DRUG CRIME SHATTERS PAPHOS PEACE

PAPHOS has recently become a popular tourist attraction, a haven for
expatriates seeking to retire in a warm and friendly Mediterranean climate.
A place where the revs of their frantic metropolitan lives can be wound down
into a slow relaxed hum.

But the calm of the sleepy resort has in the past year been shattered by a
soaring crime rate, with drug trafficking hitting the coastal city hard,
leaving the understaffed, overworked local police force reeling. In an
interview with the Sunday Mail, Divisional Commander Stavros Konniotis said
the sale of hard drugs in Paphos had reached dangerous levels, and was also
the main cause of other crimes, such as burglaries and thefts.

Konniotis said an influx of immigrants into Paphos had resulted in a sudden
increase in crime, and although the city was not considered to have a high
level of crime compared to Larnaca or Limassol, the situation was becoming
increasingly more difficult.

Crime may still be lower than in other towns, but for the public, the danger
is real. A survey last month found that fear of crime was highest among
residents of Paphos, 42 per cent of whom were afraid they might fall a
victim of crime -- compared to a national average of 28 per cent.

"The biggest problem right now is Paphos is drugs," Konnitis said. "The
trafficking of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin has increased in the past
year.

"And of course other crimes stem from drug use, like burglaries and thefts.
People break into houses to steal so that they can get money for their next
fix."

Konniotis said locals for now seemed mostly immune from the growing drugs
problem, which he said involved mostly foreigners and tourists, but said
police were woefully understaffed to tackle the growing problem, pointing
gout that the diversion of resources to other sectors, like traffic, made
crime fighting an uphill struggle for police.

"Unfortunately we are understaffed," he said. "We have the same number of
staff we had 10 years ago, but in the past 10 years crime has skyrocketed
and we are finding it hard to cope, we need more staff to be able to deal
with the drugs and with the traffic and all other fields of law enforcement.

"We do have a drugs problem and what we are fighting is the tip of the
iceberg. "Drugs problems become social problems after years of abuse and
what we are witnessing today began many years ago," Konniotis said.

"And unfortunately with the opening of the checkpoints we expect the problem
to get worse." Paphos' large Greek Pontian population has often been blamed
for the rise in crime, but Konniotis said their problem was mainly a social
issue of integration.

"I keep saying it all the time: theirs is an increasing social problem that
will reach explosive levels at some point," he said.

"I am sorry to say that none of the local government services have shown
special interest in the Pontians. They expect everything to be done by the
police."

Konniotis added crime involving Pontians was mostly committed within the
community. The police chief said the main problem with Pontians was
adjusting to the Paphos community. "The locals do not have a problem with
them, there is no xenophobia," he insisted. "There is more prejudice in the
UK and France than Cyprus," Konniotis said.

And he blamed the media for blowing incidents out of proportion, creating an
issue out of nothing. "The slightest incident, like a fight between two or
three Greek Pontians, is treated as a mass riot with headlines screaming
`Homeric clashes in Paphos', `Night of terror in Kato Paphos', which is just
ridiculous," Konniotis said.

"These headlines give the wrong idea about our city, when in fact it is one
of the safest tourist destinations in the world."

But the Paphos police chief admitted it was difficult for Pontians to
adjust. "There are lots of them, they have created their own ghettos and
they are more in touch with themselves than with the locals," he said. "They
sort of isolated themselves from our society, they are in a foreign country
and so financially they work to get as much money as possible but on the
other hand there are families that cannot survive on their income and so may
resort to crime."

Konniotis added Pontians also found it hard to co-operate with the local
authorities and were very mistrustful of the police and hospitals.

"They generally do not trust anyone outside their community. There is a
general feeling of distrust when it comes to the local authorities, because
they were persecuted almost all their lives.

"If one of them gets arrested for a criminal offence like drunk driving, or
even if he is not arrested and he comes to the police station to file a
complaint, his whole family (we're talking 10-20 people) will gather outside
the police station demanding to get in to see if he is OK and to wait for
him until he is finished," he said.

"If one of them is taken to hospital, the same thing happens, they gather
outside the hospital and wait day and night to hear what has happened. They
are a people that have been through a lot and they have built walls around
them that will be difficult to break."

Konniotis said the government had to initiate a process to regain their
trust. "It would be nice to include them in our festivities like, for
instance Kataklysmos," Konniotis said. "We have locals dancing and singing
there. Why can't we include them as well? They could be a part of it by
performing traditional dances. They have their own club so I think that
would be a step in the right direction.

"Also other services have to get more involved, like the Welfare Department
and social services." But despite the increase in crime, Konniotis said
Paphos remained one of the safest destinations in the world for tourists.

"Tourists come here because it's safe," he said. "We do have a drugs
problem, but if they stay away from trouble like drugs and all that, then
trouble will not come to them."