Rioting rocks Greece for 4th night

updated 5:20 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2008

ATHENS, Greece - Masked youths and looters marauded through Greek cities for the fourth night Tuesday, as mourners buried a teen whose death at the hands of police sparked the rampage.

The nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars across the country has left Greece's increasingly unpopular conservative government reeling, with calls mounting for Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to resign.

On Tuesday, police fired tear gas at protesters after the teenager, 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was buried in an Athens funeral attended by about 6,000 people. Riots began anew in several cities, while Greek television stations broadcast footage showing riot police using pistols to fire warning shots into the air.

Opposition Socialist leader George Papandreou called for early elections, charging that the conservatives are incapable of defending the public from rioters.

"The government cannot handle this crisis and has lost the trust of the Greek people," Papandreou said. "The best thing it can do is resign and let the people find a solution ... we will protect the public."  

Many protesters, while not voicing particular policy goals, also say they want Karamanlis out.

"It's very simple — we want the government to fall. This boy's death was the last straw for us," Petros Constantinou, an organizer with the Socialist Workers Party, said after a protest in Athens. "This government wants the poor to pay for all the country's problems — never the rich — and they keep those who protest in line using police oppression."

Greece's two largest labor unions, meanwhile, said they will push ahead with a 24-hour strike Wednesday to protest the government's economic policies. Greece's transport will grind to a halt as flights and ferry links will be cut and train service severely limited.

Umbrella unions GSEE and ADEDY together represent some 2.5 million workers, about half of Greece's total work force. They demand more state social spending, as well as salary and pension increases.

Social upheaval
Karamanlis, who narrowly won re-election a year ago, has ignored the calls to step down.

He trails the Socialists in recent opinion polls and would struggle to win a general ballot now. But while the government has only a single seat majority in the 300-member Parliament, it is unlikely any deputy would risk their political career to bringing down a government during civil unrest.

A poll released Tuesday gave the Socialists a 4.8 percent lead over Karamanlis' conservatives. It gave no margin of error.

Still, the rioting — which has rocked cities from Thessaloniki in the north to the holiday island of Corfu and Crete in the south — threatens the 52-year-old prime minister, who has already faced months of growing dissatisfaction over economic and social reforms at a time of deep anxiety over growing economic gloom.

Slideshow   Greek clashes Demonstrators clash with riot police in Athens over the weekend. more photos

More protests are expected Wednesday.

Senior Socialist official Christos Protopappas blamed underlying social inequalities for the violence, saying the government's policies have exacerbated the gap between rich and poor.

"If there is no change in policies, I fear that what will happen in six months or one year will be much worse," he said.

And the protests are sure to further undermine the government's ability to push through reforms.

"This reaction will register as major discontent in the next public opinion polls, which will hobble the government's effectiveness," political analyst Anthony Livanios told The Associated Press. "Whenever the government tries to pass certain policies, Greek society will react — while the level of parliamentary opposition will increase."

'Enemies of democracy'
But even if the opposition Socialists were to come to power, they would find themselves faced with implementing many of the same unpopular reforms of Greece's economy and its fractured pension system.

Karamanlis himself has called for unity, saying that "those who cause violence and vandalism are enemies of democracy."

Although it was a student revolt that eventually overthrew Greece's seven-year military dictatorship in 1974, it is rare for street-level violence or revolt to topple a Western European government, particularly one that has been democratically elected.

The fallout from the riots, which has seen police stations nationwide come under attack by rock- and Molotov cocktail-throwing youths, could be far-reaching.

"At a time when reform and counterattack is required, in light of the global economic crisis, the winds of destruction are blowing through our city," Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis said.

"The destabilization of the market and the global defamation of Athens, not simply as a tourist destination, is, likely, the least significant predicament which the average citizen ... faces on the eve of Christmas," he said in a statement.

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