[ALBSA-Info] The Hartford Courant

[Agron Alibali]

THE HARTFORD COURANT 

September 27, 2001 Thursday, STATEWIDE 
EDITORIAL; Pg. A13 

WILL GAMES GO ON IN GREECE? 

 Laurence D. Cohen 
Laurence D. Cohen is a senior fellow at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford and a public-relations consultant. His column appears every Sunday and every other Thursday. To leave him a comment, please call 860- 241-3643. 

BODY: 
Few nations are more horrified, if not petrified, at the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center than Greece, home to the 2004 Summer Olympics. 

>From the moment the relatively tiny European nation (about 11 million people) won the competition to host the games, there have been questions about whether Greece is rich enough, disciplined enough, organized enough and safe enough for the challenges of holding such a large, complex international gathering. Greek Olympic officials, who work in one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Athens, complete with metal detectors and submachine gun-toting security forces, operate a publicity-generating machine that cranks out reassuring stories that the nation will be ready for the games -- and Greek government officials are quick to promise that Greece is, and will be, as safe as any other site for the games. 

But that was before the World Trade Center horror. New scrutiny will be aimed at Greece. International Olympic Committee staff members and tourists alike will be particularly sensitive to the Greek security blanket, which over the years has been accused of being a bit frayed around the edges. 

This past summer, the Greek police chief, Costas Passaris, was forced to resign when the most wanted criminal in Greece escaped from an apartment surrounded by more than 50 officers. The incident dredged up dozens of examples in recent years of a relaxed attitude in Greece about crime and terrorism -- and a lack of professional rigor among security forces. 

The Greeks have their own home-grown left-wing terrorists, dubbed "November 17," who periodically engage in what, by World Trade Center standards, is low-key terror -- a one-at-a-time assassination campaign that has murdered 23 Greeks and foreign dignitaries and journalists over the past 25 years. As the press counselor at the Greek Embassy in Washington delicately put in an op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times last winter: "Success against this group has been elusive." 

The International Olympic Committee has been quietly, but not too quietly, pressuring the Greeks to show substantive progress in every aspect of preparing for the games, from road construction to security. But others have been inclined to express their concerns out loud. The American ambassador to Greece, R. Nicholas Burns, told The New York Times this past summer: "The big thing here is that November 17 is not the only threat to these [Olympic] games. The real threat is international terrorism, broadly defined." 

When I interviewed Greek security and defense officials this past summer, they were quick to explain that Greece was soliciting advice and expertise from anti-terrorism experts from across the globe, including the United States, Germany and Israel. The promise from the Greeks is that the games will be patrolled by 50,000 police, army, coast guard and commando units -- and last week, Prime Minister Costas Simitis promised that the country will "do the utmost" to guarantee the safety of the games, including a review of the $600 million security package. 

Of course, Greece is not the only nation with Olympic jitters. Last week, the president of the International Olympic Committee was granted the discretion to cancel the winter games scheduled for next February in Salt Lake City -- although he characterized the Salt Lake City athletes' village as "the most secure place in the world." 

Canceling the Salt Lake City winter games would be embarrassing, expensive and fear-generating. However, canceling the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece, or moving the games to Sydney, Australia, as some have suggested, would be devastating for Greece, which has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Olympic facilities and transportation infrastructure in and around Athens, the most traffic-gridlocked metropolitan area in Europe. Last spring, the Greeks recruited more than 1,200 Cambodian workers to help with Olympic construction -- a nod to concerns about meeting deadlines. 

The Greeks are reasonably convincing when they promise that all will be fine. But for a world haunted by images of explosions, fire and death, patience for uncertainty of any kind is at a premium. 




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