High life
Pampered premier
Taki
he happiest people in all Greece are the manufacturers of Pampers, the nappy- makers whose product has been getting a tremendous amount of free publicity thanks to the greed of Andreas Papan- dreou and his 40 (make that 400) thieves. According to one of his henchmen — now playing the role of a soprano while behind bars — the weekly drop of blackmail money to the prime minister's office was contained in a giant economy-sized carton of Pampers. And there were nappy boxes galore in the protest rally I have just attended, the biggest rally I have yet to witness in the Big Olive — close to one million people chanting in unison 'Crooks Out', and demanding jail to the chief.
What amazes me, however, is the depth, blatancy and baroque proportions of the corruption. Just think: 40 Mirage 2000 fighter planes — sold to Switzerland at roughly the same time for $12 million per aircraft — were bought by Greece for $26 million each. In the Koskotas affair, Andreas Papandreou is accused of having blackmailed him out of 20 million green- backs and having forced him to `go over- board' while trying to siphon off an extra $100 million in order to satisfy Margaret Papandreou's demands for a divorce. I say it is enough to make Jose Lopez Portillo drool with envy.
According to George Koskotas, at pre- sent also doing a Callas behind bars in America, it was Andreas Papandreou him-
self who thought up the scheme of skim- ming interest off the accounts of the bank he (Koskotas) headed, whereby public companies deposited large sums at 2-3 per cent interest and the difference (deposits normally receive 15 per cent interest) was siphoned off to Papandreou and his Pasok party. I am not surprised. Papandreou, after all, was an economics professor at Berkeley before he decided to plunder Greece.
For months before the Washington Times's Insight magazine first broke the story outside Greece the Greek papers were calling
Andreas the greatest crook in the land and demanding an impartial investigation. Which four months ago the now dis- graced deputy premier promised to do.
Looking around, they decided on the president of the highest court of the land, Vasilis Rotis, a man holding down the job my grandfather used to do. Rotis resigned as top judge and became minister of justice, only to be fired last week for not following Papandreou's orders.
And who do you think replaced him as Justice Minister? Why Andreas's best friend, one Skoularikis, whose name liber- ally translated into English means a worm. But the best was yet to come. Faced with an electoral defeat of Foot-like proportions in the coming June elections, Andreas has just rammed through parliament a new electoral law that assures the party that comes in — now get this — second best, ' almost as many seats as the one that wins.
Will the Greek Al Capone ever get his comeuppance? Not likely. He is bound to
be re-elected a deputy in June, and his parliamentary immunity guarantees him freedom from prosecution, unless a large majority of his fellow MPs votes to lift it.
Knowing their backbone and — more important — their background, they are as
likely to do that as the Ayatollah is to have Salman Rushdie to tea. But Mrs T should take the lead and demand that Greece be expelled from the EEC until the loot is returned. It is the only way.
'Oh well — there goes the neighbourhood.'
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