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With
the occasion of yesterday’s visit by the Prime Minister to the new
Roma settlement, “Aghia Sophia Gonou” (Thessaloniki), the
cooperating organizations Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) and
Minority Rights Group Greece (MRG-G) make public a pertinent
passage from their presentation on the Roma given at the recent OSCE
meeting in Warsaw. Immediately below this, they point out several
unfortunate choices, if not pettinesses, by governmental agents with
respect to yesterday’s visit and the Roma feast that followed.
STATEMENT
ON GREECE
AT
THE 2000 OSCE IMPLEMENTATION MEETING
24
October 2000
Roma
Rights
It
is a rare and welcome opportunity for a NGO to be able to report on a
positive development that has occurred after it had prepared the
report for this meeting.
Two
weeks ago, indeed, the first successful resettlement of Greece’s
largest destitute Roma community from Gallikos River to Gonou, near
Salonica, took place. Four NGOs (Doctors of the World - Greece, DROM
Network for Gypsy Social Rights, Greek Helsinki Monitor, and Minority
Rights Group – Greece) backed by a small parliamentary party
(Progressive Left Coalition), had for four years pressed authorities
-through statements, lobbying, even bringing charges in court- to
implement the plan for the creation of the first self-managed Roma
dwelling unit in Greece. A plan fully backed by the Roma concerned
–and regrettably opposed by the state-launched Panhellenic
Federation of Roma Associations.
It
is even more gratifying that we owe the completion of this project to
the Prefecture of Salonica, and in particular the Deputy Prefect
Abraham Kaltaveridis. He recently ended up fighting alongside the Roma
and the NGOs against central authorities that were dragging their
feet; and against local police that have engaged in collectively
stigmatizing these Roma as criminals, despite the lack of any
evidence. We want to commend him because, four years ago, he was the
object of the charges brought by NGOs and the Coalition Party, as
central authorities tended then to put the blame on the Prefecture.
Therefore,
it does not speak well for the state that the Prime Minister, during
his otherwise important speech, when praising the role of NGOs, named
only one of the four that worked on the project. He even “forgot”
the one that played a leading part from the beginning in pressuring
for the re-settlement to Gonou (nor did he mention the Coalition
Party).
It
is even more unfortunate that one of the NGOs he did mention had
nothing to do with this or any other project for the Roma, except
perhaps that its founding president is now in charge of the
implementation of related governmental programs from his position of
advisor to the relevant ministry.
Nor
does the Prefecture do itself particular honor by choosing to not
invite two of these NGOs to its ceremonies at Gonou. It is equally
unfortunate that its leadership (like all the other the governmental
agents) did not join in any part of the Roma feast that followed the
Prime Minister’s visit.
Finally,
it does no credit to television -both state-run and privately owned-
that it could not even correctly name the settlement’s location (the
area of Gonou is nowhere near Evosmo). Furthermore, it did not
broadcast even one portion of the Roma spokesperson’s brief response
to the Prime Minister (besides the presentation of the plaque by him
to Mr. Simitis).
Thus
the impression given was that the coverage, if not also the
organization, of the ceremony was designed merely to put on the
spotlight the Prime Minister and other governmental agents.
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