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News :: Globalization : International : Labor : Organizing |
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Greece's Trial of the Century |
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by Jake Carman, BAAM Newsletter
(No verified email address) |
08 Feb 2010
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On January 22nd, in the remote mountain town of Amfissa, Greece, the trial began of Athens police officers Epaminondas Korkoneas and Vassilis Saraliotis. Korkoneas murdered 15 year old anti-authoritarian Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6th, 2008, and Saraliotis is being tried as an accomplice for encouraging the killing. The shooting sparked more than a month of full-blown insurrection, and though it occurred in central Athens, authorities postponed the trial from December 2009 to January 20th, 2010, and moved it 125 miles northwest from the Greek capital in hopes of avoiding more civil unrest. |
As the drama unfolds in quiet Amfissa, the whole of Greece waits and watches. The outcome could determine if the ruling Socialist Party (PASOK) can regain control on the rebellious nation, or if the public continues at breakneck pace down the road of uprising and rebellion. As Christos Fotopoulo, president of the Police Union told the BBC, “If the public believes there is a fair and proper trial...then this will improve relations between the police and society.” On January 20th, when it was announced that the trial would again be postponed because, according to AFP, “the main lawyer of...Korkoneas was occupied with another trial,” 350 anarchists marched through Amfissa with much public support. 15 anarchists had traveled from Athens and nearby Lamia to Amfissa on January 16th to reach out to the townsfolk and shatter the government-generated image of anarchists as vile terrorists.“ So will the hordes of barbarians come to Amfissa to flatten the city? … Are the babies in danger, the olive tries, animals, the kiosks, the drinkable water? The answer is no,” said the fliers the anarchists handed out to residents during of Amfissa at the beginning of the week. While 400 police officers swarmed the town days before the trail, and while shops responded to government scare tactics by boarding up windows, “upon hearing that ‘anarchists were in town,’ crowds of people came to meet them” and invite them for free drinks in local cafes, said the anarchists’ statement.
Locals also came out to downtown Amfissa to watch and participate in the January 20th demonstration, where anarchists and supporters chanted anti-police and anti-government slogans, and demanded that the courts accept the pleas of the victim’s mother to move the trial back to Athens. The march included minor confrontations with police. Alexandros’ mother, Gina Tsalikian, filed multiple complaints against the transfer of the trial to Amfissa, including one to the European Court of Human Rights. In an open letter to the judges, she claims the accused officers are “subjects of privileged treatment.” Moving the trial, Tsalikian argues, hinders the participation of key witnesses—such as the school-aged youth.
Her statements also raise questions about the second bullet (perhaps intended for a second victim) and the oversight of the police-conduct files of the accused. Without waiting for the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, the Greek Courts rejected all of Tsalikian’s appeals. The police union also protested the move to Amfissa, telling the BBC it’s, “an insult that implies they could not guarantee security in the Greek capital.”
When the trial finally began on January 22nd, police flooded Amfissa under the pretext of protecting officer Korkoneas from urban guerrilla groups that have threatened to kill him. Bullets have even been mailed to his defense lawyer, Kougias, who began the trial by claiming Alexis was involved in water-polo hooliganism on December 6th. Officer Korkoneas said, “The ones who really attacked were the boy and the witness. Those 16 year old boys are not normal kids like mine and yours.” Tsalikia, who had to be restrained by police during Korkoneas’ slanderous statements, testified that Korkoneas shot her son deliberately, and that the two officers were “monsters in the guise of men.” Tsalikian claims that even after the murder, the police “...Just left. They went back to their headquarters and did not say they had shot a child. It was like they had killed a little mouse. These people valued the life of my son as much as a cockroach’s.” At the stand, Korkoneas stated: “I don’t accept liability for anybody’s death...I would have stepped forward to shield anyone, including these kids. It was the outcome of a difficult moment.” Saraliotis also pled innocent, saying, “I have nothing to do with my colleague’s actions.” Korkoneas’ defense is based on the claim that, according to the Associated Press “the boy was killed by a warning shot fired into the air that ricocheted.” However, that section of Exarchia, the large anarchist “free” neighborhood where the shooting took place, has no balconies or other metal structures in the air capable of deflecting a bullet, and the claim is highly improbable. (See Greek cartoon depicting the murder, left) Ballistic evidence, which could indicate if the bullet that struck Alexis’ heart had been deflected, is key to the verdict. The trial could last several months.
Besides the January 20th march through Amfissa Center and to the nearby prison, and along with the ongoing high school and university occupations, anarchists and anti-authoritarians have intensified their “urban guerrilla” campaign. This month, they blew up the ground floor of the Ministry of Press, the front yard of the Greek Parliament building, burnt the Kallithea, Athens offices of the governing Socialist Party (PASOK) as well as the usual cars of diplomats, and raided and smashed up the office of Deputy Justice Minister Apostolos Katsifaras. A new guerrilla group, calling itself the Revolutionary Organization 6th of December, after the date Alexis was murdered, claimed the Ministry of Press bombing. Labor is on the offensive. Striking workers of the country’s second largest shoe company, Elite, responded to threats of closure by occupying Elite’s main factory in Athens. Civil Aviation workers also occupied their headquarters on January 21st, while a sex workers union protested for better healthcare.
In the countryside, during the lead up to the trial, farmers used their tractors as blockades, shutting down seven highways in the country the size of Alabama, hindering cross-country travel and even blocking national borders. These blockades were organized regionally by farmers unions from the left, as well as many on the right. Around the start of the trial, however, according to a report from Greek anarchists, “farmers from the blockades of north Greece have declared they no longer consider their official unions relevant and have formed an ad hoc autonomous council comprising of two elected members from each blockade.” The farmers demand that the PASOK government fulfill their campaign promises, and the herders union reinforced the blockades on January 25th. On January 25th, though the government held a Dialogue on Farming at the Presidential Mansion in Athens, farmers, calling it a “circus of a dialogue,” boycotted, remained at their snow-covered tractors, and staged a “general rehearsal of total blockade.” Only a handful of PASOK-controlled farm union reps attended the Ministry of Agriculture’s dialogue. Tractors crippled the highways and even side streets, shut down all traffic north of Athens, an international railway, and the Bulgarian border. Some gave free produce to the trapped drivers while explaining agricultural politics.
By the 26th, 5,000 tractors blocked roads, and city buses besieged the Salonica police headquarters and the city of Larissa, threatening their own blockades. All in all, these actions have cost the Greek state around 200 million Euros so far, and may escalate early this month, during the 100 years anniversary of the Kileler Uprising and the abolition of serfdom in Thessaly, east-central Greece. Lastly, a hunger strike, organized by the Initiative for Prisoners Rights on January 11th, at the time of writing continues in Grevena prison, including more that 400 prisoners. |
This work is in the public domain. |
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americans are crapheads |
by amercans are crapheads
(No verified email address) |
24 Feb 2010
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I hate every american alive, your pigs |
