Greece: Twenty years of political terrorism

Abstract

From the mid‐1970s to the present, Greece has been suffering a systematic terrorist assault on her political and socieo‐economic institutions‐mainly at the hands of the 17 November and ELA, intransigent communist organizations. During these two decades, the Greek state has failed to make a correct diagnosis of the problem. This article traces the long history of terrorism during this period and enables the reader to understand how the phenomenon was allowed to grow so uncontrollably that it has now become a permenant feature of contemporary Greek political culture. The author concludes that the Greek terrorists will continue their violent campaign attacking the people and institutions they despise for several years to come‐at least until Greece's established political clas takes a clear‐cut stand and effective measures to oppose and resolve this seemingly intractable problem