[ALBSA-Info] From the American Press

[Agron Alibali]

Scripps Howard News Service

                January 18, 2000, 
Life in a tough neighborhood

HOLGER JENSEN

ATHENS, Greece

   It doesn't take long here to realize that Greece is
as much a part of the
war-torn Balkans as it is a NATO ally and
Mediterranean tourist resort.

   Located on the southern tip of the Balkan
peninsula, Greece borders
 Albania,  Bulgaria and Macedonia. Belgrade, the
capital of Serbia and what's
left of Yugoslavia, is only an hour's flying time from
Athens.

   Greece accounts for more than half the productivity
of an otherwise poor and 
unstable region. It is the biggest investor in
countries to the north, which buy
12 percent of Greek exports and return the favor by
sending a flood of unwanted 
migrants southward.

    Albanian  illegals do the menial labor that Greeks
won't do, and are viewed 
in the same light as Mexican illegals in the United
States. Their number has
increased dramatically since the Kosovo war; no one
knows how many there are but
125,000 were apprehended last year and Greek officials
are the first to admit
this is merely a fraction of those who made it across
their porous borders
without getting caught.

   Greeks despise  Albanian  Muslims and fear a
"greater  Albania"  much more
than they do a "greater Serbia."

   Like the Serbs, they are quite racist in blaming 
Albanians  for most of
Southern Europe's drug smuggling and organized crime.

   "They breed like rabbits," said one high-ranking
official in the Greek
Foreign Ministry, "and display irredentist aggression"
toward other ethnic
groups, suggesting they want a single  Albanian  state
encompassing not only
 Albania  but also Kosovo and Macedonia.

   Greece is also at odds with Macedonia, whom it
accuses of creating an
"artificial nationalism" on what used to be Greek
soil, while condemning that
country's sizeable  Albanian  minority for setting up
parallel government
institutions similar to those that gave Slobodan
Milosevic the excuse he needed 
to crack down on the  Albanian  majority in Kosovo.

   Yet Greeks show no particular kinship with Slavic
Serbs either, even though
both share the Eastern Orthodox religion. Rather, they
feel as Americans would
if NATO had bombed Mexico, leaving us to deal with the
fallout of a lost trade
and a host of unwanted refugees.

   As if that were not enough, Greece also has to
contend with a hostile Turkey 
across the Aegean Sea. Most Americans are blithely
unaware of the fact that the 
two NATO allies routinely scramble jets - often
hundreds of times a year - to
counter real or imagined threats from each other.

   The two countries have not fought a war since 1821.
But they have detested
each other since the Turks overran Greece in 1460 and
made it part of the
Ottoman Empire for the next 350 years. Although the
Greeks finally attained
independence in 1827 they continued to be ruled by
foreign kings, princes or
German occupiers until after World War II.

   Although Turkey and Greece both joined NATO in
1951, they were allies in name
only. Four years later the Turkish government
orchestrated "spontaneous" attacks
on the Greek minority in Constantinople (now
Istanbul), causing sizeable
casualties and a mass exodus of Greeks.

   Further flight occurred in 1964 when Turkey began
expropriating Greek
properties and shut down all minority schools on the
islands of Imbros and
Tenedos. The Greek population of those islands shrank
from 8,000 to 250, and
that of Constantinople declined from approximately
120,000 to fewer than 2,000. 

   Communal clashes on Cyprus added to the tension and
prompted the dispatch of 
a U.N. peacekeeping force. The Delaware-sized island
is only 60 miles off the
Turkish coast but its population is predominantly
Greek. One of the conditions
attached to its independence from Britain in 1960 was
that neither community
would seek union with Athens or Ankara.

   But Cyprus was split in 1974 after a short-lived
coup by extremists wanting
to unite with Greece. Turkish invaders seized 38
percent of the island,
establishing a northern "Turkish Republic" recognized
by no one but Ankara,
while the Greeks kept their "Republic of Cyprus" in
the south.

   A "green line" manned by United Nations troops
separates the two. And Turkey 
still has 35,000 troops and 300 tanks in the northern
sector, saying they are
needed to protect the Turkish minority.

   In the shallow Aegean, where the continental shelf
between the two countries 
is virtually one and the same, they keep contesting
the ownership of islands and
mineral rights.

   In 1996, Athens said it would extend its
territorial waters from 6 miles to
12 to discourage what it called unauthorized Turkish
oil exploration. Turkey
objected to making the Aegean a "Greek lake" and
nearly went to war over two
islets inhabited only by goats.

   Greece also claims a 10-mile air limit, as opposed
to Turkey's 6-mile limit, 
which Ankara deliberately ignores.

   The United States has tried to remain neutral in
these disputes, but Greece
accuses Washington of favoring Turkey because it has
NATO's second-largest army 
and guards the alliance's southern flank.

   Konstantin Gerokostopoulos, director of the
department for Greek-Turkish
relations in the Foreign Ministry, complains that U.S.
neutrality, "despite
American maps that clearly define Greek territory,
simply encourages the
spurious claims of the Turks."

   There is also lingering Greek resentment of U.S.
support for a harsh military
junta during the Cold War. A 1967 coup, led by the
late Col. George
Papadopoulos, toppled the parliamentary government
after years of political
instability, which many Greeks blamed on what they saw
as U.S. meddling in Greek
affairs.

   The junta imposed an ultraconservative regime that
did not permit political
dissent or free expression at a time when much of
Western Europe was being
transformed by student protests and underground
movements. In a harsh crackdown 
on student demonstrators in 1973, the military regime
jailed hundreds of
opponents, tortured many and banished others to barren
islands.

   On a November visit to Greece, President Clinton
apologized that "the United 
States allowed its interests in prosecuting the Cold
War to prevail over its
interest, I should say its obligation, to support
democracy."

   But that did not stop thousands of Greek
demonstrators from taking to the
streets, as they do every year on Nov. 17, to denounce
the United States and
mark the anniversary of the junta's 1973 crackdown.
Anti-NATO protests added to 
the mayhem, with hooded protestors setting fires and
smashing storefronts in
central Athens.

   Clinton, branded a "fascist and murderer," was
forced to cut short a
three-day visit to little over a day.

   Given the fact that 97 percent of the Greek
populace opposed NATO's bombing
of Yugoslavia, their government went out on a
considerable limb supporting it.

   Prime Minister Costas Simitis provided a port,
Thesalonika, for the entry of 
NATO troops and has contributed peacekeepers for
Kosovo.

   More importantly, Greece has dropped its
longstanding opposition to Turkey
joining the European Union, hoping this will pave the
way for eventual
settlement of the Cyprus, Aegean and other disputes
with a belligerent neighbor.

   "We did this not because we want Washington to 'owe
us one,' but because we
believe it is good for NATO, for the EU and,
ultimately, for Greece," said
Gerokostopoulos. "It is in our best interests to have
peaceful relations and
economic interchange with all our neighbors.

   "But it will take a long time. And Americans should
understand that this is a
rough neighborhood. When the souvlaki (he used another
word) hits the fan, we
get splattered."

   (Holger Jensen is international editor of the
Denver Rocky Mountain News.)

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