Recognising Greece

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31595, 5 February 1968, Page 12

Recognising Greece

Freedom and democratic government continue to elude the. Greek people after 10 months of rigid authoritarian rule by the military junta. As expected, the new draft constitution appears to have been motivated not by any wish to define rights but by a determination to prevent freedom of political expression. “ Guided democracy ” of this particular brand cannot possibly be approved Elsewhere in the Western world, yet the question of diplomatic relations has had to be faced. Turkey, Spain—where, in government quarters, there is no doubt some feeling of kinship with the colonels—the United States and Britain have resumed formal diplomatic contacts. No doubt it is felt, at any rate in Washington and .London, that channels of direct communication with the junta must be available if the reforms on which King Constantine’s return are conditional are ever to go through. Moreover, the question of Greece’s membership of the Council of Europe, and possibly even of N.A.T.0., has yet to be determined. The regime is under threat of expulsion from the council if normal parliamentary government is not restored within a year.

A moral issue, possibly transcending all others at the moment, concerns the treatment of prisoners of the regime, estimated by Amnesty International, In a report just issued, to be nearly three thousand. Reports of torture by the security police, presumably to extract confessions or information, are difficult to credit, yet are said to be based on reliable evidence. The British Foreign Office, in the light of Amnesty International’s findings, may go ahead with a proposal, considered earlier, to ask the International Committee of the Red Cross to make a formal investigation of conditions on the prison islands in the Aegean. The oppression of the Greek people by the military regime will become more difficult "to conceal if normal contacts with the outside world are resumed. The diplomatic recognition which the junta has sought to bolster its prestige may have uncomfortable consequences.