Following the letter sent by Mr.Evangelos Venardos to the Board of Directors of the Cultural Association «The Orange» on 27 January 2025, the association proceeded to publish its response. Read below:
With surprise and sadness we read the 27/01/2025 Extrajudicial Statement of Invitation and Protest of Mr.Venardos Evangelos to the Board of Directors of our association in which he protests against the open letter we published on 20/1/2025. Surprise because Mr. Venardos' complaints seem incomprehensible and sadness because after almost 50 years of life, our association receives for the first time an out-of-court letter and even from a fellow countryman.
In a one-page document we devoted only 6 lines to Mr. Venardos as the president of the Domestic Property, that is, someone who serves society and participates in the public sphere by holding an institutional post. All the rest of the text refers to the responsibility of ALL of us for a society that does not eat its children. Our exhortations to ALL to consider ALL our responsibilities and ALL to do what is right are clear. Moreover, the letter closes with an invitation to ALL unions and ALL associations to join with us to “show that as a society we can stand up again”.
In these 6 lines referring to Mr.Venardo we ask for his resignation believing that he will contribute to achieving peace in our place as we know from his own statement to the media that shortly before the evil happened, he had participated in a violent incident with the victim Kosmas, a member of the Board of Directors of our association. The sensitivity that would be shown by Mr. Venardos“ resignation from the position of President of the Home would, we continue to believe, provide an outlet for venting. This is what we ask that he consider and resign. Everything else that Mr. Venardos complains about in the out-of-court complaint is the product of what is likely a misimpression or misunderstanding. There is no correlation between the ”psychological pressure“ felt by Kosmas, the ”wounds of our society“ and the ”need for self-criticism" and Mr. Venardos, despite the fact that Mr. Venardos relates them in his protest and we declare that they do not concern him any more than they concern all of us.
In relation to the “just ask us” he mentions in his protest. Again, he incorrectly claims that we are referring to him and leaving spikes. Mr. Venardos is not concerned with “just ask us”. “Ask us to tell you what kind of man Cosmas was” the text says because “misinformation does not honour his memory”. It is our friend and what a diamond he was that we are referring to, not the president of the Domestic. Therefore, what it says about slander, violence and a climate of hatred, about possession of information in breach of the law and about attempts to replace the competent bodies is unfounded. It is clear - and in any case for those who were not we make it clear here - that in this letter we have neither accused nor implied anything against Mr Venardos. We are neither able nor do we wish to substitute justice. We know nothing more than what the whole society knows from the publications (attachments 1 and 2). As we have mentioned above, Mr. Venardos is not mentioned on a full page, but only 6 lines.
Regarding the purpose of our Association and the way it is run, issues to which Mr. Venardos refers, we simply state that we only explain to our members.
We don't understand what it is exactly that we have to recall. If Mr Venardos is asking us to withdraw our invitation to him to resign as Chairman of the Property Committee of Kythera - Antikythera, we still believe that his resignation would go a long way towards bringing calm to our country. The choice, however, is entirely his.
Further, we declare that:
a) we do not connect Mr. Venardo with the loss of Cosmas,
b) the connection of Mr. Venardos with the person of Cosmas was made by him in statements to the media and not by our association.
(c) we have no information or other access to the file.
If Mr Venardos feels that the Board should withdraw something else or clarify something else, please indicate this to us.
We conclude this message by urging everyone to do everything we can on our part to restore calm to our country.
