Greek Junta - KORDHELL Phonk Edit

The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

On 21 April 1967, just weeks before the scheduled elections, a group of right-wing army officers led by Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos and Colonels George Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos seized power in a coup d'état.[19] The colonels were able to seize power quickly by using elements of surprise and confusion. Pattakos was the commander of the Armour Training Centre (Κέντρο Εκπαίδευσης Τεθωρακισμένων, ΚΕΤΘ), based in Athens.

The coup leaders placed tanks in strategic positions in Athens, effectively gaining complete control of the city. At the same time, a large number of small mobile units were dispatched to arrest leading politicians, authority figures, and ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies, according to lists prepared in advance.

After securing his control over the nation Papadopoylos made several heavy-handed attempts at liberalisation which did not find favour among many in Greece. This especially antagonised the students at the Law School in Athens who demonstrated multiple times against the dictatorship prior to the events at the Polytechneion. On 14 November 1973 students of the Polytechneion occupied the university leading to a three day siege by the Junta forces. On 17 November 1973 Papadopoulos sent the army to suppress the student strike. Shortly after 3:00 am. EET an AMX 30 tank crashed through the rail gate of the Athens Polytechnic with subsequent loss of life. An estimated 24 people were killed. The army also occupied Syntagma Square for at least the following day. Even the sidewalk cafes were closed.

Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis, a disgruntled junta hardliner and long-time protégé of Papadopoulos as head of the feared Military Police, used the uprising as a pretext to reestablish public order, and staged a counter-coup that overthrew Papadopoulos and Spyros Markezinis on 25 November. Military law was reinstated, and the new junta appointed General Phaedon Gizikis as president and economist Adamantios Androutsopoulos as Prime Minister, although Ioannidis remained the behind-the-scenes strongman.

Sponsored by Ioannidis, on 15 July 1974 a coup d'état on the island of Cyprus overthrew Archbishop Makarios III, the Cypriot President. Turkey replied to this by invading Cyprus and occupying the northern part of the island, after heavy fighting with the Cypriot and Greek ELDYK Forces, . During a military council, Ioannidis is reported to have said angrily to the American minister Joseph J. Sisco (who was present) "You betrayed us! You had assured us that you would prevent any Turkish landing".

The following days on 23 July 1974 the Junta was officialy disbanded and Gizikis finally invited former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, who had resided in Paris since 1963, to assume the role.

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