April 25, 1999
ATHENS
Bombing Tears at Greeks' Loyalties
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
THENS -- Anti-American demonstrations, like dinner, start late
in Athens. But for some Greek teen-agers, too young to remember
similar riots of the 1960s and 1970s, protesting against the United
States is still novel.
Hours before protesters and riot policemen clashed in front of
the American Embassy on Thursday night, two sisters, Eleni and
Constantina Vafiadou, sat by a fountain in Constitution Square
expectantly ready to register their anger over the NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia.
"It's ludicrous to say the bombing is to help humanity,"
Eleni, 18, said over the rally's amplified Serbian music -- the
soundtrack to "Underground," a popular Serbian film. "It's about
the U.S. pursuing its own expansionist strategic interests."
Her 16-year-old sister explained the film's allegorical anti-war
message her own way.
"It's like what Ashley told Scarlett," Constantina said,
referring to characters in "Gone With the Wind." "After all the
war and destruction, nobody remembers what they were fighting about
in the first place."
Sympathy for the Serbs -- and a cultural affinity with the United
States -- is deeply rooted in Greece. But the latter sentiment is
being sharply tested. More than any other country in NATO, Greece
has been struggling between loyalty to the Western alliance and
outrage over the bombing nearby.
While Prime Minister Costas Simitis is attending the NATO
anniversary summit meeting in Washington this weekend and has
restated Greece's support, back home Greeks of every age and
political conviction are voicing fierce opposition to what they
view as an unjust war.
Some of the wrath stems from Greek ties to Serbia, a historic
ally and key trading partner that shares the Orthodox Christian
faith. Much of it is caused by anxiety over what a new war in the
region could do to Greece's fragile economy and uneasy borders. But
it is fueled by a revival of anti-American sentiment that, though
dormant, has never really died.
Greece, which has been steering toward full integration with
Europe, now finds itself pulled back into a tragic Balkan history,
and into feelings that the United States played a pivotal role in
Greek suffering. Greeks blame the United States for supporting the
military dictatorship and for failing to prevent the Turkish
invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The bombing has not only created new
fears but has also resurrected old grievances.
"America, way on the other side of the world, keeps interfering
in something that is not their business, and that will not affect
them," Margaret Liaveris, 25, a civil servant, said. "I find it
so annoying when Clinton says, 'Our children need a free Europe.'
Most of their children never even come here."
Her views, among them a fear that the conflict could destabilize
the region and reignite tension with Turkey, are widely shared. A
recent poll published by Greece's largest daily newspaper, Ta Nea,
indicated that more than 95 percent of Greeks oppose the bombing.
Some 63.5 percent of those polled expressed a favorable view of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. And 94.4 percent said they
had a negative view of President Clinton.
Greek newspapers and television have fanned public discontent,
stressing the suffering of Serbian civilians over the plight of
Albanian refugees from Kosovo. That has alarmed the country's
500,000 Albanian immigrants, who mostly work illegally, and are
viewed with suspicion by many Greeks.
"I ask myself, why is Greece supporting Serbia; aren't they in
NATO?" a 52-year-old unemployed immigrant said, adding that he
relied on the Albanian-language service of Voice of America.
Some Greek journalists agree that there is an imbalance. "Greek
television shows the exact opposite of what Americans see,"
Stelios Koulogrou, a well-known television documentary filmmaker,
explained. "On CNN you see 80 percent refugees and 20 percent
Serbs. On our channels it is the reverse."
Coverage of American news, meanwhile, is newly shaded by the
war.
To the newspaper Ethnos, a center-left daily, the mass killings
at a high school in Colorado last week had a direct link to NATO
bombings. "The violence that Pentagon hawks are using in their
foreign policy has boomeranged on social life in the U.S.," a
front-page headline said on Thursday. "The evidence is
overwhelming: 10,000 assaults in American schools each year."
A Greek naval officer who was given a two-and-a-half-year
sentence last week for refusing to serve on a destroyer set to join
NATO forces in the Adriatic has become a hero of left- and
right-wing groups, as well as many in the Greek Orthodox clergy.
Archbishop Christodoulos Paraskevaidis has described the bombers as
"pawns of Satan."
Greeks have not taken their anger out on their government, which
has given NATO access to two air bases and its land routes into
Macedonia, and is seeking a cautious balance between loyalty to
NATO and support for a cease-fire. Since the crisis broke out,
Simitis' ratings have risen.
"There is a silent majority that feels that Greece has no
choice but to be prudent, prudent, prudent," said Thanos Veremis,
who runs a foreign policy research institute in Athens. "We are a
small, weak country and people feel that poor Simitis has no choice
for now." He added, "But that of course could change."
Relations between Turkey and Greece have been relatively free of
strain since the bombing began on March 24, but many Greeks
nevertheless worry that the war will reignite that conflict.
"Thrace," a 25-year-old engineering student replied when asked
about his opposition to the war. He was referring to the small
Muslim minority in Thrace, whose rights are yet another sore point
between Greece and Turkey, which is largely Muslim.
"Turks could use Kosovo as a precedent," he said. "As an
excuse to demand autonomy for Muslims in Thrace."
He, like many others, complained that NATO was applying a double
standard on human rights in the Balkans. As Eleni Vafiadou put it:
"Albanians had some rights in Kosovo, but the Kurds in Turkey
don't have any. Why hasn't the United States bombed Istanbul?"
The anxiety over the war is free-floating. The Greek stock
market has fallen, some tourism agencies are reporting
cancellations and Greek investment in Serbia, worth more than $1
billion, is at obvious risk.
Greek political leaders and voters speak passionately about the
need to protect borders, fearing that any redrawing of the map of
Kosovo could infect Macedonia or spawn Muslim aspirations of a
"Greater Albania" including northern parts of Greece.
There is growing talk of sinister American goals in the Balkans
that have little to do with defending an oppressed minority.
"I think America is threatened by an independent Europe," said
Leon B. Karapanayotis, editor in chief of Ta Nea, "and it is no
accident that now the euro is falling against the dollar. The U.S.
is asserting itself in Europe, and Europe is now considerably
weaker. I suspect the U.S. has no reason to feel unhappy about
this."
