Flashback: Remembering the 2011 murderous attack against PAME rally in Athens

Today, 20 October, marks the 10th anniversary of the organized murderous attack unleashed by parastatal groups, anarchists, fascists and other provocateurs against the huge rally of PAME and trade unions in Athens in 2011. Back then, as a response to the anti-people measures taken by the PASOK government, the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) and class-oriented trade unions and workers' associations had organized enormous strike mobilizations on 19-20 October throughout Greece,

On the 20th October 2011, the day when the Parliament had scheduled the discussion and voting of the anti-worker measures, tens of thousands of people rallied with PAME at Syntagma Square in central Athens. The great success of the two-day strike mobilizations and the immense participation of the working class in the rally had alarmed the bourgeois mechanisms. In order to defame the strike and create confusion to the public opinion, they unleashed an organized and planned murderous attack against PAME demonstration. Hooded thugs, armed with molotov bombs, stones, batons, stones as well as other weapons used by the police (tear gas, stun grenades), attempted to disperse the workers' rally in Syntagma Square.

The assault began from the lower part of the square and moved directly against the PAME forces which had been gathered outside the Parliament. About 80 trade unionists and workers were injured but, ultimately, the provocateurs failed to disperse the huge demonstration. However, the brutal attack resulted to the tragic death of 53 year-old construction worker, trade unionist of PAME, Dimitris Kotzaridis.

Following the attack, in her statements to reporters, the General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Aleka Papariga strongly denounced the assault as “pre-planned murderous attack against the PAME rally” and underlined that such provocations are not going to intimidate the people's-labour movement. 

 

 

 

 

Dimitris Kotzaridis, 53, construction worker and trade unionist.

In a statement, the CC of the KKE was exposing the responsibilities of the then government of PASOK, denouncing the orchestrated attempt to terrorize, defame and suppress of the workers-people's movement. Among others the statement was stressing out: “The enmity of the hooded ones against the people's-labour movement and PAME expresses the enmity of the forces which serve the system and the bourgeois power. The government bears huge responsibility. The attempt to terrorize, slander and suppress the workers-people's movement stems from state structures, centers and services. This is what history has proved, this is what today's barbaric and murderous attack shows”.

Click here to read an article of the International Relations of the CC of the KKE concerning the statements of international media on the 20th October 2011 murderous attack against PAME demonstration.

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