DIRECT NEWS FROM A COMRADE IN ATHENS TODAY 5/5

Maybe someone did say that about the workers dying. The people who burnt it down obviously didn't care for those they would kill. If you burn buildings people will die. This is disgusting and shame on you for defending it.

You assume just because petrol bombs are thrown into a building that the people who do this do not care about workers getting injured. Unlike the UK, this type of action happens often and these banks are always closed. In fact it was the employer who insisted to these workers for them to work in a locked down office, knowing of this possibility.

Unlike the employer, the people who threw the molotovs did not know people were in the building.

Read the statement from one of the workers who escaped the fire
 http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2010/05/05/an-employee-of-marfin-bank-speaks-on-tonights-tragic-deaths-in-athens/

No one denies it is a tragic death but it is not the fault of the anarchist movement in Greece, it is for those that took part to justify it.

maybe somebody said it... or more likely you are just a twat...
How about bank manager that closed emergency exit? in any normal office people inside could evacuate really quickly... but hey, its better to believe what media says about "bloodthirsty anarchists".

I hear one of the employees who died was pregnant. SCUM

"Unlike the employer, the people who threw the molotovs did not know people were in the building. "

Brilliant.

Its the same with all these tragic arson deaths. "I didn't MEAN to kill 120 people".
What kind of excuse is that. "I didn't mean to drink 10 pints and run over a child."
"I didn't mean to pour burning petrol into the little old lady's letterbox".

We've heard it all before. Total bullshit. We all know that if you set fire to a building with people in it, then you stand a good chance of killing them. And we all know that buildings often contain people. And we all know that arson does often lead to mass death.

of course place is crawling with fucking trolls all over... can somebody delete those idiotic comments?

Yes, 'anarchist', lets delete any criticism of actions that kill people. Why not ban any sort of discussion on indymedia? This website is 'indymedia' not militantanarchistmedia.

Already you have taken this tragic event and are using it to attack those that have taken to the streets against the greek state and its international backers. Like the greek state and its police force that weekly attack and murder its citizens through systemic violence, do you think they give a fuck about the 3 who died? If they were not in the building but in the streets the same police force that "mourns" them would be the same police force trying to beat and imprison them.

Some more statements from people in Athens:

Statement by the Skaramanga squat in Athens regarding today’s events: The murderers “mourn” their victims

The statement below was issued a few hours ago by the anarchist squat of Skaramanga and Patision in Athens.

The murderers “mourn” their victims

(Regarding today’s tragic death of 3 people)

The enormous strike demonstration which took place today, 5th of May turned into a social outflow of rage. At least 200,000 people of all ages took to the streets (employees and unemployed, in the public and private sector, locals and migrants) attempting, over many hours and in consecutive waves, to surround and to take over the Parliament. The forces of repression came out in full force, to play their familiar role – that is, of the protection of the political and financial authorities. The clashes were hours long and extensive. The political system and its institutions reached a nadir.

However, in the midst of all this, a tragic event that no words can possibly describe took place: 3 people died from infusions at the branch of Marfin Bank on Stadiou Avenue, which was set ablaze.

The state and the entire journalistic riff-raff, without any shame toward the dead or their close ones, spoke from the very first moment about some “murderer-hooded up youths”, trying to take advantage of the event, in order to calm the wave of social rage that had erupted and to recover their authority that had been torn apart; to impose once again a police occupation of the streets, to wipe out sources of social resistance and disobedience against state terrorism and capitalist barbarity. For this reason, during the last few hours the police forces have been marching through the center of Athens, they have conducted hundreds of detentions and they raided – with shootings and stun-grenades – the anarchist occupation “space of united multiform action” on Zaimi street and the “migrant haunt” on Tsamadou Street, causing extensive damage (both these places are in the Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens). At the same time the threat of a violent police eviction is hanging over the rest of the self-organised spaces (occupations and haunts) after the Prime-ministerial speech which referred to soon-to-come raids for the arrest of the “murderers”.

The governors, governmental officials, their political personnel, the TV-mouthpieces and the salaried hack writers attempt in this way to purify their regime and the criminalise the anarchists and every unpatronised voice of struggle. As if there would ever be the slightest of chances that whoever attacked the bank (provided the official scenario stands) would possibly know there were people inside, and that they would torch it alight regardless. They seem to confuse the people in struggle for themselves: them who without any hesitation hand over the entire society to the deepest pillage and enslaving, who order their praetorians to attack without hesitation and to aim and shoot to kill, them who have lead three people to suicide in the past week alone, due to financial debts.

The truth is that the real murderer, the real instigator of today’s tragic death of 3 people is “mister” Vgenopoulos, who used the usual employers’ blackmailing (the threat of sacking) and forced his employees to work in the branches of his bank during a day of strike – and even in a branch like the one of Stadiou Avenue, where the strike’s demonstration would pass through. Such blackmailing is known only too well by anyone experiencing the terrorism of salaried slavery on an everyday level. We are awaiting to see what excuses Vgenopoulos will come up with for the relatives of the victims and for the society as a whole – this ultra-capitalist now hinted by some centers of power as the next prime minister in a future “national unity government” that could follow the expected, complete collapse of the political system.

If an unprecedented strike can ever be a murderer…

If an unprecedented demonstration, in an unprecedented crisis, can ever be a murderer…

If open social spaces that are alive and public can ever be murderers…

If the state can impose a curfew and attack demonstrators under the pretext of arresting murderers…

If Vgenopoulos can detain his employees inside a bank – that is, a primary social enemy and target for demonstrators…

…it is because authority, this serial murderer, wants to slaughter upon its birth a revolt which questions the supposed solution of an even harsher attack on society, of an even larger pillage by capital, of an even thirstier sucking of our blood.

…it is because the future of the revolt does not include politicians and bosses, police and mass media.

… it is because behind their much-advertised “only” solution, there is a solution that does not speak of development rates and unemployment but rather, it speaks of solidarity, self-organising and human relationships.

When asking who are the murderers of life, of freedom, of dignity, the ferments of authority and capital, they and their tuft hunters only need to take a look at their own selves. Today and every day.

HANDS OFF FREE SOCIAL SPACES

IT IS THE STATE AND THE CAPITALISTS WHO ARE THE MURDERERS, TERRORISTS AND CRIMINALS

EVERYONE TO THE STREETS

REVOLT

I'm sure you are right that many of the police don't give much of a shit about the people who died.
However, I'm not sure why you think that is justification for murder or why the police's thoughts are of any importance.

The fact is, a lot of people (who just so happen not to be police - shock/horror) - DO GIVE A SHIT that 4 (yes 4) lives were snuffed out because someone burnt that building in a moment of a selfish jolly.

NO EXCUSES

IT IS THE ANARCHISTS WHO ARE THE MURDERERS, TERRORISTS AND CRIMINALS THIS TIME

EVERYONE HAND THEM OVER FOR PUNISHMENT

JUSTICE

What makes this discussion slightly amusing is that the outraged public that is quick to condemn the Anarchist movement (we don't even know who petrol bombed the bank) is the same public that casually continues to accept the murder of tonnes of people in Iraq and Afghanistan by their country.

Anyways I'll stoop to your level and respond to your comments.

1. Yes those that threw the petrol bomb into the bank should be arrested and tried for manslaughter

2. The owners of the company and the manager of the particular Bank should be arrested and tried for negligence and why not complicity to murder. The people that died did so due to asphyxiation. They were not only forced to work and not permitted their democratic right to strike on the day by management, but they were also barricaded into a building (making it look shut in the outside) with no available exit.

I dont know how much to stress the fact that had the front doors been unlocked these people would all be alive.

Having said that those who threw the petrol bomb must have had severe learning difficulties. I'm all for the destruction of banks. But there are much smarter ways of doing it.

What justice do you want? Those 3 people are dead. Nothing can change that fact.

If you want Justice, then go to the streets and take it for yourself

"I hear one of the employees who died was pregnant. SCUM"

smells like a state troll to me.

and why would it be better for a non-pregnant person to die?

> and why would it be better for a non-pregnant person to die?

If you need to ask that then there is seriously something wrong with you.
Sounds like the type of person who would push to the front of the lifeboat queue to me.
"Pregnant women? Get to the back!"

You are so obviously a troll

So sick of people being called a 'troll' for having a different opinion in threads on here. It's like a broken record.