Revolutionary Organization 17 November
Encyclopedia
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (Greek
: Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη, Epanastatiki Organosi dekaefta Noemvri), (also known as 17N or N17) was a Marxist
urban guerrilla organization (characterized as a terrorist group by the Greek state and the United States and the United Kingdom) formed in 1975 and believed to have been disbanded in 2002 after the arrest and trial of a number of its members. The group assassinated 23 people in 103 attacks on U.S., British, Turkish and Greek targets.
, in which a protest against the Greek Military Junta (1967–1974)
, also known as the Regime of the Colonels took place. The uprising was bloodily suppressed by the army. 17N self-identified as Marxist, even Anarchist. In addition to assassinations, kidnappings, and symbolic attacks on corporate and government offices, 17N supported its operations with at least 11 bank robberies netting approximately US$ 3.5 million. Members of 17N kept detailed financial records, found in one of their safe houses in 2002, to document that the stolen money was used for revolutionary purposes.
's station chief in Athens, Richard Welch
. Welch was gunned down outside his residence by four assailants, in front of his wife and driver. 17N's repeated claims of responsibility were ignored until December 1976, when it murdered the former intelligence chief of the Greek security police, Evangelos Mallios and left its proclamation at the scene. In January 1980 17N murdered the deputy director of the riot police (MAT) and his driver. It also intervened with two long proclamations offering theoretical guidance to the Greek armed struggle and criticizing a non-deadly rival group, Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) for poor target selection and operational incompetence.
17N suspended operations shortly before the October 1981 election of Andreas Papandreou
, misled by PASOK pledges to evict U.S. military bases and withdraw from NATO. 17N resumed its attacks in November 1983, killing the deputy chief of the U.S. military assistance mission (JUSSMAG) Captain George Tsantes in retaliation for Papandreou's decision to renew the base rights agreement. In 1985 it broadened its targeting with the murder of conservative newspaper publisher Nikos Momferatos. The proclamation left near his body accused Momferatos of CIA connections and complained that Greece "remained a puppet regime in the hands of the American imperialists and the economic establishment." In 1986, 17N murdered Dimitris Angelopoulos, one of Greece's leading industrialists, charging that he and other members of Greece's "lumpen big bourgeoisie class" were plundering Greece at the expense of workers.
17N responded to the 1988 Koskotas
scandal with a wave of murders and kidnappings. In the 1989 parliamentary elections 17N urged voters to deface their ballots with the 17N star. The assassination of New Democracy
member of parliament Pavlos Bakoyannis
in September 1989 prompted public outrage, including among Greek communists who respected Bakoyannis as a courageous anti-Junta journalist. The group abandoned its electoral pretensions and took a more nationalist turn.
Other victims included Captain William Nordeen
U.S.N., the U.S. defense attache, whose car was destroyed by a car bomb a few meters from his residence on 28 June 1988, and U.S. Air Force Sergeant Ronald O. Stewart, who was killed by a remotely detonated bomb outside his apartment on 12 March 1991.
In addition to its anti-American and anti-capitalist agenda, the group was also opposed to Turkey
and NATO. Çetin Görgü, Turkish press attaché, shot in his car on 7 October 1991; Ömer Haluk Sipahioğlu, Turkish embassy counselor, shot on an Athens
street on 4 July 1994; ship and shipyard owner Constantinos Peratikos, shot leaving his office on 28 May 1997; and Brigadier Stephen Saunders
on 8 June 2000.
17N used as its "signature weapons" two .45 M1911
semi-automatics. While face-to-face assassination was the early modus operandi, in 1985 the group exploded its first bomb, using a long cable to detonate stolen quarrying explosives, against a bus full of riot police, killing one.
In October 1986 17N bombed four tax offices. This was its first low-level attack against property. In December 1988 17N stole 114 obsolete anti-tank rockets from a poorly guarded Greek military depot. Between 1990 and 1999 17N conducted 24 rocket attacks, all but three of them aimed at property rather than human targets. In November 1990, a rocket attack against the armored limousine of shipowner Vardis Vardinogiannis failed. In 1991, 17N rocketed a riot police bus, killing one officer and wounding 14. In July 1992, a young passerby, Thanos Axarlian, was killed in a failed rocket attack on Economy Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas.
After their inaugural attack on the CIA station chief, the group tried to get mainstream newspapers to publish their manifesto. Their first proclamation, claiming the murder of Richard Welch, was first sent to "Libération
" in Paris, France. It was given to the publisher of "Libération" via the offices of Jean Paul Sartre, but was not published. After subsequent attacks, 17N usually sent a communique to the Eleftherotypia
newspaper. The group argued in its communiques that it wanted to rid Greece of U.S. bases, to remove the Turkish military from Cyprus
, and to sever Greece's ties to NATO and the European Union
.
On 7 April 1998 the group used a stolen anti-armor rocket to attack a downtown branch of the American Citibank, which caused damage but no injuries, as the warhead did not explode. The rocket was fired by remote control from a private car parked outside the bank on Drossopoulou street in the downtown district of Kypseli.
, was identified as the group leader and was arrested on 17 July 2002 on the island of Lipsi. On 5 September, Dimitris Koufodinas, identified as the group's chief of operations, surrendered to the authorities. In all, nineteen individuals were charged with some 2,500 offenses relating to the activities of N17.
The trial of the terrorist suspects commenced in Athens
on 3 March 2003, with Christos Lambrou serving as the lead prosecutor for the Greek state. Because of the 20-year statute of limitations, crimes committed before 1984 (such as the killing of the CIA station chief) could not be tried by the court. On 8 December, fifteen of the accused, including A. Giotopoulos and D. Koufodinas, were found guilty; another four defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence. The convicted members were sentenced on 17 December 2003. All those convicted defendants appealed. On 3 May 2007, the convictions were upheld.
Some Greek officials considered Revolutionary Struggle
(EA), the group that fired a Chinese-made RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in Athens
in January 2007, to be a spin-off of 17N. However, three self-admitted EA members arrested in April 2010 claimed that they were anarchists—a designation 17N rejected in its proclamations. For many years, leading politicians of the right-wing New Democracy
party, as well as the conservative press, falsely claimed that Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou
was the mastermind behind 17N.. Virginia Tsouderou, who became Deputy Foreign Minister in the Mitsotakis government, and journalist Giorgos Karatzaferis (later the founder and leader of a right-wing party, LAOS) claimed that terrorism in Greece was controlled by Papandreist officers of EYP
(the Greek security and intelligence service), and named Kostas Tsimas (the head of EYP) and Colonel Alexakis as two of the supposed controllers of 17N. However, after 17N members were arrested, the only connection between the terrorist organization and PASOK was the fact that Dimitris Koufontinas was a member of PAMK (the PASOK high school students organization) and an admirer of Andreas Papandreou in his late teens.
Other writers have also claimed, without any evidence, that 17N may have been a tool of foreign secret services. In December 2005, Kleanthis Grivas (a fringe writer known for his strange views) published an article in To Proto Thema, a Greek Sunday newspaper, in which he accused "Sheepskin", the Greek branch of Gladio, NATO's stay-behind
paramilitary organization during the Cold War
, of the assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch
in Athens in 1975, as well as of the assassination of Stephen Saunders
in 2000. This was denied by the US State Department, who responded that "the Greek terrorist organization '17 November' was responsible for both assassinations", and asserted that Grivas's central piece of evidence had been a document ("Westmoreland Field Manual") which the State department, as well as a Congressional inquiry had dismissed as a Soviet forgery. It should be noted the documents make no specific mention of Greece, November 17th, nor Welch. The State Department also highlighted the fact that, in the case of Richard Welch, "Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials" as well as the Greek government's statements to the effect that the "stay behind" network had been dismantled in 1988.
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη, Epanastatiki Organosi dekaefta Noemvri), (also known as 17N or N17) was a Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
urban guerrilla organization (characterized as a terrorist group by the Greek state and the United States and the United Kingdom) formed in 1975 and believed to have been disbanded in 2002 after the arrest and trial of a number of its members. The group assassinated 23 people in 103 attacks on U.S., British, Turkish and Greek targets.
Formation
The group's name, 17N, refers to the final day of the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprisingAthens Polytechnic uprising
The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November...
, in which a protest against the Greek Military Junta (1967–1974)
Greek military junta of 1967-1974
The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
, also known as the Regime of the Colonels took place. The uprising was bloodily suppressed by the army. 17N self-identified as Marxist, even Anarchist. In addition to assassinations, kidnappings, and symbolic attacks on corporate and government offices, 17N supported its operations with at least 11 bank robberies netting approximately US$ 3.5 million. Members of 17N kept detailed financial records, found in one of their safe houses in 2002, to document that the stolen money was used for revolutionary purposes.
Attacks
17N's first attack, on 23 December 1975, was against the U.S. Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
's station chief in Athens, Richard Welch
Richard Welch
Richard Skeffington Welch , a Harvard-educated classicist, was a CIA Station Chief killed by the radical Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November .-Early life and CIA career:...
. Welch was gunned down outside his residence by four assailants, in front of his wife and driver. 17N's repeated claims of responsibility were ignored until December 1976, when it murdered the former intelligence chief of the Greek security police, Evangelos Mallios and left its proclamation at the scene. In January 1980 17N murdered the deputy director of the riot police (MAT) and his driver. It also intervened with two long proclamations offering theoretical guidance to the Greek armed struggle and criticizing a non-deadly rival group, Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) for poor target selection and operational incompetence.
17N suspended operations shortly before the October 1981 election of Andreas Papandreou
Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...
, misled by PASOK pledges to evict U.S. military bases and withdraw from NATO. 17N resumed its attacks in November 1983, killing the deputy chief of the U.S. military assistance mission (JUSSMAG) Captain George Tsantes in retaliation for Papandreou's decision to renew the base rights agreement. In 1985 it broadened its targeting with the murder of conservative newspaper publisher Nikos Momferatos. The proclamation left near his body accused Momferatos of CIA connections and complained that Greece "remained a puppet regime in the hands of the American imperialists and the economic establishment." In 1986, 17N murdered Dimitris Angelopoulos, one of Greece's leading industrialists, charging that he and other members of Greece's "lumpen big bourgeoisie class" were plundering Greece at the expense of workers.
17N responded to the 1988 Koskotas
George Koskotas
George Koskotas is a former banker and publisher who spearheaded a financial scandal that brought down the PASOK government in 1989.Koskotas was born in Greece on October 5, 1954. He migrated to the United States with his parents in 1970. Koskotas grew up in the United States, returned to Greece...
scandal with a wave of murders and kidnappings. In the 1989 parliamentary elections 17N urged voters to deface their ballots with the 17N star. The assassination of New Democracy
New Democracy (Greece)
New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
member of parliament Pavlos Bakoyannis
Pavlos Bakoyannis
Pavlos Bakoyannis was a liberal Greek politician who was well known for his broadcasts against the Greek military dictatorship of 1967-1974 on Deutsche Welle radio...
in September 1989 prompted public outrage, including among Greek communists who respected Bakoyannis as a courageous anti-Junta journalist. The group abandoned its electoral pretensions and took a more nationalist turn.
Other victims included Captain William Nordeen
William Nordeen
William Edward Nordeen was an American diplomat. Born in Amery, Wisconsin and raised in nearby Centuria, he was the United States defense and naval attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece...
U.S.N., the U.S. defense attache, whose car was destroyed by a car bomb a few meters from his residence on 28 June 1988, and U.S. Air Force Sergeant Ronald O. Stewart, who was killed by a remotely detonated bomb outside his apartment on 12 March 1991.
In addition to its anti-American and anti-capitalist agenda, the group was also opposed to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and NATO. Çetin Görgü, Turkish press attaché, shot in his car on 7 October 1991; Ömer Haluk Sipahioğlu, Turkish embassy counselor, shot on an Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
street on 4 July 1994; ship and shipyard owner Constantinos Peratikos, shot leaving his office on 28 May 1997; and Brigadier Stephen Saunders
Stephen Saunders (military attache)
Brigadier Stephen Saunders , the British military attaché in Athens, was killed on 8 June 2000 by motorcycle gunmen who were members of Revolutionary Organization 17 November...
on 8 June 2000.
17N used as its "signature weapons" two .45 M1911
M1911
The M1911 is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, and recoil-operated handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. John M. Browning designed the firearm which was the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985. The M1911 is still carried by some U.S....
semi-automatics. While face-to-face assassination was the early modus operandi, in 1985 the group exploded its first bomb, using a long cable to detonate stolen quarrying explosives, against a bus full of riot police, killing one.
In October 1986 17N bombed four tax offices. This was its first low-level attack against property. In December 1988 17N stole 114 obsolete anti-tank rockets from a poorly guarded Greek military depot. Between 1990 and 1999 17N conducted 24 rocket attacks, all but three of them aimed at property rather than human targets. In November 1990, a rocket attack against the armored limousine of shipowner Vardis Vardinogiannis failed. In 1991, 17N rocketed a riot police bus, killing one officer and wounding 14. In July 1992, a young passerby, Thanos Axarlian, was killed in a failed rocket attack on Economy Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas.
After their inaugural attack on the CIA station chief, the group tried to get mainstream newspapers to publish their manifesto. Their first proclamation, claiming the murder of Richard Welch, was first sent to "Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
" in Paris, France. It was given to the publisher of "Libération" via the offices of Jean Paul Sartre, but was not published. After subsequent attacks, 17N usually sent a communique to the Eleftherotypia
Eleftherotypia
Eleftherotypia is a daily newspaper published in Athens . It is one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country. Eleftherotypia also publishes a Sunday edition Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia . It was first published in 1975. Breaking the trend of Greek press, it was originally owned by its...
newspaper. The group argued in its communiques that it wanted to rid Greece of U.S. bases, to remove the Turkish military from Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, and to sever Greece's ties to NATO and the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
On 7 April 1998 the group used a stolen anti-armor rocket to attack a downtown branch of the American Citibank, which caused damage but no injuries, as the warhead did not explode. The rocket was fired by remote control from a private car parked outside the bank on Drossopoulou street in the downtown district of Kypseli.
Victims
A list of 17N's known murder and kidnapping victims:- Richard WelchRichard WelchRichard Skeffington Welch , a Harvard-educated classicist, was a CIA Station Chief killed by the radical Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November .-Early life and CIA career:...
, CIA station chief in AthensAthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. (23 December 1975) - Evangelos Mallios, policeman who was accused of torturing political prisoners during the period of military junta. (14 December 1976)
- Pantelis Petrou, deputy commander of the Greek police Riot Control Unit (M.A.T). (16 January 1980)
- Sotiris Stamoulis, driver of the above mentioned. (16 January 1980)
- George Tsantes, a US NavyUnited States NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
Commander, high level executive of JUSMAG (15 November 1983) - Nikos Veloutsos, driver of the above mentioned. (15 November 1983)
- Robert Judd, Army Master Sergeant, Postal officer for JUSMAGG in Greece, wounded in an assassination attempt. (3 April 1984)
- Christos Matis, police guard, killed in a bank robbery. (24 December 1984)
- Nikos Momferatos, publisher of the "ApogevmatiniApogevmatiniApogevmatini was a Greek newspaper that was published nationally for decades until its owners latest declared its bankruptcy in November 2010. Its location is 12 Feidiou Street in the downtown area of the capital city of Athens. The newspaper was founded by the Botsis family in the beginning of...
" newspaper. (21 February 1985) - Georgios Roussetis, driver of above mentioned. (21 February 1985)
- Nikolaos Georgakopoulos, riot policeman, killed in bus bombing. (26 November 1985)
- Dimitrios Aggelopoulos, President of the board of Halyvourgiki S.A.Halyvourgiki S.A.Halyvourgiki S.A. has historically been one of the main steel producers in Greece and the second largest after Viohalko. It effectively started business in 1925 as a trading company, moving into wire production in 1932 and steel production in 1938....
. (8 April 1986) - Zacharias Kapsalakis, doctor and clinic owner, shot in the legs. (4 February 1987)
- Alexander Athanasiadis, industrialist. (1 March 1988)
- William NordeenWilliam NordeenWilliam Edward Nordeen was an American diplomat. Born in Amery, Wisconsin and raised in nearby Centuria, he was the United States defense and naval attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece...
, a US NavyUnited States NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
Captain, killed by a car bomb. (23 June 1988) - Constantinos Androulidakis, a public prosecutor, is shot in both legs and dies slowly of complications. (10 January 1989)
- Panayiotis Tarasouleas, also a public prosecutor, is shot in both legs. (18 January 1989)
- Giorgos Petsos, PASOKPanhellenic Socialist MovementThe Panhellenic Socialist Movement , known mostly by its acronym PASOK , is one of the two major political parties in Greece. Founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou, in 1981 PASOK became Greece's first social democratic party to win a majority in parliament.The party is a socialist party...
MP and Minister, is injured in his car by a car bomb. (8 May 1989) - Pavlos BakoyannisPavlos BakoyannisPavlos Bakoyannis was a liberal Greek politician who was well known for his broadcasts against the Greek military dictatorship of 1967-1974 on Deutsche Welle radio...
, New DemocracyNew Democracy (Greece)New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
MP (26 September 1989) - Ronald O. Stewart,a US Air ForceUnited States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
Sergeant, killed by a bomb. (13 March 1991) - Deniz Bulukbasi,Turkish Chargé d'Affaires, is injured by a car bomb. (16 July 1991)
- Cetin Gorgu, Turkish Press attaché (7 October 1991)
- Yiannis Varis, a police officer, is killed in a missile and hand grenade attack against a riot squad bus (2 November 1991)
- Athanasios Axarlian, a student passer-by; killed by shrapnel during a rocket attack targeting the limousine of Finance Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas. (14 July 1992)
- Eleftherios Papadimitriou, New DemocracyNew Democracy (Greece)New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party deputy and MP, is shot in both legs. (21 December 1992) - Michael Vranopoulos, former governor of the National Bank of GreeceNational Bank of GreeceThe National Bank of Greece is the oldest and largest commercial banking group in Greece. The group has a particularly strong presence in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean...
. (24 January 1994) - Omer Haluk Sipahioglu, counselor of the Turkish Embassy in Athens. (4 July 1994)
- Constantinos Peratikos, ship owner, last person to own the shipyards of Skaramangas. (28 May 1997)
- Stephen Saunders, military attaché of the British Embassy in Athens. (15 June 2000)
Trial
On 29 June 2002 Greek authorities captured an injured suspect, Savvas Xiros, following a failed bombing attempt on the Minoan Flying Dolphins ferry company in Piraeus. A search of Xiros' person and interrogation led to the discovery of two safe houses and to the arrests of six more suspects, including two brothers of Savvas. A 58-year-old former mathematics student living underground since 1971, Alexandros GiotopoulosAlexandros Giotopoulos
Alexandros Giotopoulos is serving a sentence of life imprisonment, having been found guilty in 2003 of leading the Marxist Greek terrorist group November 17th ....
, was identified as the group leader and was arrested on 17 July 2002 on the island of Lipsi. On 5 September, Dimitris Koufodinas, identified as the group's chief of operations, surrendered to the authorities. In all, nineteen individuals were charged with some 2,500 offenses relating to the activities of N17.
The trial of the terrorist suspects commenced in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
on 3 March 2003, with Christos Lambrou serving as the lead prosecutor for the Greek state. Because of the 20-year statute of limitations, crimes committed before 1984 (such as the killing of the CIA station chief) could not be tried by the court. On 8 December, fifteen of the accused, including A. Giotopoulos and D. Koufodinas, were found guilty; another four defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence. The convicted members were sentenced on 17 December 2003. All those convicted defendants appealed. On 3 May 2007, the convictions were upheld.
Conspiracy theories
Some Greek officials considered Revolutionary Struggle
Revolutionary Struggle
Revolutionary Struggle is a Greek rebel group known for its attacks on Greek government buildings and the American embassy in Athens...
(EA), the group that fired a Chinese-made RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
in January 2007, to be a spin-off of 17N. However, three self-admitted EA members arrested in April 2010 claimed that they were anarchists—a designation 17N rejected in its proclamations. For many years, leading politicians of the right-wing New Democracy
New Democracy
New Democracy or the New Democratic Revolution is a Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong's "Bloc of Four Social Classes" theory during post-revolutionary China which argues that democracy in China will take a decisively distinct path from either the liberal capitalist and/or parliamentary democratic...
party, as well as the conservative press, falsely claimed that Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou
Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...
was the mastermind behind 17N.. Virginia Tsouderou, who became Deputy Foreign Minister in the Mitsotakis government, and journalist Giorgos Karatzaferis (later the founder and leader of a right-wing party, LAOS) claimed that terrorism in Greece was controlled by Papandreist officers of EYP
Hellenic National Intelligence Service
The National Intelligence Service is the national intelligence agency of Greece. Its headquarters are located in Athens.-Mission:...
(the Greek security and intelligence service), and named Kostas Tsimas (the head of EYP) and Colonel Alexakis as two of the supposed controllers of 17N. However, after 17N members were arrested, the only connection between the terrorist organization and PASOK was the fact that Dimitris Koufontinas was a member of PAMK (the PASOK high school students organization) and an admirer of Andreas Papandreou in his late teens.
Other writers have also claimed, without any evidence, that 17N may have been a tool of foreign secret services. In December 2005, Kleanthis Grivas (a fringe writer known for his strange views) published an article in To Proto Thema, a Greek Sunday newspaper, in which he accused "Sheepskin", the Greek branch of Gladio, NATO's stay-behind
Stay-behind
In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organisations in its own territory, for use in the event that the territory is overrun by an enemy. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement, or would act as spies from behind enemy lines...
paramilitary organization during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, of the assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch
Richard Welch
Richard Skeffington Welch , a Harvard-educated classicist, was a CIA Station Chief killed by the radical Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November .-Early life and CIA career:...
in Athens in 1975, as well as of the assassination of Stephen Saunders
Stephen Saunders (military attache)
Brigadier Stephen Saunders , the British military attaché in Athens, was killed on 8 June 2000 by motorcycle gunmen who were members of Revolutionary Organization 17 November...
in 2000. This was denied by the US State Department, who responded that "the Greek terrorist organization '17 November' was responsible for both assassinations", and asserted that Grivas's central piece of evidence had been a document ("Westmoreland Field Manual") which the State department, as well as a Congressional inquiry had dismissed as a Soviet forgery. It should be noted the documents make no specific mention of Greece, November 17th, nor Welch. The State Department also highlighted the fact that, in the case of Richard Welch, "Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials" as well as the Greek government's statements to the effect that the "stay behind" network had been dismantled in 1988.
See also
- Terrorism in GreeceTerrorism in GreeceTerrorism in Greece is primarily committed by far-left, revolutionary Marxist organizations.-Revolutionary Organization 17 November:The Greek government arrested many members of the 17 November organization in the summer of 2002. In 2003 15 members were found guilty of multiple murders and...
- Revolutionary StruggleRevolutionary StruggleRevolutionary Struggle is a Greek rebel group known for its attacks on Greek government buildings and the American embassy in Athens...
- Greece – United Kingdom relations
Further reading
- Constantine Buhayer, “The UK's Role in Boosting Greek Counter Terrorism Capabilities,” Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 September 2002.