Political Violence Greece

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Terrorism and Political Violence

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A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

Sappho Xenakis
a a b
Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le Droit et les Institutions Pnales (CESDIP), Versailles, France
b
Universit de Versailles, Versailles, France Published online: 15 Jun 2012.
To cite this article: Sappho Xenakis (2012): A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece, Terrorism and Political Violence, 24:3, 437-464 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2011.633133
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Terrorism and Political Violence, 24:437464, 2012 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0954-6553 print=1556-1836 online DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2011.633133
A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

SAPPHO XENAKIS
Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le Droit et les Institutions nales (CESDIP); and Universite de Versailles, Versailles, France Pe
With the arrest and conviction of members of the Greek Revolutionary Organization 17 November in the early 2000s, the chapter appeared to be closing on one of the last of a generation of urban guerrillas in Western Europe. Before the end of that decade, however, not only had a new batch of violent political organizations arisen in Greece, but the country had also experienced its worst social unrest in over thirty years. With a view to helping fill an emerging descriptive and analytical gap, this article summarizes key features of political violence in Greece between 1974 and 2011, and highlights the importance of three factors to explaining the resumption of organized political violence in the 2000s: the socio-economic environment, the treatment of radical demands by the political system, and the dynamics of violence between the state and non-state groups. In so doing, the article includes an unprecedented account of the role of the state and far-right organizations in the escalation of political violence in Greece. The article goes on to critically review expert, political, and media accounts of the evolution of political violence in the country, and concludes by considering pertinent policy implications. Keywords anarchism, counterterrorism, far-right violence, Greece, international co-operation, political violence
Downloaded by [King's College London] at 17:20 24 May 2013
Over the past thirty-seven years, Greeks have lived through a period characterized by an unprecedented degree of democratic stability. The same period has nevertheless seen a range of actors in Greece engage in political violence; namely, the employment of physical violence to further a political campaign. A variety of sub-state political organizations have employed organized violence more or less covertly as part of their campaigning during this timeframe. Beyond sub-state organizations, legal and illegal forms of state coercion have also been interpreted by some critics to embody a
Sappho Xenakis is a RBUCE-UP junior fellow at the Centre de Recherches Sociologiques nales (CESDIP)=Universite de Versailles. sur le Droit et les Institutions Pe Research for this article was funded by the European Communitys Seventh Framework Programme (FP7=20072013) under grant agreement no. 237163, and was conducted whilst the author was a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens, Greece. This article was completed and accepted for publication in October 2011, and does not take into account developments that have occurred since. Thanks are due to Nicholas J. Xenakis and Leonidas K. Cheliotis for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts, and to the journals anonymous reviewers for their comments. Address correspondence to Sappho Xenakis, Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le nales (CESDIP), 43 Boulevard Vauban, Guyancourt 78280, France. Droit et les Institutions Pe E-mail: sappho.xenakis@cesdip.fr
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politicized application of the use of force, and a small but diverse cross-section of the general public has been prepared to support and engage in spontaneous minor acts of violence during political protests. Since the fall of the countrys military dictatorship in 1974, however, official and scholarly discourse concerning political violence in Greece has concentrated on organized attacks perpetrated by far-left and anarchist groups more specifically.1 Similar to the experience of other states in Western Europe, the vast majority of recorded incidents of violence perpetrated by far-left and anarchist groups in Greece since the 1970s have involved the use of explosives against symbolic targets, causing few casualties or fatalities. What is notable about the Greek case is that attacks in the country have occurred in cycles that appear relatively regular. According to the Global Terrorism Database, fairly similar peak numbers of attacks in Greece were recorded in 1977 (47), in 1991 (59), and in 2007 (53), whilst EUROPOL has noted that the rate of attacks in Greece has since continued to rise.2 Perhaps more striking, however, is that neither the Global Terrorism Database nor the EUROPOL Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports have taken into account attacks perpetrated by far-right organizations in Greece. This omission, which has prevented a more holistic perspective of organized political violence in the country, has arisen despite the fact that both sources chart occurrences of far-right organized violence in other states, and that such activities are also recorded by Greek and European non-governmental organizations and media outlets, although not by the Greek state itself. At any rate, the available evidence concerning the relative regularity of cycles of political violence in Greece is sufficient to warrant greater academic attention than it has received to date. Following the arrest of members of one of the countrys longest active far-leftist urban guerrilla groups in 2002, most scholarly opinion concluded that a recent hardening of political attitudes towards terrorism and greater levels of investment in counter-terrorism security infrastructure (technology, training, and legislation) had been highly effective.3 Moreover, the successful conviction of group members in 2003 was widely seen as marking the demise of the last and most stubborn of a generation of ideological terrorists in Western Europe.4 Whilst not everyone went so far as to declare that [a]ll acts of political violence have now ceased in Greece, to the extent that the possibility of a new wave of violence was even considered, it was an eventuality imagined plausible after an interim of around ten to fifteen years.5 Aside from media coverage, there has been little scholarly output in English or Greek that has offered a descriptive account of the resurgence of political violence in Greece since the 2000s, let alone any that has sought to explain the reasons for the revival.6 As concerns explanatory accounts, extant academic studies have focused largely upon the previous generation of groups active between 1974 and 2003, and have principally offered analyses of the ideological and psychological make-up of group members, of the organization, targets and strategies of key groups, and of the competence displayed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in capturing them.7 A continuing focus on these variables by expert, political, and media commentaries meant not only that the resumption of political violence in the 2000s was relatively unexpected, but also that it has, as yet, remained inadequately theorized. Indeed, systematic attention has yet to be paid to factors that elsewhere in Europe have been found vital to explaining emergent cycles of violence. In her pathbreaking study of German and Italian experiences of political violence between the 1960s and the 1990s, Donatella Della Porta proposes that a comprehensive explanation of organized political violence requires the integration of macro-, meso-, and
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micro-levels of analysis that respectively address the role of environmental conditions, the internal dynamics of politically violent organizations themselves, and the perceptions and motivations of group members. Each level of analysis is suggested to be of greater significance at a different stage of the cycle of violence: from the emergence (macro), to the maintenance (meso), to the decline of violent groups (micro).8 Three macro-level factors are identified by Della Porta as particularly important to explaining the emergence of organized political violence: the strains of the socio-economic environment, the flexibility of the political establishment towards radical concerns, and the broader dynamics of violent interactions between sub-state groups, and between sub-state groups and the state itself. With a view to addressing the growing descriptive and analytical gap concerning the resurgence of organized political violence in Greece in the 2000s, this article offers a summary of the key features of groups involved in political violence between 1974 and 2011, and draws on Della Portas triumvirate of macro-level factors to review the broader environment in which political violence emerged. In so doing, the article points to the uneven progress of the prosecution and appeals processes for the first generation of groups active between 1974 and 2003, and provides greater detail on the context to, and characteristics of, the so-called new generation of groups active since 2003 (covering developments up to late 2011), including an unprecedented account of the role of the state and far-right organizations in the escalation of political violence over the same period. Expert, political, and media accounts of the evolution of political violence in Greece are critically surveyed, illustrating their common tendency to overstate both the novel features of the new generation and the effectiveness of counter-measures by the state. The paper concludes by pointing to the policy implications that stem from this macro-analytic approach to the Greek case.
Organized Political Violence in the Post-Junta Era, 19742002

Recent years have seen official, media, and scholarly recognition paid to the distinctive characteristics of two generations of violent political groups in Greece since the 1970s. The roots of what may be called the first generation, which engaged in political violence after the fall of the countrys dictatorship of 196774, have been traced to underground resistance organizations that functioned during the junta. Prior to the junta, the attractions of violent strategies for leftist activists had been strengthened by state repression and state-sanctioned violence by covert groups of the far-Right. Key to the emergence of organized sub-state political violence was the inflexibility of the political establishment towards radical demands, and the wider environment of violence between sub-state groups, as well as between sub-state groups and the state. Greece had for decades been riven by deep splits between Right and Left under governments dominated by the Right, and experienced numerous periods of political instability; from civil war, to military revolts, to periods of military and authoritarian rule. The 1950s were a decade of relative stability, secured by police intimidation and harassment of Leftists and trade unionists, in conjunction with violence meted out by the so-called parakratos (para-state): that is, clandestine far-right paramilitary groups closely associated with the state security services. In contrast, the 1960s saw the effective mobilization of social protest and, in response, an intensification of repression by the state and its para-state adjuncts, fuelling, in turn, the radicalization
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of activists.9 Somewhat similarly to the experience of their Italian counterparts, the repression of Leftists in Greece and their sense of betrayal by the parliamentary Left cemented their sense of exclusion from a tightly managed political system.10 As activists escalated their demands, repressive policing followed. It was only after 1974 that the country was to belatedly experience a discrediting of the type of exclusionary and highly coercive forms of government that had already been rejected by other states across the continent in the aftermath of the Second World War. Even then, important continuities in state security policies served to maintain a sense of exclusion amongst anarchist and far-left activists.11 With the transition to democracy after 1974 came governmental efforts to draw a line under the violence that had been perpetrated during the dictatorship, both in terms of the systematic abuses carried out by the police, but also the attacks that had been carried out by leftist groups and which were now re-conceptualized as legitimate resistance to authoritarianism. Thus, on the one hand, the post-junta state was reluctant to prosecute police officers who had tortured citizens (leaving many private citizens to file their own lawsuits, two-thirds of which were to be dismissed on a technicality of the law). On the other hand, the national Constitution of 1975 reaffirmed the notional leniency accorded by law to so-called political crimes: crimes solely targeting the state, aiming to overturn or undermine it.12 The ambivalence on the part of the state formed part of a strategy to stabilise the process of democratic transition, given rumours of right-wing plans for further military coups and the fact that one amongst the most prominent of the anti-dictatorship groups that had openly espoused the legitimacy of armed struggle (PAK, the Panhellenic Liberation Movement) was being remolded into one of the two principal parties of the political system (PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement).13 Nevertheless (and akin to the case of Italy), the legacy of the countrys weak democratic traditions contributed to the polarized political culture of the 1970s.14 Rather than simply being the product of a set of increasingly disconnected social outcasts, the escalation of political violence within this period was highly dependent on the conditions provided by a divided political environment, and was driven by the antagonistic mobilizations of the farLeft and the far-Right in conjunction with police repression. The First Generation Although it was the emergence of groups from the far-Left which came to be regarded as the first generation of violent political organizations in democratic Greece, far-right groups also engaged in violence in the aftermath of the dictatorship. After the juntas fall, far-right groups launched a program of violence lasting several years, including physical attacks on journalists and a series of bombings at bookshops, cinemas, trade union offices, and left-wing organizations.15 The basic nuclei of the extreme Right deemed responsible for these attacks were arrested in 1979 and were sentenced to prison.16 One of those arrested for involvement in far-right political violence and at one point imprisoned for possession of weapons and explosives was Nikolaos Michaloliakos, who in the early 1980s established the fascistic far-right party Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn).17 It was later alleged that Michaloliakos was also receiving payment from the Greek Central Intelligence Agency during the same period (fuelling far-left fears about the continuation of the parakratos after the fall of the junta), an accusation that was rejected by Chrysi Avgi.18 Whilst allegations of involvement in violence continued to dog far-right
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groups, such violence was largely under-recorded, under-reported, and understudied, in contrast with the violence of far-left groups.19 Amongst far-Leftists, suspicions as to why this was the case were exacerbated by the apparent leniency shown by the Greek state towards right-wing violence in the aftermath of the dictatorship, and were compounded by the presence of ministers tainted by an association with fascism within the post-junta government.20 The underlying anxiety of the far-Left was that the advent of democracy was a mere fac ade behind which authoritarian governance was continuing. Far-left representation within the parliamentary system after the dictatorship was neither straight forward nor entirely effective. Whilst the Stalinist KKE (Kommounistiko Komma Elladas, known simply as the KKE) dominated the far-Left, the party had manouevred itself into a reformist position by the time the junta fell and its illegal status was lifted. For this reason, and in light of their persisting efforts to quell mobilization by the anarchist and radical Left, the entry into parliament of the KKE and the Eurocommunist KKE (KKE-Esoterikou, known as the KKE-es) meant that not all on the far-Left could be persuaded that their positions would be adequately represented within the established political system.21 Revolutionary anti-capitalist commitment was maintained by other far-left associations (from Maoists and Trotskyists to Italian-inspired autonomist anarchists), some of which subsequently contested parliamentary elections themselves.22 Such groups, which sometimes acted in collaboration with one another, were in turn criticized by the KKE for being removed from popular concerns and were accused of being provocateurs hired by the Right. Where they were able to evade being repelled by the Communists, these groups sought to raise public awareness and support for radical change, organizing political demonstrations, university occupations, and wildcat strikes.23 The arrival of the first socialist but increasingly centrist Greek government (of PASOK) in 1981 only reinforced their sense of exclusion from the political system.24 It was against this background that smaller groups had formed with the specific purpose of carrying out violent campaigns of political protest against what they saw as a superficial democratic transformation, castigating the rest for their disavowal of such methods, but maintaining between themselves often tense ideological and practical distinctions.25 Those that gained greatest prominence amongst these groups were ELA (Epanastatikos Laikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Popular Struggle) and 17N (Epanastatiki Organosi Dekaefta Noemvri, or Revolutionary Organization 17 November). ELA, an organization with Marxist-Leninist roots that aimed to stimulate the development of a mass revolutionary movement, was formed in 1975 and, until 1995 (when it declared an end to its activities), carried out over 100 low-level bombings aimed at symbolic targets of capitalist power (police, banks, government offices, and material and human targets associated with U.S. interests).26 It was affiliated with a magazine, Antipliroforisi (Counter-information), which circulated openly and was available from street-corner shops.27 The group was thought to have disbanded in response to the opening of Stasi intelligence files in Germany, which were believed to have revealed the names of its members.28 In 1979, a sub-sect of ELA calling itself Omada Iounis 78 (Group June 78) assassinated a retired intelligence officer and known torturer of the junta.29 Iounis 78 carried out no further acts and, six years later, their action was claimed by ELA as its own. ELA also became identified with the group Proti Mai (May 1), which killed a Deputy Supreme Court prosecutor in 1989.30 Proti Mai, which was thought by some observers to be
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comprised of members of 17N, operated alone between 1987 and 1989.31 In 1990, in an issue of Antipliroforisi, ELA announced its alliance with Proti Mai.32 ELA and Proti Mai then claimed joint responsibility for an attack in 1994 against a bus containing riot policemen, in which one, Apostolos Vellios, died and other officers sustained serious injuries.33 In 2003, six individuals suspected of ELA membership were arrested. The authorities were apparently satisfied with their arrests; one official source was cited at the time stating that, [s]hould we wish to arrest someone of higher rank in the ELA leadership, we would have to resurrect Christos Kassimis (the suspected founder of ELA, who had been killed by police during an exchange of fire in 1977).34 During the trial of five of the arrested suspects in 2004, and two months before the sentences were announced, the presiding judge was cited commenting that the evidence put forward by the prosecution was most insufficient, and that political pressure for the trial to conclude before the start of the Olympic Games (August 1329, 2004) had compromised the rights of the defendants.35 The trial ended in the acquittal of two and conviction of four, with the maximum possible sentence of 25 years imposed on those convicted.36 A second trial, in 2005, brought new charges against the six suspects. Two were entirely exonerated, all were acquitted of new charges, and all were found not guilty of the murder of Vellios.37 Finally, following a thirteen-month appeal, the four convicted in 2004 also saw their convictions overturned in December 2009, when the court acknowledged the lack of evidence against the individuals concerned.38 The self-described Marxist-Leninist organization 17N, named after the date of the student uprising whose crushing by the military heralded the waning of support for the dictatorship (and subsequently commemorated by an annual national holiday), was publicly launched in 1975 with the murder of the CIA station chief in Athens. 17N went on to kill a further twenty-two individuals (including a total of five U.S. Embassy employees), in addition to numerous bombings and a number of bank robberies. Their targets were identified by the relation they were judged to have with the forms of imperialism and corruption that the organization sought to destabilize, whether Greek, U.S., British, Turkish, or NATO. The organizations appearances were sporadic and included a temporary ceasefire between October 1981 and mid-1983 following the election of the first socialist (PASOK) government, purportedly to allow the latter some respite.39 The group began to unravel when, in June 2002, a bomb exploded prematurely in the hands of group member Savvas Xiros.40 He was taken to hospital where, under questioning (and allegedly under the influence of drugs administered there), he provided information that led to a number of other arrests and the discovery of an arms cache. Eventually, nineteen individuals were charged with membership of the group. Amongst those arrested was Yiannis Serifis (also a suspected member of ELA), who had previously been charged and acquitted of terrorism in the late 1970s during the dictatorship. He was released in December 2002, with the condition of a 430,000 bail payment, following an international campaign of protest at his arrest. Also arrested and subsequently acquitted was the former Trotskyist activist Theologos Psaradellis, who had been imprisoned and tortured under the dictatorship. Psaradellis admitted participating in a bank robbery in 1986, but both he and Serifis proclaimed themselves strongly ideologically opposed to the inhumanity of the violence perpetrated by 17N. Their arrests heightened concerns that the anti-dictatorship struggle was purposefully being embroiled in the hunt for 17N by individuals all too keen to see the anti-dictatorship struggle delegitimized and discredited as a whole.41
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The record nine-month mother of all trials concluded in December 2003, when the court convicted fifteen defendants as members of the group and acquitted four (including Serifis and Psaradellis) on grounds of insufficient evidence.42 The state demonstrated greater success in making the convictions stick after appeals than it had done in the ELA cases, although some charges were eventually dropped and convictions against two found guilty in 2003 were quashed due to the statute of limitations.43 The significant irregularities which also beset the prosecution and appeal processes of the suspected ideological leader of the group, Alexandros Giotopoulous, meant that he pursued a further appeal through the European Court of Human Rights.44
Political Violence Since 2000: Socio-Economic Strains, Political Radicalism, and the Spectrum of Violent Actors
Following the apparent dismantling in the early 2000s of violent groups run by the generation shaped by anti-dictatorship struggles, common expectations of a decline in political violence were clearly challenged by its resurgence. Assessments that, from the 1990s onwards, Greek political culture had been becoming increasingly moderate appeared overly optimistic as the frequency of recorded attacks by the new generation of covert far-left and anarchist associations rose in 2007, and gathered momentum after the social unrest of December 2008.45 Over the course of the same decade, incidents of violence by the police continued to surface and those by far-right groups intensified. In late 2010, numerous arrests were made of suspected members of the new generation, the impact of which is as yet unclear. As discussed below, and in line with Della Portas schema as presented in the introduction, behind the resurgence of organized political violence in the 2000s was a highly conducive socio-economic environment, a political establishment closed to radical demands, and a broader context of violence between sub-state groups, and between sub-state groups and the state. As the decade progressed, increasing unemployment (particularly high amongst the youth), steeply rising levels of household debt, successive grand corruption scandals, and financial crisis, fuelled social pressures and anxieties.46 Such pressures have to some extent been captured by successive pan-European public opinion surveys in which Greeks have reported significantly lower levels of trust in their countrys public institutions than the majority of their European counterparts have reported for theirs.47 The extensiveness of these anxieties appears, occasionally, to have drawn some political protesters towards spontaneous participation in violence (both Greeks and foreigners, and a wide range of age groups, even if the youth have been disproportionately represented), as spectacularly demonstrated in the protests of December 2008, but also in mass demonstrations since then.48 According to a public opinion poll carried out by the company Kappa Research in late 2010 and early 2011 on reactions to the countrys financial crisis, 14% percent of respondents recognized violence as a legitimate means of expression and making claims, whilst 10% expressed toleration towards the perpetration of damage to buildings and shops.49 Radicalization has not inevitably implied support for the legitimation of violent political strategies. Prominent radical Leftists have spoken out against all forms of political violence, pointing to the mutually reinforcing nature of state and non-state violence.50 The KKE has been staunch in its opposition to, and suspicion of, what it has characterized as the self-defeating nature of contemporary political violence. Indeed, broader public skepticism regarding the disorder into which public protests regularly descend has been fed by the diffusion of television footage repeatedly revealing masked
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and stick-wielding menpresumed to be violent anarchists responsible for dissolving mass political protests into violent clashes between themselves and the policeto be collaborating with the police during such protests and their riotous aftermath. On one relatively rare occasion where the identities of two alleged agents provocateurs were publicly exposed, they were found to be policemen with far-right affiliations.51 Since Greek state intelligence is known to have had a degree of success in infiltrating the fringes of the previous generation of violent far-left organizations, there have been suspicions that parts of the new generation of groups have been at least equally permeated, if not more so.52 The extra-parliamentary Left has been as skeptical as the KKE about the motivations of those perpetrating organized attacks that are lethal or less discriminate (i.e., attacks on small shops and businesses as well as large firms and state institutions), and have sought to clearly mark the distance between these acts and their own ideological positions.53 Indeed, there has been considerable controversy amongst far-Leftists and anarchists concerning a series of attacks by avowedly nihilistic anarchist groups against targets that have appeared incongruent with their overt political commitments.54 Both in Greece and abroad, members of the broader anarchist community have decried individualist-oriented strategies in which no clear program of demands is put forward, there is no clear desire to move with or for a common social cause, and violence is employed for the sake of hastening the collapse of the state (or possibly for its own sake).55 Despite occasional violent confrontations with more nihilistic anarchists (the latter often associated with the national anarchist movement Mavro Blok, or Black Block), leftist anarchists, also known as antiexousiastes (anti-authoritarians) and often associated with the anarchist movement Antiexousiastiki Kinisi (AK, or Antiauthoritarian Current), have not only expressed their opposition to what they view as the authoritarianism inherent to the lethal or potentially lethal actions of some new groups, but have also questioned the legitimacy of less-discriminate attacks against property.56 Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the modest rise in electoral support experienced since 1996 by the far-left parliamentary parties, the KKE and SYRIZA (Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras, or Coalition of the Radical Left, a successor of the KKE-es), far-left and anarchist positions have been unsatisfied by the representation these parties have offered. The KKE and SYRIZA have repeatedly failed to go sufficiently beyond sympathetic rhetoricif even affording thatto be considered sincere representatives within the established political system by all far-left and anarchist activists themselves. The KKE voiced strong opposition to the unrest of December 2008, for example. SYRIZA, on the other hand, has frequently been denounced by other parliamentary parties for failing to condemn political violence. If SYRIZAs gestures of ambivalence towards political violence have been intended to strengthen the credibility of the party amongst the far-Left and anarchists, and attract the latter to the more manageable terrain of parliamentary politics, this has not to date been a particularly successful strategy.57 Rather, it is plausible that the reportedly increasing numbers of individuals seeking membership of Greek anarchist associations have been driven to do so by the perceived inadequacies of far-left parliamentary parties.58 State Coercion and Far-Right Groups in the Escalation of Violence Compounding the tensions emerging from rising socio-economic strains and the problem of representation of far-left and anarchist views within the Greek parliament,
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violent interactions between far-left and anarchist activists, on the one hand, and the police and the far-Right, on the other, have been key to the escalation of the cycle of violence post-2000.59 As with the previous generation of violent far-left and anarchist groups, recurrent university student protests appear to have played a formative role in this regard, by providing opportunities for the accumulation of experiences of violent encounters with the police for a new generation.60 In addition, recent years have seen an increase of law enforcement measures that have been deployed against far-left and anarchist targets, including detentions, raids, and arrests of those participating in non-violent gatherings, from book launches to social clubs, as well as the introduction and broadening of repressive state policies, from punitive sanctions against those wearing hoodies, to prosecuting universities hosting the Greek branch of the independent media network Indymedia and, after political demonstrations have turned violent, to the random charging of lone juveniles with membership of forming a criminal organization.61 More generally, another important source of resentment and radicalization has been the disproportionate use of violence by front-line police officers, combined with the weakness of actions on the part of the administrative and political arms of the state to prevent or punish such violence.62 There are at least two police squads whose cultures of violence have made them the subject of public concern. Firstly, the armed riot police (the MAT), which are an ubiquitous and primary form of police presence at public demonstrations. They have repeatedly been recorded showing little restraint in their use of tear gas and clubbing (and, over latter years, stun grenades), even on occasions when those protesting have been the elderly, the blind, or striking policemen.63 Secondly, the Special Guardsestablished in 1999 to guard priority sites but who have since acquired normal policing dutieswho are also armed. The majority of Special Guards are former Special Forces officers of the Greek military, and are given 46 months training before taking on police duties.64 Their style of policing has been criticised for its aggressiveness, particularly after a Special Guard shot dead a fifteen-year-old boy in Exarchia, a bohemian district of Athens, in 2008.65 Compounding the impact of state coerciveness has been the perceived impunity accorded to far-right violence, and open collaboration between far-right activists and the police in violent engagements. The number of organized and spontaneous attacks against immigrant, far-left, and anarchist targets by groups of far-right activists appears to have climbed over the 2000s.66 By 2009, far-right mobilizations against immigrants in central Athens by platoon-like formations of around thirty to forty black-clad and capped individuals, armed with sticks, were regularly being reported in the media.67 These acquired greater public recognition in 2010, when their patrols became routine in the Athenian district of Agios Panteleimonas, a place of high tension between immigrant and Greek residents.68 The visibility of far-right violence reached a new level on May 12, 2011, with the daylight chasing and beating of immigrants by an estimated crowd of five hundred far-right extremists in central Athens (thought to include members of Chrysi Avgi, known as Chrysavgites), the reported injury of nineteen immigrants and six Greeks, and damage to the shops of immigrants.69 Furthermore, images of uniformed far-Rightists (suspected Chrysavgites) emerging from, or alongside, police ranks, armed with Molotov cocktails, batons, and knives, to attack anarchists and far-Leftists during demonstrations and riots, and even caught on film returning for protection behind those lines, has persuaded many of the existence of a close cooperative relationship between the far-Right and the
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police over recent years.70 One such illustration was provided on May 9, 2009, when dozens of far-right activists (again, suspected Chrysavgites) passed by police lines to attack Asian refugees housed in Omonia, central Athens, armed with shields, sticks, and grenades, leading to the injury of five immigrants. Cooperation between far-right activists and elements of the police became so blatant that in October 2009, the incoming PASOK Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis, publicly acknowledged the existence of the relationship, whilst vowing to seek an end to it and drawing attention to his efforts to see Chrysi Avgi outlawed.71 All this has emerged, however, during a period in which far-right sentiments have been gaining broader public support, and a context in which the scapegoating of immigrants has offered a convenient diversion for the two largest political parties from concerns about the countrys financial crisis, unemployment, and multiple grand corruption scandals.72 The differentiated performance and treatment of far-left and far-right violence has been telling in this regard; the fact, for example, that far-right activists have often made no effort to hide their faces during mobilizations, in contrast to the helmeted police and either helmeted or otherwise masked farLeftists and anarchists.73 The New Generation Some of the politically symbolic organized attacks to have taken place over the past decade, for which far-Leftists or anarchists have been the suspected perpetrators, have gone unclaimed by any organization or individual, including two lethal attacks. The first involved the shooting of a policeman on guard at the residence of the British on December 31, 2004, and the second involved the premature Military Attache explosion of a bomb which had the apparently unintended consequence of killing a fifteen-year-old Afghan boy and injuring his sister and mother.74 One letter-bomb attack, which killed the Head of Security at the Greek Ministry for Citizen Protection (formerly named the Ministry of Public Order) on June 24, 2009, was claimed by an unnamed organization which stated in its public proclamation of July 10, 2010, that it would announce its name on a later occasion.75 Attacks of unclear origin have also encompassed those involving a far lesser level of threat, such as the bombing of a McDonalds restaurant in Athens just after 4:30 a.m. on July 3, 2009, for which warning calls were made.76 As regards violent mobilization by covert far-left and anarchist organizations, a number of groups emerged to commit a few acts over the 2000s, and quietly ceased operations soon after. It has been suggested that, amongst them, approximately ten organizations proved more durable.77 A small number of groups reached particular prominence due to the frequency or seriousness of their attacks: Epanastatikos Agonas (Revolutionary Struggle), Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias (SPF, or Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, also translated as Conspiracy of Cells of Fire), Sehta Epanastaton (Sect of Revolutionaries or Rebel Sect) and, to a lesser extent, the Organosi Prostasias Laikou Agona (Organization for the Protection of the Popular Struggle). Below, a synopsis of some of the most important attacks and characteristics of these groups are presented. Of these groups, only Sehta Epanastaton has claimed responsibility for lethal attacks. There is little certainty, moreover, as to whether smaller, short-lived groups were absorbed by larger, more permanent organizations, or whether they were fronts for those seeking to cultivate the impression of a far more populous and diverse violent landscape. Law enforcement officers have
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speculated as to possible connections between the most prominent groups, arguing that there may be significant communication between them, or that they may even be branches of a single organization.78 In late 2010, for example, the Greek police suggested that two of the most active groups (Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias and Sehta Epanastaton) may have been led by the same individual.79 In October 2003, Epanastatikos Agonas was the first of the new generation to emerge, announcing its presence with the bombing of a courthouse complex in Athens that injured one policeman. The group subsequently carried out attacks against police, ministries, banks and, on one occasion, the petroleum firm Shell.80 One of its most prominent and audacious attacks, footage of which made international news, was a fire rocket that hit the U.S. Embassy in Athens just before dawn on January 12, 2007. Throughout 20072008, the group set off a number of low-level improvised incendiary devices, but increased the menace of its actions in late 2008, when it used a Kalashnikov to spray gunfire at a bus carrying riot police on December 23. The fact that no one was injured in the attack provoked cynical commentary from a convicted member of 17N, who suggested that only someone trained by the state could have been behind the incident.81 Epanastatikos Agonas then claimed responsibility for the shooting of policemen on duty outside the Greek Ministry of Culture on January 5, 2009, which left one victim critically injured. In February and March 2009, the group also placed two bombs at Citibank branches in Athens, one of which was so large that it could have levelled the building had it exploded. Authorities claimed they had not received warning in advance, but the group claimed it had tried to pass on a warning via a newspaper.82 In a manifesto, the group proclaimed its actions to be a response to the impunity of police violence, stating that attacks would continue if the Public Order Ministry were not to cease protecting rich thieves, criminal ministers and state officials.83 In this and other proclamations, the group set out its position as a far-left revolutionary organization, opposing capitalism, U.S. hegemony, and exploitative elites.84 Whilst expressing a lack of sympathy for the middle classes who support a rapacious system for their own capitalist-defined ends, the group has voiced the belief that their actions and convictions have been grounded in solidarity with the grass-roots struggles of Greeks. There have thus been some similarities between Epanastatikos Agonas and 17N with regard to their proclaimed ideological bases, tactics, and targets. Yet Epanastatikos Agonas has rebutted comparisons to 17N and emphasized that it takes precautions to avoid committing violence against bystanders.85 Nevertheless, police suspicions concerning those responsible for an attack in 2010 illustrated the reputation that had been gained by Epanastatikos Agonas as the countrys most militant violent group, since it was this group that was suspected of planting the parcel bomb which killed the Head of Security at the Greek Citizen Protection Ministry, although, as noted above, responsibility was later claimed by an unnamed organization.86 Following a shoot-out on March 21, 2010, which left one suspect dead, the police announced the discovery of the groups suspected hideout in April 2010, which also brought to light a sub-machine gun that had been stolen during a bank robbery in Thessaloniki in 2004. Following six arrests that were made shortly thereafter, the group was considered to have been dismantled.87 Three of the suspects accepted responsibility for a range of shootings and bombings that had taken place since 2003, but denied connection to any lethal attacks. One, Nikos Maziotis, had first been detained and then imprisoned as a conscientious objector in 1991 and 1993, respectively, during which time he undertook a hunger strike and received
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the support of Amnesty International.88 He later served 3 years in prison for an attempted bombing in 1997, and had been the subject of surveillance by the Greek intelligence service for a number of years (the reported cessation of his surveillance in 2008 subsequently becoming the subject of critical commentaries after his re-arrest in 2010).89 In mid-May 2011, after almost a year in custody, still awaiting trial, and having posted 43,000 bail payments, three of the suspects who had denied involvement in the group were granted conditional release, with restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.90 In October 2011, having completed the maximum 18 months of detainment in custody and shortly before the commencement of their trial, the remaining three suspects were released, also with restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.91 Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias was the second of the significant groups to emerge over the 2000s, which announced its presence with a range of gas canister attacks against car dealerships, banks, and the Public Power Company (DEI) in Athens and Thessaloniki, over the space of half an hour at midnight on January 21, 2008. Its actions were declared to be in support of the imprisoned anarchist Vangelis Voutsatzis. The group has committed numerous acts of arson, including, unusually, daytime strikes. In May 2009, the group used home-made explosives to strike at two police stations in Athens, and issued a proclamation deliberating on revolutionary terrorism, in a rare example of self-designating the term. In June 2009, the group claimed joint responsibility with a lesser-known group (with whom they then continued to cooperate), Fraxia Mideniston (Nihilist Faction), for a home-made timebomb placed outside the home of a former Minister of Public Order. On December 27, 2009, Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias, in co-operation with a newly emerged Andartiki Omada Terroriston (Guerilla Team of Terrorists), used a four-member unit to plant a bomb that destroyed the entrance to a prominent building on Syngrou Avenue (one of the central thoroughfares of Athens), preceding the attack with a warning call to newspapers. Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias also claimed responsibility for a bomb which exploded outside the Greek Parliament on January 9, 2010.92 Following the fire-bombing of a Marfin Bank branch in Athens during demonstrations held on May 5, 2010, against the IMF and national austerity measures, which caused the deaths of three people, the group issued a statement accounting, but not claiming responsibility, for the incident. The organization has described itself as an urban guerilla group and has issued statements railing against consumer society and its ills. It has also rejected the notion that its acts of urban warfare are, or should be, a means to an end, claiming rather that they are an end in themselves. On several occasions, it has also voiced support not only for anarchist prisoners but also for an imprisoned member of 17N.93 Some anarchists and Leftists have responded skeptically to the apparent honoring of a far-Leftist by an anarchist group, given that many anarchists are opposed in principle to the authoritarianism inherent to the use of violence. Nevertheless, it is by no means the first time that Greek anarchists appear to have mobilized in support of 17N.94 Following raids on apartments in the suburbs of Athens in autumn 2009, Greek police arrested four suspected members of Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias (and, in early 2010, a further individual who had previously been arrested at demonstrations during the European Social Forum in Athens in 2006). On October 5, 2010, the organization responded with a series of bombings across Athens and a statement both vowing revenge and denying that those arrested had any connection with the group.95 The attacks did continue; in March 2010, Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias
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claimed responsibility for a succession of bombings at a police immigrant detention centre, the home of a Pakistani Community Leader, and at offices of Chrysi Avgi.96 A few months later, the group issued the text addressing the aforementioned lethal firebombing incident of May 2010.97 In November 2010, small packages of explosives were sent to a dozen foreign targets in Greece and abroad. Given that the event occurred only a few days before local elections at which a budget-slashing Greek government had threatened to stake its position, much hyperbolic public debate ensued. A number of prominent politicians, terrorism experts, and media commentators voiced defiance towards the episode which they claimed threatened, but would fail, to destabilize Greek democracy and society.98 To the dismay of some, the general public appeared to be little perturbed by the whole affair.99 This was not altogether surprising, since the packages were soon intercepted by police after an employee of a courier company received a minor burn from one. In a demonstration of unparalleled efficiency, two men carrying guns and two parcel bombs were immediately apprehended by police nearby.100 The men maintained a silence after their arrest but were confirmed as members of the group, along with another arrested suspect, by a proclamation purportedly from Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias published several weeks later, in which the group claimed responsibility for the series of parcel bombs.101 The trial of a total of nine suspects accused of membership of the group began in January 2011. In July 2011, the court unanimously convicted six of the defendants, handing down what were viewed by some as heavy sentences (heavier, indeed, than had been requested by the prosecuting authorities) for relatively innocuous acts.102 Two of those convicted received prison sentences of 25 years each, one a sentence of 20 years, three others sentences of 11 years each, and one a sentence of just under three years.103 By late 2011, however, investigations carried out under the instruction of the Court of Appeal found that witnesses could not identify the four accused of delivering the parcel bombs to the courier company and could support an alibi that had been provided by one of the four.104 The third of the major groups of the new generation, Sehta Epanastaton, emerged in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a fifteen-year-old in December 2008, an event which ignited a month of nationwide social unrest. Police have speculated that the group was formed by disgruntled members of Epanastatikos Agonas.105 The first appearance of the group was an attack in which grenades were thrown and a sub-machine gun was fired at a police station in Athens on February 3, 2009. It then issued a proclamation, left on the grave of the teenager, threatening violence against the police and prominent figures of the Greek establishmentfrom journalists to media stars, and from businessmen to public officials and politicianswhilst claiming responsibility for the police station attack.106 On February 17, 2009, the group fired shots and threw an explosive device (which failed to detonate) at Alter, a leading private television station. In June 2009, the group shot and killed a policeman guarding the house of the key state witness in the ELA case during the period in which the appeal of suspected members was being heard in court.107 Police later announced that cartridge casings from the scene were identified as having been emitted from a weapon already used by that organization.108 The logic of the target was not self-evident, especially since the weakness of testimony supplied by the witness in question was already well-known and duly ensured the success of the appeal within the ensuing six months. The following year, on July 19, they carried out a second and even more unusual lethal attack, on the investigative journalist Sokratis Giolias. In this attack, they again used weapons which the police were able to match with their previous attacks, and a
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week after the event also provided a document in which they claimed responsibility and provided photographic evidence of their weapons cache.109 In terms of its ideological leanings, Sehta Epanastaton has espoused anti-capitalist anarchist principles, voicing criticisms of consumerism, as well as elitist structures of governance and their supporters amongst the middle classes. Nevertheless, its public statements have repeated a preference for targeted lethal violence (and the group has thus been disavowed by many anarchists), a lack of empathy for all those not committed to revolution, and a rejection of structuralist analysis of the economic system (thereby distantiating themselves from far-left groups).110 Finally, the Organosi Prostasias Laikou Agona, named after a notorious Stalinist militia active under the German occupation and civil war periods (mid- and late 1940s), struck on October 27, 2009: two men on motorbike opened fire with an assault rifle on policemen standing outside a local police station in Athens. Five of the policemen were injured, two seriously. The old-fashioned Stalinism of the proclamation subsequently sent to the media raised considerable skepticism amongst the police as to its authenticity, and the KKE scorned the text as a spoof pastiche whilst voicing concerns that it could be the work of agents provocateurs.111
Expert, Political, and Media Views on the Evolution of Political Violence

As suggested in the introduction, expert, political, and media commentaries on contemporary political violence in Greece have focused their attention on what has been regarded as the novel features of the new generation of violent covert far-left and anarchist groups, as well as on the factors that are believed to have characterized the successes and failures of intelligence and law enforcement engaged in their suppression. Numerous accounts of violence perpetrated by covert far-left and anarchist groups over recent years have pointed to superficial qualities of their purported motives, often as qualities which distinguish them from their predecessors. Suggestions have been made, for example, that actions have been carried out by entirely insincere agents provocateurs working for actors with very different political objectives than those stated in the published proclamations of the groups.112 Alternatively, it has been proposed that violent actions have amounted to a method of social signaling amongst colleagues, and have thus been perpetrated with the primary aim of either demonstrating support for, or consolidating support from, similarly-committed individuals and groups (whether domestically or internationally).113 Others have contended that the published proclamations of covert groups have revealed the latter to be unsophisticated actors lacking serious ideological arguments, who are ideologically vacuous or have no ideological approach, and are willing to engage in senseless violence with no interest in attracting popular support, explaining their actions, or providing any realistic vision of a political alternative.114 To some extent, these interpretations have mirrored those critical of the social unrest of December 2008 (whose participants were also accused of mindless violence), although accounts of the unrest have been far more varied than those of covert groups operating since the 2000s.115 As regards the unrest, for example, numerous accounts drew attention to the influence of a legacy of radical politics, alongside the grievances of a youth shaped by the predicament of being overeducated, underemployed, and exploited, the frustrations generated by a broader conjunction of systemic failures across Greek social, economic, and political life, and the problems associated with the organized representation of far-left positions within the parliamentary political
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system.116 As with violence carried out by covert far-left and anarchist groups, questions have been raised about the psychological make-up of those participating in the unrest of December 2008, with suggestions that violence was perpetrated by those variously portrayed as apolitical, bored, and possibly drug-induced, middleclass youths, who selfishly attacked the property of those less fortunate; the workers themselves.117 Whereas this has meant that the character of the violence of December 2008 was, for some observers, purely criminal, in the case of covert groups it has meant that they have been argued to be more appropriately defined as organized criminal associations, rather than as terrorists or as groups engaged in political crime.118 Indeed, this point has been underscored by the suggestion that anarchists and far-left groups of the new generation forged novel bonds of cooperation with criminals (including during the imprisonment of both).119 In turn, the above interpretations have influenced assessments of the actions of the new generation. Thus, it has been proposed that an environment of unprecedented danger and brutality has been cultivated by the most recent generation of violent political groups, who have no qualms about attacking everywhere and whenever without hesitation as to the number and identity of their victims.120 There have even been comparisons made between their violence with that perpetrated by violent sub-state groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the suggestion that the new generation has heralded the spectre of mass, indiscriminate killings in Greece, and even that Greece has acquired an international reputation equal to that of Yemen for exporting terrorism.121 The justifications made for such assessments have been weak, however, citing the shootings of police, the large-scale bomb placed at Citibank (which did not explode), the bomb attack on a McDonalds restaurant that was closed for the evening (and for which a warning was confirmed to have been called in), and the series of letter bombs that caused only one minor injury and minimal damage.122 Moreover, the most recent generation of covert far-left and anarchist groups have clearly drawn on a repertoire of acts associated with the previous generation, from issuing public proclamations to conducting a wide range of similar types of attacks, against similar types of targets. The killing committed by Sehta Epanastaton of the witness in the ELA trial, for example, was strongly reminiscent of the tactics used by 17N: gunmen on motorcycles striking targets in vehicles that were following routine schedules. The targets of the new generation have also remained close to those of the previous generation; from banks, to security installations, to politicians and foreign diplomats, the police, and firms with an international identity, and also occasionally, those less-discriminate.123 Equally, groups of the new generation have been portrayed as a greater threat because of their alleged organizational affiliations with international criminal networks and transnational associations of activists.124 Police sources have suggested that the latter generation have used criminal gangs to supply them with weaponry, that they have committed robberies and are connected to bank robbers, and have been enhanced at crucial periods of activity with expertise and assistance from foreign counterparts. Again, there has been a tendency from certain quarters to entertain more messianic hypotheses, such as those involving connections to violent Islamic extremism. One strand of argument running through some public commentaries has warned, for instance, of an impending domestic rise of Islamic terrorism emerging from the growing numbers of Muslims living in Greece since the 1990s, and possibly collaborating with Greek groups engaged in political violence.125 Allegations were
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even made that Islamic jihadist networks were in some way responsible for the forest fires that ravaged Greece in 2007.126 To an extent, these theses may be regarded as the product of a broader discourse associating immigrants with crime, which has been sustained by discriminatory law enforcement practices that have served to justify such concerns.127 As stated by the head of EYP, the Greek Intelligence Agency, in May 2009, however, [t]he concern may be there, but there is not a single kernel of proof that militant Islamists have either entered the country or that Muslims residing here are turning radical.128 Once again, apposite here is the way in which similar anxieties lingered on the fringe of commentaries addressing the previous generation of violent political groups in Greece. 17N was also suspected of relationships with a range of foreign terrorist and criminal organizations, not to mention agents provocateurs and foreign intelligence agencies.129 After the arrest and conviction of its members, however, most observers seemed convinced that the very tightness of the group had ensured that any contacts with Islamist terrorism had been insignificant to their operations.130 As was also demonstrated by the prosecutions against ELA and 17N, the groups offered precedents in turning to crime to fund and arm their activities. Commentators have also focused on the strengths and weaknesses of state actions to counter the new generation of violent far-left and anarchist groups. In particular, despite widespread consensus that the competency of the Greek counterterror police unit benefited from significant investment from the late 1990s onwards, its effectiveness, as well as the extent of the apparently deepened commitment by the state to combating political violence, have been subject to growing debate. A dominant narrative has referred to a transformation in the commitment to, and effectiveness of, Greek counter-terrorism efforts as a factor that contributed decisively to ending the lifecycle of the first generation of covert violent far-left groups. Until the arrest of members of 17N, explanations of the failure on the part of the Greek state to apprehend any of the group over a twenty-nine-year period had distributed blame between the historical legacy of the dictatorship which was said to have made more rigorous and effective counter-terrorism policies politically and socially unconscionable, the complicity or political embarrassment of PASOK politicians which led to their disinterest and disengagement from the issue, and police and intelligence agency incompetence, numerous examples of which left little space for confidence in their efforts.131 After the successful capture, prosecution, and imprisonment of group members, the reputation of Greek law enforcement agencies saw significant rehabilitation. Explanations for the long-delayed capture of the group began to emphasize more the impersonal responsibility of historical ideological legacies than the ineptitude of law enforcement agencies themselves in hampering effective counter-terrorist policies. By contrast, the movement towards a stronger European orientation on the part of the Greek state over the longer term, combined with the impending pressures of hosting the 2004 Olympic games in the shorter term, were recognized as playing an important role in the creation of a more favorable climate for effective action by the Greek state and its international partners. Attention turned to the intelligence successes that preceded by a number of years the capture of group members and, consequently, to the argument that part of the delay in apprehending the group had been caused by law enforcement agencies paying appropriate professional care to the strategic necessity of gathering enough evidence against the suspects (i.e., by catching them in flagrante delicto) to ensure watertight convictions. Furthermore, once details of the groups
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structure were revealed, commentators could also point to the difficulties inherent to uncovering such a secretive, small, and tight-knit group of terrorists, even if the same features ultimately led to its swift unraveling.132 Additionally, the thesis of elite responsibility was refreshed, if this time with a positive emphasis; PASOK Minister of Public Order, Michalis Chrysochoidis, was credited with instigating meaningful co-operation between Greek law enforcement agencies and their British and U.S. counterparts, thereby facilitating a substantial upgrading and re-organizing of Greek counter-terror efforts in the years immediately preceding the arrests.133 Nevertheless, dissenting voices have questioned the extent to which the capture of suspected members of first-generation groups truly demonstrated either the dismantling of these organizations or the enhanced effectiveness of Greek counterterrorism policy. A day following the publication of photos of arrested suspected members of 17N in July 2002, for example, a proclamation apparently authored by elusive members of 17N was sent to the media, which defended the record of 17N and asserted its continued existence and operational capabilities.134 Some (including the lawyer for the prosecution, Alexandros Lycourezos) suggested that not all, or even only relatively unimportant, members of 17N had been arrested and that other members might be involved in the generation of groups operating subsequently.135 These criticisms proved persuasive; the file on 17N was reopened in the winter of 2009 in order to search for up to a dozen further members thought to be at large.136 As regards ELA, not only did prosecutions ultimately end in failure for the state (as noted above), but in 1996, only one year after ELA had officially ceased to exist, a new organization emerged under the name Epanastatikoi Pyrines (Revolutionary Nuclei) which, due to similarities in its operations and the language of its proclamations, was believed to have been formed by a number of past members of ELA. Alongside 17N, Epanastatikoi Pyrines carried out dozens of low-level bombings of symbolic targets with improvised devices over the late 1990s (its last confirmed attack taking place in 2000). Finally, despite the expectations of the Greek authorities in early 2010 that they had identified almost all of the members of the major covert far-left and anarchist groups operating by the late 2000s, and that they would be able to dismantle all by mid-2010, as of September 2011, no arrests had yet taken place of suspected members of the most lethal group, Sehta Epanastaton.137 Recognition of an apparent pattern of omissions and weaknesses has underpinned negative assessments of the states capacities to put an end to political violence perpetrated by covert far-left and anarchist groups. Reminiscent of the argument that the arrests of 17N suspects owed more to an accident that befell a group member than to the new competency of the Greek police counter-terror division, several commentators have pointed to the importance of luck and chance encounters in providing more recent police successes, and the approach of the state has once more been disparaged from some quarters as apparently lethargic [ . . . ] if not indifferent.138 Whilst these perspectives have challenged the romanticism of dominant accounts of state interventions against political violence, appreciation of other macro-level factors that have shaped the emergent cycle of violence, such as the dynamics of interactions between different groups and state authorities, have remained minimal. Following official records, commentaries have commonly neglected the role of far-right actions from examinations of political violence in Greece, which has ensured that an important part of the picture has often been left out of the frame of analysis.139 The Greek state has long failed to collect data on racist violence or racially-motivated
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crimes. Indeed, for a full thirty years, not a single published legal judgment applied Law 972=1979, which provides for the punishment of acts or conducts aimed at racial discrimination, with the first known application of the law in criminal courts taking place in 2010.140 Nevertheless, media and non-governmental bodies have increasingly recorded and highlighted such violence. Rather, then, than being hindered by a lack of reporting, one possible explanation for the neglect of far-right violence by commentaries on the development of political violence since the 2000s may be because its targetsunlike those of far-left and anarchist groupshave tended not to include state representatives or institutions, and have more typically targeted immigrants as well as those of the far-Left and anarchists. In fact, for those who consider the state to have neglected its responsibilities in policing immigrants and providing Greeks with the protection from immigrants that they believe they need, it is especially in the act of targeting immigrants that far-right violence may be interpreted as supportive of the state. Indeed, such interpretations have been referenced in assessments of sympathetic local responses to the regular deployment of uniformed and club-wielding far-right platoons that intimidate and attack immigrants in the Agios Panteleimonas district of Athens.141
Conclusion: Macro-Level Analysis and Policy Implications

In considering the applicability of Della Portas tripartite analytical framework to the case of groups engaged in covert political violence in Greece since the mid-1970s, two complications become apparent. The first is that the lifecycles of violent groups have overlapped, rather than succeeded each other.142 The second and related complication is the possibility that there has been an overlap in the membership of groups from different generations. Notwithstanding these caveats, macro-level factors appear as vital to explaining the emergence of organized political violence in Greece as they have proved to explaining the emergence of the phenomenon elsewhere in Europe. As cautioned by Della Porta, cycles of political violence cannot be directly attributed either to the extensiveness of radical ideological predispositions within a society, or to the breadth of the legitimacy gap experienced by the state in public opinion. Important macro-level stimuli of a cycle of violence do include, however, a parliamentary political system that fails to sufficiently address the concerns of radicals, that relies excessively on the deployment of state coercion, and that appears to condone far-right violence. Moreover, in terms of the role played by the socio-economic environment, both contemporary and longer-term trends are key conditioning factors. As regards longer-term trends, there are ramifications for the Greek case stemming from recent research which has found a significant relationship between national social welfare systems and experiences of homegrown far-left covert groups engaged in violence in Western Europe.143 The research found not only that higher social spending is consistently associated with lower levels of such violence, but also that particular forms of welfare spending may affect the propensity of a society to experience such violence. More specifically, societies whose welfare spending targeted the youth environment by generating better opportunities over a raft of pertinent areas (such as healthcare and active labor market programs) were effective in lowering the risk of political violence, whilst spending on programs that did not directly affect youth populations (e.g., universal, housing, and family benefits) was less effective. More broadly, whilst
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welfare regimes that succeeded in fostering greater social equality were less vulnerable to experiencing political violence, higher levels of de-commodification were even more important to reducing vulnerability. These are highly pertinent findings for a country such as Greece, in which levels of poverty and inequality have, since the mid-1980s, stubbornly remained amongst the highest in the EU, and whose relatively low levels of welfare provision have always been concentrated in spending on pensions. The structure of welfare provision in Greece was designed to facilitate social stability through the successive clientelistic co-option of sectoral interests, and has disproportionately benefitted those with middle-class incomes more than effectively reduce poverty (social transfers in Greece have had far less impact in reducing poverty than similarly-targeted transfers by other EU member-states).144 This strategy has clearly come at a cost. There has been a consistent neglect of the young, with active labor market programs practically nonexistent, levels of investment in research and development activities by the Greek state amongst the lowest in the EU-27, and youth unemployment amongst the highest of the EU-27. There is a burgeoning problem as an increasingly educated youth population faces a small, unsuitable, and unappealing job market, rising strains on familial mechanisms of support, an intensifying materialist culture, and witnesses evermounting examples of impunity towards grand corruption and clientelism alike.145 Given the crisis in the finances of the Greek state, it is unclear how, if at all, problems relating to welfare provision and job creation will be managed. Equally, it is evident that problems associated with the inadequacies of radical representation within the formal political system will be exacerbated if the contingent of anarchists and far-Leftists who feel unable to support parliamentary politics continues to increase, and, at the same time, far-right opinion steadily gains greater ground within the parliamentary system. Despite the growth of international interest in the subject of political violence in Greece over recent years, there has been little attempt to provide a theoretical framework for understanding its repeated resurgence or to go beyond narrowly-defined analyses of the trajectories of individual group members, group features, and state responses. As this article has sought to show, the study of political violence in Greece requires a far broader analytical approach if questions about the resurgence and escalation of political violence are to be comprehensively answered. Identifying the factors that generate cycles of violence also carries important policy implications for the Greek state. Whilst the reasons for radicalization and violence are being exacerbated rather than positively addressed, the efficiency and effectiveness of channeling greater investment of resources and hopes into intelligence and law-enforcement strategies can only be doubted.
Notes
1. The application of far-leftist or anarchist appellations to covert groups and instances of political violence in contemporary Greece is not without its controversies and pitfalls. For the purposes of shorthand, however, and in addition to evidence of certain basic characteristics of far-leftist and anarchist thought (radical anti-capitalist and anti-state sentiments in particular) which such groups appear to promotenot least since these are ideological markers with which, on occasion, they have self-identifiedthese broad labels are also used in this paper. A rich archive of proclamations from a variety of radical groups operating in Greece between 1975 and 2010 has been gathered by former U.S. Foreign Service Officer John Brady Kiesling and made publicly available at https:==docs.google.com=leaf?id0Bxsw
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DOCtp5r2ZWE0 Mjc4OWUtMGY3Mi00YmMyLWEzZDctNDA3MzBlODI0NThm&sort name&layoutlist&num50 (accessed 17 May 2011). 2. To offer some regional contextualization, according to the Global Terrorism Database, Greece experienced over half the number of terrorist incidents as Italy between 1970 and 2008 (893 and 1494 incidents, respectively), whilst Germany experienced less than half the number of those which took place in Italy (554). The peak numbers of incidents recorded in Greece have never gone above one hundred (usually hovering between the upper 40s and lower 60s), in contrast to recorded peaks of incidents in Italy and Germany. See further the Global Terrorism Database, START, available at http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ (accessed 7 May 2011); EUROPOL, EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report TE-SAT (The Hague: European Police Office, 2007-2011), available at http://www.europol.europa.eu/index.asp?page= publications (accessed 17 May 2011). 3. See, e.g., George Karyotis, The Securitisation of Greek Terrorism and the Arrest of the Revolutionary Organization November 17, Cooperation and Conflict 42, no. 3 (2007): 271293; Christos Kollias, Petros Messis, Nikolaos Mylonidis, and Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, Terrorism and the Effectiveness of Security Spending in Greece: Policy Implications and Some Empirical Findings, Journal of Policy Modeling 31 (2009): 802-788; Christos Floros and Bruce Newsome, Building Counter-Terrorism Capacity Across Borders: Lessons from the Defeat of Revolutionary Organization 17N, Journal of Security Sector Management 6, no. 2 (July 2008): 114. 4. George Kassimeris, For a Place in History: Explaining Greeces Revolutionary Organization 17 November, Journal of Conflict Studies 27, no. 2 (2007): 129145. 5. See respectively, Athanasios G. Konstandopoulos and Theodore Modis, Urban Guerrilla Activities in Greece, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 72, no. 1 (2005): 4958 at 57; George Kassimeris, Last Act in a Violent Drama? The Trial of Greeces Revolutionary Organization 17 November, Terrorism and Political Violence 18, no. 1 (2006): 137157 at 154. 6. A recent exception, offering a largely descriptive account of the new group Revolutionary Struggle, is George Kassimeris, Greeces New Generation of Terrorists: The Revolutionary Struggle, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34, no. 3 (2011): 199211. 7. For explanatory accounts of political violence in Greece between 1974 and 2003, see indicatively: Daphne Biliouri and Tamara Makarenko, Is This The End of 17N?, Janes Intelligence Review 14, no. 9 (2002): 610; Alexis Papahelas and Tassos Telloglou, File on 17 November [in Greek] (Athens: Hestia, 2002); Konstandopoulos and Modis (see note 5 above); P. A. Krythimou, Greek Justice Unmasked: The Painful Experiences of the Prosecutor who Discovered 17N [in Greek] (Athens: Eleftheri Dikaiosyni, 2005); Karyotis (see note 3 above); George Kassimeris, For a Place in History (see note 4 above); Floros and Newsome (see note 3 above). However, a broader account of the first generation of politically violent groups that addresses their trajectory until 2001 has been provided by George Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists: The Revolutionary Organization 17 November (London: Hurst, 2001). See also John Brady Kiesling, Explosions in Athens: Violent Greek Politics, 19692011 (unpublished manuscript, 2011). 8. Donatella Della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 9. Konstandopoulos and Modis (see note 5 above); Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above). 10. On the Italian case, see Della Porta (see note 8 above), 193194. 11. It was not until 1989, for example, that the Greek government finally took steps to destroy 16.5 million intelligence files that had been compiled by the Greek police and intelligence services since 1944 on the political and private sentiments of Greek citizens. Yet this constituted destruction of less than half of all the (41.2 million) police files that had been created since 1981: Minas Samatas, Surveillance in Greece: From Anticommunist to Consumer Surveillance (New York: Pella, 2004), 64. See further Leonidas K. Cheliotis and Sappho Xenakis, Whats Neoliberalism Got to Do With It? Towards a Political Economy of Punishment in Greece, Criminology & Criminal Justice 10, no. 4 (2010): 353373. 12. See further Sappho Xenakis, Organized Crime and Political Violence, in Leonidas K. Cheliotis and Sappho Xenakis (eds.), Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives (Oxford: Peter Lang AG, 2011), 241287.
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13. See further Papahelas and Telloglou (see note 7 above), 45; Konstantinos Ifantis, From Factionalism to Autocracy: PASOKs De-Radicalisation during the Regime Transition pez Nieto (eds.), Factional of the 1970s, in Richard Gillespie, Michael Waller, and Lourdes Lo Politics and Democratization (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1995), 7789. 14. On the weakness of post-dictatorship lustration actions in Greece, see Neovi M. Karakatsanis, The Politics of Elite Transformation: The Consolidation of Greek Democracy in Theoretical Perspective (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001). On the Italian case, see Della Porta (see note 8 above), 192194. 15. Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above), 56; Robert McDonald, Pillar and Tinderbox: The Greek Press and the Dictatorship (New York & London: Marion Boyars, 1983), 187188. 16. Stamos Zoulas, Terror Unfettered as No One Took Charge, Kathimerini, 26 August 2002. 17. The Black Bible of Chrysi Avgi [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 2 July 1998; Seraphim Seferiades, Polarisation and Nonproportionality: The Greek Party System in the Postwar Era, Comparative Politics 19, no. 1 (1986): 6995; see further Xenakis, Organized Crime and Political Violence (see note 12 above); Vassilis Nedos, Greek Right: The Rotten Egg of the Snake [in Greek], To Vima, 11 September 2005. In addition to its far-right ideology, examples of use by Chrysi Avgi of imagery and practices redolent of fascist and Nazi influences (such as the flag design and roman salute; see further the organizations website at http:// xryshaygh.wordpress.com/) have meant the party is also commonly characterised as neo-fascist. 18. This allegation was supported by the publication of what appeared to be a copy of the Intelligence Agencys official salary records, reproduced in Charis J. Kousoumvris, Demolishing the Myth of Chrysi Avgi [in Greek] (Piraeus: Erevos, 2004), 9. The document in question was denounced as a forgery by Chrysi Avgi, whose website has cited the decision (no. 52803= 04) of an Athenian Court of the First Instance in May 2004 to convict an individual related to the far-right party LAOS for defamation and repeated use of a forged document which was the basis for the allegation. Chrysi Avgi has retained a reputation for intimidation and violence and by 2011 constituted the largest of the extra-parliamentary far-right groups. Following local elections in November 2010, where the party attracted 5.5% of the vote, Michaloliakos took up a seat on the Athens City Council (see Muslims Mark Eid with Outdoor Prayers: Tension Ensues, Athens News, 16 November 2010). Attempts were repeatedly made by the far-right parliamentary party LAOS to include Chrysi Avgi members as candidates for municipal or national office but these efforts were abandoned due to negative political and press reactions; see, e.g., Dancing with Greeces Extreme Right, Kathimerini, 17 October 2007. 19. See, e.g., The Cache of Karamanlis: The Forgotten Terrorism [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 29 September 2002. The centre-right broadsheet newspaper Kathimerini has proposed exactly the opposite thesis, that the rare actions of far-right fringe groups have always overexcited the democratic sensibilities of those in the media who systematically underestimated the actions of real terrorists, implying those of the far-left 17N group and its welldocumented lethality (Zoulas, see note 16 above). As elaborated further below, however, there is considerable consensus of the existence of official and scholarly lacunae on the subject of violence perpetrated by the far-Right and the underreporting of crimes (such as those motivated by a racist ideology) in which they are believed to regularly engage. 20. See further Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above). 21. See, e.g., ibid.; Christos Giovanopoulos and Dimitris Dalakoglou, From Ruptures to Eruption: A Genealogy of the December 2008 Revolt in Greece, in Antonis Vradis and Dimitris Dalakoglou (eds.), Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come (London: AK Press=Occupied London, 2011), 91114. 22. See further Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above), 5664. See also, indicatively, the list of parties contesting national elections over the decade of the 2000s, as listed on the elections information website of the Greek Ministry of the Interior at http://ekloges.ypes.gr. 23. On the significant patterns of collective protest (labour strikes, political demonstrations, student strikes, and occupations) in the years after the fall of the dictatorship, see further Nikos Serdedakis, Democratisation and Collective Action in Post-Junta Greece (19741981), paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research General
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Conference, Pisa, 68 September 2007. Available at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/ generalconference/pisa/papers/PP389.pdf (accessed 20 July 2011). 24. Indeed, under the PASOK government surveillance targets were re-characterised as anarchists rather than leftist=communists, although communists in general and the KKE still remained subject to surveillance: Samatas (see note 11 above), 5254. On the swift move to centrist politics by PASOK, see Ifantis (see note 13 above); Seferiades (see note 17 above). 25. Panagiotis Kalamaras, There Were Many People Who Felt We Had an Unfinished Revolution, in A. G. Schwarz, T. Sagris, and Void Network (eds.), We Are an Image From the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008 (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010), 1416; Alkis, December is a Result of Social and Political Processes Going Back Many Years, in A. G. Schwarz et al., op. cit., 813, 294299. 26. ELA Architect Behind Bars, Makes Partial Confession, Kathimerini, 5 February 2003; ELA Four Get 25 Years, Kathimerini, 12 October 2004. 27. Christos I. Chalazias, The Ideology of Revolutionary Popular Struggle: The Texts [in Greek] (Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 2003). 28. Dora Antoniou, Fighting Revolutionary Popular Struggle, Revolutionary Nuclei, Kathimerini, 4 February 2002. 29. Tassos Telloglou, The Turbulent History of ELA [in Greek], To Vima, 9 February 2003. 30. Ioanna Mandrou, Five In, Five Out for ELA 1st May [in Greek], To Vima, 24 August 2003. 31. Vassilis Lambropoulos, The Hide-and-Seek between the Hellenic Police and ELA [in Greek], To Vima, 9 February 2003. 32. Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above), 100. 33. ELA Sentencing Delayed, Kathimerini, 8 October 2004. 34. ELA Architect Behind Bars, Kathimerini, 5 February 2003. 35. ELA Four Get 25 Years, Kathimerini, 12 October 2004. 36. Tsigaridas Describes ELA to Court, Kathimerini, 9 July 2004. 37. Prosecutors Call for Kassimis, Serifis to be Freed, 4 Convicts to be Sentenced, Kathimerini, 8 June 2005; ELA Acquitted, ERA, 1 July 2005. 38. Innocent: The Three Defendants of the ELA Trial [in Greek], Kathimerini, 4 December 2009. 39. Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above). 40. Kassimeris notes that early media reports of the incident speculated that Xiros was a member of Revolutionary Cells or Popular Resistance, two other minor domestic groups that had been active around that time: Kassimeris, Last Act in a Violent Drama? (see note 5 above). 41. Dimitris Kastriotis, Heroes and Villains, Kathimerini, 19 July 2002. 42. Kassimeris, Last Act in a Violent Drama? (see note 5 above). 43. 17N Appeal is Rejected, Kathimerini, 4 May 2007; 17N Sentences Could be Trimmed, Kathimerini, 8 May 2007; 17N Sentences, Kathimerini, 10 May 2007. 44. The appeal was due to be heard in January 2011, and the defendants case was presented to the court in April 2011 (the appeal process was ongoing as of September 2011): Valia Kaimaki, In January Yiotopoulos Appeal at the European Court [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 24 November 2010; Valia Kaimaki, Witch Hunt Trial of Yiotopoulos [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 17 April 2011. A list of these regularities was presented by his lawyer to the Greek Appeals Court in 2007. Katerina Kati and Panagiotis Stathis, What Will You Reply to the European Court? [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 23 March 2007; see also Kassimeris, For a Place (see note 4 above), 144145. 45. On the unrest of December 2008, see, e.g., Andreas Kalyvas, An Anomaly? Some Reflections on the Greek December 2008, Constellations 17, no. 2 (2010): 351365. 46. See Cheliotis and Xenakis, Whats Neoliberalism Got to Do With It? (see note 11 above); Leonidas K. Cheliotis and Sappho Xenakis, Crime, Fear of Crime and Punitiveness, in Leonidas K. Cheliotis and Sappho Xenakis (eds.), Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives (Oxford: Peter Lang AG, 2011), 143; Xenakis, Organized Crime and Political Violence (see note 12 above). 47. See, e.g., discussion in Antigone Lyberaki and Christos J. Paraskevopoulos, Social Capital Measurement in Greece, paper presented at the OECD-ONS international
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conference on Social Capital Measurement, London, September 2527, 2002, available at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/15/2381649.pdf (accessed 17 May 2011). 48. See, e.g., Kalyvas (see note 45 above). 49. Opinion poll carried out by Kappa Research for the centrist To Vima broadsheet newspaper: Fear, Anger and Uncertainty [in Greek], To Vima, 31 December 2010. 50. See, e.g., Pericles Korovessis et al., Political Violence is Always Fascistic: A Collection of Texts Against Terror [in Greek] (Athens: Diapiron, 2010). 51. See, e.g., footage and accompanying discussion of allegations of agents provocateurs active during mass protests on 29 June 2011, which took place against the introduction of harsh financial measures by the government to secure international loans against a background of economic crisis: What Are These Hoodies? [in Greek], Main News 20:00 (at 20:5320:55), Alter television. Available via the news portal Real.gr at: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=U-d_qJ77tU0&feature=related (accessed 21 July 2011). 52. See, e.g., comments by convicted 17N member Vassilis Tzortzatos against Revolutionary Struggle, cited in George Gilson, Terrorists Up the Ante, Athens News, 20 February 2009. On past infiltration, see, e.g., comments by former U.S. Foreign Service Officer Brady Kiesling on the Danos Krystallis case: Danos Krystallis and the Critical Dialogue with 17N, article on personal website: <http://www.bradykiesling.com/krystallis_17n. htm> (accessed 29 November 2010). 53. See, e.g., comments by the former PASOK advisor Mary Bossi: The Expert: The Next Terrorists Steps Will Be More Dangerous, GR Reporter, 5 November 2010. 54. One was a bomb attack targeting a Pakistani Community leader, another involved the lethal mafia-style hit of a journalist known for exposing stories of corruption and sleaze about leading public figures, and more recent examples were the parcel bombs targeting the Chilean and Mexican Embassies (amongst others). See, respectively, Greece: Bomb Hits Pakistani Leaders Home in Athens, BBC News, 20 March 2010; Helena Smith, Gunmen Murder Greek Investigative Journalist Socratis Giolias, The Guardian, 20 July 2010; Helena Smith, Greek Letter Bomb Attacks Put Europe on High Alert, The Guardian, 3 November 2010; Mark Heinrich and Peter Apps, Bomb Incidents in Greece, Reuters, 2 November 2010. 55. See Sian Sullivan, Viva Nihilism! On Militancy and Machismo in (Anti-) Globalisation Protest, in Richard Devetak and Christopher W. Hughes (eds.), The Globalization of Political Violence: Globalizations Shadow (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 203243; and Schwarz et al. (see note 25 above). 56. Not all Greek antiauthoritarians self-identify as anarchists, however. See further Schwarz et al. (see note 25 above), and contributions from Greek anarchists in the international anarchist journal 325, 8 (September 2010), available at <http://325.nostate.net/library/ 8-325_net1.pdf> (accessed 29 November 2010). 57. For a detailed indicative critical assessment of far-leftist politics in Greece from a far-left perspective, see Tassos Anastassiadis and Andreas Sartzekis, Left Perspectives on the December Revolt, International Viewpoint 4, 411 (2009). For a more positive reading of a strong relationship between SYRIZA and the grass-roots far-left and anarchist activists of December 2008, see Loukia Kotronaki and Seraphim Seferiadis, Sur les Sentiers de la ` re: LEspace Temps dune Revolt (Athe ` nes, De cember 2008), Actuel Marx 48 (2010): Cole 152165 at 157. To give an indication of the electoral strength of these parties, the KKE has seen a modest rise in its share of the vote in national elections from 5.9% in 2004 to 7.54% in 2009, whilst Syriza saw its share rise from 3.26% in 2004 to 4.60% in 2009 (for further details see http://ekloges.ypes.gr). 58. The failure of SYRIZA to make gains in the elections for the European Parliament in 2009 were commonly blamed on its supportive stance towards the unrest of December 2008; see, e.g., Takis S. Pappas, Winning by Default: The Greek Election of 2009, South European Society and Politics 15, no. 2 (2010): 273287 at 278; but contrast the far-leftist account offered in Josephine Iakovidou, Kostas Kanellopoulos, and Loukia Kotronaki, The Greek Uprising of December 2008, Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination 3, no. 2 (2010): 145157 at 156. On the growing membership of anarchist associations in Greece, see, e.g., In Greece, Austerity Kindles Deep Discontent, The Washington Post, 13 May 2011; Schwarz et al. (see note 25 above), 342. 59. See, e.g., Kostas Kyriakopoulos and Aris Chatzigeorgiou, Anarchists in the Trenches and Flowerboxes [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 20 January 2007.
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60. See Schwarz et al. (see note 25); Giovanopoulos and Dalakoglou, From Ruptures to Eruption (see note 21). 61. See, e.g., New Protest March for Exarchia [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 12 November 2009; Spree of Anarchist Violence in Centre, Kathimerini, 23 October 2009; Bill Imposes Strict Penalties for Vandals Wearing Hoods, Kathimerini, 24 April 2009; Hoodies Law is to be Scrapped, Kathimerini, 24 October 2009; and, following the protests of 17 November 2010, Fifteen Charged with the Felony of Wearing a Hoodie [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 18 November 2010; NTUA Anger Over Charges, Kathimerini, 19 November 2009; Prosecution of the Rector of EMP for Indymedia [in Greek], To Vima, 18 November 2009; Amnesty International, Greece: Alleged Abuses in the Policing of Demonstrations (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2009). 62. See Amnesty International, Greece (see note 61 above). As also illustrated by the predominant imagery and discourse of the December 2008 protests; see, e.g., Aris Chatzistefanou (ed.), December 08: History, We are Coming . . . Look at the Sky [in Greek] (Athens: Livanis, 2009); Melina Charitatou-Synodinou (ed.), Ash and . . . Burberry: December 2008 Through Slogans, Pictures and Texts [in Greek] (Athens: KWM, 2010); Alexandros Kyriakopoulos and Efthymios Gourgouris (eds.), Anxiety: A Record of the Spontaneous December 2008 [in Greek] (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2009). 63. See National Federation of the Blind (E.O.T.), The Blind Get Tear-gassed! [in Greek], Press Release, 12 March 2010; Glezos Sprayed with Teargas [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 5 March 2010; Police Gas Mutineers: Riot Squad Moves In Against Colleagues in Central Athens Protest, Kathimerini, 10 October 2003; European Confederation of Police, Peaceful Demonstrations Not Mutiny, Press Release, 10 October 2003. Journalists have also reported growing violence against them by the police during public protests; see Olivier lique Kourounis, Greece: Is the Crisis in Greece a Chance for Its Media? Basille and Ange (Paris: Reporters Without Borders, 2011). 64. See Hellenic Police: Special Guards. The Institution [in Greek], Official Information Website of Members of the Union of Special Guards, Hellenic Police of Attica, available at: http://www.sefeaa.gr/ (accessed 15 May 2011). 65. See further Xenakis, Organized Crime and Political Violence (see note 12 above). 66. See, e.g., Nasos Theodorides, 2009 Annual Report of the Information and Documentation Centre on Racism ANTIGONE [in Greek] (Athens: Antigone, 2010), 114; The Year of the Black Terror [in Greek], Eleftherotypia 3 January 2010; Grenade Attack in Exarchia [in Greek], Ta Nea, 25 February 2009; Syriza: New Outbreak of Racial Violence in Agios Panteleimonas [in Greek], I Avgi, 9 September 2009; Racist Attacks Fuelling Tensions, Kathimerini, 19 November 2010. 67. See, e.g., Achilleas Chekimolgou, The Extra-Parliamentary Right Organize and Attack [in Greek], To Vima, 5 April 2009; Attacks on Immigrants on the Rise in Greece, New York Times, 1 December 2010. 68. See e.g., Dimitris Psarras, The Privatisation of Nazism [in Greek], Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 28 November 2010. 69. On the mass far-right attack on immigrants in central Athens of 2011, see: Pogrom against Immigrants by Racist Groups [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 12 May 2011; Far-Right Protest in Athens Turns Violent, Associated Press, 12 May 2011. 70. See, e.g., The Blackshirts of the Police [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 10 February 2008. 71. Chrysochoidis on the Police and Agios Panteleimonas: I Know about Chrysi Avgi I will Stop the Abuses [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 21 October 2009. Later that year, the Minister also talked of the rise of new far-right violent groups, and the possibility that right-wing violence might reach terrorist proportions in the future: Michalis Chrysochoidis: I Dont Pray In Front of the Icon of Stalin [in Greek], To Vima, 13 December 2009. In 1997, a previous Minister of Public Order, Georgos Romeos, had admitted that some police had good relations with Chrysi Avgi, but the existence of systematic good relations were denied by government spokesman Dimitris Reppas the following year: The Lower Ends of the Police [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 29 September 1998. 72. See the Demand for Right-Wing Extremism Index of the political consultancy group Political Capital, which is based on data from the European Social Surveys. According to the Index, the percentage of Greeks predisposed to right-wing extremism rose from 14.6% in
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2005 to 17% in 2009, a fairly high level by European comparison: Political Capital, Back by Popular Demand: Demand for Right-Wing Extremism (DEREX) Index (Budapest: Political Capital Policy Research and Consulting Institute, 2010). On the scapegoating of immigrants in Greece, see Miltos Pavlou, Annual Report 2007: Racism and Discrimination against Immigrants and Minorities in Greece. The State of Play (Athens: Hellenic League for Human Rights, 2007), available at: http://www.i-red.eu/resources/publications-files/hlhr-kemo_ ar_2007.pdf (accessed 15 May 2011); Cheliotis and Xenakis, Whats Neoliberalism Got to Do With It? (see note 11 above); Cheliotis and Xenakis, Crime, Fear of Crime and Punitiveness (see note 46 above). 73. See, e.g., footage of the violence of 12 May 2011 in central Athens (clip minute 2:54): New Cycle of Violence in Athens with Attacks on Immigrants, AlphaTV News, 12 May 2011. Available at: (accessed 13 May 2011). In a telling reversal of common media conventions to protect the anonymity of victims of violence, the AlphaTV footage blurred the faces of the far-right attackers to protect their anonymity but did not obscure the faces of the immigrant victims: Dimitris Psarras, Pogroms Against Immigrants Planned Since 1997 [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 22 May 2011. 74. The former was an incident subsequently tied to Revolutionary Struggle by the police; see Face of Terror, GR Reporter, 13 April 2010; See also, respectively, Gunman Kills British Envoys Greek Guard, The Telegraph, 31 December 2004; David Batty, Athens Bomb Blast Kills One and Badly Injures Two, The Guardian, 29 March 2010. 75. See Strange Letter about the Bomb against Chrysochoidis [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 10 July 2010. Police authorities have reportedly suggested that a convicted bank robber, Vassilis Palaiokostas, in co-operation with anti-authoritarians, were behind the bomb: Giannis Souliotis, Palaiokostas Behind The Parcel-Bomb [in Greek], Kathimerini, 24 October 2010. 76. Athens Bomb Targets McDonalds, No Injuries, Reuters, 3 July 2009. 77. The assessment of expert and former government advisor Dr. Mary Bossi, cited in Ian Fisher and Anthee Carassava, US Embassy in Greece is Attacked, New York Times, 12 January 2007. 78. See further, e.g., Dionysis Vythoulkas, The New Terrorism is Driven by a Centre [in Greek], To Vima, 6 September 2009. 79. Vassilis Lambropoulos, The Human Key of the Cells [in Greek], To Vima, 28 November 2010. The suggestion of overlapping membership between Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias and Sehta Epanastaton has reportedly since been repeated by police. See, e.g., Vassilis Lambropoulos, Nuclei of Fire Without End [in Greek], To Vima, 22 May 2011. 80. Struggle on the Citibank Attacks [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 13 March 2009. 81. See note 52 above. 82. See Helena Smith, Death Threat to Greek Media as Terrorists Plot Bomb Havoc, The Guardian, 22 February 2009; Bomb Blast Outside Bank in Greece, BBC, 9 March 2009; George Gilson, Cracking Revolutionary Struggle, Athens News, 18 April 2010; Revolutionary Struggle: Citibank Attacked Over Crisis, The Huffington Post, 30 November 2010. 83. The manifesto (not the groups first) was published in To Pontiki on 22 December 2005. See Kostas Kyriakopoulos, At War With the Police [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 7 January 2009. 84. For a more detailed account of the groups ideological stance and actions, see further Kassimeris, Greeces New Generation of Terrorists (see note 6 above). 85. Proclamation of Revolutionary Struggle published in To Pontiki, 12 March 2009; see George Gilson, Terrorist Group Blasts the System, Athens News, 13 March 2009. 86. Athanasios Drougos, cited in Bomb Blast Kills Aide to Greek Counter-Terrorism Minister, BBC News, 25 June 2010. 87. EUROPOL, EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report TE-SAT 2011 (The Hague: European Police Office, 2011), 26. 88. Greece: Health Concern=Prisoner of Conscience: Nikos Maziotis, Amnesty International, 6 January 1993. 89. Gilson, Cracking Revolutionary Struggle (see note 82 above); Revolutionary Trio Claim Terror Hits, Kathimerini, 30 April 2010; see also Terrorists Old and New, Research Institute for European and American Studies: Editorial, 18 April 2010. 90. Terrorist Suspects Freed Pending Trial, Kathimerini, 16 May 2011.
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91. Three Detainees for Revolutionary Struggle Freed [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 11 October 2011. 92. The Greek media have reported that the group commonly calls in warnings to the media before impending attacks. See, e.g., Argyro Morou, 20 Months of Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 25 September 2009. 93. See, e.g., The Text of the Proclamation [in Greek], Ta Nea, 12 January 2010. 94. Illustrated, for example, by the participation of the suspected leader of SPF and Sect of Revolutionaries in protests supporting imprisoned members of 17N; see Lambropoulos, The Human Key of the Cells (see note 79 above). 95. Nuclei Threaten New Attacks [in Greek], To Vima, 5 October 2009. 96. Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias, Dilemmas in Times of War [in Greek], Athens IMC, 22 March 2010. 97. Synomosia ton Pirynon tis Fotias, Announcement Concerning the Recent Events of 5=5 [in Greek], Athens IMC, 19 May 2010. 98. See, e.g., Smith, Death Threat (see note 82 above). 99. Alexis Papahelas, Still Near the Abyss, Kathimerini, 3 November 2010. 100. Ivan Watson and Elinda Labropoulou, No Bomb in Package Detonated Near Greek Parliament, Police Say, CNN, 4 November 2010. 101. The three suspects mentioned were Yerasimos Tsakalos, Panayotis Aryirou, and Charis Chatzimichelakis; see Proclamation of Cells of Fire [in Greek], To Vima, 26 November 2010. 102. For discussion of the sentences as disproportionate, see, e.g., When Blind Justice Doesnt Avoid Peeking [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 23 July 2011. 103. See Tough Penalties on Defendants for the Nuclei [in Greek], Ta Nea, 19 July 2011. 104. See The Witnesses Did Not Recognise Any of the Four Defendants for the Parcel Bombs [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 7 October 2011. 105. Terrorist Evidence Being Gathered, Kathimerini, 22 April 2010; Terrorist Cache May Yield Even More Clues, Kathimerini, 23 April 2010. 106. New Greek Group Threatens Police, BBC News, 5 February 2009; Smith, Death Threat (see note 82 above). 107. See note 38 above. 108. Greek Police Officer Killed Guarding Key Witness, AFP, 17 June 2009. 109. Murder of Sokratis Giolias: Ballistics Point to Sect of Revolutionaries [in Greek], To Vima, 19 June 2010; Complete Text of the Proclamation [in Greek], Ta Nea, 28 July 2010. 110. See, e.g., Complete Text, op. cit. 111. See further Argyro Morou, After the Numbness, A New Headache [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 31 October 2009. 112. See, e.g., KKE: Many Questions [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 3 November 2010. 113. See, e.g., commentary by Brady Kiesling, Who are the Conspiracy of Fire Cells?, article on personal website: <http://www.bradykiesling.com/greek_political_violence.htm> (accessed 28 November 2010). 114. See, e.g., terrorism expert Mary Bossi cited in The Expert, GR Reporter, 5 November 2010; and as cited in Anthee Carassava, In Greece, Popular Resentment Fuels Terrorism, The Huffington Post, 26 April 2010. See also Smith, Death Threat (see note 82 above); Ioannis Michelatos cited in Watson and Labropoulou, No Bomb in Package (see note 100 above); Maria Alvanou, Fighting Terrorism in Greece: Prevent Attacks but Respect Rights, Jurist, 17 July 2009. 115. On disputed interpretations of the unrest, see discussion in Costas Douzinas, Athens Revolting: Three Meditations on Sovereignty and One on its (Possible) Dismantlement, Law and Critique 21, no. 3 (2010): 261275; Panagiotis Sotiris, Rebels With a Cause: The December 2008 Greek Youth Movement as the Condensation of Deeper Social and Political Contradictions, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31, no. 1 (2010): 203209. 116. See, e.g., collected commentaries in Spyros Economides and Vassilis Monastiriotis (eds.), The Return of Street Politics? Essays on the December Riots in Greece (London: Hellenic Observatory, LSE, 2009). 117. See, e.g., M. Chrysochoidis: Measures Ready for Public Safety [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 20 November 2009.
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118. See, e.g., Chrysochoidis: Anarchist Violence Linked to Common Crime, Athens News, 29 November 2009; and comments by independent strategic analyst Ioannis Michaletos cited in Watson and Labropoulou, No Bomb in Package (see note 100 above). 119. Chrysochoidis: Anarchist Violence Linked to Common Crime, Athens News, 29 November 2009. 120. See comments by Chrysochoidis, cited in Smith, Death Threat (see note 82 above). 121. Alvanou (see note 114 above); Another Step into the Void, Kathimerini, 8 November 2010. 122. On the international letter-bomb campaign of late 2010, see Greek Letter Bomb Campaign Puts Europe on High Alert, The Guardian, 2 November 2010. 123. See Fred Burton and Ken West, EA: The Return of Classical Greek Terrorism, STRATFOR Global Intelligence, 1 July 2009. See, e.g., the targeting of academic and government advisor Mary Bossi and the backbench MP Eleftherios Papadimitriou. Bossi was targeted by the group Machomenos Antartikos Schimatismos (Fighting Rebel Formation), who placed a bomb at her house for her role in legitimating the counter-terror policy of the Greek state; see Nikolaos Tsoulos, Terrorism: Criminological and Legislative Approaches, Views, Dimensions of the Phenomenon, and Problematisations [in Greek] (Athens and Komotini: Sakkoulas, 2005), 810; On Papadimitriou, see Kassimeris, For a Place in History (see note 4 above), 137. 124. See, e.g., International Analyst Network (www.analyst-network.com), 3 September 2009. 125. E.g., Athanassios Drougos (Senior Lecturer at the Hellenic Defence Colleges) has recently suggested that SFP are approaching a convergence, lets say a marriage of convenience between anarchist and other left-wing groups in our society, with some Islamic groups, as cited in Malcolm Brabant, Greece Mulls Militants Who Spit Defiance, BBC News, 3 November 2002. See also Panos A. Kostakos, Al Qaedas Dark Networks in Greece, Social Science Research Network Working Paper (2008); Panos A. Kostakos, The Threat of Islamic Radicalism to Greece, Terrorism Monitor 5, no. 15 (2007). 126. Ioannis Michaletos and Christopher Deliso, New Security Threats, Trends in Global Intelligence Influence Greek Reforms, Balkanalysis.com, 16 February 2008. 127. Cheliotis and Xenakis, Crime, Fear of Crime and Punitiveness (see note 46 above). 128. Greece Grappling with Terrorism, Illegal Immigration and Recession, Kathimerini, 23 May 2009. 129. See, e.g., Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above); Karyotis (see note 3 above). For an interesting point of comparison concerning similar doubts about the identity of the Italian Red Brigades: Della Porta (see note 8 above), 23. 130. Judging by the relatively short shrift the subject is given in most accounts of the group. Contrast the perspective that deeply worrying evidence emerged suggesting a deeper connection between Greek and Islamist Terrorism in the aftermath of the trial of 17N members: Kostakos, The Threat of Islamic Radicalism to Greece (see note 125 above). 131. The failure of the Greek state to make any apparent progress in apprehending 17N gave momentum to the belief held by some Greeks and non-Greeks (particularly Americans) that PASOK, which dominated government throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, had intentionally limited investigations in order to protect former comrades from its forerunner association, the anti-dictatorship organization PAK. See, e.g., Zoulas (see note 16 above). See also Floros and Newsome (see note 3 above); Karyotis (see note 3 above); Kassimeris, Last Red Terrorists (see note 7 above). 132. E.g., Kassimeris, Last Act in a Violent Drama? (see note 5 above); Nikos Konstandaras, A Family Affair, Kathimerini, 20 July 2002. 133. See further Floros and Newsome (see note 3 above); Karyotis (see note 3 above); Papahelas and Telloglou (see note 7 above). 134. The Police Hit the Centre but We Are Still Alive [in Greek], Eleftherotypia, 31 July 2002. 135. Tabitha Morgan, Analysis: Greek Verdict Reaction, BBC News, 8 December 2003; Krythimou, Greek Justice Unmasked (see note 7 above); Biliouri and Makarenko, Is This The End of 17N?, Janes Intelligence Review 14, no. 9 (2002): 610; U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 (Office for Counterterrorism, 2008). 136. Stelios Vradelis, 17N File Reopening [in Greek], Ta Nea, 22 October 2009.
464
S. Xenakis
137. This expectation was reported in the confidential U.S. embassy cable 2035=01=29, later made publicly available through Wikileaks: US Embassy Cables: Greece Addresses Counter-Terrorism Shortcomings, The Guardian, 11 January 2011. 138. See, respectively: Viktor Anagnostopoulos-Melkiades, The Hardest Muscle is the Heart: I, Alekos, and the Others [in Greek], (Athens: Dodoni, 2003); Cracking Revolutionary Struggle, Athens News, 18 April 2010; Terrorists Old and New, Research Institute for European and American Studies: Editorial, 18 April 2010; Kassimeris, Greeces New Generation of Terrorists (see note 6 above). See further Konstandinos and Modis, Urban Guerilla Activities in Greece (see note 5 above), who argue that police actions against 17N were less impressive given that the natural lifecycle of the group was coming to a close in any case. 139. Indeed, there has been little academic research on the topic of racist crimes in Greece in general, but see Martin Baldwin-Edwards, National Analytic Study on Racist Violence and Crime. Greek National Focal Point Report, Racism and Xenophobia Network (RAXEN) of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) (Vienna: EUMC, 2004); Georgios A. Antonopoulos, Greece: Policing Racist Violence in the Fenceless Vineyard, Race & Class 48, no. 2 (2006): 92100; European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, ECRI Report on Greece (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2009). 140. Athanasios Chouliaras, Transposing the Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia, eucrim: The European Criminal Law Associations Forum 1 (2011): 3944. 141. For press footage of the latter, see, e.g., Racial Tension on the Rise in Greece, Al Jazeera, 4 December 2010, available at http://english.aljazeera.net/video/europe/2010/12/ 201012475518967832.html (accessed 9 May 2011). On the former, see, e.g., comments by Dimitris Christopoulos, President of the Hellenic League for Human Rights, in a radio debate on the subject: Round Table on Agios Panteleimonas [in Greek], Athina 9.84, 15 April 2011, transcript available at http://www.athina984.gr/node/145247 (accessed 7 May 2011); see also The Privatisation of Nazism [in Greek], Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia 28 November 2010. 142. As identified by Konstandopoulos and Modis (see note 5 above). 143. Tim Krieger and Daniel Meierrieks, Terrorism in the Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 6 (2010): 902939. 144. See further Cheliotis and Xenakis, Whats Neoliberalism Got to Do With It? (see note 11 above). 145. Ibid. Concerning consumerism and post-materialist attitudes amongst the youth, see also Yannis Theocharis, Young People, Political Participation and Online Postmaterialism in Greece, New Media & Society 20, no. 2 (2010): 121.

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This article was downloaded by: [King's College London] On: 24 May 2013, At: 17:20 Publisher: Routledge

Terrorism and Political Violence

A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

Universit de Versailles, Versailles, France Published online: 15 Jun 2012.

A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Organized Political Violence in the Post-Junta Era, 19742002

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Expert, Political, and Media Views on the Evolution of Political Violence

Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Conclusion: Macro-Level Analysis and Policy Implications

Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

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