A priest too far?

The current Catholic pope made his mark a few decades ago by reeling in South American liberation theologians through the threat of excommunication. The following makes it evident old habits die hard.


From Tikkun

This has come into particular highlight this very week, because the Inquisition office (now renamed the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith) has sent a letter to Father Roy Bourgeois threatening him with ex-communication (which effectively means an end to his income and to his teachings inside the church) for daring to publicly support the ordination of women and to offer remarks in a ceremony ordaining a woman as priest.

Roy Bourgeois isn't just any priest. He is, along with John Dear and Sister Joan Chittister, one of the most courageous Catholic voices for peace and non-violence and the founder and leader of the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW). The ultimatum and ex-communication would be effective the day before the annual demonstration of the SOAW at Fort Bennings where the School of the Americas is housed and where it trains South and Central American police forces in the techniques of torture, repression, and counter-insurgency. We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives have been calling for support for this demonstration which begins on Friday and goes till Sunday (if you happen to be coming to the demonstration and would help us distribute information or sit at our table to help us get the word out about our Global Marshall Plan campaign, please let us know by email).

So the Inquisition will now in one fell swoop be able to rid itself of the progressive Catholic who has created the most important spiritual progressive demonstration taking place anywhere in the country for peace and against torture, and simultaneously terrify other priests into not daring to question the Church's doctrines of women. It should be noted that the very progressive teachings of the Church against war and poverty have not served as a basis for the excommunication of any priest or other church officials who have publicly supported the US war in Iraq or Afghanistan or supported the notion of a violent war against terror. The Inquisition answers to no one,and so its arbitrary power is used against those who support progressive causes, but not against those who support authoritarian and reactionary and violent causes.

We urge all those who feel strongly opposed to this attempt to silence dissent within the Church and to oust its most celebrated peace-priest to take the following steps:
1. Write to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, Rome, Italy and protest.
2. Write to your local newspapers and protest.
3. Write to your local Catholic church and priests and protest.
4. Write to the National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and to national news sources like the NY Times and Washington Post and CNN and NPR and let them know that the NSP is protesting this move against Father Bourgeois and re-affirming our commitment to equal rights for women plus our commitment to strengthen the demonstrations in Fort Benning until the training of this sort is stopped and made illegal in the U.S.


Catholic priest faces excommunication

In August, Father Bourgeois joined a ceremony in a Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington, Ky., in which a friend from the peace movement, Janice Sevre-Duszynska, claimed ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. Father Bourgeois gave the homily and laid hands on her.

He had known that excommunication was possible but said he thought it unlikely. His order summoned him to headquarters and gave him a warning but did not discipline him.

Then he received a letter dated Oct. 21 from the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, warning that if he did not recant, in writing, he would be excommunicated within 30 days.

“When I got the actual letter, I had to sit down,” he said. “I felt nauseous. I thought, this is serious stuff. The first thought that came to mind was, How am I going to explain this to my dad and my family?”
After weeks of prayer, Father Bourgeois informed the Vatican that he would not repent.


Roy Bourgeois threatened with excommunication
Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, outside a congressional office building in Washington in 2007 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois has been threatened with excommunication by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for his support of women’s ordination, according to a letter made public today.

The letter was written by Bourgeois and addressed to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. It was distributed via e-mail by Bill Quigley, a New Orleans lawyer who represents Bourgeois.
According to Bourgeois’ letter, which is dated Nov. 7, the congregation has given him 30 days to recant his “belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated.”

The letter indicates that Bourgeois received notification from the congregation Oct. 21.
Bourgeois, a priest for 36 years, attended the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska in Lexingon, Ky., Aug. 9 and preached a homily.

If Bourgeois is excommunicated at the end of 30 days, it would come just before the mass rally and protest against the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., that Bourgeois has organized for 19 years. In recent years, more than 15,000 people, many of them Catholic university students, have joined the three daylong rally and demonstration.
Bourgeois was not immediately available for comment. The text of Bourgeois’ letter follows.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rev. Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
PO Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903
November 7, 2008

TO THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, THE VATICAN

I was very saddened by your letter dated October 21, 2008, giving me 30 days to recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or I will be excommunicated.
I have been a Catholic priest for 36 years and have a deep love for my Church and ministry.
When I was a young man in the military, I felt God was calling me to the priesthood. I entered Maryknoll and was ordained in 1972.

Over the years I have met a number of women in our Church who, like me, feel called by God to the priesthood. You, our Church leaders at the Vatican, tell us that women cannot be ordained.

With all due respect, I believe our Catholic Church’s teaching on this issue is wrong and does not stand up to scrutiny. A 1976 report by the Pontifical Biblical Commission supports the research of Scripture scholars, canon lawyers and many faithful Catholics who have studied and pondered the Scriptures and have concluded that there is no justification in the Bible for excluding women from the priesthood.

As people of faith, we profess that the invitation to the ministry of priesthood comes from God. We profess that God is the Source of life and created men and women of equal stature and dignity. The current Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women implies our loving and all-powerful God, Creator of heaven and earth, somehow cannot empower a woman to be a priest.

Women in our Church are telling us that God is calling them to the priesthood. Who are we, as men, to say to women, “Our call is valid, but yours is not.” Who are we to tamper with God’s call?

Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard or how long we may try to justify discrimination, in the end, it is always immoral.

Hundreds of Catholic churches in the U.S. are closing because of a shortage of priests. Yet there are hundreds of committed and prophetic women telling us that God is calling them to serve our Church as priests.

If we are to have a vibrant, healthy Church rooted in the teachings of our Savior, we need the faith, wisdom, experience, compassion and courage of women in the priesthood.

Conscience is very sacred. Conscience gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing. Conscience is what compelled Franz Jagerstatter, a humble Austrian farmer, husband and father of four young children, to refuse to join Hitler’s army, which led to his execution. Conscience is what compelled Rosa Parks to say she could no longer sit in the back of the bus. Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood. Conscience is what compelled my dear mother and father, now 95, to always strive to do the right things as faithful Catholics raising four children. And after much prayer, reflection and discernment, it is my conscience that compels me to do the right thing. I cannot recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church.

Working and struggling for peace and justice are an integral part of our faith. For this reason, I speak out against the war in Iraq. And for the last eighteen years, I have been speaking out against the atrocities and suffering caused by the School of the Americas (SOA). Eight years ago, while in Rome for a conference on peace and justice, I was invited to speak about the SOA on Vatican Radio. During the interview, I stated that I could not address the injustice of the SOA and remain silent about injustice in my Church. I ended the interview by saying, “There will never be justice in the Catholic Church until women can be ordained.” I remain committed to this belief today.

Having an all male clergy implies that men are worthy to be Catholic priests, but women are not.
According to USA TODAY (Feb. 28, 2008) in the United States alone, nearly 5,000 Catholic priests have sexually abused more than 12,000 children. Many bishops, aware of the abuse, remained silent. These priests and bishops were not excommunicated. Yet the women in our Church who are called by God and are ordained to serve God’s people, and the priests and bishops who support them, are excommunicated.
Silence is the voice of complicity. Therefore, I call on all Catholics, fellow priests, bishops, Pope Benedict XVI and all Church leaders at the Vatican, to speak loudly on this grave injustice of excluding women from the priesthood.

Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated because of his defense of the oppressed. He said, “Let those who have a voice, speak out for the voiceless.”

Our loving God has given us a voice. Let us speak clearly and boldly and walk in solidarity as Jesus would, with the women in our Church who are being called by God to the priesthood.

In Peace and Justice,
Rev. Roy Bourgeois, M.M.
PO Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903

Fr. Roy Bourgeois - End All Torture, No Exceptions

Radical K-9s: A tribute to anarchist dogs

Anarchist and His Dog, The (1907)

In spite of widespread public fear of aliens and anarchists, films could often poke fun at these despoilers of the British way of life. Indeed, many of the films featuring anarchists were comedies, among them Jimson Joins the Anarchists (1911); The Baby and the Bomb (1911), in which a baby frustrates an anarchist plot; George Robey Turns Anarchist, PC Nabben and the Anarchists and Pimple, Anarchist (all 1914).
Here, the anarchist (in the usual beard) makes increasingly violent advances to a woman. She is rescued by an honourable Englishman who sees off the foreigner. Planning his dastardly revenge, the anarchist is outwitted by his dog, which retrieves the bomb, blowing up his master.


Anarchist Dogs




1968 has been called the Year of Revolutions. We had riots in America and Paris, a Spring in Prague, mass demonstrations against the Vietnam war. 1969 saw the ferment continue…in Swansea at least. Swansea students had mass sit-ins, and marches across a stretch of the Mumbles road. We fought for a pedestrian bridge and mixed sex Halls of Residence. Europe trembled.

There were stirrings in the Anarchist camp too. Ian Bone had an anarchist dog accessorized with a small red and black flag around its collar. The image may have sparked the idea, that or the beer. Why do we fight for the liberation of man…what about dogs?

Comrades, what about dogs?

Rhetoric turned into action.

Singleton Park encircled much of the University. Behind it was a compound for unwanted dogs. One dark night the compound was raided and the dogs released. Singleton Park resounded to the eager barking of dogs, packs of them roaming through bushes and trees searching for bones and Bakuninist truths. Not exactly Reservoir Dogs but a victory of sorts.

(With thanks to Rick Lewis)


The Anarchist: His Dog

After a whole day of walking around thinking about it--his eyes burning, his heart pounding--he decided that the thing to do was to warn the policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real anarchists warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to the idea of killing a person without telling him you were going to do it. It seemed that even a policeman should be told--especially a policeman who played with a dog.

The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that afternoon. It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a piece of wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it:

To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two fifty--'cause I tried but could only get one eighty--'cause a man was off his nut and didn't pay me what I earned--

This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the government or the law and the order and will shoot you when you come. I wouldn't a been an anarchist if I could a got the money and I tried to get it but I couldn't get it--not enough. I don't think the government had ought to take things you like like I like Hero so I am against the government.

Thought I would tell you first.

Yours truly,

F. LYNCH.

I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the revolver. So I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are sometimes killed that way 'cause my father read it in the paper.

If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get the seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much obliged.

1113 Willow street.

The letter was properly addressed and sealed--not for nothing had Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter writing. The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to get a soda with--and forget his troubles.


Schipperke

The Schipperke look more like foxes when they are mature, and like little bears when they are young pups. They are bright, intelligent, and obstinate hence the designation Little Captain, they push their way around. They are the perfect anarchist dog and the perfect dog for an anarchist.




Plants, Dogs and Anarchy

I am just wondering about youse anarchists here. I am not asking a stupid question, just really wondering. You reckon there should be no borders and people should be able to roam free and there should be no gaols and communities should deal with offenders but what about blackberry bush, lantana, annual ragweed, cabomba, camel thorn, castor oil plant, madeira vine, water hyacinth, witchweed, and all those other plantsome nasties.
Are plants entitled to anarchy also? Do you reckon nature will sort it all out in the end? Does it matter if lantana chokes out native plants?
Should anarchy reign in the plant world?
And then there are animals of course. Would it be OK for your roaming-free persons to bring along some elephants, buffalo, wildebeest, iberian lynxes, greater bamboo lemurs, etc, to keep them company?
Should there be animal anarchy or is it restricted to humans? After all, I share 85% of my genes with my dog. So he's almost human. Or I'm almost dog, one or the other.
In any event he's definitely an anarchist dog.




Smashing the state one dog at a time

This anarchist dog proceeded to tell me about liberating the proletariat from the leashes of their corporate masters.

And then rolled over for me.

A song for Kanelos

Why it's best that people lose their jobs in this unsustainable economy

People need to lose their jobs. It sounds crazy, but what if it's true?

In this time of mounting tensions and rude awakenings, it is fortunate we can stress compassion and positive ideas. Yet, foremost we must be warned about our present course as an unsustainable society. Sudden, disruptive change is generally good to avoid, but sometimes we need to make an abrupt and wrenching move to save ourselves.

Not being able to eat money is perhaps the best reason to prepare for the future hardening of economic and ecological reality. Whether we call our fate petrocollapse or financial collapse, we are about to find out that a closer relationship to our land and our neighbors is all that matters. Looking at what a typical job today really does for us or our community -- besides generating cash for others to profit off of -- helps open the mind to an alternative way of living without spinning our wheels.

If we cannot head off the worst of a crisis with intelligent action, at least we can anticipate changes openly among ourselves. In so doing we counter the prevailing stupidity which is where the big money is. Bailing out the automobile industry is the next waste of money on a colossal scale. Recessions and depressions are just part of the economy's old-school "business cycle" as well as common sense: what goes up must come down. It is prudent to say it is better to deal with reality sooner rather than put it off.

In today's world, what really has to change is our lifestyle. But as long as people can cling to a paycheck (or stock dividend), change is retarded and the lethal system of waste and exploitation lumbers on until it takes us down over the cliff. A slightly milder way of introducing the need to give up suicide and ecocide is to suggest exploring, "Why losing your job can be a good thing today." If we consider essential needs being met, most jobs are seldom directly applicable anymore to community resiliency. So, whether it is through employment or unemployment, we need to resurrect techniques of self-sufficiency.

[ ... ]

On the same island as the UN headquarters is a player that's like a wolf in sheep's clothing. We are reminded of corporate news media's real allegiances when we see an outrageous column in the New York Times on trying to preserve inappropriate, doomed car manufacturing jobs. Published Saturday, the column "'Drop Dead' Is Not an Option" tries to justify corporate socialism by saying auto manufacturer bailouts are just as right to do as it was to rescue insolvent New York City in 1975. To make the argument sound progressive and liberal, the "free market" ideology was attacked by the columnist. I for one was not fooled, and jumped on it with my letter below:

Dear Editor,

Bob Herbert's column in support of bailing out General Motors shows he knows nothing about and cares little for ecological health. There are no jobs on a dead planet. And, any jobs based on unsustainable depletion of resources are soon going to be lost. Oil has reached its global peak of extraction.

While the automobile companies are still intact they should be forced to retool their factories to make bicycles. Losing our car fleet (imports too) will save 100,000 people a year in this country from crash deaths and fatal diseases from exhaust fumes. Approximately one million animals are killed by vehicles daily on U.S. roads. Millions of acres of good farmland are destroyed by car-oriented urban sprawl. But those facts are not news or the basis of advertising revenue for corporations. A free press supports life and justice instead of ecocide, mayhem on the roads and dead-end jobs.

Jan Lundberg
Oil-industry analyst
founder, Culture Change
www.culturechange.org

~ more... ~

The CIA and satanism

Government figures and others involved in kidnapings of children for Satanic rituals.

Day of infamy: Greece commemorates the 17 November Polytechnic Uprising

The Polytechnic Uprising on 17 November 1973


Every November, our hearts and minds are there, at the Athens Polytechnic, at the heroic uprising of students, young people and the whole of Greece against the Junta, in November 1973.

The Polytechnic uprising (Politechneio, Πολυτεχνείο in greek) symbolises not only the heroic struggle but also the unity of all democrats.

The November struggles are the highest expression of the seven-year fight against the dictatorship, and one of the most important moments in the fight for freedom of the Greek people and especially Greek youth.

The ideals of freedom, independence, peace, love of life and mankind, remain alive and will stay current and unalterable, no matter how many years pass from that rising.

The Events of the Polytechnic Uprising

Despite the harsh repressive measures of the military Junta during the seven-year dictatorship of 1967-1973 in Greece - the imprisonments, displacements, mass trials in emergency courts-martial, torture, mock executions and murders - popular demonstrations against the regime continued throughout the dictatorship, with young people always playing a leading part.

Popular indignation against the Junta began to be forcefully expressed from early 1973, with the sit-ins at the Law School in Athens in February, the demonstration on 4 November on the occasion of the memorial service for George Papandreou, at which there were arrests, and the demonstration by 3,000 students the next day in support of those arrested. Demonstrations also continued at the universities.

The political upheaval which broke out in Athens lasted from 14 to 17 November 1973. The upheaval began with the sit-in at the Polytechnic by students, peaked with the pan-Athenian mobilisation against the regime, and concluded with military intervention.

The Polytechnic Uprising begins with the general meetings of the students’ unions on the morning of Wednesday 14 November, which result in the rejection of government measures concerning the planning of student elections. On the same afternoon, the students, who have gathered at the Polytechnic in the meantime, decide to occupy the building under the control of a Coordinating Committee. By the evening, the slogans have become clearly political.

The Cretan singer and fighter against the regime Nikos Xylouris enters the Polytechnic to encourage the students. Despite the large police presence, more and more people enter the Polytechnic to stand by the students.

The slogans shouted and painted on banners in the Polytechnic are no longer concerned with education alone but turn against the regime: “Papadopoulos, you fascist, take your washerwoman wife, take Despina and go, the people don’t want you”, “Bread, Education, Freedom”, “People break your chains”, “US Out” and “Down with the Junta”, “FREEDOM”, “Today Fascism dies”, “This’ll be another Thailand” (a reference to the student uprising in Thailand in July 1973, which had contributed to the fall of a forth-year military dictatorship in October of the same year).

The students gathered inside the Polytechnic set up an occupation committee. The doors are shut and the first meeting of the Coordinating Committee takes place at 8:30 that evening. The first manifestos were scattered in Patision Avenue, which is blocked by crowds of people.
Thursday 15 November 1973. The sit-in draws the people of Athens, who start to flock to the Polytechnic. By 9:30 p.m. the sit-in is packed, while the crowds in the surrounding streets shout anti-American and anti-Junta slogans. The crowds remain there all night to express their support of the Polytechnic students.

Friday 16 November. The Polytechnic radio station starts broadcasting the message of the struggle to the whole of Athens, which is watching events with bated breath. “Polytechnic here! Polytechnic here! This is the Radio Station of the free fighting students, the free fighting Greeks. Down with the Junta, down with Papadopoulos, Americans out, down with fascism, the Junta will fall to the people. People of Greece, come out on the streets, come and stand by us, in order to see freedom. The struggle is a universal anti-dictatorial, anti-Junta struggle! Only you can fight in this struggle. Greece is governed by foreign interests! The dictator Papadopoulos is trying to hide behind a mask of democracy with the fake government of Markezinis and the fake elections it is proclaiming.”

At 9 a.m. the first barricades are raised and two mass demonstrations form in Panepistimiou and Stadiou Avenues. At midday a farmers’ committee from Megara, protesting against the expropriation of their land, visits the Coordinating Committee and the radio broadcasts: “The people of Megara promise to stand and fight at the side pf the students and workers... This is a common struggle... It is not just for the town of Megara or the Polytechnic... It is for Greece. For the people of Greece who want to determine their own lives. To walk on the path to progress. The basic requirement is the overthrow of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy.”

The people gathered outside the Polytechnic singing the traditional Cretan revolutionary song “Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria” (When Will the Sky Be Clear Again).

By the afternoon thousands of demonstrators have gathered, including many workers. At 6 p.m. clashes between police and demonstrators begin, with many injuries. At 7 p.m. a mass march heads for the Polytechnic and the police choose this moment to strike. Police armoured cars appear and the first shots are fired. There are running fights all along Solonos, Kaningos, Vathi, Aristotelous and Alexandras Avenues and Amerikis Square.

At 9:30 the police declare a curfew in the centre of Athens until further notice. At 11 p.m. the radio station and loudspeakers ask people not to leave. The area around the Polytechnic is shrouded in choking teargas.

Saturday 17 November 1973. The first tanks appear shortly after midnight, while more and more dead and injured are taken to the makeshift hospital in the Polytechnic. By 1 a.m. the Polytechnic has been surrounded by tanks. The radio station and loudspeakers call, “Don’t be afraid of the tanks”, “Down with fascism”, “Soldiers, we are your brothers. Don’t become murderers”. At 1:30 the tanks set off with their headlamps on. The students cling to the gates, singing the national anthem and calling to the solders, “We are brothers”.

The army gives the people inside 20 minutes’ notice to get out, while a tank takes up position near the main gate. The Coordinating Committee tries to negotiate the students’ safe exit.

2:50 a.m. Saturday 17 November: The commanding officer waves the tank forward. The gates fall and the tank continues up to the steps of the “Averoff” building. It is followed by men of the security forces and the LOK Special Forces. Shots are fired. Some soldiers help the students escape, but plain-clothes policemen are waiting at the exits. By 3:20 there is no-one left in the Polytechnic...

The 17th of November 1973 was the turning-point of the 1967 dictatorship. Although the students did not actually overthrow the regime, the intense and persistent reaction, the new voice heard from the Polytechnic and the earlier Law School sit-in, shook the Junta to its rotten core.


Athens Polytechnic uprising

An AMX 30 tank standing in front of the Athens Polytechnic. Eventually, this vehicle would crush the gates of the Polytechnic in November 17, 1973, putting a violent end to the student uprising.

The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events starting with a tank crashing through the gates of the Polytechnic.

The causes

Greece had been, since April 21, 1967, under the dictatorial rule of the military, a regime which abolished civil rights, dissolved political parties and exiled, imprisoned and tortured politicians and citizens based on their political beliefs.

Picture of students demonstrating on 17 November 1973 in Athens as it appeared in many Greek and international newspapers at the time.

1973 found the junta leader Papadopoulos having undertaken a "liberalisation" process of the regime, which included the release of political prisoners and the partial lifting of censorship, as well as promises of a new constitution and new elections for a return to civilian rule. Opposition elements including Socialists were thus given the opportunity to undertake political action against the junta.

The junta, trying to control every aspect of politics, had interfered with student syndicalism since 1967, by banning student elections in universities, forcibly drafting students and imposing non-elected student union leaders in the national student's union, EFEE. These actions eventually created anti-junta sentiments among students, such as Geology student Kostas Georgakis who committed suicide in 1970 in Genoa, Italy as an act of protest against the junta. With that exception, the first massive public action against the junta came from students on February 21, 1973.

On February 21, 1973 law students went on strike and barricaded themselves inside the buildings of the Law School of the university of Athens in the centre of Athens, demanding repeal of the law that imposed forceful drafting of "subversive youths", as 88 of their colleagues had been forcefully drafted. The police were ordered to intervene and many students were reportedly subjected to police brutality. The events at the Law School are often cited as the prelude to the Polytechnic uprising.

The student uprising was also heavily influenced by the youth movements of the sixties, notably the events of May 1968.

The events

A tank in the streets of Athens on 17 November 1973.

On November 14, 1973 students at the Athens Polytechnic (Polytechneion) went on strike and started protesting against the military regime (Regime of the Colonels). As the authorities stood by, the students, calling themselves the "Free Besieged" (Greek: Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι, a reference to a poem by Greek national poet Dionysios Solomos inspired by the Ottoman siege of Mesolonghi), barricaded themselves in and constructed a radio station (using laboratory equipment) that repeatedly broadcast across Athens: "Here is Polytechneion! People of Greece, the Polytechneion is the flag bearer of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against the dictatorship and for democracy!"^[1]. Leftist, later to be politician, Maria Damanaki was one of the major speakers. Soon thousands of workers and youngsters joined them protesting inside and outside of the "Athens Polytechnic".

Junta deputy press minister Spyros Zournadzis escorts the press on a tour of the Polytechneion facilities where the radio station used by the students was constructed

In the early hours of November 17, 1973, the transitional government panicked, sending a tank crashing through the gates of the Athens Polytechnic. Soon after that, Markezinis himself had the humiliating task to request Papadopoulos to re-impose martial law. Prior to the crackdown, the city lights had been shut down, and the area was only lit by the campus lights, powered by the university generators. An AMX 30Greek National Anthem, until the tank enters the yard, at which time transmission ceases.

According to an official investigation undertaken after the fall of the Junta, no students of Athens Polytechnic were killed during the incident. Total recorded casualties amount to 24 civilians killed outside Athens Polytechnic campus. These include 19-year old Michael Mirogiannis, reportedly shot to death by officer G. Dertilis, high-school student Diomedes Komnenos, and a five-year old boy caught in the crossfire in the suburb of Zografou. The records of the trials held following the collapse of the Junta document the circumstances of the deaths of many civilians during the uprising, and although the number of dead has not been contested by historical research, it remains a subject of political controversy. In addition, hundreds of civilians were left injured during the events.

Ioannides' involvement in inciting unit commanders of the security forces to commit criminal acts during the Athens Polytechnic uprising was noted in the indictment presented to the court by the prosecutor during the Greek junta trials and in his subsequent conviction in the Polytechneion trial where he was found to have been morally responsible for the events.

Aftermath of the uprising

Front cover of "Ta Nea" published in the morning hours following the Polytechnic uprising. It mentions that the tanks suppressed the uprising following bloody street battles with groups of citizens and students. Another column mentions that the sudden return of Konstantinos Karamanlis is considered very probable

On November 14, the uprising triggered a series of events that put an abrupt end to the regime's attempted "liberalisation" process under Spiros Markezinis.

Kostas Georgakis set himself ablaze as a protest against the junta in 1970

Papadopoulos, during his liberalization process and even during the dictatorship, attempted to re-engineer the Greek political landscape and failed repeatedly. Ironically, in his biographical notes published as a booklet by supporters in 1980 it is mentioned that he attended Polytechneion, the prime Engineering School in the country, but did not graduate.
Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides, a disgruntled Junta hardliner, used the uprising as a pretext to re-establish public order, and staged a counter-coup that overthrew George Papadopoulos and Spiros Markezinis on November 25 the same year. Military law was reinstated, and the new Junta appointed General Phaedon Gizikis as President, and economist Adamantios Androutsopoulos as Prime Minister, although Ioannides remained the behind-the-scenes strongman.
Ioannides' abortive coup attempt on July 15, 1974 against Archbishop Makarios III, then President of Cyprus, was met by an invasion of Cyprus by Turkey. These events caused the military regime to implode and ushered in the era of metapolitefsi. Constantine Karamanlis was invited from self-exile in France, and was appointed Prime Minister of Greece alongside President Phaedon Gizikis. Parliamentary democracy was thus restored, and the Greek legislative elections of 1974 were the first free elections held in a decade.

17 November, the date of the event, later became the name of a Greek terrorist group, in reference to the uprising.

Legacy

Diomedes Komnenos, only 16 when he was killed, is one of the youngest victims of the junta crackdown.

November 17th is currently a school holiday in Greece. Schools and universities stay closed during the day. The central location for the commemoration is the campus of the Polytechneio. The campus is closed on the 15th (the day the students first occupied the campus on 1973). Students and politicians lay wreaths on a monument within the Polytechneio on which the names of Polytechneio students killed during the Greek Resistance in the 1940s are inscribed. The commemoration day ends with a demonstration that begins from the campus of the Polytechneio and ends at the United States embassy.

The student uprising is hailed by many as a valiant act of resistance against the military dictatorship, and therefore as a symbol of resistance to tyranny. Others believe that the uprising was used as a pretext by Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides to put an abrupt end to the process of ostensible liberalization of the regime undertaken by Spiros Markezinis.


Greece 1964-1974

"Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution,"
said the President of the United States

excerpted from the book
Killing Hope
by William Blum


"It's the best damn Government since Pericles," the American two-star General declared. (The news report did not mention whether he was chewing on a big fat cigar.)

The government, about which the good General was so ebullient, was that of the Colonels' junta which came to power in a military coup in April 1967, followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings, the victims totaling some 8,000 in the first month. This was accompanied by the equally traditional declaration that this was all being done to save the nation from a "communist takeover". Corrupting and subversive influences in Greek life were to be removed. Among these were miniskirts, long hair, and foreign newspapers; church attendance for the young would be compulsory.

So brutal and so swift was the repression, that by September, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands were before the European Commission of Human Rights to accuse Greece of violating most of the Commission's conventions. Before the year was over Amnesty International had sent representatives to Greece to investigate the situation. From this came a report which asserted that "Torture as a deliberate practice is carried out by both Security Police and the Military Police."

The coup had taken place two days before the campaign for national elections was to begin, elections which appeared certain to bring the veteran liberal leader George Papandreou back as prime minister. Papandreou had been elected in February 1964 with the only outright majority in the history of modern Greek elections. The successful machinations to unseat him had begun immediately, a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek Military, and the American military and CIA stationed in Greece.

Philip Deane (the pen name of Gerassimos Gigantes) is a Greek, a former UN official, who worked during this period both for King Constantine and as an envoy to Washington for the Papandreou government. He has written an intimate account of the subtleties and the grossness of this conspiracy to undermine the government and enhance the position of the military plotters, and of the raw power exercised by the CIA in his country. ... Greece was looked upon much as a piece of property to be developed according to Washington's needs. A story related by Deane illustrates how this attitude was little changed, and thus the precariousness of Papandreou's position: During one of the perennial disputes between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, which was now spilling over onto NATO, President Johnson summoned the Greek ambassador to tell him of Washington's "solution". The ambassador protested that it would be unacceptable to the Greek parliament and contrary to the Greek constitution. "Then listen to me, Mr. Ambassador," said the President of the United States, "fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good.... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long."

In July 1965, George Papandreou was finally maneuvered out of office by royal prerogative. The king had a coalition of breakaway Center Union Deputies (Papandreou's party) and rightists waiting in the wings to form a new government. It was later revealed by a State Department official that the CIA Chief-of-Station in Athens, John Maury, had "worked in behalf of the palace in 1965. He helped King Constantine buy Center Union Deputies so that the George Papandreou Government was toppled. For nearly two years thereafter, various short-lived cabinets ruled until it was no longer possible to avoid holding the elections prescribed by the constitution.

What concerned the opponents of George Papandreou most about him was his son Andreas Papandreou, who had been head of the economics department at the University of California at Berkeley and a minister in his father's cabinet, was destined for a leading role m the new government. But he was by no means the wide-eyed radical. In the United States Andreas had been an active supporter of such quintessential moderate liberals as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey. His economic views, wrote Washington Post columnist Marquis Childs, were "those of the American New Deal".

But Andreas Papandreou did not disguise his wish to take Greece out of the cold war. He publicly questioned the wisdom of the country remaining in NATO, or at least remaining in It as a satellite of the United States. He leaned toward opening relations with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries on Greece's border. He argued that the swollen American military and intelligence teams in Greece compromised the nation's freedom of action. And he viewed the Greek Army as a threat to democracy, wishing to purge it if its most dictatorial- and royalist-minded senior officers.

Andreas Papandreou's bark was worse than his bite, as his later presidency was to amply demonstrate. (He did not, for example, pull Greece out of NATO or US bases out of Greece.) But in Lyndon Johnson's Washington, if you were not totally and unquestionably with us, you were agin' us. Johnson felt that Andreas, who had become a naturalized US citizen, had "betrayed America". Said LBJ:

"We gave the son of a bitch American citizenship, didn't we? He was an American, with all the rights and privileges. And he had sworn allegiance to the flag. And then he gave up his American citizenship. He went back to just being a Greek. You can't trust a man who breaks his oath of allegiance to the flag of these United States.

What, then, are we to make of the fact that Andreas Papandreou was later reported to have worked with the CIA in the early 1960s? (He criticized publication of the report, but did not deny the charge.) If true, it would not have been incompatible with being a liberal, particularly at that time. It was incompatible, as he subsequently learned, only with his commitment to a Greece independent from US foreign policy.

As for the elder Papandreou, his anti-communist credentials were impeccable, dating back to his role as a British-installed prime minister during the civil war against the left in 1944-45. But he, too, showed stirrings of independence from the Western superpower. He refused to buckle under Johnson's pressure to compromise with Turkey over Cyprus. He l accepted an invitation to visit Moscow, and when his government said that it would accept Soviet aid in preparation for a possible war with Turkey, the US Embassy demanded an explanation. Moreover, in an attempt to heal the old wounds of the civil war, Papandreou began to reintroduce certain civil liberties and to readmit into Greece some of those who had fought against the government in the civil war period.

When Andreas Papandreou assumed his ministerial duties in 1964 he was shocked to discover what was becoming a fact of life for every techno-industrial state in the world: an intelligence service gone wild, a shadow government with powers beyond the control of the nation's nominal leaders. This, thought Papandreou, unaccounted for many of the obstacles the government was encountering in trying to carry out its policies.

*****

A CIA report dated 23 January 1967 had specifically named the Papadopoulos group as one plotting a coup, and was apparently one of the reports discussed at the February meeting.
Of the cabal of five officers which took power in April, four, reportedly, were intimately connected to the American military or to the CIA in Greece. The fifth man had been brought in because of the armored units he commanded. George Papadopoulos emerged as the defacto leader, taking the title prime minister later in the year.
The catchword amongst old hands at the US military mission in Greece was that Papadopoulos was " the first CIA agent to become Premier of a European country".

*****

It was torture ... which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek nightmare [under Papadopoulos]. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote In December 1969 that "a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand" the number of people tortured. It was an odious task for Becket to talk to some of the victims:

"People had been mercilessly tortured simply for being in possession of a leaflet criticizing the regime. Brutality and cruelty on one side, frustration and helplessness on the other. They were being tortured and there was nothing to be done. It was like listening to a friend who has cancer. What comfort, what wise reflection can someone who is comfortable give. Torture might last a short time, but the person will never be the same."

Becket reported that some torturers had told prisoners that some of their equipment had come as US military aid: a special "thick white double cable" whip was one Item; another was the headscrew, known as an "iron wreath", which was progressively tightened around the head or ears.

The Amnesty delegation described a number of the other torture methods commonly employed. Among these were:

a) Beating the soles of the feet with a stick or pipe. After four months of this, the soles of one prisoner were covered with thick scar tissue. Another was crippled by broken bones.
b) Serious incidents of sexually-oriented torture: shoving or an object into the vagina and twisting and tearing brutally; also done with a tube inserted into the anus; or a tube is inserted into the anus and water driven in under very high pressure.
c) Techniques of gagging: the throat is grasped in such a way that the windpipe is cut off, or a filthy
rag, often soaked in urine, and sometimes excrement, is shoved down the throat.
d) Tearing out the hair from the head and the pubic region.
e) Jumping on the stomach.
f) Pulling out toe nails and finger nails.

*****

The United States ... provided the junta with ample military hardware despite an official congressional embargo, as well as the police equipment required by the Greek authorities to maintain their rigid control.
In an attempt to formally end the embargo, the Nixon administration asked Papadopoulos to make some gesture towards constitutional government which the White House could then point to. The Greek prime minister was to be assured, said a secret White House document, that the administration would take "at face value and accept without reservation" any such gesture.

US Vice-president Spiro Agnew, on a visit to the land of his ancestors, was moved to exalt the "achievements" of the Greek government and its "constant co-operation with US needs and wishes". One of the satisfied needs Agnew may have had in mind was the contribution of $549,000 made by the junta to the 1968 Nixon-Agnew election campaign. Apart from any other consideration, it was suspected that this was money given to the junta by the CIA finding its way back to Washington. A Senate investigation of this question was abruptly canceled at the direct request of Henry Kissinger.

Perhaps nothing better captures the mystique of the bond felt by the Greeks to their American guardians than the story related about Chief Inspector Basil Lambrou, one of Athens well-known torturers:

"Hundreds of prisoners have listened to the little speech given by Inspector Basil Lambrou, who sits behind his desk which displays the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid. He tries to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance 'You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything. The world is divided in two. There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we. Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the U.S You can't fight us, we are Americans."

Amnesty International adds that some torturers would tell their victims things like "The Human Rights Commission can't help you now ... The Red Cross can do nothing for you. Tell them all, it will do no good, you are helpless." "The torturers from the start," said Amnesty, "had said that the United States supported them and that was what counted."

In November 1973, a falling-out within the Greek inner circle culminated in the ousting of Papadopoulos and his replacement by Col. Demetrios loannidis, Commander of the Military Police, torturer, graduate of American training in anti-subversive techniques, confidant of the CIA. loannidis named as prime minister a Greek-American, A. Androutsopoulos, who came to Greece after the Second World War as an official employee of the CIA, a fact of which Mr. Androutsopoulos had often boasted.

Eight months later, the loannidis regime overthrew the government of Cyprus. It was a fatal miscalculation. Turkey invaded Cyprus and the reverberations in Athens resulted in the military giving way to a civilian government. The Greek nightmare had come to an end.

Much of the story of American complicity in the 1967 coup and its aftermath may never be known. At the trials held in 1975 of junta members and torturers, many witnesses made reference to the American role. This may have been the reason a separate investigation of this aspect was scheduled to be undertaken by the Greek Court of Appeals. But it appears that no information resulting from this inquiry, if it actually took place, was ever announced. Philip Deane, upon returning to Greece several months after the civilian government took over, was told by leading politicians that "for the sake of preserving good relations with the US, the evidence of US complicity will not be made fully public".

Andreas Papandreou had been arrested at the time of the coup and held in prison for eight months. Shortly after his release, he and his wife Margaret visited the American ambassador, Phillips Talbot, in Athens. Papandreou related the following:

"I asked Talbot whether America could have intervened the night of the coup, to prevent the death of democracy in Greece. He denied that they could have done anything about lt. Then Margaret asked a critical question What if the coup had been a Communist or a Leftist coup? Talbot answered without hesitation. Then, of course, they would have intervened, and they would have crushed the coup."


Polytexneio, 17th November 1973


Homage to the Athens Polytechnic Uprising


Coverage of the annual commemoration in 1995