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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 10. September 20th, 1949

The New Invader

The New Invader

That is what has happened in Greece. Those who had fought the German invader, found their national freedom was menaced by another invader—this time from across the Atlantic. Many of them look to the mountains to join an armed resistance to the puppet government. Those that stayed, found legal security an intangible myth. The net result was the continuance of what British Labour M.P. Seymour Cocks described as "a national movement, and its purpose is the freeing of Greece from the domination of any foreign power whatsoever and the reconstruction of their country."

What foreign power, for instance? Colonel Sheppard (Greece's Struggle for Freedom, Sydney, Dec., 1948), lists the more notable footholds of American finance in Greece. They cover all Greece's main industries—lead, lignite and magnesium mining, hydro-electric and cotton ginning works.

In addition, only two quotations are needed to realise the extent of American intervention and the reason for it. The Greek correspondent of the New York Post wrote, 26/6/47, "The Athens government has granted the American missions very wide powers. News from Athens leads one to the conclusion that it is in reality the American mission which will govern Greece from now on," And Walter Lippman, writing in the Herold-Tribune in April of the same year, when Truman's Graeco-Turkish aid plan was announced, said: "We have chosen Turkey and Greece, not because they are actually in need of aid, but because they constitute for us the strategic door leading to the Black Sea and the heart of the U.S.S.R."

Behind Bars Cartoon

As for political inquisition in American Greece, a small book in French, entitled "Macronlssos—le Dachau americaln en Grece" (Feb., 1949) has been received by this Students' Association. This describes conditions in Greece's worst political concentration camp. The accuracy of the account is vouched for by over 50 former prisoners whose names are listed. In the words of the author, "this is a blot which soils our land, and an offence against the post-war world." After reading the gruesome description, you realize how mild these words are.

Colonel Sheppard describes cases within his own experience, of the brutality of the new gestapo—nearly all former employees of the quisling "security police"—chiefly against labour leaders and students.

"The Blue Book of the Greek Provisional Democratic Government" (August, 1948) list 1,289 known executions by the royalist government between February, 1945, and March, 1946.