CHARCOAL producers from Pyrgos of Tilliria yesterday vented their frustration outside the House of Representatives in a protest against the state’s failure to help them out of their current stalemate.
The producers have repeatedly asked the state locate a more suitable area for them to operate their kilns after they were ordered to close down because of the health risks posed by their trade to local villagers. At the same time the state is prosecuting the producers in the courts for still using the kilns in Tilliria.
The House Agriculture Committee met yesterday with the Tilliria Charcoal Producers’ Committee, the members submitted a memo saying they were in a desperate situation and “under persecution with the tolerance of the authorities”.
The spokesmen explained that since 2001, no licences for the operation of kilns had been issued, which resulted in charcoal producers being reported and taken to court.
They are facing penalties of up to £2,000 or two-year imprisonment or both, said the producers, pointing out that income from the production of charcoal supported 80 per cent of the area’s residents.
They added that on the basis of legislation that was passed in 1999, the relevant authorities are obliged to determine an appropriate area for charcoal makers to exercise their profession.
But despite meetings between the state and local authorities, a location has not yet been found, resulting in producers working illegally and being led to abandoning their professions due to the penalisations.
Giorgos Hadjigeorgiou of AKEL, who headed the Committee in the place of Christos Mavrokordatos, said yesterday that the most important thing for the moment is ceasing prosecution of illegal charcoal workers until a resolution has been found.
“I must say that we (Agriculture Committee) unanimously adopted their demands, which we consider to be very justified,” said Hadjigeorgiou after the meeting.
“Firstly and most importantly, we must speed up proceedings for the relocation of kilns so they can legally exercise their profession,” he continued. “Secondly, which we also find logical, prosecutions must stop until areas are found for the workers to legally exercise their profession.
Thirdly, we have asked of the producers and community councils and they have accepted, until other areas are found, to be especially concerned for the protection of the forest and the areas in which they are already operating, illegally in effect, because based on the 1999 law, nobody is licensed to exercise the charcoal profession.”
Concluding, Hadjigeorgiou said that the charcoal makers had been asked to stop their protests and been given reassurance that the Committee would support them in their efforts to find a solution.
Green Party Permanent Secretary George Perdikis described the situation as desperate and called on the state to find a resolution as soon as possible.
“It is a fact that the glass of desperation for the coal miners of the Tilliria area has overflowed.
It is the government’s obligation to find a resolution to this problem which is plaguing one area, because these producers constitute a major source of local economy. If they desert the area because they don’t have a profession then this area, which is so isolated and downtrodden, will be destroyed.”
The government should stand by its obligations, he continued, “either by finding a safer area for them (producers) to carry on with their activities, as it is provided in the relevant law which was voted for a long time ago, or by creating a support plan for the coal miners of Tilliria.”
Earlier this week, Tilliria’s 80 producers complained that their profession is slowly but surely being led to extinction due to the penalisation they keep receiving for the operation of charcoal producing kilns near residential areas.
The producers, Tilliria authorities and tens of others residents organised a dynamic protest on Sunday in Kato Pyrgo, requesting that prosecutions and penalisations cease until the government appoints another location to operate their kilns.
Spokesmen for the charcoal producers said during the protest that the problem had increased in the past few years as any proposals they had made to transfer the kilns to other areas, further away from residential areas, had been rejected due to objections made by various departments, such as the Forest Department and town-planning office.
“So we have reached a point, where a profession that has been exclusively exercised in Tilliria for more than 200 years, has been effectively penalised,” stated spokesmen Vasos and Takis Stylianou. “We have pointed out a number of areas, all were rejected by various state departments and the responsibility now lies with the state to find us a new area.
“In the meantime, we are asking for prosecutions and court cases against us to stop, because it is not our fault that the kilns remain in the location that they are in today.”
Perdikis and other election candidates were present at the protest.
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