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ATHENS, Greece (November 8, 1999 7:41 a.m. EST) - In a well-publicized mock trial planned for Monday in Athens' main square, President Clinton faces charges of international meddling and mayhem. The proceeding is not real, of course, but the sentiments are.
Clinton's scheduled arrival in Greece this week has demonstrators feverish to vent decades of anti-American ire and their still-raw anger over NATO's clash with Yugoslavia, which left Greece in an awkward position as Serbia's main backer in the alliance.
"There isn't anywhere in Greece where there will not be a protest," said rally organizer Thanassis Pafilis.
On Sunday, a powerful explosion damaged a Levis jeans store in Athens, and shots were fired at a Greek-American cultural institution. No one was hurt. A leftist group said the attacks were part of protests against Clinton.
Antipathy toward the United States runs deep in Greece.
Denunciations of the United States became a battle cry for the leftist losers of Greece's civil war in the late 1940s. The Cold War produced even more bitterness over the heavy U.S. shadow in the West's main Balkan foothold.
Greeks felt betrayed by U.S. encouragement to the 1967-74 military junta and a perceived tilt toward rival Turkey over war-divided Cyprus. Earlier this year, NATO's air bombardment of Yugoslavia brought almost unanimous outrage among Greeks, who targeted their anger at the United States while often ignoring the fact that their own government signed the alliance's attack plan.
Into the cross fire steps Clinton, making the first trip to Greece by a U.S. president since George Bush eight years ago. His Nov. 13-15 stop - part of an 11-day, four-nation trip - is an opportunity for America-trashing protests on a scale rarely seen in a Western ally.
"Protesting against the United States is almost a conditioned reflex in Greece," said Theodore Couloumbis, a professor of international relations at the University of Athens. "In times of crisis, like Kosovo, it is awakened again."
The protests are expected to draw an eclectic collection of leftists, anarchists and Christian Orthodox zealots who identify closely with the Serbs. Some of the rallies will pass near the empty pedestal that held a 12-foot tall bronze statue of former President Harry S. Truman, which was toppled in May.
Clinton's timing is also bound to inflame demonstrations. He will be in Greece during the week of Nov. 17 - traditionally a day of fierce anti-American protests to mark the violent crackdown on student demonstrators in 1973 by the then-military regime.
Greeks' relations with the United States is paradoxical, experts say. Washington is widely portrayed as an international bully, but millions of Greek emigrants have been drawn to the United States. Even one of the most relentless bashers of America, the late Premier Andreas Papandreou, lived for decades in the United States and served in the U.S. Navy.
Greece's Socialist leadership is left in an awkward spot. It is desperate to keep the expected protests far from Clinton to avoid international embarrassment. But lines of riot police could spell domestic troubles for Premier Costas Simitis. His government faces elections next year and needs the support of old-style Socialists who remain loyal to the party's roots of hyper-nationalism and distrust of Western powers.
"There's a deep current in Greek society and political culture that reinforces the idea that murky outside forces are always to blame for the nation's problems," said James Ker-Lindsay, a regional analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies in London. "America is a big and convenient target."