WHEN TERRORISTS attack American embassies or kill our military personnel, the United States is relentless in bringing the criminals to justice. Right? Strangely enough, not if the crimes take place in Greece, our NATO ally.
It has now been 25 years since Richard Welch, a U.S. diplomat, was brutally gunned down in front of his wife, on his way home from a Christmas party in 1975. His killers still walk free.
Welch was a CIA officer on a diplomatic assignment, declared as such to the local government. Since his death, three more Americans -- Navy Captain George Tsantes in 1983, Navy Captain William Nordeen in 1988, and Air Force Sergeant Ronald Stewart in 1991 -- have fallen prey to the same terrorist group. Over 30 more U.S. officials have been wounded in attacks intended to kill. No terrorists have been arrested, however, let alone brought to justice. No suspect has been identified, and no serious investigation is even underway. The chances the terrorists will be caught are very low, but the chances for more American victims are high.
The Greek terrorists call themselves "November 17," to mark the crushing of a student uprising by a previous military government. In scores of operations, the group has killed a prominent member of the Greek parliament and wounded others, tried to kill several Greek cabinet members and other senior officials, and murdered or mutilated leading diplomats, judges, industrialists, bankers, and physicians. Most recently, just last June, it killed British defense attache Stephen Saunders. The group uses firearms, high explosives, mortars, and rocket grenades (mostly stolen from the Greek police and military). It has brazenly bombarded the U.S. embassy in central Athens and routinely bombs banks, businesses, and diplomatic targets.
In this quarter-century reign of terror, the record of Greek law enforcement is zero: no convictions, no captures, no arrests, no suspects, nothing.
How can this be? Surely, if a U.S. senator were murdered in downtown Washington by a political group that had also killed officials of a friendly country (say, Greece), the FBI and Justice Department would work round the clock to make arrests, under intense pressure from Congress and the media. Not in Athens.
There has never been a systematic police effort to find November 17, whom the Greek media often portray as urban Robin Hoods. Recently, two major Greek newspapers printed full-page revelations of the evidence developed by a crack team of Scotland Yard investigators sent to Athens after the Saunders killing, information leaked from the Greek security services. Witnesses of terrorist attacks, known only to the police, receive threats from the terrorists. Serious journalists who ask too many questions do so in peril of their lives.
I worked on this issue for three years at the U.S. embassy in Athens and am persuaded the problem goes far beyond police incompetence and a few terrorist sympathizers. The problem is political. The ruling Pasok party fears exposure of its own prior links with November 17 if the terrorists go on trial. Prime minister Costas Simitis is almost certainly not directly involved, but his party is unwilling to arrest old comrades from the fight against the military junta. As a result, the government treats the lives of non-Pasok prominent Greeks and foreign representatives as expendable. Of course, it proclaims a "principled position against terrorism" -- and promises the 2004 Summer Olympics will be absolutely safe (though it doesn't explain how).
From their manifestoes, it is clear the terrorists believe their best days are still ahead. They have recruited a younger generation of killers, expanded their weaponry, tactics, and targets, and are supremely contemptuous of Greek law enforcement.
So where is the outrage in America? And why is there no anger from Washington? President Clinton made a state visit to Athens in late 1999 but neglected even to raise the unpleasant topic of terrorism, giving Greek leaders precisely the message they wanted. Many senators and congressmen publicly wrap themselves in the POW/MIA flag, but they do not demand justice for Americans killed in the line of duty in Athens. Associations of veterans and military personnel have lost interest, or perhaps hope. Some American media do question staging the 2004 Olympic Games in a city that had over 100 political bombings last year, yet they tend to accept Greek inaction against terrorism as normal.
The Americans who have survived November 17 attacks remember. The families and colleagues of our dead remember. Our public representatives remain silent.
Where is the outrage?
Wayne Merry, a former State Department and Pentagon official, is senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.