban guerrilla group November 17.

It attempted to kill a minister in 2006 and launched a rocket-propelled grenade against the U.S Embassy in Athens in 2007, causing minor damage and no injuries.

It reappeared weeks the police killing of a teenager in December 2008, claiming responsibility for shooting at riot police guarding the culture ministry which left one wounded.

Greece’s socialist government, elected in an October snap election, has made combating guerrilla groups a priority. (Reporting by Dina Kyriakidou and Renee Maltezou; writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Andrew Roche)

Terrorism arrest
A 22-year-old man was arrested in Volos, central Greece, yesterday after his fingerprint was found at a residence in Halandri, northeastern Athens, that was allegedly used by the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire group to construct time bombs, police said. The suspect was not named.

Spate of robberies
Burglars made off with 2,500 euros in cash and two cell phones after breaking into the surgery of a gynecologist in the district of Ambelokipi, near central Athens, on Wednesday night. There was no one at the surgery at the time. At around the same time an armed robber held up a branch of the Vassilopoulos supermarket chain in Halandri, northern Athens. The robber, who struck as the store was closing, made off with 50,000 euros. Another armed raid on a betting shop in Thessaloniki shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday netted around 3,000 euros for two robbers, according to the store owner.

Fiery encounter
Suspected anarchists early yesterday hurled firebombs at a riot police unit stationed outside the offices of ruling PASOK near the central district of Exarchia. The attack was carried out by a group of around 15 hooded youths who managed to elude arrest. There were no injuries as the firebombs did not hit their target.

ATHENS (Reuters) – A left-wing Greek guerrilla group claimed responsibility Monday for three bomb attacks in Athens last week which caused minor damage but no injuries.

The Fire Conspiracy Cells group said it was behind the explosions Saturday outside a police detention centre and the home of a leading member of the Pakistani community.

The group also said it set off a home-made bomb which damaged the office of the ultra nationalist group Golden Dawn in central Athens Friday, according to the police and a statement posted on the Internet.

The Fire Conspiracy Cells claimed responsibility in January for a small blast outside parliament and a more powerful explosion late last year which wrecked the ground floor of the National Insurance building.

“This is the first evidence of the bomb crusade we had warned we would launch after our strike on parliament,” the group said in a statement posted on a website.

The group, which describes itself as an anti-state organisation, said it chose the detention centre as a target to highlight the plight of immigrants, and the deputy leader of the Pakistani community for cooperating with Greek authorities in the past.

Police said they were investigating the authenticity of the claim.

Several leftist and anarchist groups have carried out attacks against police targets, businesses and public institutions since the police killing of a teen-ager triggered Greece’s worst riots in decades in December 2008.

Although austerity measures designed to deal with Greece’s debt crisis have led to strikes and street protests in recent weeks, no bombings have so far been directly linked to the government cutbacks.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

A bomb has exploded outside the home of a Pakistani community leader in the Greek capital Athens – the second blast in the area in less than 24 hours.

Police said there were no injuries, but some damage was done to the entrance of the apartment building and three cars.

On Friday, a bomb damaged the office of a far-right anti-immigration group.

No group has said it carried out the attacks, but there have been numerous bombings attributed to far-left or anarchist groups in recent years.

Recent attacks have targeted banks and government buildings.

Greece has faced severe anti-government protests and rioting since police shot dead a teenager in December 2008.

In the latest attack, police were able to seal off the area after anonymous warning calls were made to a Greek TV station and a newspaper 15 minutes before the explosion.

ATHENS (Reuters) – A makeshift bomb damaged the office of a far-right group in central Athens early on Friday but no one was hurt, police said.

“A makeshift time-bomb exploded outside the office of Golden Dawn, there are no injuries,” a police official said.

Police said there was no claim of responsibility for the blast on the fifth floor of the building near the central Athens Omonia square.

There has been a series of gas canister and bomb attacks by leftist and anarchist groups in Greece since the fatal police shooting of a teenager sparked the country’s worst riots in decades in December 2008.

Police said there was a warning call to a newspaper about a suspect box placed outside the office of ultra nationalist group Golden Dawn.

“All these actions serve as negative arguments for our country,” government spokesman George Petalotis told Greek TV Sky.

ATHENS, Greece — Protesters clashed with riot police as more than 10,000 people marched through central Athens Thursday during a nationwide general strike against the government’s harsh new austerity measures.

The strike grounded all flights and brough public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country’s debt crisis.

Fears of a Greek default have undermined the euro for all 16 countries that share it, putting the Greek government under intense European Union pressure to quickly show fiscal improvement.

It has announced an additional euro4,8 billion ($65.33 billion) in savings through public sector salary cuts, hiring and pension freezes and consumer tax hikes to deal with its ballooning deficit, but the measures have led to a new wave of labor discontent.

The cutbacks, added to a previous euro11.2 billion ($15.24 billion) austerity plan, seek to reduce the country’s budget deficit from 12.7 percent of annual output to 8.7 percent this year. The long-term target is to bring overspending below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of GDP in 2012.

The new plan sparked a wave of strikes and protests from labor unions whose reaction to the initial austerity measures had been muted. Thursday’s strike, which shut down all public services and schools, left ferries tied up at port and suspended all news broadcasts for the day, was the second major walkout in a week.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse rock-throwing protesters at one point of the demonstration as more than 10,000 strikers and protesters marched through central Athens, banging drums and chanting slogans such as “no sacrifice for plutocracy,” and “real jobs, higher pay.” People draped banners from apartment buildings reading: “No more sacrifices, war against war.”

It appears an anarchist was murdered by police this morning…

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1141857

Robin Hood thieves reappear
A group of around 20 youths wearing masks and hoods yesterday stormed into a branch of the Sklavenitis supermarket chain in Kaisariani, eastern Athens, and loaded up several trolleys with food before charging past the cash registers and distributing the goods to passers-by in the street. After distributing the goods, the thieves fled. Such raids became a frequent occurence in some Athens neighborhoods last year after self-styled anarchists promoting the “free distribution of goods” claimed responsibility for the first raid of its kind in May 2008.
Armed raid
A young man wearing a mask and a woman wearing a motorcycle helmet held up a convenience store in the central town of Volos early yesterday, threatening the 23-year-old store owner at gunpoint to hand over his takings. The pair fled with the 300 euros they were given without causing any injuries.

[rough translation reposted from http://de.indymedia.org/2010/03/274858.shtml]

* Communique of Revolutionary Continuity Urban Guerrilla Organization for the bomb explosion at JPMorgan investment bank offices in Athens on the 16th of February 2010. It is the first action of this organization, the communique was sent to Eleftherotypia newspaper.

… In America two of the biggest banks, which belong to the billionairs Rockefeller and Morgan dominate on a capital of 11 billions Deutsche Mark …The Morgans used to have a high influence into the political life of USA. Many presidents and ministers of USA were the favorites of the Morgans …

Complete Writings of V.I. Lenin, tome 27

JPMorgan investment bank was since the middle-war a powerful monopoly stock company that used to control a large number of U.S. banks and industrial associations and companies. Such was for example the General Electric and General Motors, which until 2006 had annual revenues higher than the GDP of Ireland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Namibia, Nicaragua and Chad together. With the crash of 1929, which caused such things as the predatory mania of JPMorgan, promoting the well-known “economical bubbles”, this profit-speculative company smashed all the small economical groups, by merging them and asserting its sovereignty and its monopoly character.

Today we are one more capitalist crisis that has been forseen, moreover inherent to the character of the capitalist model. It started for one more time in the so-called “country of prosperity”, America, with the poor middle American citizen who used to take house-loans, it was spreaded with the so-called ‘toxic’ financial products and escalated with mass redundancies of workers in multinational companies and factories, company closures, pressure against lower-income countries and the list is endless. Those companies which survived, succeeded with the money of taxpayers in any country while on the same time all over the world the voices that were asking the crisis to be paid by those who created it were becoming louder. Of course, injustice and oppression exist either the capitalist model is experiencing a boom or recession. Long before the crisis, to avoid loss of profits imposed by labor achievements, the large multinational companies transferred their capital and their production to countries of the so-called ‘developing’, according to their terminology, world, in order to achieve the lowest production cost. Some of them, such as Nike and Adidas and otherones, which have already transferred their production to developing countries, refuse to pay even the 87 cents per hour which are considered as necessary to cover the basic cost of living for the workers and avoid the risks of disease outbreaks etc. Instead, some of them pay only 13 cents per hour. At the same time there is another darker side. The American “leader” of the “free world” since the Second World War, decided to assume the role of exporter of the “Western democracy” by exporting war and oppression in ‘developing’ regions of the planet, such as the much-suffer countries of the Arab world while meanwhile supports economically and militarily some fascistic states, such as Israel. With this blatant arrogance of the powerful states and the market dominance on the planet collapsed the ideological investment of America which used to be self-appeared as Democracy.

The Greek state economically and strategically, was traditionally a slave to the capitalistic forces of Britain and America, and is still dependent on advanced capitalist countries in many forms, economically, militarily and culturally. Result of this dependency was the creation of a huge state, that operated and still operates as a processor of promises and financial transactions for the benefits of local and foreign oligarchies. In recent decades, there were distributed and given as a gift to magnates of wealth and to fops of social and political life huge amounts of capital funds from the Community Support Framework of the European Union even from the funds of Social Insurance System, with black money, loans free of conditions, fake competitions.

The public wealth was transferred to Greek and foreign monopolies together with countless privileges and tax-exemptions. In addition, tax-exemptions for big businesses and tax-cuts for high incomes was a key element for economic policy of Ronald Reagan the guru of neoliberalism. The theory was based on increasing entrepreneurship and expenditure of the rich people that would result the improvement of all social classes, event that never happened. The implementation of this model in Greece led to a huge accumulation of profits for the local and transnational capital.

For the benefit of powerful economic cycles was led to impoverishment the biggest mass of workers and were stuck the salaries and pensions on the level of hunger. The workers, the craftsmen, the small and middle market, the professional services, which are the main productive forces and have become the feeders of plutocracy, are crushed by unsustainable taxes, de-industrialization and the general decline. The public economic and social life has become a fiefdom of the cycles of the oligarchy. The majority of the population is under an unprecedented economic oppression, while on the same time hundreds of millions of euros are spent for the strengthening on friendly constructive compnies’ contractors and abusers of public life.

Behind the mask of “democracy” those who have the power engage in irresponsible exploitation against the produced by people (and for the people?) overvalue under the argument that this exploitation is the product and will of the majority of the people. It is, literally, a vicious circle, which has its roots in the early years after the fall of the hunta in 1974. When, after the fall of the US-led military dictatorship, appeared those who would operate the will of the people for freedom, fairer distribution of wealth and transparency. They said lies to people by repeating words which the people wanted to listen to, that, so, Greece will stop being a protectorate of the English and Americans, by creating the appropriate conditions to restore the autonomy of the country and as a natural consequence will come the improvement of living conditions. But those promises were just “dust in the wind, because “Western democracy” was doing a good job. Those who make the country work, the folk, are newcomers at their own land and various luminary brains speak on his behalf. Why the representatives of the Greek Industrialists Association should speak about the Insurance System, when their pre-eminent role is to safeguard their own individual interests? National Bank of Greece itself, the temporal abuser of public funds and copartner of the European Central Bank, admits openly that the largest proportion of public money which is flowing into funds of the State comes not from those who have the money, because they evade taxes, but from the over-loaned households which are forced through lending to become food for the bankers so they can respond to the state’s economical attack. Eventually, all that remains on topic in this ravaged place is that we work for the minority and the minority works for themselves.

But now the king is naked. The widespread corruption underlying the triangle of power, state-capital-mass media, can not be hidden. The economically weak majority of people gets widened, while at the same time they work-produce for the accumulation of wealth on the side of the economic elite. It is the economic oligarchy, which is the real power that plans, under silence and safety, the basic guidelines in public life and political decisions. The modern elite of the country, the bourgeois class, is constructed by a clearly defined circle of people who are sharing for their own the wealth of the country and have common characteristics among each other. They live in guarded by police and bodyguards areas, such as Kolonaki district, the rich north or south suburbs.They laugh together in luxurius places, such as Ekali Club, Athenian Club, and often or rare they visit destinations like Switzerland and exotic islands. They control an army of journalists who cover and legalize their actions, maximize their control in state matters and buy justice by possessing all the mass media. They control print and electronic media, banks, constructive and financial companies, industrial and telecommunications, the stockmarket, Palaces of Culture and big football limited-responsibilities’ companies. These crazy-happy-friends is extremely tight and there is solidarity both in joy and in sorrow. At the marriage of Vardinogiannis’ son, at the baptize of Chatzinikolaou’s son, at the funeral of Lamprakis the guests were almost the same, representatives of the contemporary ruling class, journalists, businessmen, politicians and, not to forget, the American ambassador. The same people who will announce in the mass media, that should become cutouts for pensions and wages, in the same time, when a bottle of wine on their table may cost more than a monthly wage.

It is on charts these days to read and hear complaints from the government and the media, that the Greek financial system and generally the southern European countries are under attack from different centers of transnational profiteers, from the markets, the Anglo-Saxon banks etc. All these complaints are completely abstract and never lead to individual persons, as if talking about a natural disaster. This is clearly a distortion of reality while the markets are constructed by profit-speculators who are people with a full name, with businesses’ owning titles. They are a relatively small number of people who form a transnational elite and exchange between each other the key-positions they owe.

The same people who work for the International Monetary Fund after some time can work for national central banks, become priministers and financial ministers, consultants in multinational companies, organizations such as NATO etc. Tony Blair after being Britain’s priminister and sidekick of the Americans during the invasion in Iraq, became a director of JPMorgan, that has under its control the newly established Commercial Bank in Iraq, controlling the economy of the country, through the trade finance exchanges and the oil. The president of the Italian central bank (Βanca d΄Ιtalia) Mario Draghi had served as vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs and now gets prepared to become president of the European Central Bank. John Lipsky, former manager of IMF, has also worked as vice president of JPMorgan.

About Greece the “savior” manager of public debt Petros Christodoulou had offered his services in the past both at JPMorgan and the Goldman Sachs, but also at Credit Suisse. Recently, in fact, we learned from the well-known leaks of EYP (National Information Service) to press, that were identified four profit-speculative companies that become richer by functioning against the Greek economy. It was not leaked, of course, that one of them named Fidelity was a shareholder in Tyletypos, the owning company of Mega Channel. Boss, for real, and a major cash-donor of journalists who every night are trying to convince us that everyone must pay for the crisis. The same company also had a 4.5% stake of the shares in National Bank. In another case during the last Greek bond sale-out among the banks that lent the Greek State under the usurious rate of 6.5% was also the National Bank and Eurobank.

Let’s stop having doubts, their “western democracy” has nothing to do with the social power that is desired by society. It’s just a trick to keep people captive. What exists is the oligarchy of some powerful persons and the the majority of the people. The meaning of words is lost if there are no struggles for their maintenance. The challenge, then, is the resistance to unpopular projects. The response of the people must not be the inactivity but the confrontation with the options and mechanisms of the ruling class both on mass and individual level. As long as the reaction to all this is the passivity and individualism, so long territory will be given to the bosses to increase their exploitation conditions. The enemy is real and certainly not the immigrants, not the parts of the society who are fighting strongly and confrontationally, nor any other social groups who are aimed by the sovereign power. What is needed is to realize is that the most pieces of society face the same problems. We see our lives declining continuously.

What is necessary is to go into action. Even the conversation in our working place about how much ridiculous is the boss can be concidered as resistance. Gradually tolerance and fear and the imposed privetation will be removed and then will dominate the passion for justice and freedom, and the struggle of people to be saved from oppression. But where we should get is not to leave unanswered anything at all. Any change to worse situations for workers will result in cost to the bosses, from the verbal protest to violent actions. The December 2008 was not a deadlock firework, but an editorial part of the social struggles that are ongoing. In the social dialogue our own choice of armed struggle, is the immediate way to attack back against the plans of the state, the capitalists and the imperialists. It is the historical continuation of the struggles of the past with the ultimate aim of dialectic between us and the struggling parts of the society.

JPMorgan, proven, was caught red-handed stealing the money of the Insurance System, not through some financial tool of questionable legality , as they call them, but through the traditional gift-giving. And JPMorgan was interested in buying the financial bond only and only to have the ability to steal again in the future. According to the relations of IMF with JPMorgan, we easily conclude that the pressures of the IMF (and EU) for structural changes, for example in the Insurance System, have the ultimate aim of increasing the profits of financial institutions. Maybe this time, they have a better and not so easy to found out plan so they can put the cash on hands, but the objective remains the same, making it easy for them to control the economies and markets and profit speculatorly. The explosive mechanism at JPMorgan’s offices in Kolonaki district was a practical protest against its parasitic action.

The cops did not make it to evacuate the building despite the time of half an hour we gave them. We can not know if they were simply unable or had something else in mind.

On the same day that took place our action, Greek police killed Nikola Todi, 25 years old, with 9 bullets proving once again the zero respect that they have for human lives and disadvantaged persons.

Athens, 1st March 2010

REVOLUTIONARY CONTINUITY

TAXI STRIKE
Cabbies appear set for a 48-hour stoppage next week
Taxi drivers are expected to go on strike again next week but this time they will stage a 48-hour stoppage on Tuesday and Wednesday, it emerged yesterday. Their union is opposed to government plans to make cabbies issue receipts, keep account books and pay tax according to their income. Under the current system, drivers pay just over 1,200 euros in tax each year, regardless of what they earn. Cabbies have already staged two 24-hour strikes this month and say they will keep protesting until the government changes its mind.
Trash protest
Landfills and waste processing centers around the country will shut down on March 6 and 7 as workers protest pay and conditions, it was decided yesterday. The Federation of Municipal Workers’ Associations (POE-OTA) also said yesterday that its members would strike on Wednesday and hold a rally in front of the Finance Ministry.
Youths mark Cretan teacher with swastikas
Police on Crete yesterday were seeking the two men who carved swastika symbols on the arm of a 27-year-old teacher on Wednesday night – the latest in a string of racist crimes on the island in the past two months.
The woman was attacked while getting into her car in the Halepa suburb of Hania by two masked youths who used a razor blade to carve two Nazi symbols onto the skin of her left arm and another three on her jacket sleeve. Police said they believe the perpetrators had targeted her as she had been offering Greek language lessons to the children of immigrants. Nikos Tzaras, a spokesman for the Cretan Migrant Forum condemned the attack as “barbaric and cowardly” and said he believed the assault and other racist attacks were being coordinated by “a center in Hania.” Wednesday’s attack follows a string of assaults on migrants and two attacks on a synagogue in Hania last month.

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the explosion of a makeshift bomb last week at the political office of the minister in charge of police, officials said on Wednesday.

The bomb, which went off outside the Athens office used ahead of the Oct. 4 elections by Citizen Protection Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis, damaged the door and blew out windows without causing injuries.

“Popular Will sent a CD to a newspaper claiming the attack,” said a police official who declined to be named. “It blames the minister for considering extremists just common criminals.”

In 2009, the group claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion at the building of an agency managing state property, about 250 metres from the Athens central police headquarters.

Last week’s attack was the latest in a series of blasts that have rocked Greece since the police killing of a teenager in December 2008 sparked the country’s worst riots in decades.

Feb 24

- Tens of thousands of strikers marched through Athens on Wednesday to protest against austerity plans aimed at wrenching Greece out of a debt crisis that has shaken the euro zone

The Socialist government meanwhile hit back at European criticism of Greece’s fiscal management, accusing European Union partners of double standards and poor leadership.

The 24-hour general strike grounded flights and disrupted services but stopped short of bringing Greece to a standstill. Scuffles broke out on the fringe of the protest, with police firing teargas to disperse groups of stone-throwing youths.

“No sacrifices, the rich should pay for the crisis,” demonstrators chanted as more than 20,000 marched on parliament in an otherwise peaceful protest.

In a sign of persistent market jitters, Greece’s borrowing costs rose on Wednesday after Czech Finance Minister Eduard Janota said Athens would find it impossible to slash its budget deficit as fast as promised.

Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos said Italy, France and Belgium had used the same techniques as Greece to mask their true deficits to qualify for the euro zone.

“You simply put some amounts of money in the next year … it is what everybody did and Greece did it to a lesser extent than Italy for example,” Pangalos told BBC World Service radio.

He said Germany was ill-placed to criticize Athens given its behavior during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War Two, including the looting of central bank gold reserves.

“EUROPE’S EYES ON US”

The public and private sector unions, which together represent half of Greece’s workforce of 5 million, want the government to scrap plans to freeze public wage, hike taxes and increase the retirement age.

“Today, Europe’s eyes are turned on us,” said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the private sector union GSEE.

“We ask the government not to give in to the desires of the markets, to set people’s needs as a priority and adopt a mix of economic and social policies that won’t lead to recession but to jobs,” he told the rally.

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday downgraded the ratings of Greece’s four largest banks, expecting fiscal tightening to weigh on the economy and loan demand, hurting profits.

The strike coincided with a visit by EU officials assessing whether Greece is on track to cut its double-digit deficit. Greece’s debt crisis has shaken the euro and sent peripheral bond and credit default swaps markets reeling.

“The team of inspectors coming from the Commission, the ECB and the IMF … will get a taste of the dynamic reaction of the Greek workers to the huge pressures from Brussels,” center-left Eleftherotypia newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Under the scrutiny of EU policymakers and markets, the government has so far refused to give in to protesters’ demands. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said on Tuesday the cabinet may decide on more measures to cut the deficit after talks with the visiting EU officials.

The first joint walkout by the two major labor federations was the biggest test to the government’s resolve since it won October elections. Opinion polls show most Greeks support government efforts to shore up deteriorating public finances that have rattled markets and worried European Union partners.

Workers and employers gave vastly different participation estimates. Government officials said only about 16 percent of public sector workers walked off the job, but public sector union ADEDY put participation at 90 percent.

Most shops in the capital were open, some banks were closed and others empty, and the capital’s chaotic traffic was quieter than usual. The Athens stock exchange operated normally.

All but emergency flights to and from Greece were grounded, ships stayed tied up in dock, and ministries, schools and monuments such as the Athens Acropolis remained shut. Street protests failed to attract more than the usual numbers.

In central Athens some said they saw no reason to strike.

“I don’t want to participate in the strike,” 62-year old gas station owner Dimitris Makrivellios said. “Aren’t people also responsible for this situation? Our economy’s problems concern us all. Why should we strike?”

Spanish workers unhappy about plans to raise the retirement age marched on Tuesday but the main protest in Madrid seemed relatively small in a sign that the country’s unions may be weakening.