The Seven Big Lies about the Seven-Year Junta

For the majority of the Greek society the April 21 is the anniversary of one of the darkest moments in the country's history. The unrepentant nostalgics of the communist seven years, however, every year on this day find the opportunity to repeat an insidious propaganda with the aim of forgetting and falsifying history through “yes, but”.

Although it should normally go without saying why a dictatorship is an odious thing, the myths that some people try to diligently build and the lies that they repeat with the Goebbellian expectation “say, say, something will remain”, it does not hurt to remember the facts that refute the claims of the nostalgic Junta.

Lie number one: “Yes, but they didn't steal”

Nothing could be more untrue than this.

And where to start. From the notorious “Tama of the Nation”? So that the older people remember and the younger ones learn, the head of the Junta Georgios Papadopoulos decided to implement a plan of the members of the 4th National Assembly (which had been held in Argos in 1829) for the construction of a church of the Saviour. The dictators announced that they would build a magnificent temple in Turkovounia, which would become “the third architectural structure in Athens after the classical Parthenon and the Byzantine Lycabettus”.

The temple was never built, but a miracle happened: It filled the pockets of the junta!

They started to raise money from contributions from state institutions and private enterprises, from the state budget and with loans. In total, 453.3 million drachmas were raised. In the supreme committee for the “Vow of the Nation” Papadopoulos was chairman and members were Pattacos, Makarezos and the Hun archbishop Hieronymos.

For seven years, the grandiose project remained in theory and the world, despite the media silencing, clamoured for the big feast. Finally, because of the inter-Hungarian conflicts, at the beginning of 1974, an assessment was made (because Ioannidis obviously knew very well what Papadopoulos had done and not because he was blameless). Only 47.3 million drachmas were left in the special fund: 406 million had gone missing. Of course, no one was punished.

What is there to remember, really? The famous scandal with Balopoulos' rotten meat scandal?;

The military Michael Balopoulos was Deputy Minister of State for the National Economy, responsible for trade in 1972-1973. In 1975 he was convicted of importing unhealthy meat from Argentina, in collaboration with Rhodesian traders. Indeed Pattakos had issued an order banning the sale of local meat to absorb Balopoulos' imports, which had begun to rot and stink. The scandal also involved the brother of George Papadopoulos, Charalambos. In fact, Balopoulos was so notorious, which was left as a term for the kickbacks he received. And it became a motto on the pitches: If a player did not perform in the game, the stands would not call him “coat” as they do today, but “Argentine ox” or “Balopoulos” meat".

They had, of course, started the feast with the good morning.

One of the first decisions of the Junta was to increase the salary of the Prime Minister from 23,600 to 45,000 drachmas and of the ministers from 22,400 to 35,000 drachmas. They even introduced “off-duty pay” of 1,000 and 850 drachmas respectively, and then began touring...

But that wasn't enough for them, they also wanted free houses. In 1970, housing was established for officers who had played a prominent role in the coup.

They naturally led scandalously luxurious lives. Their own wives told them. The accounts of Della Roufogalis and Despina Papadopoulou are characteristic of their stories of dolce vita in Paris, toilets, “pesquezia” from those who wanted to flatter the dictators through their wives, fresh fish, caviar and crabs arriving as gifts at home.

Lie number two: “Yes, but the economy was doing well”

The Junta tried to keep foreign borrowing low, but all it succeeded in doing was to more than quadruple domestic borrowing through bond issuance and creative fiscal accounting.

The contracting companies that undertook state projects (and in which Pattakos“ son-in-law always made sure to ”trump"), took loans from foreign banks with the guarantee of the Greek state. Thus the lending changed its character and the debt became domestic. But it remained a heavy axe over the heads of the Greeks.

Ladas and Roufogalis were handing out loans to “day laborers” and burdening the state banks. The magazine “Tahydromos” had revealed in 1974, at the beginning of the post-independence period, documents of Roufogalis, which mentioned loans that were granted and unsecured: the amount of more than 1.5 billion drachmas was recorded in the granted loans and the amount of more than 1.6 billion drachmas in the loans under approval.

In any case, the public debt more than doubled under the Junta. From 37.8 billion drachmas in 1967 it reached 87.5 billion drachmas in 1973. The trade deficit increased fivefold. Exports of agricultural products fell by 25%. The current account deficit increased eightfold.

As for the supposed reduction of unemployment, this was “achieved” thanks to the fact that 500,000 Greeks emigrated.: When the unemployed leave the country there are obviously fewer unemployed...

In short, as the far from communist Xenophon Zolotas said “the economic policy of the dictatorship was a policy of economic aggrandizement and not of economic development”. And we saw who benefited from economic growth.

Lie number three: “Under the Junta, people ate bread”

The taxpayers paid for the Hun bride, of course. The dictators were outrageously cutting business taxes to the health of the taxpaying sucker: In 1971 the tax exemptions of the 464 largest companies were three times the taxes they had paid! Some people ate not just bread, but sponge cake; however, it was not the common people who benefited from the seven-year feast.

Households bore the burden of 91% tax revenues. 55% of the state's tax revenues came from indirect taxes, which always hit the weakest, and 36% from the taxation of households.. Local and foreign bigwigs not only remained untouched, but the coup plotters did them all the favours, since they were running the country together.

Under the Junta, inflation was galloping. The consumer price index increased by 15.3% from 1972 to 1973 and by 37.8% the following year, and even more so for essentials and health. And this while in the 1960s Greece had the lowest inflation of all OECD countries. Real wages fell by 4%. The supposed “economic miracle of the Junta” was nothing but propaganda.

Lie four: “Yes, but they built roads”

And if the dictators built roads, would that negate the torture, the executions, the terrorism, the plaster on the throats of the Greek people?; The answer for anyone who wants to be called not just a democrat, but just a human being, is self-evident. But let's see what roads were built and how.

All authoritarian regimes make sure that they do some works, to show a supposed social face and because they know very well that they don't have the support of the people. But sometimes the roads are not built at all, but some people get rich miraculously; they would have prayed at the aforementioned Church of the Saviour that was never built it seems...

The most striking example is the case of Egnatia, which of course was not built under Hounda. That did not stop some people from making money though.

The American “middleman” Robert MacDonald immediately took the job without any study and may not have built the Egnatia, but he made his fortune by pocketing 4.5 million as a fee and about 33 million drachmas in Greek government bonds against his expenses.

Usually this lie about roads goes hand in hand with “they forgave the farmers” debts“ and ”they increased social spending".

Indeed, the Dicatoria in the first year wrote off farmers' debts, because as we said totalitarian regimes always make moves to gain the popular support they lack and/or to limit the reactions against them. But apart from everything else, they managed to dismantle agricultural production, to reduce the per capita agricultural income, so that farmers emigrated and thus Greece reduced exports and increased imports of agricultural products.

Also, indeed, in the first year the Junta increased social spending as a percentage of GDP. And then it started to reduce it year by year, so that when this tragic joke collapsed the percentage of social spending as a percentage of GDP had fallen to 1965 levels.

Lie number five: “Yes, but they didn't do buffers”

Often the shameless defenders of the Junta denounce family rule, which didn't exist under the dictatorship, because they may have been a bit fascist, but they were honest.

Let's see how honest they were and how much they didn't suit their own people.

Georgios Papadopoulos appointed one of his brothers, Konstantinos Papadopoulos, military attaché, Secretary General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Regional Governor of Attica and Minister to the Prime Minister, and his other brother, Charalambos Papadopoulos, Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Order.

Pattakos was again a good father-in-law, since he made sure that his son-in-law Andreas Meidasis undertook technical projects in the municipality of Athens (such as the underground garage in Klaithmonos) and studies for the development of municipal properties, receiving... “petty” amounts of one million and one hundred thousand drachmas!

Nikolaos Makarezos again appointed his brother-in-law Alexander Matthaios as Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Northern Greece. Ioannis Ladas appointed his relatives to the ASDEN and the Ministry of Social Services.

Lie six: “Yes, but they were patriots”

How is it that the homeland is always betrayed by those who loudly declare their supposed patriotism?;

From the outset, the destruction of democracy, the imprisonment, execution and torture of Greeks, the bleeding of the public treasury for their own benefit, is treason against the homeland. But the coup plotters did not stop there.

Papadopoulos and Ioannidis not only dismantled the Greek army, but -as proven CIA agents and Kissinger's pawns- betrayed Cyprus, giving Turkey the excuse to invade the island with the foolish coup.

They literally handed over a country in ruins and sacrificed the lives of thousands of Greek Cypriots at the behest of foreigners, serving the conspiracy against Hellenism. They achieved what Evangelos Averoff had predicted in time, as early as 1968, that «unfortunately the regime of the colonels will collapse on the ruins and blood of Hellenism!»

The colonels, in a «masterly» way, executed the plan of the Americans, who had been talking about the partition of Cyprus since 1964. Together with Grivas and EOKA B (funded by the CIA) they conspired to overthrow Makarios on the grounds of “communist danger”.”. All they cared about was pleasing the CIA, which had supported them so much. In fact, the Junta allegedly informed Turkey directly that «as long as Grivas is on the island, no Turkish blood will be spilled». According to BBC correspondent Leslie Fisher, Grivas, as leader of EOKA-B, had been sent to create unrest so that the colonels would intervene and «restore order». And so it was. Only this caused the tragedy.

Five days after the Junta's coup, on 20 July 1974, the Turks enter Cyprus, landing 30,000 soldiers.

During the second Attila, and while the dictatorship had collapsed under the weight of the betrayal of Cyprus, Constantine Karamanlis found that the coup leaders had left Greece completely naked militarily and unprepared for engagement with Turkey.

As the heads of the Armed Forces explained to him, only a swarm of warplanes was ready in Crete. To reach Cyprus they would have had to load only two bombs instead of four. Even if they were not intercepted and hit their targets, they could not return to their base. The Phantoms could not be used because the training of their personnel had not been completed. The Miraz and the Corsairs had not yet arrived. NATO and Great Britain were wringing their hands. The coup plotters had surrendered Cyprus and Greece without a second thought.

Lie seven: “Yes, but if you didn't talk, no one bothered you, they only went after the communists.”

How undignified does one have to be to be happy that a dictator doesn't bother him because he doesn't dare to disagree?; How inhuman can he be that he doesn't mind people being persecuted and murdered for having a different political ideology than him?;

Apart from these questions, with hopefully obvious answers, the Junta persecuted and tortured the leftists, but not only.

On the night of 21 April, one of the first moves of the coup plotters was to arrest almost the entire political world of the country, both right and centre. And they did not hesitate to arrest and torture democrats who were anything but communists. But they resisted the Junta and paid for it.

Tasos Menis had put Hounda in a very difficult position as an officer and hero of El Alamein. This did not, of course, spare him from torture. This true patriot did not open his mouth in prison, but spoke at the trial, condemning the traitors to the homeland and democracy:

“As an officer I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. And the last article of the Constitution says that the observance of the Constitution is left to the patriotism of the Greeks. I thought it right to keep my oath.”.

Spyros Moustaclis had fought in the National Resistance with the organization EOEA-EDES of the not at all communist Napoleon Zervas, with which he took part in many battles. In 1948-49, as an infantry officer, he participated in battles of the civil war, and in 1952-53 he fought in Korea. He was decorated several times for his actions. He was arrested for his participation in the Navy Movement, tortured and crippled for the rest of his life.

Leftists and non-leftists alike, those who resisted the Junta suffered horrific torture. News 24/7 published last year a shocking document: the recording of the torture suffered by the pediatrician Stefanos Pantelakis in the EAT-ESA hellhole.

“While they were swearing at me in the vulgarest terms and mocking me, they took off my jacket, laid me on my back on the bench, pulled down my trousers and underpants, tied my legs and arms tightly with a tight rope and put a towel over my mouth so I couldn't see. Now everyone was laughing, saying how I was a humiliated faggot and a faggot. [...] I was told I had another 5 minutes to talk before the treatment started. And because I wasn't talking I suddenly started to feel a sharp object scratching my lower abdomen. And in a moment with a command someone gave the machine started and I started to feel some horrible pains. I thought they were ripping my meat out, I was shaking all over. This was getting stronger and stronger, they were taking it all over my lower abdomen and genitals. I was screaming in pain. I thought my genitals were being cut off.”.

“Because I was screaming they were beating me on the head and trying to keep my mouth shut, but I was struggling with such force that my left hand was loosened from the rope and I was trying to defend myself. Then they grabbed it and with a lever on the back of the bench they pressed it furiously, I thought they were going to break it, however the worst part was every time the sharp object went around in my belly.’.

That was the Junta, which some people dare to try to wash away.