On the night of February 24 the Haunt of Migrants on Tsamadou Street in Exarcheia (a social centre for migrants) was attacked while an assembly of the Association of Conscientious Objectors was taking place inside.
A hand-grenade was thrown from outside. Luckily the building’s window was shut and double-glazed - the first layer of the window broke but the hand-grenade bounced off and exploded outside.
What follows is a statement issued by the Network for Social and Political Rights, also housed in the same building.
Murderous attack with hand-grenade at the Migrants’ Haunt
Last night, February 24, at around 10.05 pm “persons unknown” threw a hand grenade at the Migrants’ Haunt at Tsamadou Street in Exarcheia, the same building hosting the offices of the Network for Social and Political Rights). At that time the Haunt was full of people as there was an open meeting of the Association of Conscientious Objectors and the co-ordinating body of our group was also having a meeting. The attack had no victims only due to sheer luck as the hand grenade did not manage to get through the double glazed window, bounced back and exploded just outside the building.
Last night’s fascist, para-statal attack is part of the wider attempt of sovereignty to strike back after December’s revolt. During all this time we have been watching the intensification of statist and para-statist (meaning, undercovers and fascists, often the same people — trans) violence as well as a dirty propaganda campaign against spaces of resistance (”the far Left is to blame for the violence”). The “persons unknown” who threw the hand grenade do not only turn against us but against the social antagonist movement as a whole, against all who revolted in December, against all who actively refuse the dictatorship of the market and the “democracy” of the batton.
It is probably unnecessary for us to say that we shall not make a single step back, it is unnecessary to say that the parastatals will receive the response they deserve.
Athens, February 25 2009
Network for Social and political rights
Comments
Some due explanations: a)
Some due explanations:
a) The 'Haunt of Migrants; refers to the Steki Metanaston, i.e. the Immigrants' Social Center which has been functioning for almost two decades in Exarcheia, and is a venue for free language lessons and support to immigrants, antiracist struggle, as well as queer groups and the above mentioned association of conscientious objectors. The building also houses the offices of Rosa, a contingent of the Radical Left Coalition [Syriza] as well as the offices of the Network for Social and Political Rights [Diktyo] a leftist group whose members have consistently offered legal support and solidarity to immigrants, as well as political prisoners.
b) The term parastate or parastatist [parakratos/ parakratikos] refer to mechanisms officially outside state power, but in fact controlled if not by the government then by the army, the police or the secret services. The term was extensively used for the first time during the 1960s, when 'patriotic groups' were used by the police to break up radical meetings and gatherings. The apex of parastate action in the 1960s was the assassination of Grigorios Lambrakis, a left wing MP, in Thessaloniki (Gavras film Z is about this murder). The activity of such groups became redundant during the 7 years junta, when the state had a free hand to exercise all the violence it wanted. After the collapse of the colonels in 1974, it is believed that large parts of the junta mechanism remained in a behind-lines mode, with some of them operating as hit-squads in times the interests of the so called junta-droplets were jeopardized either by parliamentary democracy or by the labour movement and other revolutionary forces. During the 1970s there was a long list of bomb attacks by such groups, leading to several trials of their perpetrators, amongst whom figured prominently a certain Mihaloliakos, now leader of the neonazi group Xrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn). Analysts at the time argued these parastate groups received direct orders by the imprisoned leader of the junta, Papadopoulos, who after the victory of PASOK (Socdem) in 1981 ordered the formation of a united nationalist party (EPEN). Today mainstream analysts attack the idea that fascist and neonazi groups are in fact parastate mechanisms, although the left and anarchists more or less unanimously beleive them them t be so. Elefterotypia, the daily newspaper, has published official papers figuring salaries payed by the EYP (secret services) to Mihaloliakos and other fascists.
c) The attack against the Social Center last Tuesday took place at the day of the appeal trial of Periandros, the debuty leader of Golden Dawn who has been convicted for accomplish attempted murder of a left wing student in the late 1990s.