New taxes, other austerity measures needed to obtain international aid

ATHENS, Greece - Greek police deployed in strength on Wednesday to prevent thousands of anti-austerity protesters from blockading parliament, where the struggling government will launch a debate on unpopular cutbacks needed to secure international rescue loans.

As a 24-hour general strike got underway, a large part of central Athens was closed to all traffic and pedestrians as police mounted a huge security operation to allow lawmakers access to parliament by car.

Some 5,000 officers, including hundreds of riot and motorcycle police, were on duty, using parked buses and crowd barriers to prevent protesters from encircling the building.

At least 11,000 people gathered peacefully in Syntagma Square outside parliament, according to police, while another union demonstration was expected later on Wednesday.

"Resign, resign", the crowd chanted outside parliament. The protesters included both young and old, and many brought their children, hoisting them onto their shoulders to shield them from the crush.

Such marches have turned violent in the past, and three clerks died when rioters torched their bank during a mass demonstration in Athens last May. But no violence was reported on Wednesday.

"What can we do? We have to fight, for our children and for us," said Dimitra Nteli, a nurse at a state hospital who was at the protest with her daughter. "After 25 years of work, I earn 1,100 euros a month. Now that will drop to 900. How can we live on that?"

Her daughter, Christina, 26, said the situation in Greece had led her to go to school abroad. She is leaving to study conflict resolution in the United Kingdom.

"I have no job here. There are no prospects," she said

Police spokesman Athanassios Kokalakis said 10 protesters were briefly detained for trying to prevent lawmakers from reaching parliament. About a hundred people booed and heckled as cars carrying Prime Minister George Papandreou and President Karolos Papoulias swept past.

Meanwhile, a general strike by unions crippled public services across the country.

It left state hospitals running on emergency staff, disrupted port traffic and public transport, and forced radio and television news programs off the air. Journalists' unions later called off the strike to cover developments in Athens.

Flights, however, were operating normally after the air traffic controllers' union called off their participation in the strike.

"They keep asking us to give more," said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the civil servants' union ADEDY. "Now, again, they will cut our salaries and bonuses, from the little that we have left."

The government needs to pass a new 2012-2015 austerity program worth 28 billion euros ($40.5 billion) this month - or face being cut off from a 110-billion-euro package of rescue loans from European countries and the International Monetary Fund.

To meet their commitments, Papandreou's Socialists' abandoned a pledge to avoid imposing new taxes and have drawn up a four-year privatization program worth 50 billion euros ($72 billion) - further fueling protests against austerity.

Some of the lawmakers from the governing party have publicly criticized the new cuts. One of them defected on Tuesday, reducing Papandreou's parliamentary majority to five in the 300-seat legislature.

Associated Press