covering the story, writing things like: “The Turks, who are betting on the weakness of the government, want our island.” The abrupt emergence of Imia press coverage following Simitis’s victory was not entirely accidental. Simitis’s political adversaries relished the opportunity to make him look weak, and employed their vassals in the media to do so.
The conflict with Turkey rapidly escalated. At one point, in order to underscore the islet’s Greek nature, a boatload of patriotic visitors from a nearby Greek island visited it. The seafarers consisted of a few men, a priest wearing black vestments, two young boys, and a Greek television journalist with his cameraman. By the time they arrived on the rock, tensions between the two nations had escalated. Fighter jets zoomed overhead and naval boats from both countries navigated aggressively close to one another in the surrounding waters. As this went on, the Greek television camera filmed the visitors holding Greek flags and singing the national anthem. “We place the country above all, and our souls are here, always on the Greek islands, and we’re up here now at this moment, and we claim what is ours,” the priest told the camera. He and his companions were
“Akritai,”
the priest added, a term for the warriors that defended the Byzantine Empire’s eastern frontier from Muslim invaders. “Whoever comes here must first pass over my dead body.”
At another point, journalists from the major Turkish newspaper
Hürriyet,
demonstrating an acutely excessive vision of advocacy journalism, landed on the rock with a helicopter, removed a Greek flag earlier visitors had put up, and replaced it with aTurkish one.
Hürriyet
then splashed a large photo of the action on its front page with the headline “Battle Flag.” In response to the Turkish journalists’ action, the Greek government sent special forces to the rock, and the Greek flag was restored. The Turks responded by sending their own commandos to the adjacent rock. A score of warships raced to the scene. A Greek helicopter at some point crashed into the sea, killing three crew members. This pageant of human folly might have resulted in a full-scale armed conflict had not U.S. diplomats and President Bill Clinton made some last-minute calls and brokered an agreement for both sides to forgo putting flags on the rocks, and back down from the brink of war.
The Imia episode traumatized the many Greeks who considered their nation’s sovereignty over the islets irrefutable, and the American-brokered withdrawal a kind of national chickening-out. (Greece in fact had a far better legal claim over Imia, an American diplomat later determined.) When the newly inaugurated Simitis, during a speech in parliament, thanked the United States for its help during the Imia crisis, he was roundly jeered. Simitis was widely criticized for his handling of the dispute, including from the traditionalist, more nationalist wing of PASOK represented by Tsochatzopoulos, who continued over the following months to challenge Simitis for control of the party. In what was seen as an effort to mend the party rift and mollify his rival, Simitis later made Tsochatzopoulos minister of defense. This was an influential post, particularly at the time.
Greece, due to its interminable rivalry with Turkey, had long been an avid weapons buyer, and as a percent of its GDP, it spent far more than most other European Union nations on its military. But the sense of humiliation among Greeks over the Imia incident led to calls for a new and very large weapons purchasing program. This provided Tsochatzopoulos with potentially monumental job perks. Graft was not an uncommon aspect of Greek governance,but the scale of armaments contracts at the defense ministry provided officials with superior, albeit illicit, possibilities for financial gain. A prominent Greek investigate reporter, Tasos Telloglou, once put it to me like this: “Look, you must be very naive to
The conflict with Turkey rapidly escalated. At one point, in order to underscore the islet’s Greek nature, a boatload of patriotic visitors from a nearby Greek island visited it. The seafarers consisted of a few men, a priest wearing black vestments, two young boys, and a Greek television journalist with his cameraman. By the time they arrived on the rock, tensions between the two nations had escalated. Fighter jets zoomed overhead and naval boats from both countries navigated aggressively close to one another in the surrounding waters. As this went on, the Greek television camera filmed the visitors holding Greek flags and singing the national anthem. “We place the country above all, and our souls are here, always on the Greek islands, and we’re up here now at this moment, and we claim what is ours,” the priest told the camera. He and his companions were
“Akritai,”
the priest added, a term for the warriors that defended the Byzantine Empire’s eastern frontier from Muslim invaders. “Whoever comes here must first pass over my dead body.”
At another point, journalists from the major Turkish newspaper
Hürriyet,
demonstrating an acutely excessive vision of advocacy journalism, landed on the rock with a helicopter, removed a Greek flag earlier visitors had put up, and replaced it with aTurkish one.
Hürriyet
then splashed a large photo of the action on its front page with the headline “Battle Flag.” In response to the Turkish journalists’ action, the Greek government sent special forces to the rock, and the Greek flag was restored. The Turks responded by sending their own commandos to the adjacent rock. A score of warships raced to the scene. A Greek helicopter at some point crashed into the sea, killing three crew members. This pageant of human folly might have resulted in a full-scale armed conflict had not U.S. diplomats and President Bill Clinton made some last-minute calls and brokered an agreement for both sides to forgo putting flags on the rocks, and back down from the brink of war.
The Imia episode traumatized the many Greeks who considered their nation’s sovereignty over the islets irrefutable, and the American-brokered withdrawal a kind of national chickening-out. (Greece in fact had a far better legal claim over Imia, an American diplomat later determined.) When the newly inaugurated Simitis, during a speech in parliament, thanked the United States for its help during the Imia crisis, he was roundly jeered. Simitis was widely criticized for his handling of the dispute, including from the traditionalist, more nationalist wing of PASOK represented by Tsochatzopoulos, who continued over the following months to challenge Simitis for control of the party. In what was seen as an effort to mend the party rift and mollify his rival, Simitis later made Tsochatzopoulos minister of defense. This was an influential post, particularly at the time.
Greece, due to its interminable rivalry with Turkey, had long been an avid weapons buyer, and as a percent of its GDP, it spent far more than most other European Union nations on its military. But the sense of humiliation among Greeks over the Imia incident led to calls for a new and very large weapons purchasing program. This provided Tsochatzopoulos with potentially monumental job perks. Graft was not an uncommon aspect of Greek governance,but the scale of armaments contracts at the defense ministry provided officials with superior, albeit illicit, possibilities for financial gain. A prominent Greek investigate reporter, Tasos Telloglou, once put it to me like this: “Look, you must be very naive to
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