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Throughout the action of “November 17” there were many critical stations. It is true, for example, that it was one of the most crucial points the attack on then-Finance Minister Giannis Paleokrassas where the unfortunate Thanos Axarlian lost his life. It was a rift that was never repaired even among the members of the organization.
An equally crucial turning point was his execution. Pavlou Bakoyannis who, although a ND deputy, had great support among left-wing voters for his anti-dictatorship action. It was a coup that cost supporters in 17N.
The other two executions, which had enormous symbolism and dire consequences for the organization, were those of its main torturer. meeting Evangelos Mallios and British Brigadier Steven Saunders.
These two cases are to some extent interconnected, even if between these strokes of “EO November 17», Mediate, approximately 24 years! The execution of Mallios was the one that gave the organization the necessary popular support (for any guerrilla in the city who wants to live a long journey) and the corresponding British military follower was the one who, through a series of events, removed it and, in fact, it marked the Beginning of the end.
The execution of the main torturer of the junta
On Christmas Eve 1975, her stationmate is killed by unknown bullets. INC in Greece, Richard Wells. The times are suspect. The wounds of the seven-year dictatorship remain open. If you read what the newspapers wrote then, in combination with what we know today, you will surely laugh. Even for some “very dark” πολύ who “didn’t speak Greek at all” he wrote.
Obviously, the journalists did not remove them from the “belly”. This was informal information from the police who wanted to quickly dispel any possibility that this murder created a political problem in Greece.
Things get complicated when a … some “November 17 Revolutionary Organization” takes responsibility with a proclamation. The police still do not want to interfere, those who reach the text of the emerging organization do not care and in the end it is forgotten in a drawer.
Until about a year later, reality comes to squash any funny scenario about the Arabs and create a major headache for Greek law enforcement authorities.
The 17N strikes again and this time everyone takes it seriously. On December 14, 1976, shortly after 10 p.m., Mallios fell dead in front of his house in P. Faliro.
Shortly before calming down, he told police: “1973. A tall man and a girl.” Apparently in 1973 it was the license plate number of the two assailants. Maybe not. However, it is important now that everyone takes 17N seriously.
On the one hand, the State that does not know exactly what to investigate and attributes the organization’s action “to foreign centers that look for political anomalies” and, on the other, the vast majority of citizens who applaud the execution of the “bastard that many fighters witnessed in their hands. in the dungeons of Bouboulina and the Mediterranean ”, as the 17N announcement wrote.
This execution was the organization’s greatest victory. He managed to gain a popular foothold that he would hold for at least two decades, at a time when Greek police, along with the FBI and CIA Americans assisting in the investigations, were navigating jokes and conspiracy theories. . The members of 17N bought the time but mainly the social immunity that they wanted.
Saunders, Scotland Yard and the beginning of the end
On June 8, 2000, the 17N executed in his vehicle, which at that time was traveling down Kifissia Avenue, the British military escort, Brigadier General Steven Saunders, who was to be the last person to die from the fire. . organization.
Twenty-four years have passed since the execution of Mallios and ELAS, always with the assistance of the Americans, not much has been achieved in terms of investigations. Until the Scotland Yard considers it a point of honor to investigate the murder of the British brigadier and is involved in the case.
All those who lived through these events believe that if this 17N energy had not existed, the organization would never have disintegrated, or at least not to the extent that it followed the historic summer of 2002.
The reason is simple: Scotland Yard officers who arrived in Greece were called in to handle a case unknown to them. The British police had been dealing with the IRA for many decades and they knew, they had the technical know-how, what needed to be done to arrest members of the organization. That was the big difference between Scotland Yard and FBI or the CIA.
This know-how, then, was immediately transferred (through special envoys) to the Greek counter-terrorism service, which now began to work at a completely different level than it was operating until then.
What impressed British officers almost immediately was that the 17N still largely retained the popular support that it had gained from the time of Mallios’ execution.
“It just came to our attention then. We have to expose them to have immediate results,” he allegedly told Greek officials. counterterrorism, British official.
The communication war before operational dismantling
The British at Scotland Yard knew very well that what we called “popular support” actually meant a “wide network of coverage” and, above all, a closed mouth when the critical moment came. They also knew that after almost three decades the relations between the members of the 17N with much of Greek society could not be broken with a cry (as had not been done, after all, in all previous years).
What was needed was a completely different approach. More humane. “The relatives of the victims must have a face. To show the pain. Loss”the Scotland Yard officer himself stressed.
And somehow, along with the official part, a parallel project began to exist: that of the communicational defeat of 17N.
In the foreground came the families of the victims, who since the beginning of 2000, had formed the club “Here”. Television appearances by relatives (and especially the victims’ children) multiplied. The discussions about the victims left the part of the justification on the part of the 17N and were limited exclusively to the part of pain, sadness, loss.
Pickets were organized where relatives demanded justice for their people. Everyone supported this case. The climate began to change and the British pushed even more in that direction.
A website was created that published photos of the most humane, everyday victims, which were accompanied by texts from their children.
The current mayor of Athens, Bakogiannis shores, and his sister Alexia, son of Nikos Momferatos and daughter of Panagiotis Rousetis, father of Kostis Peratikos were some of those who lifted the most weight in the field of advertising.
The scenes with the relatives of the victims standing speechless with lit candles outside the parliament building in Syntagma dramatically changed the attitude of the vast majority of Greek society.
From that moment on, the 17N lost its base in society and also what the British officers of Scotland Yard had hoped for: when it came time for the arrests and photos of the organization’s members to be made public, the mouths that they had remained for so many years. It closed, opened, and revealed much, including the path to the organization’s core giants.
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