Residents clash with riot police against dump construction (Corfu, 16/6/2008)

Mas­sive clash­es erupt­ed out­side the ‑under con­struc­tion- ille­gal garbage dis­pos­al cen­ter at Lefkim­mi, a vil­lage in south­ern Cor­fu, once the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny (DOMOKAT) is now tres­pass­ing land they haven’t yet expro­pri­at­ed and paid. Some hun­dreds of local res­i­dents gath­ered in order to reclaim the area from the police forces and block the works. The cops attacked them using exces­sive tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets, they even sent the police chief injured to the hos­pi­tal, once he was­n’t in his uni­form and was­n’t recog­nised! Anoth­er three cops were injured dur­ing the clash­es. Three arrestees were tor­tured by the police­men and face charges.

The res­i­dents mobi­liza­tion came from a pop­u­lar assem­bly, one day before, that took place in Lefkim­mi’s high-school yard, also sug­gest­ing the fol­low­ing actions:
A whole island-wide demon­stra­tion on June 27 togeth­er with trade unions, envi­ron­men­tal asso­ci­a­tions and oth­ers, lead by the strug­gle co-ordi­na­tion com­mit­tee.
A demon­stra­tion in Cor­fu city blockad­ing the air­port sym­bol­i­cal­ly for two busy hours.
A sit-in at the entrance of the ring road to Mis­so­rachia and the pro­mo­tion of the issue of a total man­age­ment of sol­id wastes through­out the pre­fec­ture.

Pre­vi­ous actions of Lefkim­mi res­i­dents in strug­gle: http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/2008/05/residents-clash-with-riot-policemen.html

More info in greek and some pho­tos-videos at:
http://xyta-lefkimis.blogspot.com/
http://enakcorfu.blogspot.com/
http://athens.indymedia.org

—-

from a mes­sage post­ed on myspace.com

Last Sat­ur­day, 14/6/2008, the res­i­dents of the south Cor­fu town of Lefki­mi have resumed their mobil­i­sa­tion against the build­ing of an open garbage-dump (XYTA) meant to acco­mo­date refuse from the tourist-rich north of the island. After lengthy direct-demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­cus­sions, the town’s “Peo­ple’s Coun­cil” has decid­ed to refuse the medi­a­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties and demand the imme­di­ate depar­ture of the riot police forces (MAT) sta­tioned in their area since the last street bat­tles (29/5) which led to the death of a 42 year old moth­er, an event that has trig­gered sol­i­dar­i­ty protest march­es across the coun­try. “No dia­logue can even start while our town is under occu­pa­tion”, claimed the res­i­dents iden­ti­fy­ing the riot police with the nazi forces of the 40s.

The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed once again, when on Mon­day the 16th of July, faced with the gov­ern­men­t’s refusal of their terms, the res­i­dents of Lefki­mi errect­ed once again bar­ri­cades in an effort to inhib­it con­struc­tion of the new refuse unit. The renewed mobil­i­sa­tion of the res­i­dents was met with ruth­less repres­sion dur­ing which the riot-police used tear gas and, for the first time in recent greek his­to­ry, plas­tic bul­lets. Four res­i­dents and 3 police­men have been wound­ed dur­ing the clash­es, with the sit­u­a­tion remain­ing tense and rein­force­ments sent by the main­land.