Here's a list of brief news stories about what's going on in Greece. The open rebellion in the streets has subsided, but it seems that day-to-day revolutionary actions are at a fairly high level. Crazy shit.
While all of the actions are noteworthy and remarkable, the last one is quiet creative and a different kind of revolutionary, in that it is a long-term project. The people occupying the building seek to maintain a legitimate base for radical expression, thought and living that is open to the public.
Update On Greek Revolt
Thursday, February 19 2009 @ 03:21 PM CST
Contributed by: Anonymous
A small anarchist group has claimed responsibility for 17 firebombings
carried out last week and threatened further attacks. All but one of the
attacks with makeshift bombs were carried out in Athens on Wednesday and
Thursday, and they targeted people such as a top anti-terrorism
prosecutor, a prominent politician and a judge.
ATHENS, Greece: A small anarchist group has claimed responsibility for 17
firebombings carried out last week and threatened further attacks.
All but one of the attacks with makeshift bombs were carried out in Athens
on Wednesday and Thursday, and they targeted people such as a top
anti-terrorism prosecutor, a prominent politician and a judge.
No injuries or serious damage resulted, but the firebombings were carried
out during the day, making them very unusual for arsonists' attacks in
Greece.
"Our attacks are not symbolic, they are acts of war. ... We will be back
soon," Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, a self-described "urban guerrilla"
group, said in a statement published on a leftist Web site Saturday.
It said it dedicated its attacks to "authentic revolutionary" Dimitris
Koufodinas, a prominent member of the terrorist organization November 17,
who was arrested in 2002 and is serving multiple life sentences.
The litte-known Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group only surfaced last year,
and police have said they know little about it but take its threats of
sustained urban guerrilla action seriously.
"This is a new development," Deputy Interior Minister Christos
Markoyiannakis told Greek media Sunday, referring to the claim of
responsibility. "We must be vigilant."
------------------------------
Friday, February 6, 2009
ATHENS, Greece: Authorities in Greece say a police station and a luxury
car dealership in Athens were targeted in overnight arson attacks, causing
damage but no injuries.
Police say 14 luxury cars burned up in the Halandri area after small
cooking gas canisters were set off at the dealership and started a fire.
In Wednesday's second incident, small gas canisters exploded outside a
police station in the Aegaleo area, causing minor damage.
Greek anarchist groups frequently carry out arson attack in Athens.
Attacks against police have also risen since December riots were triggered
by the police shooting of a teenage boy.
Another police station in Athens was damaged Tuesday by automatic gunfire.
Suspicion fell on a far-left domestic terrorist group.
------------------------------
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Group Claims Attack on Greek Police Station
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities said Wednesday a previously
unknown group has claimed responsibility for a gunfire and grenade attack
on an Athens precinct.
The statement was found in a computer disk left on the grave of a teenager
whose shooting by police sparked massive riots last year.
A police statement said a group calling itself Sect of Revolutionaries
claimed it carried out Tuesday's pre-dawn attack, which caused no
injuries.
Police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said the disk was found on Alexandros
Grigoropoulos's grave in Athens. Officers found it after an anonymous call
to an Athens newspaper.
Stathis said police were taking the claim seriously, and the group seemed
linked to the Revolutionary Struggle extremists who shot a riot policeman
last month.
"It seems to be genuine; it's a group that has not appeared before but the
methodology seems to be the same as that of Revolutionary Struggle," he
told The Associated Press.
Three unknown assailants in hoods and helmets opened fire on the police
station in the suburb of Korydallos. They also threw a hand grenade that
did not explode.
The attack came nearly two months after Grigoropoulos was shot dead in
central Athens after an argument with two policemen, sparking the worst
wave of anti-authoritarian violence Greece had seen in decades.
Although the rioting subsided before Christmas, attacks on police targets
have increased.
Last month, the Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility for a Jan. 5
shooting that seriously wounded a 21-year-old riot policeman in central
Athens.
The group is best known for firing a rocket-propelled grenade into the
U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2007.
Stathis said the Sect of Revolutionaries proclamation was "aggressive"
against the police.
"It gives the impression that they have declared war on the police, that
is their term," he said.
------------------------------
Monday, February 2, 2009 Bank attacked in Athens
A branch of Emporiki Bank in Ambelokipi, central Athens, was seriously
damaged early on Saturday when assailants threw petrol bombs and camping
gas canisters inside the building. Police said that the attack took place
at about 1 a.m. Nobody was hurt.
------------------------------
Occupation of Greek National Opera House
OO
Last week the National Opera House (Ethniki Lyriki Skini) was occupied by
dancers renaming the historic Athens building "Insurgent People's .
Opera". Since the Opera has been functioning as a free space for
revolutionary workshops and forums in solidarity to K. Kouneva and the
arrested insurgents of December, as well as against the police state and
the culture of the Spectacle.
The occupation of the National Opera House in one of Athens most busy high
street (Akadimias Bulevard) last week by dancers has created yet another
center of resistance and counterinformation in the greek capital,
receiving the active support of the entire range of insurgents including
the Cleaner's Union (PEKOP) who continues to receive death threats from
the OIKOMET bosses behind the murderous attack against K. Kouneva on
December last year. The Opera now renamed "Insurgent People's Opera"
functions on a 24h bases as a space for workshops, film projections,
performances and forums regarding art and the body in relation to the
resistance against the police state and the society of the Spectacle.
What follows is the first Communique of the occupied Opera:
December’s rebellion, while drawing strength from all previous social
struggles, laid the ground for a generalized resistance against everything
that offends us and enslaves our lives. It triggered a fight for life that
is being disparaged on a daily basis. As an answer to those who understand
rebellion as a short lived firecracker, and discard and undermine it by
simply saying “life goes on”, we say that the struggle not only continues
but has already set our lives on a new basis. Nothing is finished; our
rage perseveres. Our agony has not subsided; we are still here.
Rebellion in the streets, in schools and universities, in labour unions,
municipal buildings and parks. Rebellion also in art.
Against art as a spectacle that is consumed by passive viewers.
Against aesthetics that exclude the ‘Different’.
Against a culture that destroys parks and public space in the name of profit.
We unite our voices with all those in struggle.
In solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva and those arrested during the
rebellion.
With our struggle and our own culture, we respond to state oppression,
social exclusion and to the attempts of the mass media to terrorize and
misinform.
With this initiative that originated in the ‘Arts’ (considering
everybody’s life as art), we re-claim a space for the art of living of
each and everyone to unfold and for exploring the reformation of culture.
We aspire to an unmediated art; open and accessible to all.
We liberate the Greek National Opera because by definition it belongs to
all of us.
We feel the need to take things from the beginning and to reinvent the
role of art.
Through self-organized processes, we propose free creative actions by
everyone and for all those who consider culture as a product of collective
creativity.
To recover and reclaim the culture that has been stolen from us.
OPEN GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE LIBERATED OPERA
EVERYDAY AT 9.00 PM
STREETS ARE OUR SCENE
REVOLT IS OUR ART
Free opera-tors
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