JUST TO ILLUMINATE....

PRESS RELEASE

14 June 2004

TOPIC: GHM LETTER TO GREEK MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND AMBASSADORS OF IRELAND, ITALY AND PORTUGAL FOR UNACCEPTABLE LEGITIMIZATION OF GREEK XENOPHOBIC AND ANTI-SEMITIC PARTY!

Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) sent today the following letter to Greek Minister of Education and Religions Marietta Yannakou, copied to the Ambassadors of Ireland, Italy and Portugal, pointing to the unacceptable Minister statements that legitimize LAOS, possibly the most extreme right, hyper-nationalist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic party in the newly elected European Parliament (EP), as evidenced by the selected party statements included in the letter. In the EP, already government parties of Ireland, Italy and Portugal have legitimized LAOS by associating themselves to it. GHM believes such actions contribute to the incubation of the “egg of the snake” in Greece and calls on Greece’s Minister of Education and the parties of the other countries to effectively distance themselves from LAOS.


Ms. Marietta Yannakou
Minister of Education and Religions
cc: Ambassadors of Ireland, Italy, Portugal

14 June 2004

Dear Minister

We were unpleasantly surprised to listen to your statements yesterday at the state TV station NET, partly repeated today at the radio station Flash, that LAOS (Popular Orthodox Herald) is not an extreme right party, but a populist right party, and that the Greek people is wise in voting also for the small parties so that Greece is represented in all Europarliamentary groups so as to avoid that any of them would take positions detrimental to the Greek interests as do Cohn-Bendit’s Greens. Such legitimization by you of possibly the most extreme right, hyper-nationalist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic party in the newly elected European Parliament (EP) contributes to the incubation of the “egg of the snake.” Please read below excerpts from the pre-election issues of LAOS weekly “Alpha Ena” and an older dossier by “Ios” in “Eleftherotypia” and think how you will explain your views on LAOS to Greece’s Jews who fall within your jurisdiction via KIS (Central Council of Jewish Communities in Greece). We call upon you to publicly reconsider your position.

This letter is copied to the Ambassadors of Ireland, Italy and Portugal, in whose countries rightwing government parties, evidently based on their reports, have also legitimized LAOS through their association with it in the European Parliament’s Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN), offering their “unreserved support,” and praising LAOS’ “courage to … defend the values of the new Right.” It is precisely this UEN support that was invoked yesterday by George Karatzaferis to back its claim that LAOS is not an extreme right party but a profoundly democratic party. GHM appeals on UEN –including EU President Bertie Ahern- to expel LAOS from the group.

Your sincerely

Panayote Dimitras
Spokesperson


“Alpha Ena” 5-6/6/2004: “Zionist action the propaganda against Greece;” “Zionists control the planet,” “the terrorist strike against New York’s twin towers has been proven beyond any doubt to be caused by the action of America’s Jewish-Zionists;” “the dollar’s symbol is not D but $(SH) for SHEKEL, honouring the first Jewish currency.”

“Alpha Ena” 29-30/5/2004: “Rozakis’ election as Greek judge in the European Court of Human Rights is a Zionist victory… confirming the dominant trend in the European Parliament –it is indeed a clear victory of Zionism with consequences that no one can foresee;” “what Europe do you like, … American, Zionist, internationalist, multicultural?” (the latter quote is in the introduction of AEN’s press release backing LAOS).


GEORGE KARAZAFERIS
His Kampf! (excerpts)

Ios Group (Tasos Kostopoulos, Dimitris Trimis, Angelika Psaras, Dimitris Psaras)

Eleftherotypia, 20-10-02

Translated by GHM from the Greek original available at http://www.enet.gr/online/online_pl_fpage_text.jsp?dt=20/10/2002&id=76848240,84927984,19454128,98978672,11563824
………

*** Mr. Karatzaferis is not an anti-Semite

This is definitely a misunderstanding. The founder of the LAOS party is simply exercising his national duty to uncover the Jewish finger in everything: in the ruling PASOK party, in the opposition New Democracy party, in the media, in the Greek state:

* “We live in a judeocracy [evraiokratia]. The Prime Minister [Kostas Simitis] comes from that stock. Aaron Avouris was his grandfather. George Papandreou has his grandmother, who was a Polish Jew, Mineiko. The entire government is a Ju-de-o-cracy.” [Emphasis his.] So said Mr. K. on his TV show, on his own private channel, on 24 May 2000. A few days after the 2000 elections he was disclosing the Jewish finger in the New Democracy party slate, a slate on which he himself once participated: “And if you look for them, you’ll find Jewish roots in Stefanos Manos [ND deputy], too. Wherever you see support for the issue [removal of religious designation from national identity cards] there are Jewish roots. Just look. At the family, the wife, the mother-in-law.”

* Mr. K. has said the same about the past leader of his own former party, a man he was extolling only a few years back: “Hand in hand, with [Militadis] Evert as leader.” On this same TV program, the LAOS party founder also claimed: “One of my own men, Lambros Lambrakos, saw Mr. Evert on his official visit to New York going into the Great Synagogue of the Jews, wearing his skullcap and penetrating the interior.”

* The next day, Mr. K. reiterated this, but with the following difference: he emphasized that Mr. Evert visited the Great Lodge of Washington, thereby tying the Jews to the Masons while linking two major American metropolises. A few days later (29/5/2000), the “Jewish conspiracy” would also include the president of the Council of Greeks Abroad [Symvoulio Apodimou Ellinismou]: “I learned today that the wife of Mr. Athens is a Swiss Jew. One by one the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. Everybody involved in this process has dealings with Israel.”

* But Mr. K. has the answer. To stake his claim for Super Prefect [of Attica and Piraeus] his party slate, he said, included two Jews. This was his argument when it was revealed that his ballot contained [the neo-Nazi group] Chryssi Avghi. In fact, to completely shake off the accusation of racism, Mr. K. claimed that his slate also included two homosexuals and a Gypsy. A true transcendence…

The funny thing is, these statements of Mr. K.’s provoked an official protest from Chryssi Avghi (!), which declared via Fuhrer Michaloliakos that it has no involvement in the elections (except for 4 of its officials):

“We are deeply saddened by the fact that Jews, homosexual deviants and gyps were used to counterbalance the presence of members of Chryssi Avghi on [the LAOS] ballot, and declare that this approach is not in accordance with our ethics.” However, the overly excitable anti-Semites spoke too soon. As he Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (Kentriko Israilitiko Symvoulio or KIS) pointed out, this Jewish participation was just another of Mr. K’s lies. “KIS deems it necessary to clarify that the promulgation by the candidate for Super Prefect of Attica, Mr. G. Karatzaferis, that his ballot includes two citizens of the Jewish faith is false. For years, Mr. G. K. has routinely and unallowably falsified the truth when it comes to matters of Judaism.”

* Of course, when he wanted to rally his people, Mr. K said other things. We recall his speech in Corinth, last May (28/5/02): “First: I’m not a Jew. Let the Prime Minister say that. Second: I’m not a communist. And let [ND opposition party leader] Mr. Karamanlis say that. Third: I’m not a homosexual. Not many can say that.”

* But Mr. K’s hard-line supporters need not worry. His ticket also includes other officials who lay claim to the characterization of pure anti-Semite or rightwing extremist on their own merits. We note Christos Virlas, a journalist for “Stochos” [the oldest, most notorious anti-Semitic, rightwing extremist newspaper in Greece], and, in particular, its editor, Ioannis Schinas. As far back in 1982, Mr. Schinas was disclosing the injustice suffered by Rudolph Hess in his columns in “Nea Thesis,” the official publication of the extremist pro-dictatorship party, ENEK. Mr. Schinas is the most prominent face of the post-dictatorship extreme right, a founding member of many anti-Semitic organizations and, naturally, a close friend of Kostas Plevris [notorious longtime anti-Semite and, inter alia, the Greek translator of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”].

……..

***Mr. Karatzaferis does not advocate conspiracy theories.

The basic propaganda weapon of rightwing extremist groups since the end of World War I is the dissemination of conspiracy theories. Mr. K. avoids this as much as he can, but he sometimes slips up. You see, he is also the Thessalonikan from the Peloponnisos who, every noon, delivers the leader’s TV show, telemarketing all the latest fiction of conspiracy para-literature: a little bit of Plevris, a little Georgalas, a little Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc. This last has been analyzed by none other than the recently converted theoretician of “Karatzaferian thought” himself, [Dimosthenis Liakopoulos] in a two-volume work in which he “demonstrates” how they are implemented.

*So, the leader had to lend a hand: “(Everything) is being implemented according to the Protocols of Zion. With the implementation of the New World Order. And who are those being served? On the one side there are the Jews, who are the direct perpetrators, and on the other there is the Pope and the Vatican, who are the indirect perpetrators. (…) I can provide more than one example of conspiracy between the Vatican and the Jews against Greece. Not just two, many. (…) Kostas Karamanlis traveled on the same plane, in the same car to the same club with Georgakis [contemptuous, in this case, diminutive of George, referring to Foreign Minister Papandreou] to the Bilderberg Club” (24/5/00).

“The Bilderberg Club met in Scotland. Karamanlis and Georgios Papandreou are in it, and [Turkish Foreign Minister] Cem, a Jew-turned-Muslim, is in it, too, and so is the whole tribe we’re familiar with, led by that other Jew, Mr. Holbrook” (29/5/00). “The New World Order means (that we are) puppets in the hands of the Jews. Flattened. Protocols of Zion. Pan-government has occurred in Europe. The unified currency has come to pass, too. They make it dance they way they want. Do you know how much money the Jews gain by this fluctuation? We are on the way to realizing the goals they set 200 years ago” (24/5/00).