It has been a while since Ive updated my weblog and quite a few things have happened since then. The most surprising of all was the incredible breakthrough in revealing the identity of the members of one of the most notorious terrorist groups in Europe, November 17
This of course came as a great surprise since the organization has been shrouded in mystery for 27 years and suddenly after a rather curious accident one by one its members begun to take there place under the spotlight and into the investigators office. Unlike many people appearing in the Greek and foreign media, I dont claim to have any knowledge of the details concerning this case but I can express a few thoughts I had since this story appeared in the news. First of all what really surprised me and most of the people following this story was how common these people appear to be. It looks like most of them lived rather normal lives and strayed off their usual habits every 1-2 years to perform their terrorist duties. Quiet, polite, helpful, easygoing this motif appears again and again in the witnesses testimonies. With the exception of their supposed leader none of them fits into the far-left activist profile, they dont fit even that of the common criminal.
Also worth noting are the reasons why Greeks citizens did not actively participate all these years to the efforts to expose this organization. I believe that 17N mode of operation is one of the main reasons and Im going to use my self as an example. As far as I can remember the threat of getting hurt in a terrorist attack was literally the last thing in my mind. Unlike the Londoners in the late 70s and 80s,the Spaniards in the Basque territories and the Israelis in Palestine I never felt directly threatened by terrorism in Greece, not even once. 17N aimed at very specific targets, mainly American and Turkish diplomats, Greek politicians and industrialists and was clever enough to avoid any other kind of casualties. Since I dont belong to any of the categories mentioned above I never felt threatened. Of course this doesnt make me a neutral observer, Im totally against people getting killed in cold blood and felt real anger and embarrassment every time something like that happened. But because I wasnt directly threatened by it I did not act as much as I would if it concerned directly the security of my family, my property and me. I believe that most Greeks (and maybe even foreigners living in Greece) felt the same way and that made them, if not tolerant, certainly far less energetic in assisting police with their investigations
Above all it is the feelling that there are important parts of this story that we will never learn. These people most probably did not work in isolation and had direct or indirect help from local and foreign secret services. I'm not sure if it maters any more, they have "outlived" there usefulness (if there ever was any) for the people that created them and they had to be "removed from circulation". What is important is that nothing like this should be allowed to reappear in this country ever again.
