Greek allegiances tested

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou on a US visit

By Helena Smith in Athens

The assault on America, and the prospect of US military reprisals, is tormenting Greece in a way that, once more, highlights the country's uneasy relationship with the West.

As the Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou makes an official visit to the US - reassuring Washington of Athens' unstinting support in the fight against terrorism, and touring the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center - his compatriots are expressing their own views by holding rowdy "anti-war" rallies across Greece.

About 5,000 attended an anti-war protest in Athens

From the northern port city of Salonika to the southern island of Crete, protestors are participating in demonstrations that have increasingly turned into fervent displays of anti-Americanism.

Not long after the September 11th attack, some 30,000 Greek soccer fans, attending a Uefa match against a Scottish team in Athens, jeered through the moment's silence held in honour of the terror victims.

The Scots looked on aghast as they then tried to burn the Stars and Stripes in the stands.

Fervent protest

Organized by the powerful Greek Communist Party (KKE), the protests come less than two years after Greeks expressed similar opposition to Nato's bombing campaign against their co-religionists in Serbia.

With the demonstrators frequently shouting "down with Bush, the killer", analysts say the protests are even more strident than they were in 1999.

"America will use the excuse of a military reaction to settle all its old scores with poor, third world countries. We must try and stop it", said Kostas Kazakos Greece's leading stage actor addressing one such rally in Athens.

Successive opinion polls have showed the Greeks to be, by far, the least sympathetic of all Euro-Alliance nations to post-attack America.

They have also been the least willing to take action against countries harbouring terrorists.

Archbishop Christodoulos is head of the Greek Orthodox Church

A poll published in Wednesday's authoritative Athenian newspaper Ta Nea noted that as many as 75% of those Greeks voting for centrist or leftist parties were "anti-American" and opposed to the superpower retaliating against the attack, fearing the quest for justice could turn into one of revenge.

Around 58.3% of those who supported right-wing parties were also "anti-American."

Echoing a view first expressed by Archbishop Christodoulos, the country's spiritual leader, most said Uncle Sam was now paying the price for Washington's misguided policies, and other sins of the past.

In trying to explain the opposition, analysts point to the Greeks' delicate geo-political position as citizens of a Christian buffer state, at the crossroads of the east and west.

Historical roots

But the Greeks also cite America's support for the ruthless military regime that ruled them between 1967 and 1974 as the root cause of their reaction.

In addition, they say, Washington is guilty of "double-standards". The Greeks believe the US has failed to pressure Nato ally Turkey to remove some 35,000 Turkish troops from Cyprus, 27 years after Ankara invaded and seized the island's northern third in response to an Athens engineered coup.

What have we done to the Greeks to deserve such antipathy?

Professor Stephen Miller

The demonstrations, and intense media criticism of US policies in the wake of the suicide bombings, has outraged classics buffs, dyed-in-the wool philhellenes and Greeks living abroad.

"What have we done to the Greeks to deserve such antipathy?" Professor Stephen Miller, one of America's most eminent classical archaeologists, railed in a letter published in the the Greek daily Kathimerini.

Greek-Americans, who lobby tirelessly on Athens' behalf in Washington, have also been unable to contain their rage.

Some have even said they will be cancelling plans to attend the 2004 Olympics in the Greek capital.

"We condemn and reject the shameless and baseless insults and blatant slander of fellow Greeks in the motherland," snapped the Federation of Greek Associations of Greater New York in a blistering statement.