A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #6-25: Greece is not so far away. Two years after the Tempi massacre (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

I don't remember ever seeing Athens like this. This is one of the most 
popular comments online after the huge mobilization in Greece for the 
second anniversary of the massacre caused by the Tempi train disaster. 
The struggle of the victims' families, the immense participation that 
flooded the streets around the parliament, the anger against the 
institutions responsible for the massacre, the brutal violence of the 
police, the determination of those who resist street by street. It is 
difficult to say whether in terms of numbers the mobilization was larger 
than the large demonstrations against the austerity policies that 
surrounded the Greek parliament several times between 2011 and 2015. Of 
course the fire is still burning under the ashes, not only in Athens.

With a general strike and demonstrations throughout Greece on February 
28, a clear message was sent that has resonated throughout the world: 
"Enough deaths in the name of profit". The mobilization that culminated 
in the large squares of Athens and Thessaloniki took place two years 
after the collision between a passenger train and a freight train, which 
occurred in Thessaly in the Valley of Tempi, which caused 57 deaths, one 
missing, and 180 injuries, 81 of which were serious. The worst train 
disaster ever to occur in Greece. The impressive panoramic views from 
above of the large demonstrations of February 28, and even more so the 
images of the Molotov cocktails against the police lined up in front of 
the Hellenic Parliament in Syntagma Square in Athens, have gone around 
the world. As they say, "they broke the screen," opening a window onto 
an event that is rarely talked about outside of Greece, certainly 
because among those responsible for the massacre there are also large 
companies from our country, such as Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, which 
in addition to Trenitalia also controls Hellenic Train. The group, after 
all, controls numerous important railway transport companies in Europe: 
in Spain, Germany, the UK, France and, of course, in Greece. These are 
events that unfortunately we know well, they all seem the same, in every 
country. Think of the Moby Prince massacre, the Viareggio massacre, the 
Morandi Bridge massacre. They say that safety regulations suffocate 
businesses, but in the end it is always those who work, those on board, 
who die. Investigations always focus first on human error. Only if 
family members and trade unions take the initiative, fighting with 
determination, then even institutional justice is forced, at times, to 
take into consideration the responsibilities of corporate leaders and 
institutions. For each incident, it is obviously important to 
reconstruct dynamics and responsibilities, but the dramatic social 
reality in which these "accidents" occur is clear for all to see: they 
are massacres that could have been avoided, caused by the pursuit of 
maximum profit and the natural disorganization of the state system. In 
fact, beyond the media representation of the street clashes, there is 
nothing exceptional in what is happening in Greece. The situation of 
rail transport in Italy is certainly not better, even considering the 
differences between the two countries, as unfortunately demonstrated by 
the numerous "accidents" of recent years.

Four investigations were initially launched for the Tempi massacre, two 
of which have been merged, and of the three remaining, only one has 
already had an initial result. On 1 February, the Administrative Court 
of First Instance of Athens ruled in favour of the family of a 
controller killed in the disaster. Both OSE, the company owned by the 
Greek state that manages the railway network, and Hellenic Train, 
controlled by Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, which manages the freight 
and passenger train service, were ordered to pay the victim's family 800 
thousand euros in compensation, because both are held responsible for 
failing to ensure safety. In particular, the judge wrote that "Hellenic 
Train failed to ensure that an essential communication system connecting 
stationmasters, conductors and (railway) traffic controllers was fully 
and continuously in operation during the journey of the trains it rents 
and uses for its own needs, which concerns the safe circulation on the 
network of the second defendant, OSE S.A., which controls the railway 
infrastructure". An important ruling, because it recognizes, at least in 
the administrative office, the safety deficiencies and corporate 
responsibilities. According to the so-called contract 717, a major 
infrastructure adaptation project, signed in 2014 and illegally extended 
7 times, the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) safety 
system should have been installed on the line since 2016, which could 
have prevented the accident. The same system that was hit in Italy by 
500 million cuts from the Meloni government and the Minister of 
Transport Salvini in 2023.
The same system that was hit in Italy in 2023 by 500 million cuts from 
the Meloni government and the Minister of Transport Salvini.
On the eve of the anniversary of the Tempi massacre, a 178-page report 
was published by the Organization for the Investigation of Air and Rail 
Accidents and Transport Safety (EODASAAM) which attributed the 
responsibility for the disaster to human errors, obsolete 
infrastructures and serious systemic deficiencies. An independent expert 
report requested by the victims' families, which also highlights how the 
"fireball" explosion ['fire that occurs following the immediate ignition 
of a certain mass of flammable aerosol] that occurred during the 
accident was not possible given the goods officially transported. The 
investigation therefore deduces that there must have been an illegal 
transport of fuel on the freight train. What is certain is that the 
authorities immediately did everything they could to cover up the case, 
removing 300 cubic meters of earth from the site of the disaster and 
replacing it with gravel, not taking the necessary measures to protect 
important evidence such as security camera footage or to ensure that 
autopsies were not carried out. The government led by Mitsotakis is held 
responsible for this cover-up. For this reason, the squares filled with 
anger and determination in Athens and Thessaloniki, where the APO, a 
federation of anarchist collectives that adheres to the IFA, was present 
in an organized way, which wrote in a statement "What happened to Tempi 
was a premeditated murder whose culprits are the Greek state and private 
capital". Thousands demonstrated in about 250 other locations in Greece, 
but also in dozens of cities in Europe and beyond. There was a 
demonstration in Novi Sad, Serbia, which started, after the collapse of 
the shelter of the local train station last November that caused 15 
deaths, a massive anti-government student movement that is spreading 
across the country. There too, on February 28, a banner read "The state 
and capital kill".

Dario Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/la-grecia-non-e-cosi-lontana-a-due-anni-dalla-strage-di-tempi/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en