Riots intensify in Greece

(from the AP wire...)
ATHENS, Greece – Inside the gates of Athens' main university, bonfires rage and masked gangs stockpile petrol bombs, broken paving stones and marble hacked from the neoclassical buildings. It's their arsenal for more possible clashes with weary police.

But a week into Greece's worst civil unrest in decades — sparked by the police shooting of a teenage boy and then fed by anger at the country's economic unraveling — the rioters' best weapon is arguably the law.

They have used, some say abused, a decades-old code that bars police from university campuses. The grounds of the Athens Polytechnic have become a combination of sanctuary and makeshift armory for the bands of young men and women who have left parts of the capital ransacked and smoldering.

The self-proclaimed anarchists and revolutionaries based at the Polytechnic have become outnumbered on the streets by more typical demonstrators — such as labor unions and opposition parties — who have called for Greece's increasingly unpopular conservative government to resign.

Yet it's the rage and destruction of the masked youths that have become the symbols of the showdown.

Nearly every night in the past week, the streets around the Polytechnic become an urban battleground. Riot police emerge through clouds of tear gas and the smoke of flaming barricades.

Black-clad youths — their faces covered by masks, scarves and motorbike helmets — hurl petrol bombs over the hulks of torched cars. Late on Saturday night, one pushed a shopping cart full of rocks and chunks of marble to replenish the stocks. Another stumbled into the campus wearing a Spiderman mask.

"Stones! We need more stones!" someone bellowed in the dark. One young man, his face hidden behind a bandanna and a hood, began smashing pieces of concrete from one of the university's buildings, lit only by the orange glow of bonfires.

"Don't waste the Molotovs, damn it! Use them wisely!" another shouted, his voice hoarse from the tear gas fired by riot police night after night.

One man staggered as he came through the gate, retching and with tears streaming down his face. Another rushed up to him, pulling out packs of cotton and cream to soothe the burning.

"You took a strong hit tonight. You took one for the cause," he shouted above the din.

The demands now are mostly cries against the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government and the economic hardships faced by many Greeks — particularly young people — as the economy stalls after years of moderate growth.


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