Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo

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The Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo (EAM) (Greek Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο (ΕΑΜ), "National Liberation Front") was the main resistance movement in Greece during World War II. It was founded in 27 September 1941 by representatives of four left-wing parties : Lefteris Apostolou for the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), Christos Chomenidis, for the Socialist Party of Greece (ΣΚΕ), Ilias Tsirimokos, for the Greek Popular Republic (ΕΛΔ) and Apostolos Voyiatzis for the Agricultural Party of Greece (ΑΚΕ) against the Nazi occupation. The acting leader was Giorgios Siantos (KKE's proper leader, Nikolaos Zachariadis, was interned a German prison). Its purely military wing, formed in 1942, was the Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos (ELAS); it also had a "navy" (ELAN) "National People's Liberational Navy" Ethniko Laiko Apeleftherotiko Naftiko but engaged primarily in land-based resistance to the German occupying forces.

It fought against the German, the Italian and the Bulgarian occupation forces and at the eve of the liberation of Greece engaged in a war against guerilla forces of right-wing organizations, namely Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos (EDES) and Ethniki Kai Koinoniki Apeleftherosis (EKKA). EAM-ELAS was very active and successful, and around the end of the war its political power grew considerably to the point of establishing an outlaw government the Political Committee of National Liberation (Politiki Epitropi Ethikis Apeleftherosιs (Greek Πολιτική Επιτροπή Εθνικής Απελευθέρωσης)) (PEEA) for the large parts of mainland mountainous Greece it had rid of the occupational forces rule. The conflict with right-wing, nationalist or western-oriented republican forces escalated, leading to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War that lasted until 1949.

The EAM organized a pacific demonstration in Athens on December 3, 1944 against British interference, six weeks after the liberation of the country. Members of the LOK as well as "British troops and police with machine guns... posited on the rooftops" suddenly shot on the crowd, making 25 protesters dead (including a six-years-old boy) and 148 wounded ^[1]. In London, Churchill faced an angry House of Commons, while the role of the LOK in the Syntagma massacre was never investigated ^[2].

[edit] References

^ Daniele Ganser, 2005. NATO's Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (London, Franck Cass), pp.213-214 (his quote)
^ Peter Murtagh, op.cit., p.30, quoted by Ganser (2005), p.214