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| Kidnapped Greek social worker selflessly served Kalash people |
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Prof Athanasios helped build schools, clinics, museum in Chitral
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: Thousands of Pakistanis living in Greece could face problems if Professor Athanasios Lerounis, the Greek social worker kidnapped from the Kalash valley of Bamburet in Chitral last week, was harmed.
Wishing anonymity, a Pakistani friend of the kidnapped Greek teacher told The News that there were around 80,000 Pakistanis in Greece and almost half of them were staying there illegally in the hope of entering other European countries. “The Greek people are very nationalistic. They would be upset that a Greek volunteer working for the welfare of the Kalash people in Pakistan was kidnapped. Their anger would be directed against Pakistan and Pakistanis in case Prof Athanasios came to any harm,” he said.
Nikitas Kaklamanis, the Mayor of Athens, has already written to Pakistan’s ambassador in Greece to protest the kidnapping and to demand urgent measures for safe recovery of Prof Athanasios.
The Greek Teachers’ Association, of which Prof Athanasios was a member and which had done some pioneering work in Chitral for the welfare of the Kalash people, has also expressed deep concern over his kidnapping.
However, the most vocal in protesting Prof Athanasios’s kidnapping are the Kalash people, more commonly known as Kalasha. They have held protests in Chitral city and in Bamboret valley, where the Greek social worker had set up the ethnological museum referred to as Kalasha-Dur in the local language. Some Kalash representatives, including women dressed in their colourful dress, also came to Peshawar to hold a press conference to vent their anger over Prof Athanasios’ kidnapping. The Kalash ladies were so bitter that they threatened to migrate from Pakistan to some other country where their community would feel safe and able to live in peace.
Prof Athanasios had earned the admiration of the Kalash people through years of hard work. According to archaeologist Zainul Wahab, who is head of the government museum in Chakdarra in Lower Dir district, Prof Athanasios first came to Chitral as a tourist in 1994 and visited the three Kalash valleys of Bamboret, Birir and Rumbur. He said the Greek teacher developed fascination for the Kalash, who are believed to be descendants of the soldiers in the army of the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great. First through the Greek Teachers’ Association and subsequently from the platform of the non-governmental organization, Greek Volunteers, Prof Athanasios collected donations to build schools, clinics, water tanks, drinking water supply schemes, maternity homes, etc. More than 20 projects were completed with money from donors in Greece.
Finally the magnificent, wood-hewn Kalasha-Dur museum was built in Broon village in Bamburet valley with financial assistance from Hellenic Aid society of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs to showcase the Kalash culture. The museum had more than 2,000 objects depicting various stages in the more than 2,000 history of the Kalash people.
As the chairperson of the NGO, Greek Volunteers, Prof Athanasios was the moving spirit behind the effort to preserve and protect the Kalash culture. In an interview with the BBC sometime back, he remarked that the Kalash culture is a treasure belonging not only to Pakistan but the whole world. He argued that one way of preserving and protecting the Kalash culture was to put the Kalash people in a glass case and let no one enter it. The better option in his view was to empower the Kalash through education. He was surprised to know that the Kalash people too gave the highest priority to educating their children and preserving their heritage through an educated next generation.
Every summer Prof Athanasios brought doctors to Chitral to provide medical care to the Kalash people and also to Muslims, some of them converts, living in the green and beautiful Bamboret, Birir and Rumbur valleys. This summer too he had come on his annual sojourn and was hoping to spend the usual four months. But unidentified gunmen raided the Kalasha-Dur Museum where he used to stay, killed his police guard and kidnapped him. Villagers in the Pak-Afghan border areas saw him being taken away towards Nuristan province in Afghanistan. A jirga of Kalash and other Chitrali elders have gone to Nuristan as part of the efforts for seeking his recovery. The identity of the kidnappers isn’t known. They could be criminals and kidnapped him for ransom. Or they could be militants. Both the Afghan Taliban and former Afghan mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami group are active in Nuristan and the neighbouring Kunar province.
Zainul Wahab knew Prof Athanasios well, having met him frequently in Pakistan and Greece. He said the 50-year Greek social worker taught at a technical school in Athens and devoted most of his time collecting donations for the welfare of the Kalash people. “He wasn’t a missionary. He also wasn’t a worldly man. Prof Athanasios didn’t marry. I saw him dressed up in Shalwar-kameez with a Chitrali Pakol cap on his head roaming in Athens and showing pride in his dress,” recalled Zainul Wahab.
Prof Athanasios was so obsessed with the welfare of the Kalash people that he launched a campaign by writing to Pakistan’s ambassador in Greece and other Pakistani authorities to complain against Saleh Muhammad Khan, director of Archaeology and Museums, NWFP for illegally appointing outsiders instead of Kalashas on four posts at the Kalasha-Dur Museum in violation of their memorandum of understanding.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
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