The events of November 19th,
the night of Clinton’s visit in Athens, Greece.

At the beginning, Clinton’s visit was planned to last for two days from the 13^th to the 14^th of November, but it was postponed and finally restricted to a 24-hour trip for the 19^th, after his visiting Turkey and the completion of the ‘Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’ meeting.

The demonstration to the american embassy -which was planned for Clinton’s arrival- was forbidden by the government that also decided to create a safety zone which included big part of the city of Athens and where people were not allowed to enter while the visit. The organizers of the demo, mainly the Communist Greek Party -a pioneer in struggles’ manipulation and in cooperation with the police when it comes to uncontrolled youth and anarchists in demonstrations- protests for this “non-democratic” decision, declaring that they won’t accept it and guaranteeing that the demo will be peaceful and that they themselves will be “guarding” the demonstrators. Their position is a patriotic anti-americanism, that talks about the national interests of Greece and presents the enemy as something existing on the other side of the Atlantic, fabricating an image of the greek state as a “poor victim” of the New NATO-American Order. For both sides of the regime, for both aspects of the State, the governmental and the one of the opposition -which is an extension and valuable support to the first one-, there is the common goal and necessity to repress any real social resistance. For the government it is important to prove that it has the ability to secure and impose order; for the others it is important to present and represent as “struggle” a simulated and manipulated -in content and in methods- reaction, which doesn’t threaten at all the interests of the greek state but on the contrary it cultivates acceptance to them.

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On the other side, anarchists, anti-authoritarians, youth, proletarians, jobless people, the excluded of their new world, those who live under and those who fight back the imperious capitalistic reality, had no reason at all to search specifically for the american embassy together with a self-repressed crowd of the parties. They had no reason to search specifically for Clinton and denouncing the forbidding of the demo, especially when what represents, preserves and belongs to this New Order was all around them. Imperialism is not exclusively a US affair. The greek State and Capital are also parts of the imperialistic block of power and they are here: the development of the national economy, the wealth of corporations, the repression on the revolutionaries and on the people who resist, control and surveillance, the hunting of immigrants, the authoritative relations of a society colonized by the state and a society of the excluded. Clinton’s visit was a chance to take the streets, to destroy what is a target everyday, to reveal and ruin the fake conflict that was programmed between the two aspects of the regime, the governmental and the opposition. It was another moment of the struggle and another chance to present the political program of revolt for the future: FIRE!

The target was the center of Athens. Not neutral but hostile grounds. Another capitalistic metropolis whose state buildings and corporations, its commercial and financial district, its symbols and its guards had been defined as targets for the proletarian violence. No intention to respect the so-called “national interests” and the international public image of the state. Once again there would be the expression of the internal enemy in the heart of the beast, the attack against the rulers in their most evident face here, and a message of internationalist solidarity to all our comrades who fight against the New Order of Domination and for freedom all over the world, in Turkey, in the other european metropolis, in the US just as everywhere.

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At about 5 o’clock in the afternoon of the 19^th, people started gathering in Athens’ downtown, a big part of which was already blockaded, as a “forbidden zone” (for Clinton’s secure stay and transfer), by 10 thousand cops and american groups as well . At Syntagma sq., in front of the Parliament, the adherents of the CP are gathering and there is also a great concentration of police forces who stand there to prevent access to V. Sofias street, which leads to the american embassy and the presidential residence. A few blocks away, in Propilea, there are gathered several leftist parties and organizations, with the purpose walk peacefully towards Syntagma sq. and stand behind the communist party. Anarchists and anti-authoritarians start gathering too in Propilea area, creating insecurity to the leftists, who like to chant slogans as “L.A.-L.A.-fuck the USA” but they don’t feel the same about such things happening in their own city. Anarchists chant slogans as “Solidarity is the peoples’ weapon - War to the War of the bosses” and slogans of solidarity with Nikos Maziotis, (an anarchist comrade who has lately been convicted in a 15-year prison sentence for placing a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development and taking the political responsibility of this action). There are also slogans heard in memory of Christoforos Marinos, an anarchist who was murdered by the police in July of ’96. In some buildings it’s written with spray: “The streets belong to us”. Going down to Stadiou str. anarchists start taking material such as stones, bricks and crowbars from a construction work nearby.

[As it is already said, the burning and destroying of the commercial-financial center of the city was conscious and it was a decision taken from before. There were attempts in vain afterwards to present these events whether as a result of rage for the “non-democratic” forbidding of the demonstration to the american embassy, or as a kind of refractive “defense” towards the repressive police moves. But as a conscious decision it was and still is antagonistic to those apologetic views mentioned before.

It is a fact though, that the realization of this assault was based, in a degree, on the pre-estimated fact that the communist party, meaning the internal repression of demonstrations, and the government had been captured in their own negotiations (as it was a matter of show of power), which resulted to a momentary weakness in their wonderful cooperation. The spectacle of a clash between them, which would satisfy them both, didn’t allow them to have a common ability in repression and this way it gave the signal for the anarchist assault against the temples of the state and capital.]

At 6.30 Clinton’s airplane arrives in Athens airport. The CP sends about a hundred of its members (out of the 10.000 people who were in Syntagma) to move towards the riot police forces who blockade the way to the embassy. They go with the purpose to lose a simulated battle for the prestige of the party. For some seconds they push each other with the riot police and then they are sprayed with tear gas. They start running away. The CP instructors order them, and the other thousands of people, to sit down on the street as protest. That’s how they expected things to end, quiet and insignificant... The government with a show of vigor without finding essential resistance, and the CP with a show of resistance without any vigor...

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Two streets away, about two or three hundred anarchists, antiauthoritarians and youth begin their action. The first bank is smashed and with a molotov cocktail it gets on fire. One by one, all the stores in the two most central streets of Athens, Panepistimiou and Stadiou, and in all the smaller roads connecting the previous ones, are being destroyed under the sound of anarchist slogans. A group of the CP guard unsuccessfully tries to prevent the people from destroying but it is pushed off. Central greek and foreign banks are being smashed and burnt, luxury stores, agencies and corporations’ buildings, jewelry stores, all of them are targets of attack. Barricades are set in Panepistimiou with the garbage bins and molotov cocktails are thrown against the riot police when they try to approach. The streets are lightened by the flames from the shops and the people attacking are expanded in a big area. A group of undercover police is detected and beaten up. Panepistimiou street is occupied on the whole by the people in revolt. In Stadiou street, under tear gas rain, the blocks of the leftists and the parties retreat in the opposite from Syntagma direction, to Omonia sq. All around them anarchists are throwing stones to the riot police approaching, smashing and setting fire to the banks and the stores. With stones they attack to the Ministry of Economics and against the cops guarding it. In about one hour and while the two streets are on fire, the blocks arriving to Omonia start leaving under the pressure of the slow but massive advance of the police and the continuous throwing of suffocating tear gas. The people resisting separate in smaller groups taking different directions to continue their work.

A group of them attacks to the Stock Market and nearby banks and sets big fires in front of the City Hall. Another group of people goes to Pireos str., attacking with stones and crowbars to the Ministry of Labor, the offices of SYN (left-wing political party), IKA (Institute of Social Security), OAED (Organization for Workers Occupation), they burn state cars, a Mercedes belonging to diplomats, other gleaming cars, several banks and car agencies, the Post Office. Far from the center they smash a police car, where the cops in are captured for a little while...

In many places people are setting fires using the garbage bins, something that works as a distraction for the police units who have to chase people all over the city, unable to locate all of them as they keep moving continually, avoiding unequal confrontations with the riot police and thus causing important damages to state and corporate buildings, in many different areas of Athens, even in suburbs very distant from where the events started.

The riots ended after two hours. The police arrested 40 people, who were mainly members of political parties and organizations and that tried to hide inside some shops in order to avoid being chased by the police and save themselves from the tear gas. Most of them were charged and then released. Three young people arrested, who were not members of any political party, were sent in Prison for Minors, outside Athens.*

Solidarity with the people in revolt in Seattle and London! 

THE ORDER REIGNS BUT DOES NOT RULE

Anarchists in Solidarity