Tense week in Greece: cultural centre occupied, protest erupts in clashes, doctors stage 48-hour strike

Feb 14 2009 Libcom.org

Tension rises again in Greece with protest marches and occupations of public buildings against repression, as well as 48 doctor strike which sees new methods of struggle like occupying hospital cashiers.

In a week thick with solidarity actions to the arrested insurgents
of the December uprising in Greece, the posh newly opened Municipal
Cultural Centre at Touba, Thessaloniki, has been occupied by local
radicals, announcing a programme of public discussions on the
insurgency and its repression, as well as screenings on labour
struggles since the collapse of the junta. A few days before a large
protest march in the centre of the city in solidarity to the arrested
insurgents had escalated in serious clashes when the protesters
attacked the central police station of Greece’s second biggest city.
Barricades were erected in the main boulevard and the riot police made
extended use of tear gas. A similar protest march in Athens on Saturday
14/2 ended peacefully.

The renewed tension comes at a time of generalised social upheaval
on labour issues which this week saw a 48 hour strike of hospital
doctors leaving the country’s health system on the brink of collapse.
The doctors demand the implementation of their legal working shifts and
have refused to work a single extra shift arguing that the greek NHS
should rather employ more doctors rather than overexploiting the
existing ones. During the strike a group of doctors occupied the
cashier office of AHEPA, Salonica’s main hospital, thus allowing all
patients to free care. The doctors’ initiative called “workers in the
health industry” condemned police interference in the treatment of
injured insurgents during the December uprising, and urged that
hospitals accept immigrants and non-insured patients for free, an end
to the commodification of health-care, and for a “society with no
bosses and slaves”. A similar action had taken place in one of Athens’
central hospital ten days before.

The social tension has been further fueled by a chain-bomb campaign
against leading members of the legal establishment of the country by
the underground group "Fire-Cells Conspiracy". The attacks that hit
amongst other things the home of the leading antiterrorist persecutor
have caused extended material damage but no human injuries, causing
great concern to the authorities and mixed feelings amongst radicals
and the general population. The attacks come two weeks after another
new group called "Revolutionary Faction" attacked the police department
near the central Athens prisons in Koridallos with Scorpion automatic
weapons, causing no human injuries. Both groups have announced the
beginning of a new generation of armed struggle, five years after the
arrest and dismantlement of the notorious Marxist-Leninist urban
guerrilla group "17 November".