When in Greece the revolutionaries evolute to common criminals

The last few months Greece manages to become headlines all around the world and not for good reason all the time. It was the economic failure and now it is the murder of a known journalist and blogger in the early morning hours on the 19th of July with 15 bullets. Even thought in the beginning everybody including the police was looking for the guilt among organized crime later the same evening was verified from the police (due to the ballistics investigation) that it was a hit from a leftish militant organization called Sect of Revolutionaries.

After the first shock the murder has raised a series of questions and it has become a start for provocative acts. But before we get there let’s start from the beginning and the fifteen bullets. Militant terrorism in Greece has its roots in early 1970s and the dictatorship and found its real cause after the dictatorship for two reasons. First of all it was the general disappointment of the conservative in the beginning and socialist establishment later failure to punish to punish the responsible of the dictatorship and the defeat – national embarrassment and partly loss – in Cyprus including according to the people’s coincidence CIA. That’s why the first targets were leaders and torturers of the dictator’s regime and American officers like the local CIA responsible.

The second reasoning was the election of a socialist government that came after forty years of strangle against a series of conservative to extreme right governments including the dictatorship promising the end of corruption, the punishment of the responsible (one more time) of the dictatorship and the corruption, transparency and fair treatment of the people. Unfortunately it took only a couple of years for the socialist to prove that they can be if not equal but in many cases more corrupted than the conservatives with the results we can see nowadays in the Greek economic and social life. That’s why militant terrorism during 1980s and 1990s became even more aggressive with a series of bombings and executions. The basic difference between the first period (1970s) and the second (1980-1990s) it is that in the second period the targets widen and now we started having innocent victims.

Another difference between the two periods that obviously mark two generations of militants is the ideological platform. The first generation had stronger ideological and philosophical foundations coming from the strangle against the dictatorship while the second generation was more compromised with a middle class life style and from their releases it was obvious their ideological deterioration always compared with the first generation. The first generation was more devoted to the cause while the second generation as it was later with their arrest proved was sharing their devotion between the cause and their very everyday life. That’s where it starts the first connection with the common crime mainly to fund financially the necessary arming and the same time the life style. By the end of 1990s and due to a mistake (explosion in the hands of a terrorist) the police make a series of arrests leading to the end of the main of those organizations and giving and a period when most of them – even the smaller ones - retreat under the scare of a domino arrests.

After a brief quiet period and around 2005 the third generation appears. This time they totally lack ideological base and their releases are the ultimatums of vigilantes. They talk about revenge and they cover pages by targeting people instead of excusing their acts as the ones before did. The last two generations tried to excuse their acts trying to take some kind of public approval (oddly the first generation had manage to do so until they killed a member of the parliament); the third generation nowadays doesn’t care. Actually treats the public in their releases as idiots that need patronizing. Apart from that they started targeting anything and anybody ignoring the danger to kill innocent people or passing by like it happened a year ago with the murder of a sixteen year-old scavenger. The same time their connections with common crime have become tighter and there are suspicions of their participation in a few crimes like robberies. Actually from revolutionaries they became common criminals and their last act is the best prove.

Now let’s see their last victim, Sokratis Giolias. After his cowardice murder he has become a myth of investigating journalism but the truth is that till just few weeks ago he was a very controversy person who had spent most of his professional life as assistant and editor for one of the worst and more vulgar personas of the Greek media, Makis Triantafilopoulos. Two years ago he fell out with his mentor and he became a pawn in the conflict his former boss had with his ex-partner. Lacking the necessary funds Sokratis Giolias moved the conflict online and using the anonymity the blogs give he created a blog with the name “troktiko” (rodent in Greek) where he continued his conflict with his former boss while in brief posts he stood in the limits of news, gossip and rumours often not accompanied with the necessary proves. Naturally the conflict came to the court rooms and police stations.

The blog “troktiko” became really popular (people always tent to like keyhole-news) and expanded from one side to more contributors and from the other to more news but always in the limits of gossip or rumours and when the sixteen year-old got killed from a bomb and the Sect of Revolutionaries took the responsibility the blog attacked the organization calling them names and provoking reaction. Which did not come as a surprise since all the Greek society got angry with the murder of the kid and troktiko was not the only blog to call them names, actually the whole blog-sphere gone mad with the case. So at least to my opinion the blog was not what made him a target.

According to the Sect of Revolutionaries’ announcements their targets include stars of the Greek media but obviously the ones threaten are guarded well privately and the police leaving people like Sokratis Giolias an easy target. So again to my opinion Sokratis Giolias was targeted not for what he wrote in the blog (even though it sound a good excuse with the logic popularity the thousands visits will bring to the act) but just because it was an easy target for a cowardice terrorist organization that blindly hits motivated from their sociopath instincts.

In the beginning of the investigation and before connecting the bullets with the militant organization the police was investigating the possibility of a murder contract mainly because as Sokratis Giolias had already announced in “troktiko” he was investigating a case of bribing that involved police officers and “businessmen”. After the connection with the militants the police stopped investigating the possibility but what and who says that the one negate the other after all as I said before the connection between the militants and common crime is more than a rumour.

Finally something I noted in the beginning. The murder unfortunately caused some side effects. It gave the chance from one side to the mainstream media to bring out all their menace against the blogs and especially the information blogs like “troktiko” as they think of them as their worst enemy endangering their monopoly into information. Instead of showing their sadness for the unfair loss of a young man, the situation of a pregnant wife and a two year-old Sokratis Giolias left behind they found a good chance to attack the anonymity of the blogs spreading the same time fear and targeting other information blogs. Suddenly the Greek police at last manage to do something they desperately trying the last two years, to access the blog’s files and mails scaring people who tried to make accusations for corruption covered behind the necessary in this case confidentiality or anonymity cases like the suspicious cooperation between police officers and …businessmen. These things make you wander who the Sect of Revolutionaries really works for.

Thanos Kalamidas
Ovi-Magazine, Finland