Kalasha Peoples Call for Cultural Survival

Breaking News:Climatic Catastrophe- Kalash Valley destroyed by Glacial Flooding

A massive glacier in the pastures of Kalash Valleys at the elevation of 5000m has been erupted due to the recent rains and has flooded the Kalash valley of mumuret.The shape  of scenic mumuret valley has changed due to this enormous and powerful flood that uprooted most of the timber forests on its way to the valley.The rain water further caused its own streams from the mountains which added to the vilocity of the flood. It is reported as of now that most the land  for cultivation and houses in the main land have been swept away. There are no human casualities reported but the livelihood of the indigenous kalasha people has been severly damaged.The ready crops of wheat- barely and fruit trees mainly walnuts along with precious livestolk and domestic animals have got destroyed. 

(Individuals and Organizations intersted to send releif and humanitarian assistance can directly write to us)

Free Online Kalasha-English Dictionary

We have the pleasure to bring  your attention towards the first & free Kalasha-English Online Dictionary. We hope that  online Kalasha dictionary will be of greater help in a bid to strengthen the Kalasha language’s vitality in years to come . The endangered language dictionary is one of its kind which provides a chance to Kalasha and Non-Kalasha speakers/readers to familiarize themselves with the orthography of Kalasha language and to cross language barriers  aiming at greater understanding of Kalasha language and ancient Kalasha Culture itself . Online Kalasha dictionary comes as an handful tool to engage Kalasha language readers and linguists to maintain the use of Kalasha language in technological era. The Language of Kalasha People known as Kalasha or Kalashamondr is one of the severely endangered language in UNESCO ATALS of endangered Languages.

We are greatly thankful to the compilers of Kalasha Dictionary Ron Trail and Gregory Cooper for their life long work on documentation of Kalasha Language and making it available in print and digital format in collaboration with Quidz-e-Azam University Islamabad Pakistan.

Kalasha Rites of Spring – Zhoshi Begins

To all the readers and memebers of Kalasha community, A very happy Kalasha Zhoshi-Spring Equinox !
More on the Spring rites and events and photos yet to come…

Athanassios Lerounis Freed

The unharmed release of Athanassios by Taliban after 8 months of captivity comes as a great relief for Greek and Kalasha People who have been waiting with fear and hopethanasios Lerounis ran a welfare centre and school in Chitral district, and has lived in northern Pakistan since the mid-1990s. He was kidnapped by some 30 gunmen believed to be from neighbouring Afghanistan in a September encounter that killed a security guard.
Greece’s ambassador in Islamabad, Petros Mavroidis, said Mr. Lerounis was freed on Wednesday but was still with Pakistani authorities in Chitral. He was expected to reach the Pakistan capital later Thursday, Mr. Mavroidis said, adding that he had no other details.
Exactly how or where Mr. Lerounis, who police said is in his 50s, was freed was unclear.
A Pakistan government official, Rehmatallah Wazir, said months of negotiations among tribal elders, security agencies and Afghan Taliban were involved. He also said security forces “rescued” Mr. Lerounis, but wouldn’t describe what he meant by that.
The Greek had been held at one point in Afghanistan’s Nooristan province, but now “he is with us. He is safe and in good health,” Mr. Wazir told The Associated Press via phone.

biriu ek moc nashi asaw,,,

biriu bis’la nomen ek gromuna ek moch nashi asaw,tasa nom c’irgoli khan,,aj aduaw taza khabar,,,,dihaw zahir sarakat from kalash valley bumborate,grom maas nom krakra,,,

BO ZIAT KIRIK DYITA -Heavy Snow in Kalasha Valleys

KaLaSa Deshuna Bo ziat Kirik dyita.

SECOND DELEGATION LEAVES FOR NURISTAN

The second delegation from Chitral headed by Abdul Majid (former Nazim) has left for Nuristan province of Afghanistan to begin second round of talks to recover Teacher Athanasios Lerounis, who was kidnapped on 8th sept.
Abdul Majeed, a former union council nazim, headed the previous delegation and was the person who was allowed to meet Athanassios in person. The militants had demanded $2 million ransom and release of three important Taliban leaders.
Kalasha sources confirmed the departure of the negotiating team but did not give any details about the demands made by the kidnappers. The Kalash people in Mumuret Valley had vowed to launch peaceful protest movement after Eid for the safe recovery of Professor Athanasios. But now they are threatened not to do protests amid security for their own lives as small non-Muslim indigenous people in Pakistan.

TALIBAN DECLARE TERMS FOR RELEASE OF ATHANASSIOS

The delegation sent to Nooristan to speak to the abductors for release of Athanssios Lerunis have return to Chitral. The Taliban want 2 million $ ransom and release of three taliban in Pakistan.Mr. Athanasius has said that he is fine and had no any serious problem happened to him since the day of his crossing to Nooristan. “Now I am living with a group of Taliban and they are very hospitable and try their best to for my life and security”, the letter goes and adds that the behaviour of Taliban to him is very good. “I would like to thank all these people who try their best to solve my problem and special thanks to Mr. Majid and Mr. Nasir who came to Nooristan to visit me and to try to solve the problem”, the letter goes. “Please call my relative, members of the NGO Greek Volunteers and my Embassy in Islamabad and inform them that I am good in my health and do not worry about me”.This was for the first time that any confirmed news regarding his location has been received.

KALASH IN PROTEST FOR RELEASE OF ATHANASI

Kalasha are in constant protest for unharmed release of Greek Volunteers Teacher. Here are some of the Press release and Pictures from the Protests.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24540
Prof Athanasios helped build schools, clinics, museum in Chitral

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

PESHAWAR: Thousands of Pakistanis living in Greece could face problems if Professor Athanasios Lerounis, the Greek social worker kidnapped from the Kalash valley of Bamburet in Chitral last week, was harmed.

Wishing anonymity, a Pakistani friend of the kidnapped Greek teacher told The News that there were around 80,000 Pakistanis in Greece and almost half of them were staying there illegally in the hope of entering other European countries. “The Greek people are very nationalistic. They would be upset that a Greek volunteer working for the welfare of the Kalash people in Pakistan was kidnapped. Their anger would be directed against Pakistan and Pakistanis in case Prof Athanasios came to any harm,” he said.

Nikitas Kaklamanis, the Mayor of Athens, has already written to Pakistan’s ambassador in Greece to protest the kidnapping and to demand urgent measures for safe recovery of Prof Athanasios.

The Greek Teachers’ Association, of which Prof Athanasios was a member and which had done some pioneering work in Chitral for the welfare of the Kalash people, has also expressed deep concern over his kidnapping.

However, the most vocal in protesting Prof Athanasios’s kidnapping are the Kalash people, more commonly known as Kalasha. They have held protests in Chitral city and in Bamboret valley, where the Greek social worker had set up the ethnological museum referred to as Kalasha-Dur in the local language. Some Kalash representatives, including women dressed in their colourful dress, also came to Peshawar to hold a press conference to vent their anger over Prof Athanasios’ kidnapping. The Kalash ladies were so bitter that they threatened to migrate from Pakistan to some other country where their community would feel safe and able to live in peace.

Prof Athanasios had earned the admiration of the Kalash people through years of hard work. According to archaeologist Zainul Wahab, who is head of the government museum in Chakdarra in Lower Dir district, Prof Athanasios first came to Chitral as a tourist in 1994 and visited the three Kalash valleys of Bamboret, Birir and Rumbur. He said the Greek teacher developed fascination for the Kalash, who are believed to be descendants of the soldiers in the army of the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great. First through the Greek Teachers’ Association and subsequently from the platform of the non-governmental organization, Greek Volunteers, Prof Athanasios collected donations to build schools, clinics, water tanks, drinking water supply schemes, maternity homes, etc. More than 20 projects were completed with money from donors in Greece.

Finally the magnificent, wood-hewn Kalasha-Dur museum was built in Broon village in Bamburet valley with financial assistance from Hellenic Aid society of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs to showcase the Kalash culture. The museum had more than 2,000 objects depicting various stages in the more than 2,000 history of the Kalash people.

As the chairperson of the NGO, Greek Volunteers, Prof Athanasios was the moving spirit behind the effort to preserve and protect the Kalash culture. In an interview with the BBC sometime back, he remarked that the Kalash culture is a treasure belonging not only to Pakistan but the whole world. He argued that one way of preserving and protecting the Kalash culture was to put the Kalash people in a glass case and let no one enter it. The better option in his view was to empower the Kalash through education. He was surprised to know that the Kalash people too gave the highest priority to educating their children and preserving their heritage through an educated next generation.

Every summer Prof Athanasios brought doctors to Chitral to provide medical care to the Kalash people and also to Muslims, some of them converts, living in the green and beautiful Bamboret, Birir and Rumbur valleys. This summer too he had come on his annual sojourn and was hoping to spend the usual four months. But unidentified gunmen raided the Kalasha-Dur Museum where he used to stay, killed his police guard and kidnapped him. Villagers in the Pak-Afghan border areas saw him being taken away towards Nuristan province in Afghanistan. A jirga of Kalash and other Chitrali elders have gone to Nuristan as part of the efforts for seeking his recovery. The identity of the kidnappers isn’t known. They could be criminals and kidnapped him for ransom. Or they could be militants. Both the Afghan Taliban and former Afghan mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami group are active in Nuristan and the neighbouring Kunar province.

Zainul Wahab knew Prof Athanasios well, having met him frequently in Pakistan and Greece. He said the 50-year Greek social worker taught at a technical school in Athens and devoted most of his time collecting donations for the welfare of the Kalash people. “He wasn’t a missionary. He also wasn’t a worldly man. Prof Athanasios didn’t marry. I saw him dressed up in Shalwar-kameez with a Chitrali Pakol cap on his head roaming in Athens and showing pride in his dress,” recalled Zainul Wahab.

Prof Athanasios was so obsessed with the welfare of the Kalash people that he launched a campaign by writing to Pakistan’s ambassador in Greece and other Pakistani authorities to complain against Saleh Muhammad Khan, director of Archaeology and Museums, NWFP for illegally appointing outsiders instead of Kalashas on four posts at the Kalasha-Dur Museum in violation of their memorandum of understanding

“We the Kalasha Indigenous People of Kalasha Valleys HinduKush,Chitral Pakistan are Shocked, Threatened and Deeply grieved by sudden armed attack in our valley Mumuret and KIDNAP of our Greek Brother Athanasious Lerounis. We strongly Condemn & Protest indiscriminate Killing of Chitrari Brother, Abduction of Mr.Lerounis and Torture of Kalashaman. We demand Government of Pakistan to all take measures and means necessary for his immediate RELEASE and PROTECTION of Kalasha People”

Εμείς οι Καλάσσα,  ιθαγενής του  βορειοδυτικού Πακιστάν, της  περιφέρειαςChitral, έχουμε  συγκλονιστεί και είμαστε βαθιά    θλιμμένοι απ’ τη ξαφνική ένοπλοι  επίθεση και την απαγωγή του Έλληνα   αδελφού μας Αθανάση Λερούνη.

Επίσης, έντονα καταδικάζουμε, χωρίς διάκριση,το θάνατο του Chitrali αδελφού μας και τον βασανισμό ενός Καλάσσα κατά τη διάρκεια της απάνθρωπης επίθεσης .

Απαιτούμε απ’ τη κυβέρνηση του Πακιστάν αλλά και απ’ τα Ενωμένα Έθνη να λάβουν τα απαραίτητα δραστικά μέτρα για την άμεση ελευθέρωση του Αθανάση Λερούνη και την προστασία της φυλής μας που τίθεται υπό απειλή.

Athanasios Lerounis came to visit Pakistan in early 90’s as traveler, when he heard about”Kalasha” people in Northern Pakistan sharing common  historical & cultural ties with ancient Greeks .

He visited the Kalasha Valleys and fell in love with Kalasha people and their ancient culture. His mentorship contribution

In preserving Kalasha Culture & Heritage speaks for itself by the amount of work he did in Kalash Valleys.

Mr. Lerounis built the first Kalasha schools for th children in the three Kalasha valleys. Kalasha people call him BAYA & regard him one of their own.

The Govt. of Pakistan has honored him with various awards specially National Award recognizing his work in fields of Education, Health &Cultural-Preservation.
He made the first Indigenous Museum and Culture Center of Kalasha People known as ‘Kalasha Dur” with support of Hellenic Aid foreign Affairs Greece.