AR-News: URGENT -The real Olympic tragedy - Roger Tavener's second article UK

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From: Marijo Gillis
twinkieperkyebby at msn.com

URGENT CROSS POSTING The real Olympic tragedy - Roger Tavener's second
article UK

2004 ATHENS OLYMPICS - GREEK ANIMALS RACE FOR THEIR LIVES

SUPPORT a continuing BOYCOTT of Greece and the 2004 ATHENS OLYMPIC GAMES

Marijo Anne Gillis - Founder
WAG-New York (Welfare for Animals in Greece - a Lobby Group)
(212) 427-0587

http://www.canadianvoiceforanimals.org/WAG_NewYork_Index.html

CROSS POST TO THE MOON and BACK          GREECE


                                  WESTERN DAILY PRESS - Tuesday, 20 April
2004
                                                              by: Roger
Tavener

===================================
                                    Scandal of Athens ... Welfare groups
believe city is being
                                               cleared of strays to please
TV crews and visitors
Yet another dog lies poisoned in what the world now sees as Greeks' Olympic
tragedy

The summer Olympic Games" in Athens is less than four months away - and the
city is re-inventing itself, ready for the eyes the world to focus on the
huge event. But in part two of our exclusive report ROGER TAVENER looks at
whether the city’s legendary stray dogs are paying the ultimate price as the
Greeks clean up their act

THOUSANDS of cats and dogs have died agonising deaths from poisoning on the
streets and beach fronts of Athens in the run-up to the Summer Olympics.

And animal welfare groups fear a huge cull of strays before the Games begin
in August.
No one can prove who is killing the dumped pets, but everyone suspects why.
To keep the venues  nice and tidy for the world's TV cameras and millions of
foreign tourists in the city.
Locals and animal welfare groups say they couldn't fail to notice the
dwindling population of the canine community in particular.
Veterinary assistant Angela Fleming, who has practiced in Athens 14 years,
says: "Dogs are being left a cocktail of poison in food scattered across the
city. It has been happening increasingly since 2001 in the run-up to the
Games. It is a disgrace that in the 21st century this can occur.  It
disgusts me. It is barbaric.
Dead dogs lie everywhere in Athens and surrounding suburbs.  Not all have
been hit by cars.
People have seen garbage men collect bodies at 6 am after poison was left a
few hours earlier.
Witnesses even claim to have seen live dogs rounded up and thrown into
trucks in some Greek towns, never to be seen again.
The state consistently denies it has a secret ‘feed to kill’ policy and
points to new laws designed to help strays.  But in the last week of March,
more than 80 dogs, many cats and dozens of birds were poisoned in the Attica
coastal resort of Saronida, where it is understood some of the British
Olympic team will stay.
The death rate among strays has increased after a dog bit a Ukrainian
archery coach while he was jogging.
Agonising deaths: Above, a stray dog lies motionless by the roadside in an
Athens suburb

Another high-profile slaughter came when Greece took the presidency of the
EC and on the eve of the meeting, scores of dogs and cats were poisoned in
the adjoining National Park, normally full of strays.
"It is a sad, obvious technique," says Ms Fleming. "I have no doubt there is
a clean-up campaign, but I have no proof of who is responsible. Nothing
would be written down. .These animals are hungry, so they will eat the bait.
And then they will froth at the mouth and convulse and die a lingering,
horrific death. Whoever does this doesn't see the pain."
Ms Fleming, from Caring for the Animals, does, because both strays and
poisoned pets are taken to her, sometimes beyond help. If she can, she cares
for the strays and puts them back on the Street. She neuters, vaccinates and
tags those that she can, to follow their progress.
Animal lover's losing battle
Animal-lover Tina Eglezopoulos has looked after an army of strays at the
Keratsini docks in Piraeas for the past 18 months. Once there were about
150, but now the number has dwindled to 70.
"People are killing them," Tina says sadly."They are being poisoned." She
fears the remainder will be removed as the Olympics approach because the
docks she patrols will be cleaned for wealthy tourists to arrive on cruise
ships. " I pray it won’t happen, but I fear it might, she said.
Tina works closely with Vesna Jones, founder of Greek Animal Rescue,
established 15 years ago to help find homes in Britain and around the world
for the unwanted pets, particularly the stray dogs of Athens.
Vesna, who has seven rescue dogs herself, said: " We have no proof the
councils are poisoning the dogs, but someone is. We know Greek people have
always resorted to poison to get rid of the problem, but this is happening
on a larger scale and may be planned."
New laws demand locals councils neuter, vaccinate and microchip stray
animals before putting them back on the streets.
And they are supposed to educate people in how to be responsible for their
pet in a country which does not believe in putting down sick or unwanted
animals, does not believe in sterilisation - animals should have sex lives -
and casually dumps them on the roadside when they have tired of their
company.
 “We were the country that gave light to the world in terms of civilisation
and now we live in the dark in so many ways," says Nikos Leventakis, who ran
his own animal shelter for nearly 20 years and is a member of the
London-based Greek Animal Rescue charity, which seeks to find homes for
abandoned pets.
Nikos takes us on a horrifying tour of rough, unregulated refuges.
There is a shack on fee side of a busy highway which is home to 50 dumped
pooches, then there is the place they know as the Dog Prison at Sparta, run
by an old woman who visits now and again. Dogs are chained and others
protect new puppies in the steaming heat.
He shows us Amalia Karali’s bizarre dog home among olive trees near the
airport.  The animals are barely cared for here, but when the authorities
tried to shut her previous stinking pit, she set fire to it.
And still fee poisoning continues "Massacres like this have happened before
in places Saronida," says Chrysa Athanasiadou, of the Society for the
Protection of Stray Animals.
“We heard that some officials from the British equestrian were to stay there
and the next day the poisoning started."
 Olympic organisers condemned the killings. "I flnd this completely
unacceptable," said spokesman Thanassis Kadartzis.  If it has happened, it
is downright barbaric".
A spokesman for the Mayor of Athens, Paul Anastasi denied any authority was
conducting
a poison campaign against the animals, calling such allegations malicious
and groundless. Mayor Dora Bakoyanni recently launched a charm offensive and
adopted two strays herself.

Western Daily Press
OPINION
Political heads may roll in a few months if the Olympic Games prove the
embarrassment for Greece that many are predicting, but some should be
rolling already for not preventing a needless sacrifice in the name of
success.
Winning the race to host the Games is a matter of great national pride for
any country - and a unique opportunity to make a lot of people rich.
Greece put up a good bid for this year' s event and had the extra edge of
sentimental vote for this celebration of the modern Games in its historical
birthplace - but that cannot excuse what is happening as those involved seek
to create the right image among the tourists and sports fans who will throng
to Athens in August.
The Greek capital is famous for the number of stray dogs that roam its
streets. Now it stands to become infamous for the killing that is taking
place to make the streets a prettier site for visitors. Such barbaric
practices have no place in any civilised country let alone me one that
claims to be the birthplace of Western civilisation
Naturally, nobody in official circles is willing to admit there is any
policy of deliberately poisoning the animals, but animal rights’ campaigners
have absolutely no doubt that it has been sanctioned at the highest level.
It can be no coincidence that the death toll has risen steeply as the Games
near.
The Greek Government cannot hide behind introduction of laws demanding that
local councils neuter vaccinate and microchip stray Animals before putting
them back on the streets - it must find and jail the poisoners
Only by protecting the lives of its innocent strays can it truly claim still
to be civilised.