Wildfires spark anger and racism
Dear Member,
This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
We had hoped we wouldn’t need to write another newsletter about wildfires—at least not this year. Yet, here we are, with (the other) half of Greece burning, including critical protected areas like Dadia and Parnitha Forests National Parks. Some 21 people died from the fires, and many properties were destroyed.
Like this was not enough, there has been an orchestrated effort for the wildfires to attribute the tragedy to migrants, even if the wildfires killed them.
Consequently, we witnessed groups of ‘vigilantes’ in the Evros region, bordering Turkey, organizing ‘headhunters’ patrols for migrants/refugees and capturing them like animals in a closed wagon.
Aren’t the above news cornerstones of fascism?
Our heart mourns the country’s lost beauty
Alexandroupolis & Dadia (Evros prefecture), Kavala, Evia, Thiva, Viotia, Aspropyrgos, Fyli, and Parnitha were raged by wildfires this week - with Dadia still burning when these lines were written, and most of the rest appearing to be (finally) under control.
The situation is so extended and chaotic that it is difficult to describe fully. The government followed its usual evacuation (Opens in a new window) tactic - they even sent an evacuation message (Opens in a new window) for the Ano Liosia area, a densely built city neighborhood of 35,000 people! Next step: evacuate Monastiraki. Houses, however, were burned, for example, in Athens (Opens in a new window).
This year’s wildfires have burned more than 120,000 hectares (Opens in a new window) until Wednesday, with Alexandroupolis-Dadia Forest National Park being harder hit. According to the Copernicus system, the Alexandroupolis wildfires are now the largest in the EU. It had burned some 72,344 hectares (Opens in a new window) till Thursday noon.
The Dadia Forest National Park is one of the most important protected areas (Opens in a new window) at the national, European, and international levels. Among others, it hosts three of the four vulture species of Europe (the Black Vulture, the Griffon Vulture, and the Egyptian Vulture), while it is home to the only breeding population of Black Vultures in the Balkans.
Five thousand five hundred forty hectares of Dadia were also burned last year, yet the government did nothing to prevent another catastrophe. According to reports (Opens in a new window), the Park still needed a forester, and there were only four forest rangers with an average age of 60. At the same time, according to the same report, some 80 loggers who worked last year to cut down the burned trees still need to be paid.
Parnitha mountain is one of the last remaining green lungs of Athens. The fire was under control as of Friday. Still, according (Opens in a new window) to the National Observatory of Athens, it had had enough time to burn some 6,433 hectares of the mountain, 47% in the protected National Park area.
Mainly, three wildfires destroyed Parnitha in 2007, 2021, and this year. Some of its parts burned this year had also been burned in 2007, making forest recovery even more difficult. You can see here (Opens in a new window) a map with the areas burned in Parnitha in the three wildfires.
The total burned area until Wednesday is three times the size (Opens in a new window)of the annual area that is burned on average (2006-2022) in Greece.
2023 is the second worst year for wildfires in the last two decades (2007 is still on top of the list, with more than 270,000 hectares burned - ND was then in government).
In July 2023, more than 52,000 hectares burned, while in August 2023 and until Wednesday, more than 73,000).
In the last three years, wildfires have burned circa 300,000 hectares.
Interestingly, there has been an increase of +195% in the total burned areas in Greece (from the beginning of the year until Thursday) compared to the average burned areas annually, according (Opens in a new window) to the European Forest Fire Information System. This happened while the total number of extensive forest fires (>30 hectares) has decreased by -52% as to the annual average (2002-2022). With 4,746 hectares per fire until Thursday, Greece tops the list of 20 Mediterranean countries with a wide gap.
The wildfires have left 21 people dead until Friday, August 25. Twenty of them burned in Dadia forest. They are all thought to be migrants under 35 years old, apart (Opens in a new window) from the two children, as the area is thought to constitute a secret passage. An old shepherd (Opens in a new window) also died in Viotia.
In the early days of the Dadia fire, the president of the Avantas community, George Hatzigeorgiou, said he spotted three groups (Opens in a new window) of migrants in the area while “... the fire was 100 meters away…I begged them, in English, to go to the village square. They kept saying ‘police, police.’ They were afraid they’d get arrested. I told them it’s better to go to the square and get arrested than to burn alive.”
One of the most dramatic moments was when the Alexandroupolis Hospital had to be evacuated (Opens in a new window) on Tuesday as the fire approached. Some 69 patients were transferred to the ship “Adamantios Korais,” which happened to be at the port at the time (others were transferred to neighboring hospitals). What a ridicule that mainstream media like SKAI TV spoke of a ‘hospital ship’ (Opens in a new window) like a ship built for this purpose. Eleven prematurely born babies were transferred (Opens in a new window) to Kavala General Hospital. However, OENGE General Secretary Doctor P. Papanikolaou tweeted (Opens in a new window) that the Kavala hospital does not have incubators, so the babies must be hospitalized in regular wards. A pregnant woman gave labor in the ambulance while evacuating from the hospital. She and the baby are in good health.
Also, Ioakimio's nursing home was evacuated. Seventy bedridden people could not be transferred, so the Fire Brigade moved close to protect them in case they needed to.
The Greek army also had to transfer ammunition from two warehouses in Evros preventatively. Local media also spoke of explosions in the Aliki range in Evros as the fire had entered it.
Do we still have a state in Greece?
The PM vanishes
We have had quite a hard time lately detecting our PM while crucial developments are taking place in the country.
He had disappeared from the face of the earth quite recently after the Croatian neonazi hooligans paraded undisturbed to Athens and killed a Greek citizen. He is now nowhere to be seen or heard as the country turns to ashes. He probably follows some PR strategy: taking credit when things go well and disappearing when they don’t.
So, instead of focusing on this national emergency, we only know of the PM doing these:
On Monday, Mitsotakis met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who landed in Athens for an official visit, and later, he hosted (Opens in a new window) an informal dinner with EU and Balkans leaders (Opens in a new window), including Zelenski.
On Tuesday, Mitsotakis hosted lunch for American senator Robert Menendez, who visited Athens, “where they talked about Greek-American relations and developments in the wider area,” Protagon reported (Opens in a new window).
The first and, to this moment, only statement he has made until these lines were written about the wildfires was to tweet (Opens in a new window)his acknowledgments to “our partners and allies” who sent fire brigade forces to Greece to help combat the wildfires. OK, also to thank Greek firefighters, etc.
However, this government will most likely go down in history as the government that let Greece burn.
Well, maybe it’s because, as Migration Alternate Minister Sophia Voultepsi said (Opens in a new window) on live TV when asked to comment on the fires:
“Climate change came too abruptly; we were expecting it later.”
If climate change had warned it would come so quickly, maybe the PM would have the chance to soften it using his ‘dinner diplomacy,’ which he seems to like.
Will we finally face the elephant in the room?
We are closely watching the rise of fascism in Greece in recent years.
The current wildfires showcased once more how fascism has become ‘the new normal’ in the country. A series of most worrying events unfolded around the wildfire in Evros.
The Fire Brigade officially declared (Opens in a new window) that a bolt of lightning sparked the wildfire. However, propaganda started spreading fast that it was due to arson caused by migrants.
On Monday night, 21 August, parliamentary party Greek Solution Evros MP, lawyer Paris Papadakis, appeared in an interview stating “we are at war” and claiming (Opens in a new window) that illegal immigrants (he used the negatively burdened word ‘lathrometanastes,’ which by the way has been banned by law as a racist term) have put fires in more than ten spots. He provided no evidence for his claims apart from the ‘locals know.’ The previous day, Sunday, he had practically called for a pogrom against the migrants: “I am calling the members of Enisio Delta association to be on alert and to do what we know how to do best… It was not the lightning… We have war, gentlemen!!” he wrote (Opens in a new window) on Facebook.
On Tuesday, 22 August, leader of Greek Solution Kyriakos Velopoulos practically encouraged the call:
“Urgent! Residents took the law into their own hands! They are themselves arresting ‘investors’ in Evros! An unbelievable video verifies they come and go whenever they want! A militia and a national guard should be finally formed! Guard the borders for God’s sake, the homeland is in danger!!” he tweeted (Opens in a new window).
He added that the video appears fake, but these things should still be done.
On 23 August, a video (Opens in a new window) appeared where a man in a military outfit on a truck publicly instructs a crowd of local vigilantes how to organize ‘man hunting’ patrols. He advises them not to bear weapons and knives, though, because
“yes, we are suffering a hybrid war; they burn us, but [the authorities] don’t let us [carry weapons].”
It was the previous day, on 22 August, that the most shocking and appalling video (Opens in a new window) was posted on social media by its protagonist and perpetrator. The man, an Alexandroupolis resident, himself an Albanian migrant called Apostolos Totas, boasts on this video of the migrants he had captured and was keeping them locked in the closed trailer-wagon of his vehicle. He has his wagon opened to show his ‘loot’ and says:
“... I have loaded 25 pieces in this trailer. Open it…. You see? 25 pieces, these bastards. They will burn us, mother fucker… The whole mountain is full of them… Organize yourselves. We should go out there and capture them…”
Even worse, people applauded this act in the comments.
The aforementioned fascist was finally arrested (Opens in a new window) by the Greek police, along with two other locals, following the stormy reactions on social media. He had captured 13 migrants. He was charged (Opens in a new window) with illegally detaining people. We should also emphasize that the 13 migrants -his victims- are also charged with arson (Opens in a new window)attempts. The fascist’s lawyer claimed they attempted to put fire in the city; they were carrying knives, while his client was… unarmed, and his motive was not racist.
So, an unarmed man managed to capture 13 armed migrants. And those migrants risked imprisonment by attempting arson on Greece's border. Plus, is there no racist motive for calling them “pieces”? Can these charges stand in any court? Well, maybe not. But until the trial, the ‘job’ of spreading racist propaganda will have been done.
The perpetrator seems closely associated with the ND party, as his son is a candidate (Opens in a new window)in the forthcoming local elections.
This local vigilantism is not new. It became prominent in March 2020 when the refugees who were stranded en masse at the Evros border, attempting to cross into Greece from Turkey, were characterized as “invaders” (Opens in a new window) by the PM himself. The Greek state then “turned a blind eye” to locals forming militias to hunt down migrants. Also, in Lesvos in 2018, they had unleashed pogroms (Opens in a new window) against inside the island’s capital.
At the same time, government officials and mainstream media promote anti-migrant propaganda.
Following the death of the migrants in Dadia forest, Migration and Asylum Minister Kairidis stated (Opens in a new window) that
“this tragedy verifies once more the dangers of illegal migration.”
Some reports claimed (Opens in a new window)the fire started from where the dead migrants were found, alleging they could have set fire to cook.
On Tuesday night, Open TV reported that two migrants were arrested in the act while setting fire in the Evros region. The next day, the TV channel had to publicly correct (Opens in a new window) their ‘report’ as it was verified that the police had arrested no migrants (Opens in a new window) for arson. Well, it could be a mistake. Can we be sure?
State broadcaster ERT ‘journalist’ said (Opens in a new window):
“So, the only good thing is that we have not mourned the loss of life, apart from these poor 18 people who lost their lives in Dadia forest.”
Discussing the men's arrest in Evros for abducting migrants, Greek TV journalists/panelists also asked (Opens in a new window) ‘innocently’ a unionist lawyer and a unionist police officer when it is legal to take the law into your own hands
Mainstream media did not hesitate to silence even fire-affected people’s voices critical of the government.
On ANT1 TV (Opens in a new window), while interviewing a fire victim who asks, “Where is Mitsotakis?” and criticizes the government, he confronts the victim, instructing him that “the issue is not political” and other nice stuff.
On SKAI TV, the ‘journalist’ cuts on air (Opens in a new window) a fire victim she is interviewing as he starts saying that what has been saved has been saved due to volunteers and that the state is nowhere.
This is not going to end well.
Read
Miltos Tentoglou wins Gold, makes all Greeks proud (Opens in a new window).
Modi, the first Indian PM, visits Greece after 40 years (Opens in a new window).
Greece, India eye ‘strategic relationship (Opens in a new window).’
Greeks pay high prices for dairy products, although producer prices fall (Opens in a new window).
Greek inflation strikes back (Opens in a new window).
Turkish tycoon Sabanci, wife injured in boat crash off Greek island (Opens in a new window).
Acropolis Museum: Group of women breaks in, steals coins (Opens in a new window).
Samaria Gorge opens again Aug 23, without “risk declaration (Opens in a new window).”
That’s all for this week.
Stay safe, hydrated, and protect the environment is all we are left with!
The AL team
