Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N) Group Profile Since the group’s initial appearance with the assassination of U.S. official Richard Welch in an Athens suburb with a Colt .45-caliber magnum automatic pistol on December 23, 1975, no known member of the shadowy Revolutionary Organization 17 November (Epanastatiki Organosi 17 Noemvri–17N) has been apprehended. Thus, the membership and internal dynamics of this small, mysterious, and well-disciplined group remain largely unknown. It has been claimed in some news media that the identity of no member of 17N is known to Greek, American, or European police and intelligence agencies. However, the group’s ability to strike with impunity at its chosen targets for almost a quarter century without the apprehension of a single member has reportedly made Western intelligence agencies suspect it of being the instrument of a radicalized Greek intelligence service, the GYP, according to the Observer [London]. According to one of the Observer’s sources, Kurdish bomber Seydo Hazar, 17N leaders work hand-in-glove with elements of the Greek intelligence service. According to the Observer, 17N has sheltered the PKK by providing housing and training facilities for its guerrillas. Police were kept away from PKK training camps by 17N leaders who checked the identity of car license plates with Greek officials. Funds were obtained and distributed to the PKK by a retired naval commander who lives on a Greek military base and is a well-known sympathizer of 17N. What little is known about 17N derives basically from its target selection and its rambling written communiqués that quote Balzac or historical texts, which a member may research in a public library. Named for the 1973 student uprising in Greece protesting the military regime, the group is generally believed to be an ultranationalist, Marxist-Leninist organization that is anti-U.S., anti-Turkey, anti-rich Greeks, anti-German, anti-European Union (EU), and anti-NATO, in that order. It has also been very critical of Greek government policies, such as those regarding Cyprus, relations with Turkey, the presence of U.S. bases in Greece, and Greek membership in NATO and the European Union (EU). In its self-proclaimed role as “vanguard of the working class,” 17N has also been critical of Greek government policies regarding a variety of domestic issues. One of the group’s goals is to raise the “consciousness of the masses” by focusing on issues of immediate concern to the population. To these ends, the group has alternated its attacks between so-called “watchdogs of the capitalist system” (i.e., U.S. diplomatic and military personnel and “secret services”) and “servants of the state” (such as government officials, security forces, or industrialists). It has been responsible for numerous attacks against U.S. interests, including the assassination of four U.S. officials, the wounding of 28 other Americans, and a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Athens in February 1996. The group justified its assassination of Welch by blaming the CIA for “contributing to events in Cyprus” and for being “responsible for and supporting the military junta.” Unlike most European Marxist-Leninist terrorist groups that are in their third or fourth generation of membership, the 17N group has been able to retain its original hard-core members. In 1992, according to 17N expert Andrew Corsun, the group’s hard-core members were most likely professionals such as lawyers, journalists, and teachers in their late thirties and early forties. If that is the case, most of the group’s core membership, which he estimated to be no more than twenty, would today be mostly in their forties. Moreover, the 17N communiques, with a five-pointed star and the name “17N,” typically come from the same typewriter that issued the movement’s first proclamation in 1975, shortly before Welch’s execution. According to the prosecutor who examined the files on 17N accumulated by late Attorney General Dhimitrios Tsevas, the group comprises a small circle of members who are highly educated, have access and informers in the government, and are divided into three echelons: General Staff, operators, and auxiliaries. The core members are said to speak in the cultivated Greek of the educated. There appears to be general agreement among security authorities that the group has between 10 and 25 members, and that its very small size allows it to maintain its secrecy and security. The origin of the group is still somewhat vague, but it is believed that its founders were part of a resistance group that was formed during the 1967-75 military dictatorship in Greece. It is also believed that Greek Socialist Premier Andreas Papendreou may have played some hand in its beginnings. After democracy returned to Greece in 1975, it is believed that many of the original members went their own way. N17 is considered unique in that it appears not to lead any political movement. One of the group’s operating traits is the fact that more than 10 of its attacks in Athens, ranging from its assassination of U.S. Navy Captain George Tsantes on November 15, 1983, to its attack on the German ambassador’s residence in early 1999, took place in the so-called Khalandhri Triangle, a triangle comprising apartment blocks under construction in the suburb of Khalandhri and situated between Kifisias, Ethinikis Antistaseos, and Rizariou. The terrorists are believed by authorities to know practically every square foot of this area. Knowing the urban terrain intimately is a basic tenet of urban terrorism, as specified by Carlos Marighella, author of The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla. The continuing hard-core membership is suggested by the fact that the group murdered Cosfi Peraticos, scion of a Greek shipping family, in June 1997 with the same Colt .45 that it used to assassinate Richard Welch in 1975. The group has actually used the Colt .45 in more attacks than those in 1975 and 1997 (see Table 6, Appendix). Since the Welch assassination, its signature Colt .45 has been used to kill or wound at least six more of its 20 victims, who include three other American officials and one employee, two Turkish diplomats, and 13 Greeks. The rest have been killed by another Colt .45, bombs, and anti-tank missiles. The group’s repeated use of its Colt .45 and typewriter suggests a trait more typical of a psychopathic serial killer. In the political context of this group, however, it appears to be symbolically important to the group to repeatedly use the same Colt .45 and the same typewriter. Authorities can tell that the people who make bombs for the 17N organization were apparently trained in the Middle East during the early 1970s. For example, in the bombing of a bank branch in Athens on June 24, 1998, by the May 98 Group, the bomb, comprised of a timing mechanism made with two clocks and a large amount of dynamite, was typical of devices used by 17N, according to senior police officials.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 15:53:41 +0000
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