GREEK ANIMAL CRUELTY: The Street Animals of Greece

Marijo Gillis from Welfare for Animals In Greece Interviewed

By Claudette Vaughan

Alive - whimpering and crying for the help and compassion of a human. It didn't come. This dog was seen by thousands of pedestrians and left to suffer alone. This dog after weeks and weeks of suffering in agony was rescued by foreign friend of Marijo's living in Greece and mercifully placed into the arms and heart of God. This dog "existed" in hell and died in hell. Look below at the photos. There are tens of thousand of animals like this in the Cradle of Civilisation on the mainland and on the idyllic Greek islands. Greece is an exquisitely beautiful country that lives by tourism and by tourism alone! Many Greeks are extraordinarily cruel, blind, indifferent and the government is a disgrace. What can you do you ask?  

From Marijo Gills, founder of Welfare for Animals in Greece.

“Please, please. I beg you, send these photos and the film link to every damn person you know and don't know and plead with everyone to never, ever step foot in this slimy black hole of inhumanity called Greece again. I have produced a documentary expose for Greek national TV and am going to Athens next month. If you wish to make the effort, send these photos and the film link via e-mail to the editors of your local papers and local travel agents. Urge them to publicise the atrocities and feel free to make public her personal phone numbers should anyone need confirmation. Send the film link as well. I lived in this God forsaken hole for 14 years. Please, please help me. This precious little soul just about put me over the edge.”   http://www.idausa.org/athens/resources.html    

CV: What disease did the dog in this picture have while he was alive?

Marijo: That dog didn't have any disease. The little pup in the picture with his face gone evidently had either been beaten, maybe attacked by another dog but infection set in and he was just left on the streets to die. He got worse and worse and was seen in the same venue for weeks. His face just started to rot away because nobody who saw him was prepared to help him.

CV: How did you get involved with the street animals of Greece in the first place?

Marijo: Greece is supposingly the cradle of civilisation but it's not. It's the cradle of devastation. I was married and lived there for 14 years and it's one of the most brutal countries that I have traveled to and I have traveled all over the world for animal rights.

Back in 1972 just before I went into my first year of university my parents let me go to Greece with an older cousin of mine. I was absolutely positively horrified. I went for 3 weeks and ended up staying for 9 weeks and my parents almost had to come and collect me. We witnessed so many animals in need we didn't even bother to vacation. What we saw was a nightmare and I vowed I'd return again.

Every summer I went back and then one year I met a fantastic Canadian woman and we became the best of friends and through her I met my former husband on a Greek Island. I married and then moved to Greece and that's how the work for the animals began. This was so amazing. The Universe is in such order and God is so amazing because I realised in retrospect that this was all planned out for me.

My husband and I had a huge out chartering business with jet skis and para sailing etc. I worked 7 days a week, 14 hours a day to become a force in that business in Greece and we achieved it. Little by little everybody on the island where I lived or a tourist would find out that if there was an animal in need the “crazy American” will take care of it. In 14 years I've had thousands of animals on my property and by trade I'm a clinical nurse specialist. I learned how to give IV fluids. I was taking stray dogs with paevo disease and leishmaniasis which is a tropical disease. This disease affects almost all dogs and it manifests with this horrible leukemia type syndrome. They literally bleed from their noses, their rectum, and their eyes.

What happened was I started seeing the Romanian and Albanian gypsies as they would come through Greece and these gypsies would have horses who were so abused and so neglected that I felt I had to start buying the horses from the gypsies, horses with colic etc, just to get them away from the gypsies! Because of this we had to open up an Equestrian school and boarding stable in order to help with the feed and the care of the horses.

And so all the money I made at our new equestrian school and boarding stable went into the upkeep and food for all my stray animals.

In Greece I lasted for 14 and a half years and I witnessed the poisoning, the shooting, the hangings, the dragging behind motorcycles of animals. I have seen it all in Greece.

CV: How is this allowed to go on in Greece?

Marijo: The majority of the people in Greece find animals contemptuous. They find animals repulsive. They don't like to touch them. They don't like to keep animals in their homes. If people do have animals especially the peasants in the villages, they keep them on 3-foot chains summer and winter long. They get flea-infested. They get wounds that are maggot infested. The mindset is so terribly ignorant. A very large portion of what gives these people a soul or a heart is missing. I don't have an explanation because I've never seen a country that has given such culture to the world many, many years ago. The philosophers alone, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the ancient writings that culture was so evolved thousands of years ago has devolved in to such an incredibly cruel and uncompassionate society that it is today.

I know that when I left Greece I left behind 15 horses, 27 cats and 12 dogs and took my 3 animals that I brought back from death, Twinky, Ebony and Perky, and brought them back to the US. I vowed I'd never go back unless I had the chance to get justice for their animals.

The reason I left was I got up one day and I went looking for my four big dogs so I walked into the pine forrest and I found them, legs tied in a circle and they had been shot to death in the night. One of the dogs had a small American flag rammed down his throat. The very next day I packed up my three animals, one piece of luggage and I went to my Canadian friend in Athens for 3 months. The day I was at the airport to go back to the States I said I only pray that one day God would give me the power to get justice for the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of animals that died in my arms in Greece and also for the suffering that I saw.

In 2002 I was getting calls from friends in Greece saying, “My God, we're finding dogs more than usual poisoned everywhere”. They thought it was because of the Olympics. The government was looking to kill all strays before the onslaught of tourists. From there I started collecting names of people who might be interested in this work and started running campaigns. I ran the Olympic Boycott Campaign and it was carried all over the world. I produced a four-minute documentary expose that showed the cruelty.

CV: What can people do to help you Marijo?

Marijo: Let me tell you that we have done everything. We've had boycott campaigns, we've had over 80,000 signatures brought to Ambassadors in European countries, brought to the Consul-General here in New York. We've had demonstrations in Greece and organized demonstrations all over Europe before the Olympics. The Greek government gives us the third finger salute and basically says “F..You.We're Greece. The cradle of civilization. We don't care what you do”.

Greece lives by tourism alone. Greece's economy and gross national product depends on tourism. It's the only way to get the attention of the government. Hit them in their wallets. The other way is for travel agents to band together and boycott Greece as a vacation venue. They must begin by sending people who want to travel to Italy instead or send people to venues where there's very little animal cruelty. If people need to go to the Mediterranean send them to Italy where there's a much better protection quota than Greece. What we desperately need people to do is boycott Greece as a holiday destination, then boycott Greek restaurants then boycott Greek olive oil.

he only thing that will make any difference is if the ‘ching ching' of their cash registers from tourists goes down dramaticly. That's the only way we are going to make a difference. That is our bargaining chip because I have been to Greece 5 times in the last 3 years and I negotiated with Greek government officials and am currently working on a Greek documentary exposure. The one I produced previously created havoc. The government scrambled to get together a beautiful display shelter that was only for the eyes of the European press which, by the way, no longer exists. Once the Olympics were over the shelter was dismantled and the dogs were let loose in the streets. We never want to see that happening again.

VOW NEVER AGAIN TO BUY
GREEK OLIVE OIL

Contact:

Marijo Gillis
Welfare for Animals Global
New York City
Twinkieperkyebby@msn.com
"a not for profit political lobby and advocacy force reaching the world"
Tel: (212) 427-0587

Mobile: (646) 284-1945
Tel: (813) 907-3847
Fax: (212) 427-6381

Film Links:

IDA - Athens Poisoning IDA President Elliot M. Katz, DVM "Please join me in conveying outrage and shock over ... View footage that was filmed and produced by Marijo Anne Gillis, ...
www.idausa.org/athens/resources.html

IDA's response:. Accounts of mass dog poisonings in Greece are nothing new. .. not only in Athens but throughout the nation," said Marijo Gillis, ... www.idausa.org/athens/fvf.html