Subject: News I, 18/08/93 From: zarros@turing.scs.carleton.ca (Theodoros Sp. Zarros) Athens News Agency Bulletin, August 18, 1993 ============================================ Hellespont, 18/8/93 (ANA -K. Christodoulou).- About 1,000 ethnic Greeks evacuated from Georgia's Abkhazia province to escape civil strife are scheduled to arrive in Alexandroupolis early this morning. The evacuees began the 55-hour sea journey on Sunday, when they boarded the cruise liner "Viscountess" which had delivered humanitarian aid to the region. They will be greeted by Foreign Under-secretary Virginia Tsouderou and National Defence Under-secretary Ioannis Stathopoulos. About half the evacuees will disembark in Alexandroupolis. The rest will be transferred to Volos. The Pontian Greeks will be housed temporarily in camps near refugee reception centres set up at Elassona and Olympus before being transferred to permanent settlements in Thrace. The evacuation was code-named Operation Golden Fleece after the Greek myth about Jason and the Argonauts who sailed to Colchis (present-day Georgia) to steal the fleece of a fabulous ram. It is being co-ordinated by the foreign , national defence and merchant marine ministries. The ethnic Greek community, 1,9 per cent of Georgia's 5.5 million population, traces its ancestry back to the ancient Kingdom of Pontus on the north-eastern shores of the Black Sea. Athens, 18/8/93 (ANA) - Greece yesterday lodged a double protest with the German government over last week's racist attacks against Greeks by a gang of neo Nazis in an eastern German town, the foreign ministry said in an announcement. It said one protest had been lodged with the federal government's deputy foreign minister by Greece's ambassador in Bonn and a second demarche had been made to the secretary general of lower Saxony's foreign ministry by the Greek consul general in Berlin. In the protests, Athens expressed its "abhorrence and deep regret" over the attacks, the announcement said. It said that both German officials had voiced their "deep regret" over the incident, condemning the "abhorrent violence and other similar activities, particularly when the victims are citizens of a European Community member-state". It added that they also pledged to punish those responsible for the attack. Last Thursday, a gang of 10 neo-Nazis using heavy tools attacked three Greek men in the eastern town of Hoyerswerda, scene of one of the ugliest racist attacks in post-war Germany. One of the men suffered a severe concussion, another a fractured skull and a third had facial injuries. The ministry said the three men had been visited at the hospital by the Greek consul general. The local prosecutor in Hoyerswerda said Thursday that eight members of a neo-Nazi gang aged between 20 and 39 years had been arrested for the attack. On Friday, a state prosecutor in Bautzen said four neo Nazis alleged to have led the attack on the Greek men had been charged with grievous disturbance of the peace. Athens, 18/8/93 (ANA) - CSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Max van der Stoel is scheduled to visit Athens next week to brief the government on his recent fact-finding mission to check whether Tirana was respecting the rights of the thousands of ethnic Greeks in Albania, the foreign ministry said yesterday. It said Mr. van der Stoel was scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Michalis Papaconstantinou on August 24. The CSCE official will also be received by Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, the ministry said.