Skip to main content

Georgios Papadopoulos Biography

Georgios Papadopoulos

(Eleokhorion, 1919-Athens, 1999) Greek military and politician.Graduated as a second lieutenant from the Military Academy in 1940, that year he fought against the Italian invader in Albania and during the German invasion of 1941 he followed the royal family to Egypt.There he continued his studies at the Middle East Officers Training School and joined the Greek battalions that fought alongside the British on the fronts of the region, including guerrilla warfare in occupied Greece.

In 1943 he reached the rank of lieutenant, in 1944 he joined as an intelligence officer of the General Staff of the Greek Army and in 1946, a year after the end of World War II, he was promoted to captain and commander of an artillery battery.From that moment he fought in the Greek National Democratic Army (EDES), mostly monarchical, against the communists of the National People's Liberation Army (ELAS) until the end of the civil war in 1949, which ended with the rank of major.Throughout the conflict he served as an instructor officer in the Artillery School (1946-1948) and commander of units 131 (1948) and 144 (1948-1949) of the Mountain Artillery.

Without supporters in high places and with only his impeccable record of service, Papadopoulos made a dark and slow military career, until reaching the ranks of lieutenant colonel (1956) and colonel (1960).He regularly followed short courses at the Greek Military Academy and received supplementary special training at academies in the US and the UK.

On April 21, 1967, he held a post on the Integrated General Staff In the NATO forces, he starred with Brigadier General Stylianos Patakos and Colonel Nikolas Mazarekos in a bloodless coup that ended the parliamentary regime and the government of Panayotis Kannelopoulos.A government chaired by the civilian Konstantinos Kollias was constituted in which Papadopoulos appeared as minister without portfolio, but as a result of the thwarted counterattack of December 13, 1967 led by King Constantine II, in which Kollias was involved, he seized the Presidency of the Government and the Ministry of Defense, at the same time that he was promoted to brigadier and immediately afterwards he ceased active military service.

Anti-communist and convinced patriot, and imbued with regenerationist purposes of a marked reactionary nature, Papadopoulos was progressively personalizing the so-called "regime of the colonels", of a strictly military and dictatorial nature.With the consent of the United States, which appreciated the service rendered to contain communist influence in the region, Papadopoulos repealed constitutional guarantees, banned political parties, imposed harsh information and cultural censorship, and established a police state in the region.that thousands of opponents or suspected of being so were arrested, imprisoned or deported, including prestigious politicians and figures from the artistic world.

On September 29, 1968, he approved in a referendum (with 91.8% of the favorable votes) an authoritarian Constitution that legitimized the "Revolution of April 21".On November 29, 1970, elections to a "Legislative Advisory Committee" were held through corporate channels and without a party base.

On the outside, he had to face the harsh opposition from Western Europe in the first years, such that on December 12, 1969 he had to withdraw the country from the Council of Europe to avoid the humiliation of an imminent expulsion.Faithful guarantor of the strategic interests of the US, he applied a flexible and moderately pragmatic diplomacy (as opposed to the ideology that guided his internal management), which went through a prudent stance on the Cyprus question (reception by Archbishop Makarios in January 1970), the rapprochement with the Arab world and the communist countries of the Balkans (resumption of diplomatic relations with Albania on November 13, 1971) and, notably, the recognition of People's China in 1972.

When On August 3, 1971, the US House of Representatives decided to suspend military aid to the Greek regime for its violation of human rights, President Nixon came out in defense of Papadopoulos, and later reached an agreement with him to turn Greek ports into the main bases of the 6th US Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Papadopoulos added to his functions that of Minister of Education in 1969 (until 1970), that of Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1970 and own head of state on March 21, 1972 as regency, a position that General Georgios Zoitakis had held since the king's flight in December 1967.On June 1, 1973 he accused Constantine of having prepared the failed royalist plot "the Armada "dismantled in March and announced a law to abolish the monarchical institution and proclaim the" Parliamentary Presidential Republic ", a project that was effectively approved in a referendum on July 29 with 78.4% affirmative votes.

The entire political arc, from the monarchists to the communists, gathered in a Parliamentary Committee for the Restoration of Democratic Legality, denounced the consultation as "a fraud and a disgrace for the country" and "a maneuver to prolong the dictatorship." Be that as it may, on August 19, 1973, Papadopoulos was sworn in as President of the Republic for a seven-year term.

At his inauguration, he announced the appointment of Spyros Markezinis to preside over a new civilian government., the amnesty for all political prisoners since 1967 (including the man who attacked him in August 1968), the lifting of martial law in Athens and the holding of pluralist legislative elections in 1974.This institutionalization of the regime and its alleged defeat Liberal was understood as an attempt to perpetuate the dictatorship.On November 17, 1973, in the face of serious disturbances caused by students, who had called for a popular uprising, Papadopoulos had to declare martial law in Athens, but the following 25 a group of soldiers commanded by the chief of the military police (ESA ), Dimitri Ioannides, removed Papadopoulos from power and installed Lieutenant-General Phaidon Gizikis as president.

The maneuver saw the alarm of the extreme right sector of the army before the latest normalizing initiatives of Papadopoulos, inclined to a certain legalistic solution to the crisis and reaffirmed in its promise to hold legislative elections in 1974, which, they feared, they could lead to chaos.The new junta accused Papadopoulos of being incapable of containing public disorder, of "betraying the aims of the 1967 movement" and of "obstructing the return to a healthy parliamentarism." However, the disastrous military adventure in Cyprus caused the collapse of the regime in July 1974 and in October Papadopoulos was arrested by the new democratic authorities.

In the process that was opened to the heads of During the dictatorship, in August 1975, Papadopoulos was found guilty of insurrection and high treason and sentenced to death, a sentence that would be commuted to life imprisonment.He was held in Korydallos Prison, where he died in 1999.On January 29, 1984, he launched a far-right party, the Greek National Political Society (EPEN), which did not achieve a major impact.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

green Day Biography

Green Day American rock music group reminiscent of punk, formed in 1988 in Berkeley and made up of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass) and Tre Cool (drums).Billie Joe Armstrong (born 1972 in California) and Mike Dirnt (whose real name is Mike Pritchard, born 1972), residents of the Californian town of Rodeo, formed the band in the late 1980s. Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong had grown up in a family of six siblings, whose father, a trucker and jazz musician, passed away when Billie Joe was ten years; Her mother, a waitress and country fanatic, gave her a year later a guitar that she still owns and plays.For her part, Mike Pritchard was the son of a heroin addict, which led to her being adopted by a couple who, in turn, divorced when Mike was seven.At the age of fifteen, Mike rented a room in Billie Joe's house. Tre Cool, whose real name was Frank Edwin Wright III, was born in 1972 in Germany, and grew up in Wilitis, a town north of San Francisco.Soon he ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gerardo Dottori Biography

Gerardo Dottori (Perugia, 1888- id ., 1977) Italian painter.Signatory of the manifesto of aeropainting in 1929, his work is characterized by an aerial perspective painting of great lyricism ( Miracle of lights, flying ).
Post a Comment
Read more

Guido adler Biography

Guido Adler (Eibenschitz, 1855-Vienna, 1941) Austrian musicologist.He was a disciple of Bruckner and edited the Monuments of Austrian music (1894-1938).He is the author of studies on Wagner (1904) and Mahler (1916) and of a Manual of the history of music (1924).
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco de Zurbarán Biography

Francisco de Zurbarán (Fuente de Cantos, 1598-Madrid, 1664) Spanish painter.At the age of fifteen Francisco de Zurbarán moved to Seville, where he was a disciple of the painter Pedro Díaz de Villanueva and met Velázquez.He married María Páez in 1617, and from that year until 1628 he remained in Llerena (Extremadura).Although there are documentary news of different works made by Zurbarán during this time, there is no known one that can be safely located at this time. In 1625 Zurbarán married Beatriz Morales a second time.In 1627 he painted his first major signed and dated work: the Crucifixion of the oratory of the sacristy of the Sevillian Dominican convent of San Pablo el Real, for which in 1626 he had contracted the realization of twenty-one paintings in eight months.Between 1628 and 1629 he carried out a cycle of paintings for the Franciscan school of San Buenaventura. The defense of Cádiz against the English (c.1634), by Zurbarán Zurbarán's art appears already perf...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guillaume Briçonnet Biography

Guillaume Briçonnet (Paris, 1472-Esmans, 1534) French prelate.He was Bishop of Meaux (1516) and, influenced by the doctrine of Erasmus, was a supporter of the Reformation (1518).Around him, a group of humanists and theologians was formed, the Cenacle of Meaux , whose tendencies were closer to Luther, whom Briçonnet condemned.
Post a Comment
Read more

José Sarmiento and Valladares Biography

José Sarmiento y Valladares (17th-18th centuries) Spanish colonial administrator.He was viceroy of New Spain (1696-1701), a position he left after the death of Carlos II and the change of dynasty.During his tenure, he managed to reactivate mining activity, suspended for lack of quicksilver, and trade in the colony.He held the titles of Count of Moctezuma and Tula.
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco Gutierrez Biography

Francisco Gutiérrez (San Vicente de Arévalo, 1727-Madrid, 1782) Spanish sculptor.He was a disciple of L.S.Carmona and was a pensioner in Rome.He is the author of the goddess and the chariot of the Madrid fountain of Cibeles; He also carved the tomb of Fernando VI and María Bárbara de Braganza, designed by Sabatini.
Post a Comment
Read more

Hector German Oesterheld Biography

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (Buenos Aires, 1919-around 1977) Argentine comic scriptwriter.With drawings by Francisco Solano and Alberto Breccia, he created El Eternauta, a masterpiece of Latin American comics that continues to be republished in several languages ​​and has thousands of followers in America and Europe. With a degree in geology, Oesterheld began writing scripts and adventure stories for comics from 1950.He became known with Alan and Crazy and later popularized dozens of characters such as Ray Kitt (1951), Bull Rocket (1952), Sergeant Kirk (1952), Tarpon (1953), Uma-Uma (1953), White Dragon (1955), Scout River (1956), Ticonderonga (1957), Ernie Pike (1957), Joe Zonda (1958), Mort Cinder (1962), Artemio (1970) and Argón the Justice (1970 ), among others. He founded the Frontera publishing house and edited the magazines Hora Cero Monthual and Frontera Monthual, but it was undoubtedly El Eternauta , his masterpiece, the script that made the wr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Edward jenner Biography

Edward Jenner (Berkeley, Great Britain, 1749-id., 1823) English physician who is responsible for the discovery of the smallpox vaccine, which was the first fully effective and reliable vaccine in medical history.At thirteen he entered the service of a local surgeon, with whom he remained until he was twenty-one, at which point he moved to London and became a ward of John Harvey.In 1773 he returned to Berkeley to open a local practice, in which he acquired notable prestige. Edward Jenner In the 18th century, smallpox was one of the epidemic diseases with the highest mortality rate.The only known treatment at the time was of a preventive nature, and consisted of inoculating a healthy subject with infected matter from a patient suffering from a mild attack of smallpox.This principle was based on empirical evidence that a subject who had overcome the disease did not contract it again.However, the inoculated person did not always develop a mild version of the disease and died often; ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hua guofeng Biography

Hua Guofeng (Also called Hua Kuo-Feng; Hunan, 1921-Beijing, 2008) Chinese communist leader.Hua Guofeng began his political career in his native province of Hunan, of which he became deputy governor (1958-67).After the triumph of the "Cultural Revolution" instigated by Chairman Mao Zedong, he passed to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (1969).However, it was part of the openness line of Chu En-Lai and Deng Xiaoping, in opposition to the orthodoxy of Lin Piao. Hua Guofeng Driven by the growing weight of the reformists, in 1973 he acceded to the Politburo and in 1975 he was appointed Minister of Public Security and Vice President of the Government.After the deaths of Chu En-Lai and Mao Zedong, he succeeded the former as head of the Chinese government and the latter as chairman of the Communist Party (1976-81). From both positions he collaborated with Deng Xiaoping in the elimination of the old leftist guard represented by Mao's widow and her ...
Post a Comment
Read more