Despite escalating psychological warfare waged against the insurgency, protesters are keeping the struggle warm across Greece during the season holidays
The week following the 15 day insurrection in Greece saw the development of psychological warfare counterinsurgency techniques by state that began with the shooting of a school pupil in Peristeri (West Athens) on the 18/12.
Even during the height of the insurrection, in its effort to create a climate of terror and uncertainty, the state had been spreading rumours about busloads of anarchist or immigrants travelling to provincial towns with the intention to burn their commercial centres down.
Such rumours in connection with efforts to mobilise conservative elements of society in Patras and Larissa led to clashes of protesters with neonazi and pro-junta elements organised by the police on 10/12.
Now with the end of the insurrection, the police has taken recourse to a different set of psychological warfare methods, by providing confused and ambiguous accounts of a series of conspicuous incidents in Athens, such as the shooting of a passing periurban electric train (Proastiakos) on 26/12 (one bullet crossed the window pane, no passengers harmed), and the alleged shooting of a riot-police bus outside the main university campus in Zografou on 23/12.
Police tactics regarding the latest incident have been unmistakably within the framework of a 1970s Italian-style ‘strategy of tension’: initially the police spokesman declared the riot-police bus had had a flat tire, then that the tire was burst by sling-shot metallic balls, and only later that it as well as the engine of the bus was shot by a sniper gun from the old Nazi-occupation watchtower inside the university campus.
After abolishing university asylum on the campus area to allow investigations, forensic investigators identified cartages from two AK (Kalashnikov) automatic weapons, while the media started ranting about the activation of dormant terrorist cells connected with the 17N and other armed struggle organisations of times past. In addition the conservative press has been trying to use the alleged attack as proof that the insurrection and anarchists in particular are a pool for terrorist groups in formation.
These efforts of psychological warfare have not managed to dampen the resolve of the insurgents who is continuing to organise and take action in anticipation of the end of the Christmas holidays and the beginning of the new “struggle season”. What follows are some actions of today Monday 29/12/08:
Athens, 29/12: Protesters took over the university building Iris in downtown Athens which is to function as a counterinformation centre for solidarity to the arrested insurgents. At the same time, other protesters staged a demo and dropped a banner at the major shopping centre of the capital “the Mall” for the liberation of all arrested insurgents. Protester were reported to be playing football with the decorations of the Mall’s Christmas tree.
Nafplio, 29/12: Pupils and workers of the Open Assembly of the city’s occupied high-schools occupied the city hall of the old capital of Greece, calling a People’s Assembly in order to organise the struggle against state-terror and in solidarity to the arrested insurgents. The Open Assembly had already occupied the municipal radio station of Argos and has announced a concert in solidarity to the arrested insurgents.
Larissa 29/12: Protesters gathered outside the shop of the president of the shop-owners, setting up a banner and fly-posting on its windows, condemning the fact that while no shops other than banks had been harmed during the insurgency, he terrorised shop-owners that anarchists came to smash our shops, while launching a media campaign against protesters, and using neonazi elements to guard expensive shops of the city. A protest march took place later the same day in solidarity to the arrested insurgents.
Xanthi 29/12: The municipal radio station was occupied by the Initiative of Pupils Students and Workers of the city, in order to counterinform the local population and announce a protest march in the following week, while calling for a general assembly of citizens at the Labour Centre of the city.
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