On the murderous assault against the rally in Syntagma and the death of the trade unionist Dimítris Kotzarídis

Statement by the Communist Party of Greece

On this occasion organised groups with specific orders, and anarcho-fascists, unleashed an attack with Molotov cocktails, tear-gas, stun grenades, and stones, in an attempt to disperse the majestic rally of workers and people in Syntagma Square and especially in the area where PAME was concentrated. A result of this attack is the death of the PAME trade unionist Dimítris Kotzarídis, fifty-three years old, secretary of the Viron Branch of the Construction Workers’ Union. Dozens more PAME demonstrators were injured. 
     The hatred of the hooded ones for the labour and popular movement and PAME expresses the fury of the forces that serve the system and bourgeois power. The government has a massive responsibility for this. The operation to intimidate, slander and suppress the labour and people’s movement is rooted in state structures, centres, and services. History demonstrates this; today’s barbaric and murderous assault also proves this. 
     The hooded ones, anarcho-autonomists, fascists, or whatever they call themselves, tried to achieve what the forces of repression, the blackmail and threats, failed to do: to intimidate the people so that they submit. It objectively arises that the very same centres carried out the provocateur murderous burning down of Marfin the day the Memorandum was voted on, 5 May 2010. 
     Their goal of dispersing the rally of PAME failed. Likewise, the plans of the government, the mechanisms of the system, the parties of the plutocracy that seek to intimidate and suppress the torrent of the people’s counter-attack, which came onto the streets with the 48-hour strike, must also fail. 
     The KKE expresses its sorrow and its condolences to the family of Dimítris Kotzarídis, who fell in the struggle for the just cause of the working class and the people. It expresses its solidarity with the injured demonstrators, with all those who defended the workers’ and people’s demonstration from the provocateur groups. It calls on the people to stand up decisively; to struggle together with the KKE, to rally in the trade unions, in PAME and the other radical organisations that fight against the anti-people policies, the power of the monopolies. 
     This is the opposition force to the parties of plutocracy, the EU, and the IMF. This is the strength of the people in order to repel the barbaric measures, the violence and the intimidation of all the repressive mechanisms. The people can overthrow the anti-people policies and power.