A Sort of Celebration

This year, the day of the Lord's Resurrection coincides with the anniversary of our people's crucifixion.

--Former Premier George Papandreou

As the Greeks observed their Orthodox Easter, which the Julian calendar places a week later than in the West this year, they also marked the end of their first year under military rule. To celebrate the occasion, the junta planned military parades, ordered flags flown from every building and issued new gold and silver coins bearing its symbol: the shadow of a soldier against the background of a phoenix rising from the ashes. The regime of Colonel-turned-Premier George Papadopoulos hinted that it would make some surprise announcements, perhaps including an amnesty for many of its 2,500 political prisoners, 100 of whom were released just before Easter. And, in an effort to ensure that the celebra tions would not be marred by dissident voice, it placed under house arrest two of its bitterest critics, George Papandreou, 80, the leader of the big and now banned Center Union Party, and Panayotis Kanellopoulos, 66, the last constitutionally appointed Premier.

In Papandreou's case, the precaution did no good. Anticipating a crackdown, "the Old Fox"--as he is widely known in Greece--slipped out before his arrest a recording of a ringing anti-junta speech to Britain, where the BBC's Greek-language broadcast beamed his defiant words into sets all over Greece.

In the eight-minute speech, Papandreou, who was Premier in 1963-65, called on the free world to boycott the junta so that "it will be worthy of the name." At home, he called on the Greek army to reassess its own support of the junta in light of the fact that the ruling colonels had produced no proof of a planned Communist takeover, their rationalization for seizing power. Under Greece's stern martial law, Papandreou's blast was tantamount to treason, but the junta took no further action against him for the time being, ridiculing his statement as a play for a return to power.

Economic Slump. Though the junta has brought stability to Greece and taken a certain number of sensible steps, it has little to celebrate on its first an niversary except its own dogged determination to hold onto power. The country is still ruled by decree, and the press remains under tight censorship. Because of the period of political uncertainty that preceded the coup, the Greek economy, which had been growing nearly as fast as Japan's, was headed into a recession even before the colonels seized power. Despite all sorts of pump-priming measures, such as the cancellation of $260 million in farmers' debts to the state bank, Greece's economy remains in low gear.

Tourism fell 14% in 1967, and is off badly this year. The construction trade, Greece's second biggest industry after agriculture, has experienced a slump. Foreign investment has declined some 30% below the 1966 level.

Though the junta has set Sept. 1 as the date for a plebiscite for a new constitution, few Greeks feel that the ex-colonels will step aside in favor of a representative government--though they may form their own party and permit elections if they think they are fairly certain of winning. Right now, talk of elections is extremely vague. Says Premier Papadopoulos: "You are asking the surgeon to plan out the patient's summer vacation two years-hence, while he is still strapped to the surgical table."

Protest Movements. Strapped to the table as they are, Greeks at home either tolerate the junta's rule or feel that they are helpless to do anything about it. King Constantine remains in exile in a Rome hotel, with little prospect of returning to Greece soon; about his only public activity recently was to be guest of honor at an international karate contest in Rome's Olympic Village (he holds a black belt). Other Greeks abroad are not, however, so fatalistic; in city after city this week, they protested the military dictatorship. Actress Melina Mercouri, who has made opposition to the junta a second career, flew into London for a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, and similar rallies were scheduled for, among other places, Chicago, Montreal, Melbourne, Stockholm, West Berlin and Rome.

The biggest of all were planned for West Germany, where there are 160,000 Greek workers. One of the speakers there was to be Andreas Papandreou, 49, the Harvard-educated son of old George, who was released from a junta prison last December and has gone into exile to organize a resistance movement. Though the protest movements among the Greek communities abroad are indeed unlikely to overthrow the junta, they nevertheless succeed in discouraging tourists to Greece and businessmen from investing there. In the long run, the ex-colonels may find those measures more difficult to deal with than with an outright armed uprising.

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