Friday February 28 marks the two-year anniversary of the head-on collision between two trains at Tempi in Greece, which caused the death of 57 mostly young people and the injury of a further 85. Many survived the impact but were burned alive soon after, in a fire apparently caused by flammable cargo transported illegally in one of the trains.

What is worse, most Greeks suspect that over the past two years their government, in collusion with fuel-smuggling oligarchs, their faithful mass media, corrupt members of the judiciary and even members of the criminal underworld, has coordinated a blatant cover up to avoid accountability.

This cover up operation has included alteration of the crime scene, obstruction of justice, tampering and destruction of evidence, violation of forensic protocols, government interference with the judiciary, outright lying by ruling party officials, a sham parliamentary investigation, the character assassination of victims’ relatives and, last but not least, three very suspicious additional deaths.

Two railroad employees died in road accidents after the crash – one before testifying – and then the son of the Tempi prosecutor went missing for two months before being recently found dead. First indications are that he was abducted and then strangled. His family say he was murdered.

A decade ago Greeks put up a brave fight against austerity. Ever since their defeat, they have silently suffered poverty, authoritarianism, collapsing social services, environmental degradation, and the continued plunder of their country by governments controlled by the oligarchy. Now they are rising up again en masse, in support of grieving parents who are denied justice by a state that has morphed into a common mafia.

On January 26 they held the most massive demonstrations across Greece since the anti-austerity struggle, supported by numerous gatherings of Greeks abroad. This Friday, people are gearing up for what is set to be the largest civilian mobilisation of Greeks in history.  

MeRA25 Greece has analysed how the Tempi crash is systemically attributable to austerity and the subsequent privatisation and underinvestment in railroads, which has only benefited oligarchs who profit from highway tolls. It has tabled concrete proposals both for the restoration of the public railway system and for the systemic reform of the judiciary. Yet Friday’s mobilisation is clearly above party politics. The anger runs across the political spectrum:

Greeks are standing simply and resolutely on the side of parents seeking justice and accountability for the loss of their children. This nationwide struggle has been inspired by the exemplary mobilisation of the Serbian youth, who have been tirelessly demonstrating over the past months on similar grounds and are not giving up, despite scoring impressive victories.

It is a rare occasion when an entire nation takes to the streets against the powers that be. You too can join the largest ever mobilisation of Greeks, who demand justice for their dead at the Tempi rail crash and reject being ruled by a criminal gang. Peaceful gatherings are planned in 255 cities in Greece and 113 cities around the world. If you want to take part go here, click on the lower horizontal bar and look for your city. The mobilisation’s slogan is “I have no oxygen”, the words of a student recorded over the emergency hotline before she was engulfed by flames.

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