By Iason Athanasiadis
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The intensifying conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan has claimed considerable collateral damage, including the kidnapping of Greek teacher and aid worker Thanassis Lerounis.
Lerounis was the only Westerner living in a series of lush interconnected valleys inhabited by a lost pre-Islamic tribe on Pakistan's mountainous frontier.
The Greek national thought the valley's isolation and his 15-year presence there ensured him safety, but he was kidnapped by a Taliban group in a violent dawn raid in September on the valleys of the Kalasha, the last remaining pagans of Central and Southeast Asia.
On Sept. 8, Taliban gunmen swarmed into the sparsely defended compound where Lerounis lived among 3,000 non-Muslim tribesmen called the Kalasha. They hauled him off, forcing a local shepherd to carry him on his back. Before leaving, they reportedly shot to death one of the two guards the Pakistani government assigned Lerounis and heavily wounded a servant and another guard.
Lerounis is now held captive in an unknown location in southeastern Afghanistan's Nuristan Province. As ransom, his captors are demanding the release from a Pakistani jail of several comrades, 2 million dollars and/or his conversion to Islam.
Lerounis, a schoolteacher from Athens, stumbled across the Kalasha tribes while mountain climbing in Pakistan in the mid-1980s. Fascinated by the myth that the fair-skinned Kalash are the genetic descendants of Macedonian settlers who arrived with the ranks of Alexander the Great's armies, Lerounis raised funds in Greece to build a school. Since then he lived in the Kalash valleys for up to six months every year and continued to raise funds for infrastructure projects.
For centuries the Kalash have lived in Chitral, an independent kingdom that upon the creation of Pakistan became its northwestern corner. Even then, Chitral remained an isolated mountain redoubt, closer to Afghanistan than the country of which it is a part. Visitors still ask passengers arriving on the shaky twin-engined airplanes that fly in from nearby Peshawar: "What is the news from Pakistan?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/03/thanassis-lerounis-greek_n_343879.html
Σχόλιο Αλφειού:
Απόκτησε πιο μεγάλη δημοσιότητα το θέμα της απαγωγής του Θανάση.Μπράβο στην Ελληνίδα Huffington.Υπ'όψιν ότι η ηλεκτρονική εφημερίδα της είναι στις πρώτες θέσεις στις ΗΠΑ!
Αλλά,ήταν τόσο δύσκολο για τον κ.Ιάσωνα Αθανασιάδη(που φέρει και ένα από τα πιο παλαιά ελληνικά ονόματα),να γράψει ότι οι Καλάσα ΔΕΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ "ειδωλολάτρες",αλλά κρατούν ακόμα,έστω και παραλλαγμένες,τις παλαιές ελληνικές παραδόσεις;
Πόσο μάλλον,που γράφοντας ότι οι Καλάσα(οι καφίρ-"άπιστοι" για τους Μουσουλμάνους),αντιστέκονται ακόμα στη δια πυρός και σιδήρου επιβολή της μιάς εκ των τριών μονοθεϊστικών θρησκειών του ίδιου κατασκευαστή,κρατώντας την αρχαία ελληνική τυπολατρεία(ήθη και έθιμα),θα δημιουργούσε πιο μεγάλη δυναμική μεταξύ των Φιλελλήνων!
