C | CIVIL WAR DRESS REHEARSALS Interestingly enough, video of Frangos’ presence at the Admiralty Court in late 2011 was posted online by the Greek Centre for Gun Control.98 This was the short-lived (?) umbrella organization under Theodoros Liolios, head of the paramilitary “Greek Civic Guard” and professor at the Military Cadets School99. Liolios, according to the press, had undertaken to “passionately defend the school principal and the cadets that disgraced the 2011 commemoration of 17 November 1973” by singing the anthem of the junta. In his attempt to justify this, Liolios attributed it to the cadets’ humorous temperament, and went on to post the dictators’ hymn on his own personal website.100 A little later, the “Greek Civic Guard” issued an open invitation addressed to “all those who have served in the special forces, to men and women highly trained in martial arts, and to all those who specialize in guarding VIPs” (17 October 2012). According to the press, this is “a group with close ties with Golden Dawn, if not identical to it”, although its spokespersons insist that they only use airsot weapons. However, they do maintain that their objective is “deeper, more special, more luminous and more complex”, as they are training “for the hour of judgment”.101 In another press report, one may ind that the neo-Nazi “Greek Organization X” merged on 15 April 2012 “with the Patriotic Civic Guard” in order to form citizen squads on neighbourhood patrol. According to this report, “both Greek Organization X and Patriotic Civic Guard deny any relation or ainity with Golden Dawn. However, one of its three leaders, according to the April 2012 memorandum of association, was Georgios Apergis, a Golden Dawn candidate in the 2009 general election. Moreover, this same person ofered at the Greek Organization X headquarters lessons in self-defence and training for street ights”102. Preparing for their clash with the internal enemy, some neo-Nazi organizations upgrade and “internationalize” their paramilitary activities. Following the example of their fellow neo-Nazis who went to Srebrenica in 1995 in support of their Orthodox Serb “brothers” during the latter’s efort to extinguish non-Serbian populations, the Strasserian neo-Nazis of the “Black Lily” group recently went to support Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war. It is also noteworthy that this operation has had good press coverage in Democratia newspaper, which echoes views of the current Greek prime minister’s milieu. Just as the Greek civil war remains a fresh memory for the ultra-right, so too with the much more recent dictatorship 1967 to 1974. In April 2013, a website spe- 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 74 | See www.ekeo.gr. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrQYVTesDME (last accessed on 1 August 2013). Cf. O Ios, “The time of civic guards?”, http://www.efsyn.gr/?p=69202. Ibid. Yannis Papadopoulos, “Golden-Dawnists are not the only neo-Nazis”, Ta Nea newspaper, 27 July 2013. ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG