Greek Military Police

The Military Police (Greek: Στρατονομία), is the military police of the Hellenic Army.

It was formerly known as the Greek Military Police (Greek: Ελληνική Στρατιωτική Αστυνομία), and by the acronym ESA (Greek: ΕΣΑ), between 1951 and 1976. It became the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization during the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, as martial law was introduced widely. Its Special Investigative Section engaged in widespread abuse against officers and soldiers and thus, following the fall of the junta and the restoration of democracy in 1974, it was gradually cleansed of torturers and reorganized into its current form.

Establishment

The ESA was established in 1951, as Greece was preparing to join NATO. Up until then, the Greek Army did not have a specialized military police force, with the Hellenic Gendarmerie acting as military police whereas necessary. Being posted in the ESA was a major bonus for Army officers because it had very extensive powers within the military, even before the dictatorship. Both the officers and the soldiers who served in ESA were picked for their extreme, almost paranoid, anti-communism. This resulted in making ESA a bastion of the most conservative and anti-democratic members of the Greek officer corps. ESA men wore a distinctive uniform with a royal blue cap cover (whilst the soldiers wore a beret at the time), golden lanyard on their right shoulder and an armband with the letters ESA around their left arm. The uniform remains unchanged save for the ESA acronym, which has now been replaced by SN.

During the Junta

In April 1967, shortly after seizing power in a coup, junta leader George Papadopoulos appointed Dimitrios Ioannides chief of the ESA, which gradually had been transformed into an internal security army.