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A young cadet walking in the footsteps of his father led the "mini-coup" in the spirit of the junta during the celebration of the anniversary of the uprising at the Polytechnic of November 17, 2011.

As people say "like father, like son", and apparently this is also true in the case of the Farandatos family.

On October 28^th, 1982, one year after the big election victory of Andreas Papandreou in 1981, the young cadet, who was also the head of the graduates of the cadet school as is his son today, in an outburst of sick patriotism, nationalism ordered one of his classmates to kneel and cry "Down with communism!" because he had information that the cadet had participated in the rally of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Freshman Papayordanidis, from the town of Karditsa, had the courage to disobey and his classmates-nationalistic hooligans put him in hospital! Because of this incident Papayordanidis left the army putting an untimely end to his military career.

The leader of New Democracy at the time, Evangelos Averof, accused Papandreou's government of having allowed the Communist Party to "corrode" the army.

In connection with the incident, late Costas Kapos a member of the KKE, actively intervened and demanded that the perpetrators be punished for the edification of others. The school management did not however care to suspend Panagiotis Farandatos, who today seems proud of the actions of his son Christos, as he serves as a senior officer in Soufli, and has the rank of brigadier general. If he had been suspended then from the cadet school, his son wouldn’t now be doing his famous exploits in the school and wouldn’t sing the anthem of the April junta.

But the story does not stop there. From son to father, from father to grandfather, because it seems the Farandatos family has a tradition of extreme rightist beliefs.

So, when in 1982 the young, at that time, cadet, and present Brigadier General, was trying to humiliate his classmate with leftist beliefs, the school management at the time sent his father, the grandfather of today's cadet to the reserve. It should be noted that in the year when grandfather Farandatos was sent to the reserve troops, his second son was also head of his class at the cadet school.

The same is happening today with the brother of the young cadet who is a freshman and also head of his class.

Interestingly enough, the brigadier General Panagiotis Farandatos who currently serves in Soufli and is the father of Hristos Farandatos, who engages the public opinion today, with his extreme rightist beliefs, worked in the office of Vangelis Meimarakis, Minister of Defence in the government of New Democracy and is a senior member of the party.

The fact that occasionally far-right beliefs and supporters of the junta appear in the army, is not surprising. This is known for a fact and, unfortunately, happens in the armed forces worldwide.

It is, however extremely inappropriate for such right-wing elements to be rewarded with a transfer, so as to be able to serve in the ministries.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, today's defence minister in the coalition government, did what he had to do and asked the disciplinary authorities of the army, and in particular of the cadet school to discuss at their meeting the issue about the suspension of the young cadet who quite impudently provokes public opinion and the democratic sense of the Greek people.

If the predecessors of Avramopoulos had also done the same, there probably would have been much fewer members of the Farandatos family within the classes in cadet school.

Message in the media in connection with the case

The General Staff of the Army announced that in connection with the case of November 17^th, 2011 a strict disciplinary inspection has been carried out in the cadet school, which was ordered by the authorities. The culprit was freed from administrative duties and was sent to the School Board to discuss his suspension.

The story preceding the pro-junta outburst

During the celebration of the anniversary of November 17^th, organized in the central amphitheatre of the cadet school, after reading the agenda issued by Minister of Defence Dimitris Avramoroulos and after the officers withdrew, Christos ordered his classmates to come to the rostrum and sing the anthem of the April junta. As happened.

Earlier, on  October28^th, the young cadet did not obey orders and marched during the parade in Thessaloniki together with a group of his classmates, singing the famous song "Famous Macedonia".