Greece paralysed as farmers ratchet up protests

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Guardian UK

Thousands of Greek farmers demanding compensation for low commodity prices have threatened to step up a nine-day protest which has paralysed the country, cutting road links with its neighbours and leaving tonnes of fruit and meat rotting in lorries. Using tractors and trailers, the farmers have blockaded around 70 main roads, cutting Athens off from the second city of Thessaloniki in the north and closing border crossings with Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey.

"Tractors are our weapon and we are determined to use them until our demands are met," said Christos Sideropoulos, a farmer and one of the leaders of the protests. "Let them say what they like. We are not going to give in."

Two months after the country's cities were hit by the worst rioting in decades, the latest protests have exposed the frustrations of Greece's underdeveloped agriculture regions. Despite EU subsidies, successive governments have failed to modernise a farming industry that remains dependent on state handouts, said Dimitris Keridis, a political scientist. "It's an industry that depends on government handouts and is incompatible with the demands of modern societies. They produce produce that nobody buys."

Industry, business, the tourist and manufacturing sectors have been affected by blockades that stretch from the Evros region in the north to Crete in the south. Holidaymakers have been stranded, hospitals and chemists have run short of medicine and exports have been stopped at frontier crossings. After cutting the country in half, the farmers blocked central Greece's link with the southern Peloponnese region barricading the Corinth Canal with black-flagged tractors on Monday and refusing passage to travellers including sick and elderly people.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/28/greece-farmers-protests

[lib2DaBone]

1. It will happen here too....

..as America grows weary of being screwed over by large corporations, CONgress and a criminal media.

[Hannah Bell]

2. " failed to modernise a farming industry that remains dependent on state handouts"

this is bullshit. like big ag isn't gov't-subsidized. and greeks certainly DO buy greek produce.

there's a serious effort underway to push people off land in greece. check out the arsons last year resulting in same.

[tama]

3. Class war

Rich greedy fucks against poor decent folks, "modernising world" and their technofantasy of "efficience" warring against rural people of the land and memory in order to "develop" more and more capital goods - instead of something to eat and healthy land to produce something to eat.

The biggest sin of all is self-murder. And the "modern" system and it's endles class war against decent people and Nature itself is nothing else than suicidal. Let's try our best to jump out while we still can...

[depakid]

4. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!