[ALBSA-Info] DEATH OF A DIPLOMAT

[Iris Pilika]

June 9 2000  DEATH OF A DIPLOMAT 
 
 


The assassins 

 
 
 
Sinister killers who strike with impunity 
FROM JOHN CARR IN ATHENS



Map of the attack 

 
The blood-spattered car in which Brigadier Stephen Saunders died. He may
be 17 November's first British victim 
Photograph: EUOKINISSI / AP   ©
 
THE news reports in Greece yesterday morning were grimly familiar: shots
are fired through a car window in a morning traffic jam, the victim is
either killed or critically hurt, and the attackers - always a pair of
helmeted men on a highpowered motorbike - vanish. 

Greece's 17 November terrorist group has now apparently claimed its 23rd
victim in 25 years of shootings, bombings and grenade attacks on wealthy
targets. 

Three American diplomats, two retired Greek police officers and half a
dozen Greek businessmen have met their end in precisely this way since the
shadowy group emerged just before Christmas 1975 and said that it had shot
dead Richard Welch, the CIA's senior man in Athens. 

If, as the Greek police expect, 17 November admits killing Brigadier
Stephen Saunders, he will be the first British victim. After each attack,
17 November usually issues rambling anti-capitalist proclamations,
compounded by angry Marxist-Leninist dialectic in the guise of radical
economic theory. 

The 17 November group takes its name from the day in 1973 when Greece's
military-backed dictatorship crushed a student uprising in Athens, killing
34 students and injuring up to 800 - an event still commemorated annually
by the Left. 

Its members have eluded all efforts at detection. Large rewards for
information have led nowhere and Greek police have failed to capture, kill
or injure a single member. 

Security police officials believe the group to be masterminded by a
radical academic who, since the 1970s, has recruited younger members to do
the dirty work. Alleged links with the more extreme elements of the ruling
Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) dating back to the anti-junta
struggle have been vigorously denied by the present party leadership. 

Security experts believe that the group is self-taught and has never
compromised its security by availing itself of the expertise of either the
IRA or guerrillas from the Middle East. 

Some deny that there is such a thing as an ideological 17 November,
claiming that the far-left rhetoric is a front for a professional hit team
employed by political or business interests to silence those who could get
in the way of their plans. The diversity of the victims - bankers,
magnates, publishers and diplomats - argues for such an interpretation,
they say. 

In the 1990s the organisation appeared to have slowed down its rate of
murderous attacks, limiting itself mainly to midnight bombings without
fatalities. The last known attack was in May last year, when a rocket was
fired at the German Ambassador's home. 

Earlier this week the Greek Goverment met American criticism by boasting
of "better security than in many other countries of the world". Now, as
Athens prepares for the 2004 Olympic Games, the Government may have a hard
job ensuring that the event can proceed safely.