Greek Volunteer Guard
Encyclopedia
The Greek Volunteer Guard (Serbian
: Grčka Dobrovoljačka Garda, Greek
: Ελληνική Εθελοντική Φρουρά) was a unit of Greek
volunteers that fought in the Bosnian War
on the side of Bosnian Serbs. Members of the unit allegedly participated in the Srebrenica Massacre
and after the city fell hoisted a Greek flag over the town on Ratko Mladić
's instigation.
, became a regular fighting unit of the Drina Corps with its own insignia, a white double-headed eagle on a black background. The unit, led by Serb officers, was based in Vlasenica
, an ethnically-cleansed town in the Drina Valley.
Some of the volunteers had links with Chrysi Avyi (Χρυσή Αυγή, "Golden Dawn"), a Greek neo-Nazi organisation, and others were mercenaries. They were allegedly motivated to support their "Orthodox brothers" in battle. Archbishop Seraphim of Athens
had invited Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić
to visit Athens
in 1993. At a mass rally attended by prominent politicians, Karadžić proclaimed: "We have only God and the Greeks on our side."
According to a report by Agence France Presse (AFP), a dozen Greek volunteers were alleged to have taken part in the Srebrenica massacre
. The GVG's involvement in the attack on Srebrenica was reported and several of the volunteers were interviewed in the Greek media.
referred to the claim reported by the Sarajevo weekly review “Global” that Greek paramilitaries had been present at the Srebrenica massacre and raised the Greek flag over the town, reproducing pictures of the volunteers published in the Greek press. He also told how Radovan Karadžić had subsequently decorated the volunteers. (In September 1995, four of the unit's fighters were awarded the White Eagle medal of honour by Radovan Karadžić
. Biljana Plavšić
is also reported to have honoured Greek clerics who had provided spiritual support to the fighters on the Bosnian front.)
In the Dutch IKON team's documentary, "The Greek Way", investigating Greek complicity with Serbia in the Bosnian war
, a director of the semi-official Athens News Agency
, Nikolas Voulelis, admitted to widespread censorship. The Greek media had been fanatically pro-Serb during the wars, portraying Yugoslav Muslims as "infidel Turks" bent on destroying their Orthodox brethren. Voulelis said that "Editorial interference was a given."
The Minister of Justice Anastasios Papaligouras
commissioned an inquiry which has yet to report (July 2010).
Vitalis also claimed that Greek volunteers were recruited for the war in Bosnia with the implicit knowledge and approval of leading Greek politicians such as Andreas Papandreou and Constantine Mitsotakis. Michas observed that the volunteers had fought in Bosnia with the tacit support of the Greek state. They were treated like heroes. No-one tried to stop them and the Greek legal authorities made no attempt to assist the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
at The Hague by pursuing inquiries about crimes the volunteers may have committed themselves or known about.
The suit against Michas was funded by Panhellenic Macedonian Front
, an umbrella group of extreme nationalists.
The campaigning organisation Reporters Sans Frontieres urged the Greek court to dismiss the action, which it described as "surreal" and a clear case of judicial harassment. Referring to the quality, thoroughness and courage of Michas's reporting of the Greek "volunteers"'military support to the Bosnian Serbs and successive Greek governments' reluctance to investigate the issue the organisation found the "self-censorship" of the Greek political class and media about the presence of Greek paramilitary forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Srebrenica massacre "surprising and disturbing" and in the public interest called for further close examination of the role of the Greek authorities.
On 17 September very shortly before the court hearing was due to commence Vitalis withdrew from the action.
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Grčka Dobrovoljačka Garda, Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Ελληνική Εθελοντική Φρουρά) was a unit of Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
volunteers that fought in the Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
on the side of Bosnian Serbs. Members of the unit allegedly participated in the Srebrenica Massacre
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
and after the city fell hoisted a Greek flag over the town on Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladić was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
's instigation.
History
The first detachment of Greek volunteers in Bosnia arrived in 1993. In March 1995, the Greek Volunteer Guard (ΕΕΦ), a contingent of one hundred Greek paramilitaries formed at the request of the Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army Ratko MladićRatko Mladić
Ratko Mladić is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladić was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
, became a regular fighting unit of the Drina Corps with its own insignia, a white double-headed eagle on a black background. The unit, led by Serb officers, was based in Vlasenica
Vlasenica
Vlasenica is a municipality and town of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Administratively it is part of Vlasenica Region.-1912:...
, an ethnically-cleansed town in the Drina Valley.
Some of the volunteers had links with Chrysi Avyi (Χρυσή Αυγή, "Golden Dawn"), a Greek neo-Nazi organisation, and others were mercenaries. They were allegedly motivated to support their "Orthodox brothers" in battle. Archbishop Seraphim of Athens
Archbishop Seraphim of Athens
Seraphim - born Vissarion Tikas was Archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1974 to 1998....
had invited Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
to visit Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
in 1993. At a mass rally attended by prominent politicians, Karadžić proclaimed: "We have only God and the Greeks on our side."
Presence at Srebrenica in July 1995
In 2002 the Dutch NIOD report on Srebrenica described how the Greek Volunteer Guard, or GVG, unit had hoisted the Greek flag over Srebrenica after the town's fall, citing video footage of the event and excerpts from intercepted Bosnian Serb army telephone communications that included Gen. Ratko Mladić's specific request for the Greek flag to be hoisted over the town to honour "the brave Greeks fighting on our side." The Report also revealed that Greece had sent shipments of light arms and ammunition to the Bosnian Serb army between 1994 and 1995.According to a report by Agence France Presse (AFP), a dozen Greek volunteers were alleged to have taken part in the Srebrenica massacre
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
. The GVG's involvement in the attack on Srebrenica was reported and several of the volunteers were interviewed in the Greek media.
"Unholy Alliance" and "The Greek Way"
In his book "Unholy Alliance", published in 2002, the Greek author Takis MichasTakis Michas
Takis Michas is a Greek journalist and author who lives in Athens, where he works for the Greek dailyEleftherotypia and contributes to the Wall Street Journal Europe...
referred to the claim reported by the Sarajevo weekly review “Global” that Greek paramilitaries had been present at the Srebrenica massacre and raised the Greek flag over the town, reproducing pictures of the volunteers published in the Greek press. He also told how Radovan Karadžić had subsequently decorated the volunteers. (In September 1995, four of the unit's fighters were awarded the White Eagle medal of honour by Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
. Biljana Plavšić
Biljana Plavšic
Biljana Plavšić is a former president of Republika Srpska and war criminal. She is the highest ranking Bosnian Serb politician to be sentenced. She was indicted in 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war...
is also reported to have honoured Greek clerics who had provided spiritual support to the fighters on the Bosnian front.)
In the Dutch IKON team's documentary, "The Greek Way", investigating Greek complicity with Serbia in the Bosnian war
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
, a director of the semi-official Athens News Agency
Athens News Agency
The Athens News Agency was one of the two major news agencies in Greece, the other being the Macedonian Press Agency, before they merged together into the Athens News Agency-Macedonian Press Agency .-History:...
, Nikolas Voulelis, admitted to widespread censorship. The Greek media had been fanatically pro-Serb during the wars, portraying Yugoslav Muslims as "infidel Turks" bent on destroying their Orthodox brethren. Voulelis said that "Editorial interference was a given."
Public Inquiry
In 2005 Greek deputy Andreas Andrianopoulos called for an investigation. On 10 July 2005, 163 Greek academics, journalists and political activists issued a call for Greece to officially apologise to the victims of Srebrenica for the Greek role in the atrocity. After asserting that Greek public opinion had been misinformed about the alliance with the Milosevic regime, their statement called for the Greek state to apologise publicly to the families of the 8,000 slaughtered, to indict the Greek ‘volunteers' who had fought in Bosnia alongside Karadzic and Mladic and dishonoured the Greek flag by raising it over the carnage at Srebrenica, and to pursue the 'supposedly unknown' people who manipulated them.The Minister of Justice Anastasios Papaligouras
Anastasios Papaligouras
Anastasios Papaligouras is a Greek lawyer and New Democracy politician and was Minister for Mercantile Marine and Island Policy....
commissioned an inquiry which has yet to report (July 2010).
Volunteer response to allegations
In 2007 in the Greek nationalist paper Eleftheri ora Kyriakos Katharios, a member of the Greek Volunteer Guard, denied that they had participated in the massacre. While acknowledging the erection of the Greek flag, he stated that the honors received from Mladić were not linked to the incident. In an interview with Al-Jazeera Katharios claimed that he had been telephoned at home by fellow volunteers who told him that they had raised the flag but had not taken part in the battle itself.Lawsuit against Takis Michas
In 2009 Stavros Vitalis, a representative of the Greek volunteers, announced that he was suing Takis Michas over allegations in his book. Vitalis maintained that the volunteers were members of the Bosnian Serb army who had simply taken part in what he described as the town's "re-occupation". In his press statement he acknowledged that “I was present with a group of senior Serb officers in all the operations for the re-occupation of Srebrenica by the Serbs”. This was despite Vitalis telling the journalist Barnaby Phillips that although in Bosnia he was not at Srebrenica when it fell to the Serbs.Vitalis also claimed that Greek volunteers were recruited for the war in Bosnia with the implicit knowledge and approval of leading Greek politicians such as Andreas Papandreou and Constantine Mitsotakis. Michas observed that the volunteers had fought in Bosnia with the tacit support of the Greek state. They were treated like heroes. No-one tried to stop them and the Greek legal authorities made no attempt to assist the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
at The Hague by pursuing inquiries about crimes the volunteers may have committed themselves or known about.
The suit against Michas was funded by Panhellenic Macedonian Front
Panhellenic Macedonian Front
The Panhellenic Macedonian Front is a political party in Greece. It was founded in May 2009 by the politician Stelios Papathemelis and professor Kostas Zouraris to run in the European Parliamentary elections of June with 22 candidates...
, an umbrella group of extreme nationalists.
The campaigning organisation Reporters Sans Frontieres urged the Greek court to dismiss the action, which it described as "surreal" and a clear case of judicial harassment. Referring to the quality, thoroughness and courage of Michas's reporting of the Greek "volunteers"'military support to the Bosnian Serbs and successive Greek governments' reluctance to investigate the issue the organisation found the "self-censorship" of the Greek political class and media about the presence of Greek paramilitary forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Srebrenica massacre "surprising and disturbing" and in the public interest called for further close examination of the role of the Greek authorities.
On 17 September very shortly before the court hearing was due to commence Vitalis withdrew from the action.