By Risto Stefov
October 19, 2008
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/78206
http://www.americanchronicle.com/viewByAuthor?authorID=3446
Instead of focusing on problems like recognizing the Macedonian, Turkish, Albanian and Vlach minorities living inside Greece, and by that I mean those people inside Greece who don’t want to be Greek, some Greeks are now looking for Greeks inside the Republic of Macedonia.
How do I know this? Well I was sent this e-mail with the following information:
“RALLY FOR THE HELLENIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN FYROM Monday October 27, 2008 12:00 –2:00 pm 140 East 45th Street New York City Between 3rd and Lexington Avenues The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) mobilizes community activists, with the support of the PAN-MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION USA, and other associations as well as human rights activists near the United States Mission to the UN in midtown Manhattan.
All who believe in justice and American democratic values are encouraged to join us and demand that: FYROM should stop being the perpetrator of cultural genocide against its historic Hellenic community. Its unapologetic, historically revisionist stance against humanity and violation of human rights should be properly investigated by the US State Department Human Rights division for denying the Hellenic minority in FYROM the right to their Hellenic identity and nationality. The government of FYROM (with its capital in Skopje) has a long legacy of anti-Hellenic cultural genocide, as their previous regimes forcibly transferred Hellenic nationals to iron curtain countries.
All governments in FYROM through force, propaganda, racist discrimination and attempts of forcible assimilation or integration and even terror toward the majority of the Slavophone cultures in their region, have denied the Hellenic minority of its integrity as a distinct peoples. Since 1912 and onwards the Yugoslav government and FYROM since 1991, when it broke away from Yugoslavia, aspired the political destruction of Hellenism on their territories, especially in Pelagonia, the only real geographical part of Macedonia. They have flagrantly violated the human rights of the Hellenic community in their territory and continue undisturbed to do the same for a host years. According to Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A of 10 December 1948.
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Article 7 of the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (26 August 1994) [4] uses the phrase “cultural genocideß.” The complete article reads as follows: Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for: (a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities; (b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources; (c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights; (d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures; (e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.
FYROM is guilty of all of the above-itemized sub-articles. The HELLENIC HUMAN RIGHTS RALLY will demand an end to the continuing campaign by the FYROM government to deny the Hellenic identity and nationality of its Hellenic minority. The HELLENIC HUMAN RIGHTS RALLY will call for human rights violations against the Hellenic community to be publicly investigated and condemned by the US State Department. Participants will be provided with signs, and Hellenic flags. Speakers will include community activists and human rights experts and live instrumental music from Macedonia. Please be advised that community affairs in New York do not permit signs or banners or flagpoles that are not made from paper or cloth. The HELLENIC HUMAN RIGHTS RALLY includes the distribution of thousands of informational pamphlets, stickers, t-shirts and expert media packets for the press. Banners will display the slogans “SHAME ON FYROM, IDENTITY THEFT OF THE 3,000 YEAR GREEK HERITAGE OF MACEDONIA” “FYROM STOP ABUSING THE HELLENIC COMMUNITY” “FYROM GUILTY OF GREEK CHILD ABDUCTION” “ COMMUNIST BRUTALITY: 1949 28,000 GREEK CHILDREN FORCIBLY TRANSFERRED BY CRIMINAL FYROM” Please view and distribute our HELLENIC HUMAN RIGHTS RALLY promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCZnNEBYoKs Please join us near the United States Mission to the UN, to send a clear and powerful message that the Hellenic people will not live in fear.”
Is this a joke? No really is this a joke?
You can call it what you like but these Greeks have a method to their madness, a kind of thing psychoanalyst Freud calls a “defense mechanism” where a perpetrator takes attention away from himself by putting the blame elsewhere.
Just recently the Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski asked the Greek government to return confiscated properties and citizenship to the Greek citizens of Macedonian ethnic descent exiled from Greece during the Greek Civil War (1945-1949) and now we have anti-Macedonian groups in the United States planning to demonstrate to demand human rights for a non-existent Greek minority supposedly living inside the Republic of Macedonia.
The only Greek minority that exists in the Republic of Macedonia is some 400 people. Yes there are some 400 or so Greeks living in the Republic of Macedonia who have declared themselves Greeks in the latest Internationally observed census the Republic of Macedonia conducted not long ago.
Some of the slogans in the demonstration will say:
““FYROM GUILTY OF GREEK CHILD ABDUCTION” “COMMUNIST BRUTALITY: 1949 28,000 GREEK CHILDREN FORCIBLY TRANSFERRED BY CRIMINAL FYROM””
Could these 28,000 children be the same refugee children exiled by Greece in 1948 who to this day are still not allowed return? Could these be the same children whose properties were confiscated by the Greek government? I personally know hundreds of them living in Toronto today and everyone I spoke to had a long laugh about this Greek rally.
It is really funny that the very same Greeks who would not allow the refugee children entry into Greece, not even to visit their dying relatives, are now demonstrating for their rights and accusing the country who gave them a home of human rights abuses.
Shame on who, Greeks?! Who should bear the shame here?!
These very same children now aging adults repeatedly made many attempts to visit their birthplaces in Greece without success. The Greek State simply does not want them back. If anyone is interested in finding out the truth about these refugee children contact me at rstefov@hotmail.com and I will put you in touch with them. For those who are interested in learning more about the refugee children from the Greek Civil War you can read my articles “Plight of the Macedonian Refugee Children” at this link:
http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov12.html
The truth is Greece never wanted and still does not want back the refugee children or any of the Macedonians they evicted, nor cares about their welfare. Greeks know very well that there are no Greeks living in the Republic of Macedonia, only the Greek citizens of Macedonian descent that they evicted and exiled. Greeks only care to create bad publicity for the Republic of Macedonia and further confuse the Greek-Macedonian issue. This is a counter-attack on the Republic of Macedonia now that Prime Minister Gruevski opened the question of the Macedonians in Greece.
This Greek aim today, no doubt instigated by the Greek government, is to create confusion in the American Public. All the Greeks care about is what the cameras will record and what people will see on their televisions. Their aim is to deceive the innocent American viewer by showing him or her placards with false slogans vilifying the very same people who saved the victims that the Greece State created. These Greeks who perpetrate such acts have no respect for truth, dignity, or human values. Nor do they care about the damage they are causing. All they care is to get what they want no matter what the cost.
But as the saying goes, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time”. And these perpetrated acts one day will come back to bite them.
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