Back to Document View

LexisNexis™ Academic


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times

April 7, 2003, Monday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section B;  Page 12;  Column 1;  Foreign Desk 

LENGTH: 741 words

HEADLINE: A NATION AT WAR: PROTEST;
Anti-Americanism in Greece Is Reinvigorated by War

BYLINE:  By ANTHEE CARASSAVA 

DATELINE: ATHENS, April 6

BODY:
Nearly four years after opponents of the United States-led intervention in Kosovo detonated the ankles off a statue of President Harry S. Truman here, protesters have struck again.

But rather than spray paint or pelt or bomb the monument, a present from prominent Greek-Americans in the 1950's, antiwar demonstrators this time preferred a different kind of protest.

During an antiwar rally on March 30, they wrapped the bronze statue in packaging paper, scrawled "Return to Sender" and then joined hands in chanting, "Bush-Truman, assassins of all nations."

"Here we go again," said Zeta Anagnostopoulou, an archaeologist and caretaker of the city's public monuments. "Whenever Harry looks bad, the Greeks are venting their anger against America."

Few European nations have had testier relations with the United States over the years than Greece. Most Greeks still resent Washington's tacit support for the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1967 to 1974. Then, in 1981, Andreas Papandreou, the Socialist leader, rose to power and threatened to shut down American military bases. Mr. Papandreou also threatened to withdraw Greece from NATO, and befriended such adversaries of the United States as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Idi Amin of Uganda.

Anti-Americanism, though, did not fade with Mr. Papandreou's death in 1996. In fact, passions flared during the war in Kosovo, with many Greeks still incensed about the American-led attacks on their fellow Orthodox Christians, the Serbs.

Now, the war against Iraq has reinvigorated anti-Americanism.

Labor unions are staging strikes and protest marches. Lawyers are preparing to file war-crimes charges against President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. A high school teacher who heckled the American ambassador's wife at a book presentation last month has been praised on newscasts as "courageous" and a "new national hero."

The composer Mikis Theodorakis, a longtime critic of the United States, recently called its people "detestable, ruthless cowards and murderers of the people of the world."

"From now on," he said in an interview with a local newspaper, "I will consider as my enemy those who interact with these barbarians for whatever reason."

Mr. Theodorakis's remarks came ahead of a poll published on Friday showing that 94 percent of Greeks oppose the war against Iraq. Last month, another survey showed that more Greeks had a positive view of Saddam Hussein than of Mr. Bush and that a majority of those polled believed that the United States was as undemocratic as Iraq.

An American Embassy spokesman said it would have no official comment on the anti-Americanism.

Despite the polls, Greece's Socialist government has done little to obstruct the American military campaign. While Greece, which holds the presidency of the European Union, aligned itself with France and Germany in opposition to the war, it warned Iraq early on to comply with United Nations resolutions or face the consequences.

Although last week Greece turned down a United States request to allow American warships to patrol its territorial waters, it has allowed the use of a military base on Crete by American surveillance planes during the war.

Domestically, though, the government is donning a different hat. Prime Minister Costas Simitis has left the Iraqi debate in the hands of his party's anti-American hawks, who have organized mass marches to the American Embassy.

To Theodore Couloumbis, a political scientist at the University of Athens, that is "smart politics."

"You just can't advertise your credibility as a Western ally," he said in an interview, "when the majority of your voters are opposed to the war and national elections are due within a year."

Still, other experts fear that anti-Americanism here has soared as a result of the government's indulgence of such hostility.

"Anti-Americanism is a hidden agenda on which each government or party seeks to capitalize," said Takis Michas, the author of "Unholy Alliance," about Greece's relations with Serbia in the recent Balkan conflicts.

"As during the NATO-led strikes against Yugoslavia, the Greeks aren't protesting the legitimacy or not of U.S.-led action," Mr. Michas said. "They're just bucking against America because that's what they've been used to doing, and no politician here is really concerned in altering public perceptions."
 

http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Photo: Antiwar protesters made a Greek gesture of insult during a rally by 10,000 people outside the American Embassy in Athens on Thursday. (Associated Press)

LOAD-DATE: April 7, 2003