[ALBSA-Info] Olympic shot deflected-Athens rejects 'contemptible' questioning of 2004 security measures

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Olympic shot deflected
Athens rejects 'contemptible' questioning of 2004 security measures

Government circles consider that the latest round of articles and programs 
linking Greece's failure to suppress the November 17 terrorist organization 
with its ability to stage the 2004 Athens Olympics may be part of a plan 
actually to remove the Games from Athens, despite repeated denials by the 
International Olympic Committee.

The government reacted sharply to a strongly-worded article by former U.S. 
Athens Embassy official Wayne Merry yesterday. Acting government spokesman 
Telemachos Hytiris called the article "contemptible" and Merry "an obviously 
failed" former embassy employee who "has undertaken to defame our country."

Merry's article was full of unproven assertions, such as that the police were 
at the beck and call of terrorists, that the present socialist government 
used to have active links with terrorism and that "much of the Greek press 
sympathizes with the terrorists." He himself, when confronted, has admitted 
that his so-called evidence is hearsay. In apocalyptic tones, it warned that 
"the clock is ticking toward potential bloody disaster... the worst since 
Israeli athletes were massacred at the Munich Games in 1972."

Successive governments' failure to arrest a single member of November 17, 
which has killed 22 people in 25 years of activity, have made security a 
thorny issue for the Athens organizers. Still, few such questions were raised 
when the Games were staged in Barcelona in 1992, while other supposedly 
"safe" venues, such as Munich and Atlanta, suffered deadly incidents.

Officially, the government appears confident that the Games will not be taken 
away from Greece and considers people such as Merry either lone snipers or 
frontpersons in an effort by certain people and corporations to get a slice 
of the huge security operation planned for the Games, on which the state will 
spend at least $600 million. Government plans call for the deployment of 
50,000 police and troops during the Games, and foreign experts have been 
invited.

However, the pervading unease about Greece's problematic security image has 
led to officials and the press overreacting. Jacques Rogge, president of the 
IOC's Coordination Commission, was forced to explain yesterday that a note to 
Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki about his wish to discuss security arrangements 
during his visit next week was nothing out of the ordinary.

Rogge's visit has also prompted Greek officials to revise their transport 
plans. His insistence that the Olympic complex in Maroussi be served by a 
second metro line, has led to a revival of plans to construct a line 
extension along Kifissias Avenue to the Olympic Stadium by 2004, at a cost of 
150 billion drachmas.