Athens’ metro workers, on strike for a ninth straight day to protest
planned salary cuts, said on Friday that they will continue to defy the
Greek government and remain on strike despite the threat of arrest.
Hours earlier, riot police stormed the main depot of the Athens Metro,
which had been occupied by workers, in an attempt to end the strike,
which has spread to include all public transport in the Greek capital.
Police implemented an emergency order issued by the government to end
the strike. The order allows the government to arrest or fire workers
who refuse to return to work.
Police broke through the gates of the depot and cleared the workers. No violence was reported.
Government officials have distributed notifications to all metro workers
demanding they return to work. Ignoring the order can lead to arrest
and jail terms of between three months to five years.
Speaking on Greek state television NET, government spokesman Simos
Kedikoglou said he expected the metro to be operational at the weekend.
“It is the responsibility of the government to uphold the law and for
the general public to not suffer such an inconvenience,” he said.
Radio reports said approximately 50 metro workers had returned to work
on Friday, far less than the number needed to put the transport system
back into operation.
The strike has caused massive traffic jams throughout Athens and hampered access to airports.
In a show of solidarity, workers with the city’s electric railway,
trams, buses and trolley service on Thursday declared a strike.
Despite the inconvenience, many commuters expressed their understanding
for the strikers, saying they too had suffered pay cuts to their own
incomes.
“It took me more than two hours to get to work this morning but, despite
the inconvenience, I understand what they are going through because I
have had my own salary cut by more than 20 per cent,” said Antonia
Rapioni, a public servant.
Metro workers said they were protesting a unified pay structure the
government is planning for civil servants, which would result in the
abolition of their collective labour agreement.
The government aims to reduce transport workers salaries from 97.7
million euros (131 million dollars) in 2012 to 74.6 million euros this
year.
Average gross wages without overtime on the metro will fall from about 2,500 euros to 2,038 euros.
The government passed a new round of austerity measures in December
affecting a variety of sectors to ensure it continues receiving
international bailout funds.
DPA
Growing violence threatens political stability in Greece-
Attacks targeting politicians, journalists, banks and
now a shopping mall stoke fears of growing extremism in the space of
just a couple of weeks Greece’s largest shopping mall has been targeted
in a bomb attack, gunmen have fired on the headquarters of the ruling
New Democracy party, and gas canisters have been set off outside an
array of political party offices, banks and the homes of journalists.
Three
days after the attack on the shopping centre, which sent
counter-terrorist officials on a painstaking hunt that has, as yet,
borne little fruit. Fears are mounting that Greece’s fragile political
stability could be shattered by extremists determined to exploit fury
over unpopular austerity.
“The government is very,
very concerned,” said a senior aide to one of the coalition’s tripartite
leaders. “Political stability is essential to getting through the
year.” In a nation that thought the spectre of terrorism had been laid
to rest — with the dissolution, a decade ago, of the notorious November
17 group — the appearance of gangs prepared to take unprecedented risks
has put authorities on edge.
After the office of the
conservative prime minister, Antonis Samaras, was targeted in the attack
on New Democracy’s central offices, urban guerrillas upped the ante on
Sunday, placing a bomb in Athens’ biggest commercial centre, a massive
shopping mall popular with families.
Two security
guards were lightly injured in the blast after warning calls to two
local media outlets, barely 50 minutes earlier, triggered a
panic-stricken evacuation of nearly 300 people from the building. Many
were children about to see movies. Initially the government blamed the
violence on forces of the anti-austerity left, saying militants were
taking revenge following a raid on a squat in the capital that had led
to the arrest of scores of anarchists. Hundreds of petrol bombs, often
used against riot police in demonstrations, were also confiscated.
In
a bid to limit the influence of far-right extremists gathered around
the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, the conservative-dominated coalition has
given added emphasis to law and order since assuming power in June.
“The
police, by cracking down on their traditional anti-authority
adversaries, are attempting to reclaim the law and order mantle for the
current government,” says former U.S. diplomat Brady Kiesling, who has
been studying Greek far left-anarchist violence for a forthcoming book.
“The anarchists [in turn] are determined to humiliate them with symbolic
attacks.”
But experts say the attack on the mall is
also a dangerous indicator of the determination to escalate the
violence. “What is more puzzling and more worrisome is what happened at
the mall,” said Dr. Thanos Dokos, a defence expert who heads Eliamep,
Greece’s pre-eminent think-tank.
“Explosive devices
can go off accidentally, at any given time. Innocents, people who are
not your normal targets, could have been killed. Clearly when you do
such a thing you have made a decision to escalate [violence],” he said.
“In
normal times I’d say we could have easily survived this knowing that
such groups would barely have made an impact,” added Dr. Dokos. “Now I
am worried about the negative publicity it could have on the country and
potential investors, especially in the run-up to the tourist season, if
they start targeting foreigners, and decide to hurt people.” This week,
the U.S. state department issued a travel advisory warning U.S.
citizens to be on the alert.
The violence has
poisoned a political atmosphere already fraught with tension. The main
opposition radical left Syriza party on Wednesday accused the government
of attempting to sow the seeds of a “civil war” by associating the left
exclusively with the attacks.
The climate reached
boiling point when government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou accused a
Syriza MP of being “terrorist friendly” after the leftwing politician
denounced the everyday violence visited on Greeks by austerity measures
the country has been forced to apply in return for rescue funds from the
European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The
MP, Vangelis Diamantopoulos, told supporters that exasperated Greeks
have been given an excruciating choice between “either committing
suicide or picking up a gun. What we say is: join us and turn this rage
into a creative movement. That’s the clear message form Syriza.”
Security
experts say they are under no doubt that the country’s economic crisis —
and with it the collapse of mainstream parties that have dominated the
political scene since the end of military rule in 1974 — have provided
fertile ground for extremists groups to flourish.
“The
recruitment pool has definitely got bigger,” said Mary Bossi who
specialises in international terrorism at the University of Piraeus.
“The empty space that opened up when political parties stopped being
persuasive is filling up with extremists,” she said, adding that while
the groups were “extremely diversified” they included middle class
youths from privileged backgrounds. “We will see more violence in the
future and attacks that may well be much more lethal.”
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