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DE RUEHTH #0238/01 0521459
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O 211459Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY ATHENS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1245
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ATHENS 000238 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV GR
SUBJECT: ROMA OF GREECE: "MORE RATS THAN CHILDREN" 
 
REF: 07 ATHENS 2149 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. From February 11 - 13, Poloff visited a dozen makeshift 
Roma camps within a hundred kilometers of Athens.  In meeting 
after meeting, the terribly poor Romani occupants asked for 
jobs, housing and education.  Evidence abounds that a GoG 
program offering housing loans to individual Roma families 
has failed; and the Roma are calling for the program to be 
replaced.  We see few, if any, signs that Roma issues are 
garnering greater attention in GoG circles despite Embassy 
efforts to increase awareness.  We will continue engaging 
leaders at all levels of government to make the connection 
between security and human rights, and for the GoG to begin 
to address systematically and creatively Roma issues.  End 
summary. 
 
MORE RATS THAN CHILDREN 
----------------------- 
 
¶2.  On February 11 - 13, a team consisting of Poloff, POL 
FSN, and POL Intern visited approximately twelve Roma camps 
in the vicinity of the port city of Patras and the greater 
Athens region.  Several of the communities comprised fewer 
than 15 families, while others had 3000 to 5000 residents, 
often living under conditions of extreme poverty.  In the 
community of Riganocambos, Patras, for example, 12 to 15 
families live in shacks made of cardboard, plastic sheets, 
and corrugated tin on the very edge of a city dump, lacking 
running water or electricity.  As we stood talking with a 
group of the community's adults and surrounded by 20 or so 
small shoeless, dirty children, dozens of rats scampered in 
and out of the remnants of an old automobile where the 
children were playing as we arrived.  Five of the children 
and adults readily pointed out where they had been bittenby 
rats as they slept a day or two before our visit.  One mother 
pulled back the blanket swaddling her weeks-old child to show 
the dried blood on the infant's ear lobe where a rat had 
bitten her the night before.  In the community of Aspropyrgos 
outside of Athens, one Roma man said "we have more rats than 
children." 
 
"A PUNISHED PEOPLE" 
------------------- 
 
 ¶3. In the communities we visited, the Roma eke out a 
hand-to-mouth existence by gathering scrap metal from the 
dumps, trash heaps and roadside dumpsters.  Pickup trucks 
teeming with scrap metal arrived in the camps as we met with 
residents.  The scrap metal is separated and sold to local 
junkyards by weight, earning enough money to feed a family 
for a day or two.  Adult males we spoke to decried the lack 
of opportunities to find work.  Explaining that the Greek 
civil service works on a point system that grants higher 
scores to those with a grammar school or high school 
education, several asked why they needed a grammar school 
degree to collect trash for a municipality.  With the 
exception of some Albanian Roma, all adults that we met were 
illiterate - a fact they quickly divulged and also deplored 
as the source of many of their ills.  But when asked why, 
therefore, they did not send their own children to schools, 
few had a ready answer beyond what they called the racism of 
Greek society, which refused their children the right to go 
to school.  Some told of school principals allegedly lying 
that there was no room at the school.  Others said that 
because they could not bathe their children or wash their 
hair, they were not allowed to attend school.  "We are a 
punished people," one woman said. 
 
¶4.  One of the recurring complaints that we heard from Roma 
around Greece was their inability to receive a driver's 
license because they were illiterate.  As a result, when 
stopped by police they were frequently ticketed for the 
offense of driving without a license, which carries enormous 
fines (several thousand euro).  To pay the fines requires 
money that would otherwise buy food, soap or clothing.  When 
they cannot pay the fines, offenders serve months in jail. 
 
HOUSING ISSUES 
-------------- 
 
¶5.  The Greek constitution provides for the right to housing, 
stipulating the state's special duty to secure accommodation 
for all.  The right is not afforded to many Roma families. 
In almost every community, Roma were aware of a housing loan 
program put in place by the Greek government almost six years 
ago.  The program offered 60,000 euro (approximately 
88,800.00 USD) to Roma families to purchase a new home.  In a 
meeting last July, Secretary General at the Ministry of the 
Interior, Patroclos Georgiadis, (reftel) told poloff that the 
program had been temporarily discontinued due to a number of 
 
ATHENS 00000238  002 OF 002 
 
 
problems, including fraud and lack of oversight.  Many Roma 
asked whether we could assist with their loan applications -- 
some of which had been pending for as long as five years. 
Others said they were denied and others explained that they 
received the loan but admitted that they had spent the money 
in ways other than for its intended purpose.  One man 
justified buying new cars or going on vacations.  "I've never 
seen 600 euro, let alone 60,000 euro, in my entire life.  So, 
of course, I didn't know what to do with it.  It was too much 
for me and I wanted to have a nice life like everybody else. 
So I bought a new car."  With some of the remaining money, he 
and his wife bought an undeveloped piece of land in another 
village where they hoped, someday to be able to build a home. 
 A frequent complaint was that 60,000 euro was not sufficient 
money to buy both land and a home.  Almost without exception, 
interlocutors suggested that the program should be changed to 
require either much more direct oversight by the GoG or, 
better still, to have the GoG provide these extremely poor 
citizens with an actual home rather than simply the money to 
buy one.  We did meet several families that had received the 
loan, or coupled it with their own savings and built homes or 
added to their shacks on land they sometimes owned. 
 
¶6.  Approximately five kilometers outside the center of 
Patras, we visited the urban neighborhood called St. 
Katherines -- but known to locals as Yiftiko (Gypsy town). 
There we found small, clean white stucco homes, about the 
size of a shed in a typical American backyard, all featuring 
potted plants and community garden hoses but without 
electricity or interior plumbing.  In speaking with Greek 
(non-Roma) residents next to the Yiftiko, we found people 
only willing to talk in whispers, calling their Roma 
neighbors "a dirty people," who make noise at all hours of 
the day and night.  One elderly Greek man told us that he had 
lived his entire life in this neighborhood but had only twice 
ever ventured into the Yiftiko. 
 
¶7. While in Patras, we also met with government officials, 
including the Mayor, the chief prosecutor, the Nomarch 
(regional governor) and Vice Nomarch of the Region.  All had 
the same basic reaction to questions about the Roma: a denial 
that there was really a problem and a shrug about what, if 
anything, could be done.  "They are always happy," the chief 
prosecutor offered.  Most officials tried to change the 
subject quickly, though the Mayor of Patras said that he paid 
the rents for 17 Roma families and helped with the mortgages 
for another ten who received the government housing loan. 
The Nomarch bristled at human rights questions from the 
American Embassy which he saw as responsible for most of his 
region's problems as a direct result of the "bombing of 
everyone" in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶8.  Over the last 18 months, in dozens of meetings about Roma 
issues with GoG authorities, virtually every government 
official has had a nearly identical reaction.  When the 
subject is mentioned, a wry smile appears followed by some 
version of the claim that the Roma are genetically this way, 
want to live this way, or are simply beyond help.  Most 
officials seek to change the subject quickly or suffer 
patiently through the 'naive American' approach to a 
centuries old problem that they believe will never change. 
Nonetheless, we will continue to address these issues with 
GoG officials at all levels, stressing the relationship 
between security and human rights and urging the GoG to find 
new and creative ways to address problems in the Roma 
communities of Greece. 
 
¶9. (Comment continued) Possible areas where Greece could be 
urged to make important and immediate changes: 
 
-- devise a plan for illiterate adults to be able to take and 
pass a driver's test 
 
-- a new housing program to begin operating with appropriate 
levels of oversight. 
 
-- institutionalizing the use of social workers as 
quasi-truant officers (as has been done in Thrace and had an 
enormously positive influence on the number of Roma children 
attending school there). 
 
-- creating real incentive programs for children to attend 
school 
 
These options may present the best opportunity to begin 
breaking the cycle of poverty among Greek Roma. 
SPECKHARD