Greek Hunters To Help With Olympic Security - For Free

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Greek Hunters To Help With Olympic

Security - For Free

AFP: 8/9/2004

ATHENS, Aug 9 (AFP) - Greece's public order minister, Yiorgos Voulgarakis, on Monday

formally accepted an offer from the country's hunters to help -- for free --

with the massive security effort being made for the Olympics.

The hunters will monitor rural venues, where they know the terrain

well, for intruders and forest fires, Voulgarakis

said after meeting Nikos Papadodimas,

head of the hunters' federation, four days before the start of the Games.

The hunters also agreed to put back the start of the hunting

season, which usually begins on August 20 -- bang in the middle of the Games --

until after the close of the event on August 29.

" The (public order) ministry decided in June to shorten the

hunting period, " said Papadodimas.

" They said they didn't want people with rifles around in the

countryside. It was reasonable for us to accept this. "

The hunting federation's forest guard -- an unarmed, private force

which has the right to arrest people -- last month offered its services free of

charge to the government to help with Olympic security.

Around 55 members of the forest guard will be on duty during the

Games, not only at sports venues such as Marathon Lake, near the venue

where rowing events will take place, and the mountain biking venue on Mount Parnitha, but also at Mornos dam and canal, which supply most of Athens' drinking water,

said Voulgarakis.

The Athens organisers have pulled out all the stops to ensure the

safety at the Games of athletes and officials from 201 visiting countries, as

well as spectators and journalists.

On Sunday, the head of the organising

committee, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki,

said Athens was poised to

implement " the most complete, best manned and most expensive security

strategy in Olympic history " .

Deputy Culture Minister Fanny Palli-Petralia

said on British television on Sunday that security at the Games -- the first

summer Olympics since the September 11,

2001 attacks on the United States -- would cost Greece 1.2 billion

dollars (one billion euros).

Athens has spent five

times more on security than the organisers of the

Sydney Olympics in 2000, making the hunters' free contribution to the effort

even more welcome.

Voulgarakis thanked the

hunters for volunteering to bolster the security effort.

" This borders on self-sacrifice. It proves that Greeks can

work as volunteers, without material incentive, " said the minister.

Papadodimas said he hoped the

Olympic security deal would have long-term benefits for Greece's hunters, who he

said numbered 250,000.

" This cooperation we have with authorities is good. It

creates a framework for a more permanent cooperation, " he said.

" In Greece, everybody hunts.

It's not just a sport for the nobility, like in most of Europe, " said Papadodimas.

But Marios Founaris,

who runs a bird wildlife reserve on the Greek island of Paros, was cautious

about whether the hunters would contribute positively to the Olympic security

effort.

Referring to the way the forest guard applied hunting legislation,

he said: " All the force checks is what's in its own interest. They care if

hunters shoot prey above their quota but if a rare pelican gets shot, no one

cares, " he lamented.