Greece: no solution

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33241, 2 June 1973, Page 14

Greece: no solution

The quietly-organised naval “ mutiny ” in Greece suggests that the dictatorial regime led by Colonel Papadopoulos may be nearing one more crossroad in its six-year search for political and economic stability. Members of the Government, in an attempt to obscure its origins, now insist on the use of a civilian style of address. It would be correct to say that, if they have expediently put aside military rank In the meantime, they continue to derive their authority from an officer corps whose loyalty has been tested in successive purges of dissidents. It is clear at last that the colonels have no intention of restoring the monarchy. They intend, on the contrary, to end it, either by decree, or by the testing of popular judgment through a referendum. The question, apparently, is whether a referendum would produce a more positive result before an election, or after it. Six years ago, when King Constantine was forced into exile, the monarchy was not a popular Institution. It is doubtful whether the return of the King would be widely welcomed even now, after years of political repression, unless he could be reinstated merely as the titular head of a strong and democratically-elected administration.

There seems, at the moment, little hope for a lolution on those lines. Although harassed, the colonels are as little disposed now as in the past to turrender power. This has been indicated by their reaction to renewed student unrest — a threat to revoke student immunity from military service. Even more positive was the unqualified rejection of tn appeal by the exiled Mr Karamanlis, a respected former Prime Minister, that the colonels should tiake way for an elected government, to be installed without recrimination, and recall the King, “ as the *• symbol of legitimacy ”. The latter course is now epparently out of the question: adoption of the f miner can hardly be possible, since the Government thought fit to prosecute three newspapers that printed the Karamanlis appeal.

In the meantime arrests go on. even when those r ho speak out against the regime do so out of their byalty to Greece, and their despair that the regime, i.hile it may claim some success in improved public seems incapable of checking inflation :>r of persuading foreigners that the regime is respectable. Morale in the Army continues to decline. I'ifts are appearing within the Army and between fhe Army and the civilian population. Moreover, the feeling grows that whatever happens, the armed farces cannot accept indefinitely the responsibility »f keeping an unpopular administration in power. Colonel Papadopoulos would have been well advised It least to test the Karamanlis solution, as a steppingKone towards the restoration of full parliamentary government