Greek junta
The Greek military junta of 1967-1974 or alternatively called "The Regime of the Colonels" or in Greece "The Junta" is a collective term to refer to a series of military regimes that ruled modern Greece during 1967-1974.
The rule by the military started in the morning of April 21, 1967 with a coup d'etat lead by a group of colonels of the military of Greece, and ended in August, 1974.
Before the Junta
During the Cold War, Greece was a vital link in the NATO defense arc which extended from the eastern border of Iran to the northmost point in Norway. In 1947, the United States formulated the Truman Doctrine, and began to actively support a series of authoritarian governments in Greece, Turkey and Iran in order to ensure that these states do not fall under Soviet influence. Greece in particular was seen as being in risk, having experienced a communist insurgency from 1945 until 1949.
By the early 1960s, the government was still at the hands of the conservatives, but there were signs of liberalization. In 1963, the Lambrakis affair, the resignation of Constantine Karamanlis and the election of centrist George Papandreou, Sr. as Prime minister were signs of rapid change. The young and inexperienced king Constantine II clashed with the reformers, dismissing Papandreou in 1965 in an bid to gain more control over the country's government than what his limited constitutional powers allowed. The move was followed by 22 months of political instability during which 5 weak governments succeeded each other.
New elections were scheduled (for 28 May 1967), and there were many indications that Papandreou's Center Union Party (EK) would not be able to form a working government by itself. There was a strong possibility that the EK party (or even the conservative ERE party) would be forced into an alliance with socialist EDA (EΔΑ) party, which was suspected by conservatives to be a proxy for the banned Communist Party of Greece (and not totally without cause; while EDA was by no means Communist, the Communist Party had decided to support EDA in the election in hopes of further reforms).
This sense of a "Communist threat", along with a traditionalist right wing nationalistic ideology in the military of Greece, eventualy led to the coup d'etat of April 21 1967.
The coup d'etat of April 21
On April 21, 1967, (just weeks before the scheduled elections), a group of right-wing army officers led by Brigadier Stylianos Patakos and Colonels George Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos seized power in a coup d'etat. The colonels were able to quickly seize power by using surprise and confusion. Patakos was commander of KETH, an armoured unit training centre based in Athens. The conspirators placed tanks in strategic positions of Athens, effectively gaining complete control of the city. At the same time, a large number of small mobile units were dispatched to arrest leading politicians and authority figures, as well as many ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies. One of the first to be arrested was Lieutenant General George Spantidakis, Commander in Chief of the Greek Army. The conspirators were not at all unknown to Spantidakis. Indeed, he was instrumental in bringing some of them to Athens, to use in a coup he and other leading Army Generals had been planning, in an attempt to prevent George Papandreou's victory in the upcoming election and the communist takeover that would, supposedly, follow it. The conspirators succeeded in persuading Spantidakis to join them and he issued orders activating an action plan (the "Promitheus" plan) that had been previously drafted as a response for a hypothetical communist uprising. Since orders purported to come from a legitimate source, commanders and units not involved in the conspiracy automatically obeyed them. By the early morning hours the whole of Greece was in the hands of the conspirators. All leading politicians, including acting Prime Minister Panayotis Kanellopoulos, had been arrested and were held incommunicado by the conspirators. The three main conspirators visited King Constantine II in his residence in Tatoi, also surrounded by tanks effectively preventing any form of resistance. The King wrangled with the conspirators and initially dismissed them, ordering them to return with Spantidakis. Later in the day he took it upon himself to go the Ministry of National Defence, North of Athens city centre, where all conspirators were now gathered. The King had a discussion with Kanellopoulos, held there, and with leading generals. None could be of much help, since Kanellopoulos was a prisoner whilst the generals had no real power, as was evident from the shouting of lower and middle-ranking officers, refusing to obey orders and clamouring for a new government under Spantidakis. The King finally relented and decided to co-operate, claiming to this day that he was isolated and did not know what else to do. His excuse has been that he was trying to gain time to organise a counter-coup and oust the junta. He did organise such a counter coup, however the fact that the new government had a "legitimate" origin in that it had been appointed by the legitimate Head of State played an important role in the coup's success. The King was later to regret bitterly his decision. For many Greeks, it served to identify him indelibly with the coup and certainly played an important role in the final decision to abolish the monarchy, sanctioned by the 1974 referendum. The only concession the King could achieve, quite a meaningless one, was to appoint a civilian as Premier rather than Spantidakis. Constantine Kollias a former Attorney General of the Areios Pagos, the highest court in Greece, was chosen. He was a well-known royalist and had even been disciplined under the Papandreou government for meddling in the investigation on the murder of Lambrakis. It was a meanigless concession since Kollias was little more than a figurehead and real power rested with the army and especially Papadopoulos, who was emerging as the coup's strong man and became Minister of the Government's Presidency, a key position. Up until then constitutional legitimacy had been prevented since under the then Greek Constitution the King could appoint whoever he wanted as Premier, as long as Parliament granted a vote of confidence or a general election was called. It was this government, sworn-in in the early evening hours of April 21st, that formalised the coup, by adopting a "Constituent Act", a wholly unconstitutional amendment tantamount to a revolution, cancelling the elections and effectively abolishing the constitution, to be replaced by one to be drawn up later. In the meantime, the government was to rule by decree. Since traditionally such Constituent Acts did not need to be signed by the Crown, the King never signed it, permitting him to claim, years later, that he had never signed any document instituting the dictatorship. Formally that is correct, but it is also true that Constantine II did nothing to prevent the government (and especially his chosen Premier Kollias) from legally instituting a dictatorship. This same government formally published and enforced a decree instituting military lawalready proclaimed by radio during the coup's development. Constantine claimed he never signed that decree either. If this is correct, either his signature on the decree has been forged, or the decree was published without his signature, which would formally have made it void. Either way, criminal forgery was committed.
Characteristics of the Junta
Ideology
The colonels preferred to call the coup d'etat of April 21 a "revolution" to save the nation ("Ethnosotirios Epanastasis"). Their official justification for the breach of the constitution was that a "communist conspiracy" had infiltrated the bureaucracy, the academia, the press, and even the military, to such an extent that drastic action was needed to protect the country from a takeover. Thus, the defining characteristic of the Junta was its staunch anti-Communism and a constant battle against the unseen but ever present agents of communism. The term "anarchokommounistes" (anarcho-communists) was frequently (though incorrectly) used to describe all leftists. Fabrication of evidence and fictional enemies of the state was a common practice. Atheism and pop culture (such as rock music and the hippies) were also seen as parts of this conspiracy. Nationalism and Christian moralism were widely promoted.
Sources of Support
To gain support for his regime, Papadopoulos was able to project an image that appealed to some segments of Greek society. The son of a poor family from a rural area, he had no education other than that of the military academy. He publically stated contempt for the urban, western-educated "elite" in Athens. Modern western music was banned from the airwaves, and folk music and arts were promoted. The poor, conservative, religious farmers widely supported him, seeing in his rough mannerisms, simplistic speaches, even in his name ("Georgios Papadopoulos" is perhaps the most common name in Greece) a "friend of the common man". Further, the regime promoted a policy of economic development in rural areas, which were mostly neglected by the previous governments, that had focused largely in urban industrial development.
Papadopoulos mannerisms were less likely to appeal to the middle class, but the political crisis of 1965-1967 let many ordinary citizens to believe that any stable government, even a military one, was better than the preceding chaos. Overall, the regime had little trouble establishing its control over the land.
The "junta" was given at least tacit support by the United States as a Cold War ally, due to its proximity to the Eastern European Soviet bloc, and the fact that the previous Truman administration had given the country millions of dollars in economic aid to discourage Communism. U.S. support for the regime is claimed to be the cause of rising anti-Americanism in Greece during and following the junta's harsh rule.
Civil Rights
Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Several thousand suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands. Amnesty International sent observers to Greece at the time and reported that under Papadopoulos' regime torture was a deliberate practice carried out by both Security Police and the Military Police.
James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote In December 1969 that "a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand" the number of people tortured. In his report he describes how some torturers had told prisoners about the US origin of some of their torture devices.
Furthermore, an Amnesty International delegation described a variety or tortures routinely carried out against critics of the regime which included the following:
- Phalanx torture (beating the toes of the feet with a stick or pipe).
- Sexually-oriented torture: shoving or an object into the vagina and twisting and tearing brutally; also done with a tube inserted into the anus; or a tube is inserted into the anus and water driven in under very high pressure.
- Techniques of gagging: the throat is grasped in such a way that the windpipe is cut off, or a filthy rag, often soaked in urine, and sometimes excrement, is shoved down the throat.
- Tearing out the hair from the head and the pubic region.
- Jumping on the victim's stomach.
- Pulling out toe nails and finger nails.
The King's Counter-Coup
From the outset, the relationship between king Constantine II of Greece and the Colonels was an uneasy one. The colonels were not willing to share power with anyone, whereas the young King, like his father before him, was used to playing an active role in politics and would never constent to being a mere figurehead, especially in a military dictatorship. Although the colonel's strong anti-communist, pro-NATO and pro-Western views appealed to the United States, fearful of domestic and international public opinion President Johnson told Constantine, in a visit to Washington in early autumn of 1967, that it would be best to replace that government with another one. Constantine took that as an encouragement to organise a counter-coup and it was probably meant as one, although no direct help or involvement of the US was forthcoming. The King finally decided to launch his counter-coup on December 13, 1967. Since Athens was effectively in the hands of the junta militarily, Constantine decided to fly to the small Northern city of Kavala, East of Thessaloniki. There he hoped to be among troops loyal only to him. The vague plan he and his advisors had conceived was to form a unit that would advance to Thessaloniki and take it. This is Greece's second biggest city and unofficial capital of the North. Constantine planned to install an alternative administration there. International recognition, which was sure to be forthcoming, as well as internal pressure from the fact that Greece would have been split in two with two effective governments would, the King hoped, force the junta to resign, leaving the field clear for him to return triumphant to Athens.
In the early morning hours of 13 December the King boarded the royal plane together with the Queen, their two baby children, his mother Frederika and his sister, Princess Irene. Constantine also took with him Premier Kollias. At first things seemed to be going according to plan. Constantine was well received in Kavala which, militarily, was under the command of one of his General friends. The air force and navy, both strongly royalist and not involved in the 1967 coup, immediately declared for him and mobilised. Another of Constantine's generals effectively cut all communication between Athens and the North. However, the King's plans were overly bureaucratic, naïvely supposing that orders from a commanding General would automatically be followed. Further, the King was obsessive about avoiding "bloodshed" even where the junta would be the attacker. Instead of attempting to drum up the widest popular support, hoping for spontaneous pro-democracy risings in most towns, the King preferred to let his Generals put together the necessary force for advancing on Thessaloniki in strict compliance with military bureaucracy. The King made no attempt to contact politicians, even local ones and even took care to include in his proclamation a paragraph condemning communism, lest anyone should get the wrong idea. In the circumstances, it is not altogether surprising that, rather than the King managing to put together a force and advancing on Thessaloniki, middle-ranking pro-junta officers neutralised and arrested his General friends, took command of their units and put together a force advancing on Kavala to arrest the King. The junta, not at all shaken by the loss of their figurehead premier, ridiculed the King by announcing the he was hiding "from village to village". Realising that all was lost Constantine decided to flee Greece on board the royal plane, taking his family and hapless Premier with him. They landed in Rome early in the morning of 14th December. Constantine remained in exile all through the rest of the dictatorship (although nominally he continued as King until 1st June 1973) and was never to return to Greece as King.
The Regency
When the King flew out of Athens to begin his counter-coup, on December 13 1967, he took Prime Minister Kollias with him. Thus, legally, there was no government and no Head of State in Athens. This did not of course shake the military junta, who held real power thanks to the Army's guns. In a clearly unconstitutional move, the "Revolutionary Council" of Patakos, Papadopoulos and Makarezos made a brief appearance from the shadows to cause a "Resolution" to be published in the Government Gazette, appointing another junta member, Major General Georgios Zoitakis, as Regent. Zoitakis then appointed Papadopoulos Prime Minister. This became the only de facto government of Greece after the failure of the King's attempted coup, as the King was unwilling to set up an alternative administration in exile. The Regent's position was later confirmed under the 1968 Constitution, although the exiled King never officially recognised, nor acknowledge, the Regency. In a movement legally controversial even under the junta's own Constitution, the Cabinet voted in 1972 to oust Zoitakis and replace him with Papadopoulos who thus combined the offices of Regent and Prime Minister. It was thought Zoitakis was too interfering and was causing problems. The King's portrait remained on coins, in public buildings etc. but in secret the regime was chipping away at monarchy: The royal family's tax immunity was abolished, the complex network of royally managed charities was brought under direct state control, the royal arms were removed from coins, the Navy and Air Force were no longer "Royal" and the newspapers were usually banned from publishing the King's photo or any interviews. During this period, resistance against the colonel's rule became better organized among exiles in Europe and the United States. In addition to the expected opposition from the left, the colonels found themselves under attack by constituencies that had traditionally supported past right-wing regimes: pro-monarchists supporting Constantine; businessmen concerned over international isolation; the middle class facing an economic downturn after 1971. There was also considerable political infighting within the junta. Still, up until 1973 the junta appeared in firm control of Greece and not likely to be ousted by violent means.
The "Republic"
To resolve the constitutional issue and cement his hold on power over his opponents (both inside and outside the regime), Papadopoulos introduced a new constitution which abolished the monarchy and made Greece a republic. The referendum for the new regime was held in early 1973 and was approved by an "almost unanimous" vote, thanks to widespread election fraud. After the election, Papadopoulos became President of the Republic on June 1, 1973.
The Ioannidis Regime
On November 25, 1973, following the bloody suppresion of Athens Polytechnic uprising on the 17th of November, General Dimitrios Ioannides ousted Papadopoulos and tried to continue the dictatorship despite the popular unrest the uprising had triggered. Ioannides' attempt in July 1974 to overthrow Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus and occupied part of the island.
Restoration of Democracy
After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, there was well founded fear that an all out war with Turkey was imminent. Senior Greek military officers realized that it would be impossible to defend the country given the situation: The Navy and Air Force leadership had been ousted after the king's counter-coup; there were constant intrigues in the Army, and popular animosity for the regime could not be contained. After a brief meeting with representatives of ERE in Athens, the coloners agreed to resign.
Karamanlis returned from exile in France to establish a government of national unity until elections could be held. Karamanlis' newly organized party, New Democracy (ND), won elections held in November 1974, and he became prime minister. The cause of the downfall of the dictatorship formally was the invasion by Turkey of Cyprus, which was seen as a military and political failure of the junta; however, since then, historians and other people have regarded the uprising at the Polytechnic University (Greek: Η εξέγερση του Πολυτεχνείου) as the event that most discredited the military government.
See Also
External Links
- Fairly well-balanced and illustrated account of the junta years up to Athens Polytechnic uprising.
- Article in the same site about the Polytechnich uprising, the Cyprus troubles, and the fall of the junta.
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