Mobilizations of Greek farmers

Alpha, No.2, February 1998

On February 18 the fifteen days long mobilizations of farmers and peasants were finished.

They started at February 2, when Farmers Coordinating Committee in central Greece decided to start the crown of their new debouchment at that day, as an utmost means to high-press the government to fulfill a series of demands essential for the continuation of peasants physical, political and social life.

Farmers and peasants on February 2 drove their tractors and parked them on the side of the National Roads that course central Greece. Until they withdrew them, on February 18, there was always the possibility to block the Roads and split the country in two.

On February 14 special police forces arrived in the area but they did not interfere.

This is not the first time farmers and peasants in Greece, and especially central Greece, demonstrate against governments' agricultural policy, towards European Monetary Union, and certainly it's not the last one:

In spring 1995 and winter 1996–1997, farmers blocked the National Roads countrywide for several days, which they didn’t during their resent mobilization. And by their representatives in Farmers Coordinating Committee of central Greece they announced that they will be back in mobilization on March 15, the day poor farmers and peasants revolted against the state in 1910!