Shedding light on the history of November 17 and its roots in the radical students’ movement

May 29,’ the ‘Cubans,’ ELA, Nov17’s operatives and their links abroad to terrorist groups such as that of Carlos the Jackal

By Antonis Karakousis - Kathimerini

It all seems to have started back in 1969, a time of political upheaval, when the words of Che Guevara and the Brazilian Carlos Mariguela (the father of the urban guerrilla movement) were inspiring students in Europe's universities. It was then that a group of about 40 young Greeks studying in Paris decided to set up the radical, anti-dictatorship organization, the «May 29» movement. Supported by a few Italians and Germans, they favored the armed struggle but met with some opposition. After endless debate, no agreement was reached.

Alexandros Yotopoulos, then a hard young man, was described as being in favor of armed rebellion. Head of the organization's military wing, he was one of its most radical members, and with another seven or eight people, he sought contacts with the Cuban authorities and eventually went to Havana.

After a six-month stay, they returned in August 1969. Continued debate and many disagreements finally led to a splintering of the group. The foreign members left to continue their struggle in their own countries; some of the Germans tried to approach, and perhaps became members of, the Red Army Faction (RAF) set up by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Another group of about 15 people set up the pro-Maoist EKKE in 1971, which after the dictatorship became part of Greece's political landscape. Another, less radical group continued to work against the dictatorship but with an emphasis on the non-use of arms except when necessary.

The «Cubans,» centered around Yotopoulos, set up the Popular Revolutionary Struggle (LEA). Yotopoulos became one of its leaders and co-founders.

In 1971, there was a meeting in Paris of members of LEA, the «October 20» and the «Aris-Rigas Ferraios» organization for the purpose of joining forces to set up a radical organization for revolutionary violence. They found no common ground. Yotopoulos stood up at the meeting and stated that the only solution was «the armed struggle against the regime.»

From that moment on, Yotopoulos disappeared without a trace. Some of his family say that he went to Poland with a woman. But he was not heard of until the fall of the dictatorship. Those who took part in the Polytechnic uprising against the junta say they never met him. Most of them in fact believe that the «Cubans» underestimated the Polytechnic uprising, rejecting it as being part of the process of transition to the parliamentary system.

Excluded from the most important event in the struggle against the dictatorship, Yotopoulos, the «tall guy,» as he was known, apparently came to Greece in early 1975 accompanied by a woman, whose identity is still unknown to the authorities.

According to police, Yotopoulos contacted Christos Kassimis, a member of the October 20 group whom he had known in Paris, and who had in the meantime founded, along with other former October 20 and Aris-Rigas Ferraios members, the Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA). With Kassimis, he also met a third person active in the labor movement, who would put him in touch with others of similar ideological bent. In discussions, Yotopoulos would make aggressive proposals, but was regarded with some suspicion. In particular, he proposed the abduction of CIA station chief Richard Welch, an idea that was rejected as not being feasible.

A few months later, at the end of December, Welch was murdered by four people, headed, according to police, by Yotopoulos, accompanied by a woman, the man he met through Kassimis and a young man who acted as a lookout, whose name is known to the police.

It was the first act claimed by November 17. A few months later, Yotopoulos went back to ELA, arrogantly boasting of his act. Much discussion followed, but once again he did not meet with the response he expected. Nearly a year later, he killed police officer Evangelos Mallios with the same small group, again without managing to achieve the unification of forces that he desired.

After Kassimis died, ELA avoided any contact with Yotopoulos as it preferred the method of small symbolic acts that would incite ordinary people to fight against the established order. Everything changed in 1978 when Christos Tsoutsouvis left ELA, taking with him 70 percent of its weapons and nearly all of its militant, younger members. This group went on to set fire to shops and carry out other acts of violence that were unprecedented in Greece.

It was then that November 17 came into contact with Tsoutsouvis's group. Until then, November 17 had been a small force without the necessary infrastructure or manpower to carry out major operations.

Police say it was then that Kassimis's friend once more offered his services and recruited more young radicals into the organization.

Between 1979 and 1980, November 17 acquired a strong operational wing, first of all with the recruitment of Tzortzatos, later Koufodinas and then Christodoulos Xeros.

The murder of police officer Pandelis Petrou and his driver Sotiris Stamoulis boosted this recruitment drive among radical youths of that time.

During the same period, ELA, motivated by the peculiar competitive spirit between revolutionary struggle groups, tried to reorganize and form links with international terrorist groups.

The first joint operation between ELA and Carlos the Jackal's group took place in Athens in 1983, at the same time that November 17 became active again. It was the time when Greek terrorist groups came into contact with international centers, as is recorded in the archives of the former East German secret service, the Stasi. Years later, it was shown that Carlos's group was working almost solely for the East Germans.

It was perhaps the most crucial moment, one which would determine the series of actions that followed and which are now being revealed. In the 20 years after the bomb attack on the Saudi Arabian ambassador, nothing was done, even though the names of the Greek associates who provided cover, weapons and support for the organization had been recorded by Johannes Weinrich, Carlos's top man.

One of the people referred to by Weinrich was at a meeting in Paris of the three resistance organizations. The question is whether November 17 had similar contacts and links with foreign groups, whether it was influenced by «friendly» foreign forces in its choice of targets. It is certain that Yotopoulos had maintained such contacts since Paris, when Italians and Germans were in the ranks of the precursor organization May 29 and probably went on to embark on the armed struggle.

Evidence to hand so far does not answer this question. What is certain is that after 1983, November 17, now boosted with the addition of militant operatives, gradually expanded its operations and diversified with regard to its targets.

There were more and more robberies, the assassination targets were now businessmen, newspaper publishers with a particular political orientation, and politicians acting in a particular way.

Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis believes that as time went by, Yotopoulos began to feel that he was affecting political developments; he felt powerful, with new recruits in the ranks. Arrogant as always, he began to choose his targets according to his belief in his ability to influence events.

As of 1985, the organization broadened its activities even further, and year by year carried out more audacious attacks - newspaper publisher Nikolaos Momferatos in 1985, businessmen Dimitris Angelopoulos in 1986 and Athanassiadis-Bodosakis in 1988, judges and the politician Pavlos Bakoyiannis in 1989. Also in 1989, there was the theft of weapons from the Sykourio military camp. The «corner store» had become a «supermarket.» In 1991, it really took off.

Tzortzatos, Koufodinas and the Xeros brothers appeared to act somewhat independently, almost questioning the authority of «Lambros,» as Yotopoulos was known to them. Either they had got wind of something, or else they felt strong enough to take over the group; at any rate, they were out of hand. Robberies increased, as did targets in the economic sector, as if peculiar competitive forces were operating.

Yotopoulos intervened to rein them in and once again it was he who took charge of the operation to kill former National Bank Governor Michalis Vranopoulos and was also present at the murder of shipowner Costas Peratikos. It was he who gave the signal to Savvas Xeros and Dimitris Koufodinas to strike. It was also he who ordered the murder of Stephen Saunders and directed the operation, in which the entire organization took part, the largest since the Sykourio break-in and the attack on the Vyronas police station. But it was also their last, and most fateful.

Now that the skein is being unwound and we are face to face with the organization's main figure, the facts appear to support the evaluation made by Chrysochoidis.

The activities of November 17 must have been directed by the arrogant personality of Alexandros Yotopoulos, the obsessions that gripped him from time to time, by a personality that after so many years of life in the shadows, suddenly came out into the light and did not know what to do.

He either denies the accusations and demands to know on what evidence they are based, or declares that he does not accept the charges as he does not recognize the system that is making them.

On the one hand, he appears to be seeking to make a political appearance in the courtroom, and on the other, he is asking about the rights provided by the law and access to a lawyer.

Thirty years on, Yotopoulos still appears to be struggling with himself. On the one hand, he is no longer on the run, on the other, he feels that he should milk the publicity that he has been seeking for so long but could never get a taste of. He wants to make a statement, but knows that his subordinates have been associated with abhorrent robberies. He wants to declare himself a leader, a general, but trembles at the sight of Christodoulos Xeros, who feels deceived and who knows what else.

Lambros is now being faced with own dead ends. As an intellectual, he wonders how he can stand up in court alongside these crude robbers and murderers. That is why he needs the press, so that he can proclaim once again the illusion of revolution, that is why he declares that he will find a lawyer fitting his stature.

Perhaps this is where he will overstep his limits, by calling for support from his foreign friends, from the international legal firm that defended Carlos. If so, if he suggests his relationship and confirms the theory of a common center for domestic and international terrorism, then the Stasi files and all they contain will be opened, maybe to resolve once and for all the mysteries of post-dictatorship Greece.