NAR about The railway tragedy with 57 dead in Greece

“Call me when you arrive.

You never arrived.

We will take revenge for you brother! ”

A slogan shook up the whole of Greece on March 8th. The people and the youth stood up with huge strike demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, as well as in dozens of cities in Greece. Workers and students gave March 8, the day for women's emancipation, a character of total opposition to the government, to privatizations, to the policy that puts profit above human life.

The railway tragedy with 57 dead was a tragedy foretold, a crime of the New Democracy government and the previous SYRIZA government that privatized and disbanded Greek Railways turning them from the "most loss-making railway company in Europe" into a "profitable one", provocatively ignoring the consequences. The company was sold in 2017 for just 45 million euros to the Italian Ferrovie Group. The decision was taken by the then SYRIZA government, while the privatization was a key objective of the EU and the IMF. It was supported by the parties of New Democracy and PASOK, which had disbanded in previous years the company into smaller ones, so that they could be sold off more easily. The railway workers' unions have been warning for at least a decade about the vital problems for transport safety but the private company and the governments ignored them, while the media, owned by industrialist, bankers and ship tycoons in Greece, ridiculed every strike and struggle.

This crime has caused an unprecedented wave of anger among the people and especially the youth. More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Athens, in a strike demonstration that the Greek capital hasn’t seen since the marches of 2010-2012 against the EU-IMF memoranda. The rally in the center of Athens surrounded the Parliament building. The strike rally in Thessaloniki with the participation of more than 40,000 people was the largest march in recent decades in the city. The character of the rally was much broader than the usual strike rallies, as Thessaloniki experiences the pain but also the anger for dozens of dead, among them many students of the Aristotle University. Among the protesters in Thessaloniki there were also passengers of the crushed train IC62. Patras also saw the largest strike rally in the last decade with over 15,000 students and workers. For the first time in Greece, however, there were massive demonstrations even in small towns, without organized unions or universities, with the participation of thousands of people and mainly high school students. At the same time, most university faculties in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras are under occupation after mass general assemblies.

In Athens, student associations occupy the Rectorate of the University of Athens. Strong police forces tried to invade and threw chemicals and flash bangs inside the building of the Rectorate, causing a suffocating atmosphere but without breaking up the occupation. Despite the attack by the police, a joint Assembly of Struggle of student associations and labor unions was held with great mass, which resulted in a decision to continue and escalate the struggle. The decision states:

"Hope lies only in the struggles organized by the trade unions, the student associations, the students in the schools, the occupations of the artists, the collectives in the neighborhoods. That is why the response to the mass demonstrations on the part of the government is savage repression. They are afraid because this movement is moving away from the usual proposals for government rotation and parliamentary integration. The people demand that the guilty will pay: The governments that dismantled the country's rail transport. Privatizations and the governments that serve them kill! No more dead for profit! The memory of the victims of the pandemic is still fresh. Thousands died due to the dissolution of the public health system. The privatization of public education is plundering the educational rights and the future of young people. The free market, profits, private economic criteria kills".

Solidarity rallies in cities across Europe were important for us. Internationalist solidarity is the greatest weapon of workers and youth. We want this movement to continue, as in Greece where new rallies are already being planned and new General Nationwide Strike at 16^th of March. We will not back down until the murderous policy of governments and capital is overthrown.

NAR for Communist Liberation, March 2023

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Footage from protests and strike – Twitter of NAR and NKA (available on Facebook and Instagram too).

Athens: https://twitter.com/neolaiaKA/status/1633521952684949504

https://twitter.com/narnews/status/1633542807141900303

https://twitter.com/narnews/status/1633744133775937538

Thessaloniki: https://twitter.com/neolaiaKA/status/1633431745600028673

Patras: https://twitter.com/neolaiaKA/status/1633424502817189889

Protests of 12/3: https://twitter.com/neolaiaKA/status/1634914156167188480

https://twitter.com/narnews/status/1634955493935579137