THE WORKERS' PARTY OF IRELAND
Statement of the Greek All Workers' Militant Front (PAME)

PAME, the All-Workers' Militant Front, is the major class oriented organisation of the Greek working people.  It represents hundreds of thousands of Greek workers and unemployed and was founded in 1999 on the initiative of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
 
On Tuesday, 9th October 2012, PAME brought hundreds of thousands of workers onto the streets of Athens and 60 other major Greek cities in towns on the occasion of the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and in protest at the ongoing attempts to force even harsher austerity upon the Greek working class.
 
Below is a statement issued issued by PAME on the occasion and announcing a further one-day General Strike across Greece on 18th October.

PAME Rally in Athens
PAME Rally, Central Athens, Tuesday 9 October 2012

The thousands of protesters who flooded the central streets of Athens on Tuesday 9/10/2012 cancelled in practice the banning of the demonstrations that the EU and the three-party government (liberals, social democrats, “Democratic Left”) sought to impose on the working people due to the visit of the German chancellor Angela Merkel to Athens.

The All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME), which rallies the class-oriented trade unions of the country, held a particularly mass demonstration something that was acknowledged even by the bourgeois media which usually do not miss any chance to attack PAME and the communists. Young students (Militant Students’ Front-MAS), small and medium-sized self-employed and traders (Nationwide Rally of the Self-employed-PASEVE) the women (Greek Women’s Federation- OGE) demonstrated together with the workers under the banners of their unions.

Yiannis Tasoulas, member of the Executive Committee of PAME who delivered the speech at the demonstration of PAME in Omonia stressed amongst other things:

“No barricade and no water cannon can frighten us! The moment when the workers rise up makes them tremble. Our demonstration is a first answer. […]

The government of ND-PASOK-Democratic Left, the industrialists, the bankers are hosting a lady who is one of them, the representative of the German industrialists and bankers, of the German monopolies. […]

Merkel does not shed tears for any people. She rubs her hands, as the other capitalists do, for the chance they have to buy infrastructure at very low prices as well as the prime cuts of our beautiful country. She fights with the other vultures over the loot and not over the lives and the future of our children. This is what happens in the crises and the EU now which was presented as a safe haven. […]

All of them have supported the measures. They have not missed a summit, they have celebrated every EU directive, they have applauded all the agreements and now all of them, the parties and the parasites of the EU which have been undermining the working people for many years, have discovered that they are allegedly under occupation. The working people have lived for generations under their yoke and they must decide to cast off them.”

He continued: “the truth is simple and clear. Whoever disagrees with the memoranda, the application laws, the loan agreements, the troika… is against the EU, its agreements and its decisions, is against the capitalist path of development which is presented as a one-way street. Whoever applauds the EU and protests against the troika is simply mocking the people.

Merkel is coming like all the crows to the region of the Eastern Medietrranean because she smelt blood and plunder, like the other imperialists. The clouds of war are gathering in Syria with the danger of a generalized conflagration. In this way they are sharing out the oil, the natural gas, their transport routes and the markets. We must not shed our blood for their bank deposits in Switzerland. We must make sacrifices for our own struggle.

We call on the trade unions, federations, every honest trade unionist to smash the fear , to decide for a strike on the 18th of October. (...) The workers will take the struggle into their hands. PAME will be in the front line . Everyone must take part in the struggle, in the demonstration, in the strike." the speaker concluded.

A delegation of the CC of the KKE took part in the rally headed by A. Papariga, who made this statement to the journalists: " Those peoples which do not hesitate to break and get rid of their class chains will be victorious. This for us is the meaning of today's rallies. This must be the meaning of the immediate and future struggles."

PAME's magnificent march to Syntagma square followed, which gave the message of the class response to the machinations of the "black front" (EU-Government-Plutocracy). "Without you no cog can turn! Worker you can do without the bosses!", " An end to illusions. EIther you are with capital or you are with the workers!", " The workers are not a cost, but the parasites are, the capitalists!" etc.

Thousands of demonstrators could not be overshadowed by the stage-managed incidents with the riot police which some small groups of provocateurs tried to create, in coordination with the state apparatus.

PAME on Tuesday held rallies against the new anti-people measures in many Greek cities. In its press release PAME salutes today's impressive, combative, and determined rally. As it notes thousands of people, working men and women, unemployed, youth, pensioners and self-employed participated in the rally, in practice smashing the repressive measures and bans, answering the barbaric political line of the government, capital and the European Union.

PAME calls the trade unions from tomorrow without any break to continue to organize the struggle for the working class to respond with a new strike on the 18th of October. For this strike to be an organized response to big capital, the European Union, and the monopolies which seek to chain us.

PAME calls on the workers not to accept the abolition of the minimum salary and day's wage, the breaking of the 8 hour day, the radical upheaval of their lives.

9/10/2012

Peace, Work, Democracy & Class Politics