http://www.mfa.gov.tr/denial-of-ethnic-identity.en.mfa
Denial of Ethnic Identity
Denial of Ethnic Identity
General Situation:
The Greek Nation is based on the principle of belonging to the Greek race and the Greek Orthodox Church. On this subject, it is enough to glance at the speeches of the Greek statesmen about the "homogeneity of the Greek nation with the exception of the Muslim minority." These are out-dated concepts.
There are plenty of reports issued by the International Human Rights Organizations documenting the persecution of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace.
If the Greek Nation is really homogeneous, one can not help but wonder about the destiny of the Albanians, the Muslim Albanians, Vlahs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Jews as well as the Turks.
In this respect, it becomes necessary to answer the question of how homogeneity has been achieved in Greek Macedonia while ethnic variety still survives in the Republic of Macedonia.
The very existence of a Turkish Minority is officially denied in Greece. Indeed any allusion to it is punishable by law. The post office refuses to accept written communications that contain any reference to the Turkish identity of the Minority. Government leaders, even the Parliament, turn down petitions on behalf of the Minority when addressed in the name of the "Turkish" Minority.
Lawsuits were filed against the leaders of the Turkish Minority the late Dr. Sadık Ahmet and Ibrahim Serif, during the elections of 1989, for distributing campaign leaflets that referred to the Minority as Turkish.
Many members of the Turkish Minority were prosecuted during local elections on October 16, 1994 for having used the word "Turkish" in their campaign documents.
The Greek Government asserted in the years of 1954 and 1955 that the Minority was originated from the Turkish race, but later, changed its mind.
The methods which Greece uses to destroy the ethnic identity of the minority are described in the report "Destroying Ethnic Identity - The Turks of Greece" published by "Helsinki Watch" in 1990.
Human Rights Watch report of 1999 is also indicative of the problems faced by the Turkish Minority.
The Turkish identity of the minority has been established in several ways. The instruction which was conveyed to the subordinate departments by the General Secretary of Thrace, Fesopulos in 1954, saying that the minority should be called as the "Turkish Minority" must also be mentioned. This notice was repeated one year later in 1955.
Moreover, according to the provisions of the Agreement on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations on January 30, 1923, the people of Greek and Turkish origin who were left out of the exchange procedure were given "Etabli Documents" . These documents mentioned their ethnic origin as Greek and Turkish.
At the international level, the document of the League of Nations submitted to the Council on December 23, 1924 and remarked C. 774 on the " Minorities of Turkish Race In Western Thrace", should also be cited.
Greek courts also have outlawed the use of the term 'Turkish Minority'. In 1988, the Greek High Court upheld a 1986 decision by the Court of Appeals of Thrace shutting down the Turkish Teachers Union of Western Thrace. The Court held that the word "Turkish" referred to citizens of Turkey and that the use of the word "Turkish" to describe Greek Moslems endangered public order. This decision led to vigorous protests from the Turkish Minority. As a result of the High Court's decision, most Turkish associations have remained closed.
In this context, the banning of the Turkish Minority associations; namely, the “Western Thrace Turkish Teacher’s Union”, the “Komotini Turkish Youth Association” and the “Turkish Union of Xanthi” has continued until today. Following the exhaustion of the internal remedies, the case concerning the banning of the Turkish Union of Xanthi was taken to the ECHR by the Minority. Also the efforts to establish the “Rodopi Turkish Woman Association” and the “Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association” proved futile based on the same pretexts of the Greek authorities and these cases were also taken to the ECHR by the Minority.
The European Court of Human Rights expressed its decision, in a press release dated 11 October 2007, regarding the “Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association”, to which Greek authorities failed to give the necessary permission. The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision became effective as of 11 January 2008.
The European Court of Human Rights also expressed its decision concerning the “Turkish Union of Xanthi” and the “Rodopi Turkish Women’s Association” on 27 March 2008.
The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights in both aforementioned cases. The Court also held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 & 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) of the Convention. In the case of the “Turkish Union of Xanthi”, the Court awarded the said association 8000 Euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
These decisions once again prove the restrictions imposed by the Greek administration not only on the freedom of assembly and association but also on the right to express ethnic identity.
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/morgenavisen-jyllands-posten-danimarka-26-subat-1999_br_chronicle_-greece-is-an-unworthy-eu-member_br_by-gunnar-nissen-author-and-translator-aabenraa_br_march-9_-1999.en.mfa
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten-Danimarka-26 Şubat 1999 Chronicle: Greece is an unworthy EU member By Gunnar Nissen-Author and Translator-Aabenraa March 9, 1999 If this chronicle gives rise to conflicts or trouble, it is not the fault of the Macedonians, nor me. When the politicians in EU countries don't speak out, it is due to ignorance or indifference.
Denmark is a member of the EU. It remains a mystery that Greece is too. The member countries must recognize human rights and minorities rights. Those are the demands put in front of the central European states and they must abide by them. That has been hard on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who are brought to recognize national minorities, especially that large Russian one. Slovenia is on that point influenced by the Yugoslavian constitution of 1974, an exemplary country with full recognition of small Croatian and Italian minorities.
But Greece - Oh Dear! From official Greek side it is bombastically announced: Only Greeks live in Greece. Nonsense! In southeast Europe, not a single state exist of one nationality alone. In Greece, you find a large Turkish minority (who do not wish to be presented as Greeks that has converted to Islam) in Thrace, a small Albanian minority in Epiros and finally a Macedonian minority in Aegean Macedonia, who numbers somewhere between 75.000 and 500.000. An exact estimate doesn't exist, since Greece persistently deny there existence. If one put some pressure on high ranking civil servants and self-proclaimed experts, one may achieve an admission that " a small Slavic speaking minority exist in Greek Macedonia", but they "do not wish to be a national minority; they can freely use their language".
A pack of lies! For many years I have had a friendly relation with numerous Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia - a people that officially doesn't exist. I don't speak Greek, but I speak fluently Macedonian. Almost every time I take the train south, over Munich to Balkan, I run into Macedonians from Greece (2. generation of workers). The same happens when I traverse the Greek border. Some people speaks only Greek, but a lot, really a lot, speaks additionally Macedonian ("our mother tongue") which is forbidden as language in school. Last year a couple of shop owners were taken to court - their "crime" was that they had written some words in Macedonian in their shop windows.
When I sit on cafe's in villages in Aegean Macedonia, the conversation always ends at "the Macedonian identity". "What do you in the rest of Europe know about us?" I must admit that it's very little. "We would like to have some Macedonian schools" the man continues at the cafe. "I speak my Macedonian mother tongue, but my son is struggling, although he watches Macedonian TV, Televizija Skopje". He, and the others speak in a low voice, while glancing towards the neighboring table where a man is picking up his mobile phone. Moments later, two angry police officers enter and the gathering around my table splits up.
The border control between the Macedonian Republic and Greece are known to be among the toughest in Europe. Certainly the slowest. Not on the Macedonian side, where the border police take a peek at the Danish passport, after which it's over. But on the other side of the border, the border police confiscate all passports and later we have to spend a long time, be it snow storm or burning hot, cueing to get the passport back. With particular thoroughness, the custom control ransack the luggage of travelers from the Republic of Macedonia. Foreigners can not be sure to get a travel permission, even when born in Aegean Macedonia in Greece. It has happened that a Canadian bus full of Macedonians with Macedonian names, but born in Aegean Macedonia, were not allowed to enter the country.
When it in 1991 was clear to the Macedonians in the Yugoslav sub-republic Macedonia, that their value norms could not possibly harmonize with the roaring nationalism of Serbia, they split with the Yugoslav republic after a popular referendum - Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had already done that. The Serbs protested and the Serbian terrorist leader and specialist in ethnic cleansing Vojislav _Se_selj announced that all he needed was two divisions and then "the Macedonian problem would be solved". Loudest, however, were the protests from Greece, apparently because of the name. The Greek regime could perhaps accept that the new state could call it self Skopje (after it's capital) and the Greeks postulated wildly and crazily that the Macedonian state with it's 2.1 Mio. inhabitants and an army smaller than our national guard might attack it's large neighbor Greece.
The Greeks gave as a reason for not recognizing the Republic of Macedonia, that " we have a Macedonia here in Greece and thus there cannot be a Macedonia just on the opposite site of the border". The logic in this is absurd and I'm ashamed that so many ignorant journalists quoted the Greek reason without comments. Apparently they were unaware that Macedonia is split between three different countries.
After a meeting in Brussels, where the EU-recognition of the state of Macedonia was postponed, although Macedonia fulfilled all requirements for recognition, the then Danish foreign minister, Uffe Elleman-Jensen, in a final salute as EU chairman, commented to the Greeks that they had to get themselves together and get the problem solved, concerning the name Macedonia and called it despicable of the Greeks to treat the Macedonians in this way.
The Greek spokespersons reacted violently, amongst them the former Greek vice prime-minister Athanasios Kannellopoulos, who angrily pronounced "with his comments, Mr. Jensen is a very bad example of the other foreign ministers. Mr. Jensen said that he'd be ashamed to be Greek because we're against that the new Skopje republic's use of the name Macedonia. To thatmy answer is: We'd be ashamed if Mr. Jensen was Greek!"
In "Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten" the MP Arne Melchior published a letter to the editor that exhibited his lack of knowledge about the populations in the Balkan peninsula under the title "Show concern for our Greek allied". He was answered by "Jyllands-Posten"s correspondent Per Nyholm "Show concern for the Macedonians". Finally the Greeks accepted the name of Macedonia, but only in the form of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM.
Now to the decisive point that journalists ought to have oriented themselves about: In ancient times and in the Osmanian era, Macedonia was an area without internal borders, where the people after the 6. century had the south Slavic language Macedonian as mother tongue. It was in Macedonia the Cyrillic alphabet came to life, named after the monk Kiril. The bible was translated by the Macedonians to old-church-Slavic, that had the same influence on ecumenical language in eastern Europe as Latin had amongst the Catholics in western and central Europe. The Cyrillic alphabet spread not only to Bulgaria and Serbia, but also to Russia and other eastern Slavic countries. "Genuine" Hellenes described the ancient population of Macedonia as barbarians and Phillip II and Alexander the Great's greekness are rather dubious. Albanian historians name them Illyrians, the oldest nation on Balkan and the Albanians are arguably their ancestors. Of higher importance was the Slav's immigration to the Balkan area in the 6. century. The Slavic tribe that settled in Macedonia took name after the province and preserved their language to modern times (with some grammatical exceptions...)
After the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, Macedonia was split in three. Aegean Macedonia came under Greece, Vardamacedonia under Serbia and Pirimacedonia under Bulgaria. Vardamacedonia was in 1945 after a heroic partisan war, one of the six republics in the new federal Yugoslavia and as promised by Tito, the republic got full national and cultural independence - with due acknowledgment of it's compact Albanian and small Turkish minorities. As Yugoslavia split in 1991, the country had 23 Mio. inhabitants. Had all of Yugoslavia had the birthrate of the Albanians in western Macedonia and Kosova, they would have been at 50 Mio! Kosova and western Macedonia would have had to let the Albanians migrate to the rest of Serbia and Macedonia with resulting unemployment rates around 50%. The Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia are not oppressed. They have all rights - except the one to rise the Albanian flag and get an Albanian university - which wouldn't make a lot of sense as soon as they again canstudy at the large university in Prestina in Kosova, Tito's pride. By theway, the ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia in Denmark is Albanian, the much respected Muhammed Halili
Could one imagine the situation: the government of the North German federated state Schleswig Holstein declare: Schleswig is German and in Germany, Germans are living. Thus with no further notice, the Danish schools, including the "Duborgskolen" highschool and "Jaruplund" highschool, the Flensborg newspaper, Danish libraries and other foreign institutions will close. The Danish language is declared "not-wanted"? How about the opposite situation - if everything German was forbidden in southern Denmark? Unthinkable of course!
When a person misbehaves, it is in the first line the closest people's duty to intervene. National oppression is taking place in many countries outside the EU. But Greece is an EU member and is thus a "part of the family". But do we intervene, we, the closest people? No, we shut up. Of ignorance or misunderstood solidarity with the Greek leaders, who as the Serbs, consider themselves "superbalkanian". Other people knows more about the oppression than I, but I know a great many and every year more ignored and oppressed Slavic Macedonians in the Greek part of Macedonia. Can we justify our silence? I'm sure that Greece' unwillingness to accept the Republic of Macedonia is due to their black conscience over the oppression of Macedonians in Greece. Greece is (yet another) unworthy member of the EU.
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/setting-the-record-straight-on-pontus-propaganda-against-turkey.en.mfa
Setting The Record Straight On Pontus Propaganda Against Turkey Greece claims that between 1916-1923 the Greek Orthodox population then living in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey became the victim of a systematic policy of extermination by the Turkish authorities of the day and that those who were able to escape did so by taking refuge in Greece. On 24 February 1994, the Greek Parliament adopted "19 May" as a "Day for Commemorating the Turkish genocide against the Pontus Greeks". But history and the facts are at odds with Greek claims and point unmistakably in another direction.
THE BACKGROUND OF PONTUS CLAIMS
The term "Pontus" evolves from "Pont-Euxin", which in ancient Greek denotes the Black Sea. The emergence of Hellenic influence in the Black Sea region can be traced back to the Ionnians who established Greek type city-states in Sinop and Trabzon in the VI. century B.C.. The Macedonian King of Philippe and his son, Alexander the Great, drove the Persians out of the South-East Black Sea Coasts and consolidated their influence in the region. Following the takeover of Istanbul by Catholic/Latin Europeans, the Byzantines living in Istanbul emigrated to the Eastern Black Sea region and founded the Kingdom of Pontus. Despite the fact that it was unable to maintain full and effective control over the region, the Pontus Kingdom managed to survive for some 250 years and later came under the domination of the Ottoman Empire in 1461 following the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmet.
Though formerly an element of simple folklore, the term "Pontus" was after the events in Cyprus in 1974, loaded with ideological content with the aim of fuelling hostile feelings towards Turkey. It was contemplated by Greek policy-makers that the exploitation of the "Pontus" idea would help in their efforts to undermine the political and cultural principles on which the modern Turkish state stands and would also provide a pretext for forcing out members of the Turkish Minority from Western Thrace.
The Greek priority target is the destabilization of Turkey, presumably to be achieved by inciting assumed micro-nationalist feelings. The aim is to challenge Turkey's territorial integrity. Thus Greece can be said to be in pursuit of the following objectives in this connection:
- To tarnish the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who frustrated the Greek invasion of Turkey.
- To deceive the world community that Turkey's history is replete with genocides and that its ideology is based on racist principles.
- To present PKK terrorism as a "war of liberation" and to constitute with the PKK a front against Turkey, by creating a linkage between the "Pontus Greeks" and the "Kurds".
- To encourage anti-Turkish sentiments in the so-called Pontus Greeks by attributing to them a fictitious "Pontus identity".
- Last, but most important, to utilise the Pontus element as a pretext in the de-Turkification process of Western Thrace.
Indeed, in the effort to change the demographical composition of the intensely Turkish populated Western Thrace, the Greek government settled in Western Thrace 120,000 "Pontian Greeks" that emigrated from the territories of the former Soviet Union. In line with the Greek plan of forcing the Turks out of the region, these immigrants, who did not even know Greek language, were injected and saturated with a forced "Pontus consciousness" so that they would acquiesce in their being settled in Western Thrace.
WHO COMMITTED GENOCIDE: TURKS OR GREEK BANDS ?
In the first part of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was fast collapsing, ethnic Greek irregulars, armed and encouraged by Greece, operated in the Turkish Black Sea coast regions. The Ottoman authorities had considerable difficulty in controlling them. Banditry by these groups often deteriorated into slaughter of Turkish villagers. Over 40 ethnic Greek bandit groups plundered Turkish villagers and murdered at least 2,000 Turks, including elderly, women, and children. After the 1918 Armistice Agreement, Greece and the Greek community in Anatolia tried to take advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman Sultan in maintaining effective control in the region and the Greek irregulars attempted to create an ethnic Greek state on the Black Sea coast modeled on the ancient state of Pontus.
Many foreign observers who at the time visited the region comment on the turmoil which these Greek irregulars had created. The American High Commissioner, Mark Bristol, in a report he wrote after a journey along the Black Sea coast, drew attention to the anarchy which the Greeks were fomenting.
During his visit to Zile in February 1920, even a Greek lieutenant was bewildered by the menacing actions of Bishop Eftimious against the public authorities. Lieutenant Karaiskos reported that Eftimios threatened to send his 5,000 armed irregulars to the city, if the prefect of Samsun failed to release the imprisoned chief of one of his bands.
On July 7 1920, the Athens Pontus Committee, in a memorandum delivered to the Greek government, proposed that 20,000 well-equipped men from Pontus should be sent to inland districts of Anatolia to support the invading Greek forces. The very fact that the armed irregulars of the ethnic Greeks in the Pontus numbered 20,000 reveals the magnitude of the threat they posed to the Turkish civilian population in the region.
While public disorder persisted in the eastern Black Sea region, the authorities of the Allied occupation forces in Turkey deliberately misrepresented the precautionary measures taken by the Turkish security forces as "genocide." They did so with the expectation that turmoil in the region would give them a pretext for occupying it under the Armistice Agreement.
On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal landed at Samsun mandated by the Ottoman Government to inspect the situation. Contrary to claims being made in Greece, Mustafa Kemal did no more than prepare reports about the situation and dispatch them to the Ottoman Government. Mustafa Kemal's only intervention was in late 1920, when he instructed local Turkish authorities to be more attentive to the needs of the ethnic Greek population. (These instructions are registered in the official minutes of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.)
DISTORTING HISTORICAL RECORDS: "700,000" GREEKS IN REGION
Greek claims that there were "700,000" Greeks in the eastern Turkish Black Sea region and that 350,000 of these were slaughtered is a blatant distortion of history.
Even a cursory examination of foreign and local sources about the population of Greeks in the region would immediately establish that Greek suggestion of "700,000" is fictitious. The King Krane Commission, authorised by the American government, reported on 28 August 1919 that the estimated number of Greek residents in the eastern Black Sea region was 200,000. "Documents Diplomatiques" issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the Ottoman census held between 1893 and 1897, the Greek population was 193,000 in Trabzon and 76,068 in Sivas Provinces. This means that the total Greek population at that time was 269,068. In 1923 at the Lausanne Conference, Elefterios Venizelos, the Prime Minister of Greece, relied on exaggerated numbers given by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul and claimed that the population of Greeks living in the Black Sea region was 447,828. This figure is excessive, but even if one accepts it, it is still far below the current Greek claim of 700,000.
Nor is there any evidence in historical documents supporting Greek allegations that there existed 350,000 ethnic Greeks in the Canik Sanjak of Trabzon. Leon Maccas, in a book entitled "L' Héllenisme de L'Asie Mineure" noted that there were 136,087 Greek inhabitants in the area. The 1906 Yearbook of the Province of Trabzon contradicts Maccas by specifying that the province had only 75,062 ethnic Greek inhabitants in Canik Sanjak. The Patriarchate records in Istanbul put the ethnic Greeks of the sanjak at 193,000. Although these figures differ from one another, they are all well below the present day Greek claim of 350,000. Only around 100,000 ethnic Greeks emigrated to Greece from Canik at the time of the population exchange, which again makes it very difficult to assert, as the Greeks do, that 350,000 people were annihilated.
In 1923, with the conclusion of the "Agreement on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations" between Turkey and Greece, 322,500 Greek residents of the region emigrated peacefully to Greece. Given the fact that 322,500 Greeks emigrated to Greece and the above estimates about the population of Greeks in the region, the allegation of a genocide involving 350,000 Greeks stands as a malicious lie.
History thus points to Greece as the party that should apologise for the war crimes it committed during its invasion of Anatolia, and the atrocities committed by Greek bands in the Black Sea region, instead of being the party that can shamelessly level unfounded allegations about the so-called Pontus genocide. Article 59 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne refers to the war crimes committed by Greece in Anatolia. It will be recalled that crimes committed in wartime against civilians are among the most serious forms of human rights breaches. Today, Greece is continuing to violate the human rights of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace despite her commitments and obligations stemming from international treaties. The world community, as documented in numerous reports by human rights watch groups, is aware of the fact that the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace is subject to policies of systematic exclusion and discrimination. Greece cannot cover up its own past record and its present day policies aimed at suppression of the Turkish Minority.
The multi-faceted Turkish –Greek relations entered into a new phase in 1999 on the basis of dialogue and cooperation. Since then, substantial efforts have been displayed to achieve an atmosphere of mutual understanding and rapproachment. On the other hand, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of activities of certain circles which aim to support the baseless Pontus allegations. Also the attendance of the high level Greek civilian and military officials in the Pontus activities has been witnessed. It is obvious that such an attitude by the certain circles in Greece cannot be reconciled with good neighborly relations and does not help the consolidation of friendship between Turkey and Greece.
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus1.gif[/img]
Turkish Young Children and Men Murdered by Greek Bands around Nusretli town
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus2.gif[/img]Patriarch Gregorios, Eleftheros Venizelos and the last Emperor of the Byzantium. A propaganda card idealizing the ancient Pontus State
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus3.gif[/img]
A shame of Humanity in 1921
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus4.gifp/img]
Murdered by Greek Bands on July 4, 1921. The headman of Güney Village, the night-watchman and the teacher of the village's Primary School
Denial of Ethnic Identity
Denial of Ethnic Identity
General Situation:
The Greek Nation is based on the principle of belonging to the Greek race and the Greek Orthodox Church. On this subject, it is enough to glance at the speeches of the Greek statesmen about the "homogeneity of the Greek nation with the exception of the Muslim minority." These are out-dated concepts.
There are plenty of reports issued by the International Human Rights Organizations documenting the persecution of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace.
If the Greek Nation is really homogeneous, one can not help but wonder about the destiny of the Albanians, the Muslim Albanians, Vlahs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Jews as well as the Turks.
In this respect, it becomes necessary to answer the question of how homogeneity has been achieved in Greek Macedonia while ethnic variety still survives in the Republic of Macedonia.
The very existence of a Turkish Minority is officially denied in Greece. Indeed any allusion to it is punishable by law. The post office refuses to accept written communications that contain any reference to the Turkish identity of the Minority. Government leaders, even the Parliament, turn down petitions on behalf of the Minority when addressed in the name of the "Turkish" Minority.
Lawsuits were filed against the leaders of the Turkish Minority the late Dr. Sadık Ahmet and Ibrahim Serif, during the elections of 1989, for distributing campaign leaflets that referred to the Minority as Turkish.
Many members of the Turkish Minority were prosecuted during local elections on October 16, 1994 for having used the word "Turkish" in their campaign documents.
The Greek Government asserted in the years of 1954 and 1955 that the Minority was originated from the Turkish race, but later, changed its mind.
The methods which Greece uses to destroy the ethnic identity of the minority are described in the report "Destroying Ethnic Identity - The Turks of Greece" published by "Helsinki Watch" in 1990.
Human Rights Watch report of 1999 is also indicative of the problems faced by the Turkish Minority.
The Turkish identity of the minority has been established in several ways. The instruction which was conveyed to the subordinate departments by the General Secretary of Thrace, Fesopulos in 1954, saying that the minority should be called as the "Turkish Minority" must also be mentioned. This notice was repeated one year later in 1955.
Moreover, according to the provisions of the Agreement on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations on January 30, 1923, the people of Greek and Turkish origin who were left out of the exchange procedure were given "Etabli Documents" . These documents mentioned their ethnic origin as Greek and Turkish.
At the international level, the document of the League of Nations submitted to the Council on December 23, 1924 and remarked C. 774 on the " Minorities of Turkish Race In Western Thrace", should also be cited.
Greek courts also have outlawed the use of the term 'Turkish Minority'. In 1988, the Greek High Court upheld a 1986 decision by the Court of Appeals of Thrace shutting down the Turkish Teachers Union of Western Thrace. The Court held that the word "Turkish" referred to citizens of Turkey and that the use of the word "Turkish" to describe Greek Moslems endangered public order. This decision led to vigorous protests from the Turkish Minority. As a result of the High Court's decision, most Turkish associations have remained closed.
In this context, the banning of the Turkish Minority associations; namely, the “Western Thrace Turkish Teacher’s Union”, the “Komotini Turkish Youth Association” and the “Turkish Union of Xanthi” has continued until today. Following the exhaustion of the internal remedies, the case concerning the banning of the Turkish Union of Xanthi was taken to the ECHR by the Minority. Also the efforts to establish the “Rodopi Turkish Woman Association” and the “Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association” proved futile based on the same pretexts of the Greek authorities and these cases were also taken to the ECHR by the Minority.
The European Court of Human Rights expressed its decision, in a press release dated 11 October 2007, regarding the “Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association”, to which Greek authorities failed to give the necessary permission. The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision became effective as of 11 January 2008.
The European Court of Human Rights also expressed its decision concerning the “Turkish Union of Xanthi” and the “Rodopi Turkish Women’s Association” on 27 March 2008.
The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights in both aforementioned cases. The Court also held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 & 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) of the Convention. In the case of the “Turkish Union of Xanthi”, the Court awarded the said association 8000 Euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
These decisions once again prove the restrictions imposed by the Greek administration not only on the freedom of assembly and association but also on the right to express ethnic identity.
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/morgenavisen-jyllands-posten-danimarka-26-subat-1999_br_chronicle_-greece-is-an-unworthy-eu-member_br_by-gunnar-nissen-author-and-translator-aabenraa_br_march-9_-1999.en.mfa
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten-Danimarka-26 Şubat 1999 Chronicle: Greece is an unworthy EU member By Gunnar Nissen-Author and Translator-Aabenraa March 9, 1999 If this chronicle gives rise to conflicts or trouble, it is not the fault of the Macedonians, nor me. When the politicians in EU countries don't speak out, it is due to ignorance or indifference.
Denmark is a member of the EU. It remains a mystery that Greece is too. The member countries must recognize human rights and minorities rights. Those are the demands put in front of the central European states and they must abide by them. That has been hard on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who are brought to recognize national minorities, especially that large Russian one. Slovenia is on that point influenced by the Yugoslavian constitution of 1974, an exemplary country with full recognition of small Croatian and Italian minorities.
But Greece - Oh Dear! From official Greek side it is bombastically announced: Only Greeks live in Greece. Nonsense! In southeast Europe, not a single state exist of one nationality alone. In Greece, you find a large Turkish minority (who do not wish to be presented as Greeks that has converted to Islam) in Thrace, a small Albanian minority in Epiros and finally a Macedonian minority in Aegean Macedonia, who numbers somewhere between 75.000 and 500.000. An exact estimate doesn't exist, since Greece persistently deny there existence. If one put some pressure on high ranking civil servants and self-proclaimed experts, one may achieve an admission that " a small Slavic speaking minority exist in Greek Macedonia", but they "do not wish to be a national minority; they can freely use their language".
A pack of lies! For many years I have had a friendly relation with numerous Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia - a people that officially doesn't exist. I don't speak Greek, but I speak fluently Macedonian. Almost every time I take the train south, over Munich to Balkan, I run into Macedonians from Greece (2. generation of workers). The same happens when I traverse the Greek border. Some people speaks only Greek, but a lot, really a lot, speaks additionally Macedonian ("our mother tongue") which is forbidden as language in school. Last year a couple of shop owners were taken to court - their "crime" was that they had written some words in Macedonian in their shop windows.
When I sit on cafe's in villages in Aegean Macedonia, the conversation always ends at "the Macedonian identity". "What do you in the rest of Europe know about us?" I must admit that it's very little. "We would like to have some Macedonian schools" the man continues at the cafe. "I speak my Macedonian mother tongue, but my son is struggling, although he watches Macedonian TV, Televizija Skopje". He, and the others speak in a low voice, while glancing towards the neighboring table where a man is picking up his mobile phone. Moments later, two angry police officers enter and the gathering around my table splits up.
The border control between the Macedonian Republic and Greece are known to be among the toughest in Europe. Certainly the slowest. Not on the Macedonian side, where the border police take a peek at the Danish passport, after which it's over. But on the other side of the border, the border police confiscate all passports and later we have to spend a long time, be it snow storm or burning hot, cueing to get the passport back. With particular thoroughness, the custom control ransack the luggage of travelers from the Republic of Macedonia. Foreigners can not be sure to get a travel permission, even when born in Aegean Macedonia in Greece. It has happened that a Canadian bus full of Macedonians with Macedonian names, but born in Aegean Macedonia, were not allowed to enter the country.
When it in 1991 was clear to the Macedonians in the Yugoslav sub-republic Macedonia, that their value norms could not possibly harmonize with the roaring nationalism of Serbia, they split with the Yugoslav republic after a popular referendum - Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had already done that. The Serbs protested and the Serbian terrorist leader and specialist in ethnic cleansing Vojislav _Se_selj announced that all he needed was two divisions and then "the Macedonian problem would be solved". Loudest, however, were the protests from Greece, apparently because of the name. The Greek regime could perhaps accept that the new state could call it self Skopje (after it's capital) and the Greeks postulated wildly and crazily that the Macedonian state with it's 2.1 Mio. inhabitants and an army smaller than our national guard might attack it's large neighbor Greece.
The Greeks gave as a reason for not recognizing the Republic of Macedonia, that " we have a Macedonia here in Greece and thus there cannot be a Macedonia just on the opposite site of the border". The logic in this is absurd and I'm ashamed that so many ignorant journalists quoted the Greek reason without comments. Apparently they were unaware that Macedonia is split between three different countries.
After a meeting in Brussels, where the EU-recognition of the state of Macedonia was postponed, although Macedonia fulfilled all requirements for recognition, the then Danish foreign minister, Uffe Elleman-Jensen, in a final salute as EU chairman, commented to the Greeks that they had to get themselves together and get the problem solved, concerning the name Macedonia and called it despicable of the Greeks to treat the Macedonians in this way.
The Greek spokespersons reacted violently, amongst them the former Greek vice prime-minister Athanasios Kannellopoulos, who angrily pronounced "with his comments, Mr. Jensen is a very bad example of the other foreign ministers. Mr. Jensen said that he'd be ashamed to be Greek because we're against that the new Skopje republic's use of the name Macedonia. To thatmy answer is: We'd be ashamed if Mr. Jensen was Greek!"
In "Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten" the MP Arne Melchior published a letter to the editor that exhibited his lack of knowledge about the populations in the Balkan peninsula under the title "Show concern for our Greek allied". He was answered by "Jyllands-Posten"s correspondent Per Nyholm "Show concern for the Macedonians". Finally the Greeks accepted the name of Macedonia, but only in the form of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM.
Now to the decisive point that journalists ought to have oriented themselves about: In ancient times and in the Osmanian era, Macedonia was an area without internal borders, where the people after the 6. century had the south Slavic language Macedonian as mother tongue. It was in Macedonia the Cyrillic alphabet came to life, named after the monk Kiril. The bible was translated by the Macedonians to old-church-Slavic, that had the same influence on ecumenical language in eastern Europe as Latin had amongst the Catholics in western and central Europe. The Cyrillic alphabet spread not only to Bulgaria and Serbia, but also to Russia and other eastern Slavic countries. "Genuine" Hellenes described the ancient population of Macedonia as barbarians and Phillip II and Alexander the Great's greekness are rather dubious. Albanian historians name them Illyrians, the oldest nation on Balkan and the Albanians are arguably their ancestors. Of higher importance was the Slav's immigration to the Balkan area in the 6. century. The Slavic tribe that settled in Macedonia took name after the province and preserved their language to modern times (with some grammatical exceptions...)
After the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, Macedonia was split in three. Aegean Macedonia came under Greece, Vardamacedonia under Serbia and Pirimacedonia under Bulgaria. Vardamacedonia was in 1945 after a heroic partisan war, one of the six republics in the new federal Yugoslavia and as promised by Tito, the republic got full national and cultural independence - with due acknowledgment of it's compact Albanian and small Turkish minorities. As Yugoslavia split in 1991, the country had 23 Mio. inhabitants. Had all of Yugoslavia had the birthrate of the Albanians in western Macedonia and Kosova, they would have been at 50 Mio! Kosova and western Macedonia would have had to let the Albanians migrate to the rest of Serbia and Macedonia with resulting unemployment rates around 50%. The Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia are not oppressed. They have all rights - except the one to rise the Albanian flag and get an Albanian university - which wouldn't make a lot of sense as soon as they again canstudy at the large university in Prestina in Kosova, Tito's pride. By theway, the ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia in Denmark is Albanian, the much respected Muhammed Halili
Could one imagine the situation: the government of the North German federated state Schleswig Holstein declare: Schleswig is German and in Germany, Germans are living. Thus with no further notice, the Danish schools, including the "Duborgskolen" highschool and "Jaruplund" highschool, the Flensborg newspaper, Danish libraries and other foreign institutions will close. The Danish language is declared "not-wanted"? How about the opposite situation - if everything German was forbidden in southern Denmark? Unthinkable of course!
When a person misbehaves, it is in the first line the closest people's duty to intervene. National oppression is taking place in many countries outside the EU. But Greece is an EU member and is thus a "part of the family". But do we intervene, we, the closest people? No, we shut up. Of ignorance or misunderstood solidarity with the Greek leaders, who as the Serbs, consider themselves "superbalkanian". Other people knows more about the oppression than I, but I know a great many and every year more ignored and oppressed Slavic Macedonians in the Greek part of Macedonia. Can we justify our silence? I'm sure that Greece' unwillingness to accept the Republic of Macedonia is due to their black conscience over the oppression of Macedonians in Greece. Greece is (yet another) unworthy member of the EU.
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/setting-the-record-straight-on-pontus-propaganda-against-turkey.en.mfa
Setting The Record Straight On Pontus Propaganda Against Turkey Greece claims that between 1916-1923 the Greek Orthodox population then living in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey became the victim of a systematic policy of extermination by the Turkish authorities of the day and that those who were able to escape did so by taking refuge in Greece. On 24 February 1994, the Greek Parliament adopted "19 May" as a "Day for Commemorating the Turkish genocide against the Pontus Greeks". But history and the facts are at odds with Greek claims and point unmistakably in another direction.
THE BACKGROUND OF PONTUS CLAIMS
The term "Pontus" evolves from "Pont-Euxin", which in ancient Greek denotes the Black Sea. The emergence of Hellenic influence in the Black Sea region can be traced back to the Ionnians who established Greek type city-states in Sinop and Trabzon in the VI. century B.C.. The Macedonian King of Philippe and his son, Alexander the Great, drove the Persians out of the South-East Black Sea Coasts and consolidated their influence in the region. Following the takeover of Istanbul by Catholic/Latin Europeans, the Byzantines living in Istanbul emigrated to the Eastern Black Sea region and founded the Kingdom of Pontus. Despite the fact that it was unable to maintain full and effective control over the region, the Pontus Kingdom managed to survive for some 250 years and later came under the domination of the Ottoman Empire in 1461 following the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmet.
Though formerly an element of simple folklore, the term "Pontus" was after the events in Cyprus in 1974, loaded with ideological content with the aim of fuelling hostile feelings towards Turkey. It was contemplated by Greek policy-makers that the exploitation of the "Pontus" idea would help in their efforts to undermine the political and cultural principles on which the modern Turkish state stands and would also provide a pretext for forcing out members of the Turkish Minority from Western Thrace.
The Greek priority target is the destabilization of Turkey, presumably to be achieved by inciting assumed micro-nationalist feelings. The aim is to challenge Turkey's territorial integrity. Thus Greece can be said to be in pursuit of the following objectives in this connection:
- To tarnish the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who frustrated the Greek invasion of Turkey.
- To deceive the world community that Turkey's history is replete with genocides and that its ideology is based on racist principles.
- To present PKK terrorism as a "war of liberation" and to constitute with the PKK a front against Turkey, by creating a linkage between the "Pontus Greeks" and the "Kurds".
- To encourage anti-Turkish sentiments in the so-called Pontus Greeks by attributing to them a fictitious "Pontus identity".
- Last, but most important, to utilise the Pontus element as a pretext in the de-Turkification process of Western Thrace.
Indeed, in the effort to change the demographical composition of the intensely Turkish populated Western Thrace, the Greek government settled in Western Thrace 120,000 "Pontian Greeks" that emigrated from the territories of the former Soviet Union. In line with the Greek plan of forcing the Turks out of the region, these immigrants, who did not even know Greek language, were injected and saturated with a forced "Pontus consciousness" so that they would acquiesce in their being settled in Western Thrace.
WHO COMMITTED GENOCIDE: TURKS OR GREEK BANDS ?
In the first part of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was fast collapsing, ethnic Greek irregulars, armed and encouraged by Greece, operated in the Turkish Black Sea coast regions. The Ottoman authorities had considerable difficulty in controlling them. Banditry by these groups often deteriorated into slaughter of Turkish villagers. Over 40 ethnic Greek bandit groups plundered Turkish villagers and murdered at least 2,000 Turks, including elderly, women, and children. After the 1918 Armistice Agreement, Greece and the Greek community in Anatolia tried to take advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman Sultan in maintaining effective control in the region and the Greek irregulars attempted to create an ethnic Greek state on the Black Sea coast modeled on the ancient state of Pontus.
Many foreign observers who at the time visited the region comment on the turmoil which these Greek irregulars had created. The American High Commissioner, Mark Bristol, in a report he wrote after a journey along the Black Sea coast, drew attention to the anarchy which the Greeks were fomenting.
During his visit to Zile in February 1920, even a Greek lieutenant was bewildered by the menacing actions of Bishop Eftimious against the public authorities. Lieutenant Karaiskos reported that Eftimios threatened to send his 5,000 armed irregulars to the city, if the prefect of Samsun failed to release the imprisoned chief of one of his bands.
On July 7 1920, the Athens Pontus Committee, in a memorandum delivered to the Greek government, proposed that 20,000 well-equipped men from Pontus should be sent to inland districts of Anatolia to support the invading Greek forces. The very fact that the armed irregulars of the ethnic Greeks in the Pontus numbered 20,000 reveals the magnitude of the threat they posed to the Turkish civilian population in the region.
While public disorder persisted in the eastern Black Sea region, the authorities of the Allied occupation forces in Turkey deliberately misrepresented the precautionary measures taken by the Turkish security forces as "genocide." They did so with the expectation that turmoil in the region would give them a pretext for occupying it under the Armistice Agreement.
On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal landed at Samsun mandated by the Ottoman Government to inspect the situation. Contrary to claims being made in Greece, Mustafa Kemal did no more than prepare reports about the situation and dispatch them to the Ottoman Government. Mustafa Kemal's only intervention was in late 1920, when he instructed local Turkish authorities to be more attentive to the needs of the ethnic Greek population. (These instructions are registered in the official minutes of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.)
DISTORTING HISTORICAL RECORDS: "700,000" GREEKS IN REGION
Greek claims that there were "700,000" Greeks in the eastern Turkish Black Sea region and that 350,000 of these were slaughtered is a blatant distortion of history.
Even a cursory examination of foreign and local sources about the population of Greeks in the region would immediately establish that Greek suggestion of "700,000" is fictitious. The King Krane Commission, authorised by the American government, reported on 28 August 1919 that the estimated number of Greek residents in the eastern Black Sea region was 200,000. "Documents Diplomatiques" issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the Ottoman census held between 1893 and 1897, the Greek population was 193,000 in Trabzon and 76,068 in Sivas Provinces. This means that the total Greek population at that time was 269,068. In 1923 at the Lausanne Conference, Elefterios Venizelos, the Prime Minister of Greece, relied on exaggerated numbers given by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul and claimed that the population of Greeks living in the Black Sea region was 447,828. This figure is excessive, but even if one accepts it, it is still far below the current Greek claim of 700,000.
Nor is there any evidence in historical documents supporting Greek allegations that there existed 350,000 ethnic Greeks in the Canik Sanjak of Trabzon. Leon Maccas, in a book entitled "L' Héllenisme de L'Asie Mineure" noted that there were 136,087 Greek inhabitants in the area. The 1906 Yearbook of the Province of Trabzon contradicts Maccas by specifying that the province had only 75,062 ethnic Greek inhabitants in Canik Sanjak. The Patriarchate records in Istanbul put the ethnic Greeks of the sanjak at 193,000. Although these figures differ from one another, they are all well below the present day Greek claim of 350,000. Only around 100,000 ethnic Greeks emigrated to Greece from Canik at the time of the population exchange, which again makes it very difficult to assert, as the Greeks do, that 350,000 people were annihilated.
In 1923, with the conclusion of the "Agreement on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations" between Turkey and Greece, 322,500 Greek residents of the region emigrated peacefully to Greece. Given the fact that 322,500 Greeks emigrated to Greece and the above estimates about the population of Greeks in the region, the allegation of a genocide involving 350,000 Greeks stands as a malicious lie.
History thus points to Greece as the party that should apologise for the war crimes it committed during its invasion of Anatolia, and the atrocities committed by Greek bands in the Black Sea region, instead of being the party that can shamelessly level unfounded allegations about the so-called Pontus genocide. Article 59 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne refers to the war crimes committed by Greece in Anatolia. It will be recalled that crimes committed in wartime against civilians are among the most serious forms of human rights breaches. Today, Greece is continuing to violate the human rights of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace despite her commitments and obligations stemming from international treaties. The world community, as documented in numerous reports by human rights watch groups, is aware of the fact that the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace is subject to policies of systematic exclusion and discrimination. Greece cannot cover up its own past record and its present day policies aimed at suppression of the Turkish Minority.
The multi-faceted Turkish –Greek relations entered into a new phase in 1999 on the basis of dialogue and cooperation. Since then, substantial efforts have been displayed to achieve an atmosphere of mutual understanding and rapproachment. On the other hand, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of activities of certain circles which aim to support the baseless Pontus allegations. Also the attendance of the high level Greek civilian and military officials in the Pontus activities has been witnessed. It is obvious that such an attitude by the certain circles in Greece cannot be reconciled with good neighborly relations and does not help the consolidation of friendship between Turkey and Greece.
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus1.gif[/img]
Turkish Young Children and Men Murdered by Greek Bands around Nusretli town
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus2.gif[/img]Patriarch Gregorios, Eleftheros Venizelos and the last Emperor of the Byzantium. A propaganda card idealizing the ancient Pontus State
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus3.gif[/img]
A shame of Humanity in 1921
[img]http://www.mfa.gov.tr/images/pages/DISPOLITIKA/Yunanistan/pontus4.gifp/img]
Murdered by Greek Bands on July 4, 1921. The headman of Güney Village, the night-watchman and the teacher of the village's Primary School
No comments:
Post a Comment