The demonstration also confronted a heavy police deployment. Riot police repeatedly attempted to block the march as it moved from Syntagma Square toward the US Embassy, while chemical agents were used at one of the police barriers.
Despite the restrictions, protesters continued their march, chanting “State terror will not pass; the workers’ struggle will smash it.” In a separate surprise action, demonstrators succeeded in reaching the area opposite the US Embassy and unfurled a banner declaring: “Neither land nor water to the murderers of the peoples.”
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), whose members and supporters participated in the mobilization, hailed the mass turnout as a clear rejection of the country’s further entanglement in US war and energy designs. According to the KKE, the demonstration sent a “militant message” against policies pursued by the New Democracy government that bind Greece ever more tightly to Washington’s strategic plans in the region.
Speaking at the Syntagma rally, KKE General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas said that the Greek people had already paid dearly for the so-called “strategic relationship” with the United States through soaring energy costs, poverty, heavy taxation, enormous military expenditure and growing involvement in war. He also attacked plans for the “Vertical Corridor” carrying expensive US liquefied natural gas, arguing that they would further burden working-class households while drawing Greece deeper into imperialist rivalries and military planning.
Rubio arrived in Athens later on Tuesday against this backdrop of popular protest. While the Greek government presents its ever-closer alignment with Washington as a “geopolitical upgrade,” the streets delivered a very different message: the workers and youth refuse to accept Greece being turned into a military outpost for imperialist wars, packed with US bases and made to pay for rivalries that serve monopoly interests rather than the people.
