CHIEF of GREEK GUERRILLAS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25390, 13 January 1948, Page 3

CHIEF of GREEK GUERRILLAS

CAREER OF “GENERAL MARKOS” REPUTED energy and efficiency Markos N vXJf ORK ’ December 27. wno has proclaimed ? u / rnlla chieftain in northern rx? d a . c °mmunist state Commumsm 15 a convert to of violent noliHnL, has -. made a career Athens coroesnnnd a f ltatlon > says the York Times > ? P dent ° f the “New riila h %e“er S ap i ? s US k n „ mous ‘ a ?. he < l pergelic and effi^„ k . no *, n !° be an enerhas rnmni efficient admmstrator who Itoe ?bA a r h ln Pyless The Cro A Communist Party. the eluJve k v^fiS l y h ? s been hunting the last - Y aflades for months. In an intensive days t u e Arm V announced The Greek r S „ earch for his “capital.” that V s L Gove ™» ent has expected tai soYn»,?b Would Proclaim his capinea? Sp } n tI L e region of Florina, t L! h T Jugoslav border. £ em etrios Maximos, then ernment £° yali , st Gree k Govhad evolv^d ated i tha L the Comrn unists insiirrXnH« d a ,P lan for a nation-wide the Diani har1 C R lled “ P L an F -” He bv Vafi?d? c d i b + e ?P orde F ed into effect thp nrdl^ es ’ ttiat P°li ce intercepted nlnt i^ rS - Government said the s cr ushed when police rounded rests ousands of Leftists in mass ar- ~ Forty-one Years of Age 41 7631,5 ° ld ’ sft 7in tail, aai } and > sin ewy. He has steely blue eyes and wavy chestnut hair. He was in Salonika in 1946, when’ the guerrilla bands in the north were beginning in earnest their attacks against Government forces. Vafiades slipped from his hideout and joined the guerrillas in September of that year. Within a month he became a commander-in-chief of all the guerrilla forces. There has been speculation that Vafiades, who uses the nom de guerre of ‘ General Markos,” was appointed comky some mysterious figure. But George Yannbulis, commander of guerrilla forces in the Mount Grammes are?, said last spring that Vafiades was elected” by all guerrilla captains after he had toured their camps. . Yannoulis since has been reported either to have killed himself or to have been executed at Vafiades’s order because of differences over the announcement of the Communist “Government.” Vafiades headed Elas, the armed force of the EAM (National Liberation Front), in western Macedonia during the /war. When Salonika was liberated he /became an important figure. Vafiades, described as a dynamic organiser and improviser, controlled Salonika at the time of the liberation through his own secret police organisation. Bom in Asia Minor ‘He was born in Kastamoni, in Asia Minor, in 1906. He came to Greece by way of Istanbul with the wave of refugees after the unsuccessful Greek campaign against the Turks in 1923. He became a street peddler, then a shipping clerk and a waiter in a coffee house. It was when he was a tobacco worker in Kavalla that he made his contacts with the Communists and joined the Communist Youth movement. From that time on his life was a violent one. Greek police records show that Vafiades has been jailed at least eight times since 1929 on charges of making seditious speeches, provoking riots, agitating strikes, robbery, and carrying false identification papers.