Aegean Macedonians - ovcharani panagir
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=MZErwbXxevk
Monday, September 29, 2008
AUSTRALIAN MACEDONIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE MEDIA
AUSTRALIAN MACEDONIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE MEDIA RELEASE
AMHRC AND VINOZHITO CONTINUE SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP
AMHRC'S "MACEDONIAN MINORITIES SUPPORT FUND" MAJOR FACTOR
IN VINOZHITO'S ACHIEVEMENTS OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS
In their Annual Activities Report to members of the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund, the European Free Alliance - Rainbow (Vinozito) made the following comments:
"The last 12 months have been a very busy and productive period for Vinozito. We have been very active on the international level and for the first time in many years (due in large to the intensity of the "name dispute" betweenGreece and the Republic of Macedonia) we have had much exposure in the Greek media.
It goes without saying that our achievements would not be possible without the regular and generous financial assistance we receive from the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC). The monthly financial donations from the AMHRC allow us operate a full-time office in Lerin from where we coordinate our domestic and international affairs.
We look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the AMHRC. Such collaboration will be invaluable in the coming period as we are planning some very important activities. Later this year the Supreme Court of Greece will rule in the case of the "Home of Macedonian Culture" and if previous decisions are anything to go by, we will have to yet again seek justice in the European Court of Human Rights.
The entire Political Secretariat of Vinozito would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund in the last twelve months. We encourage you to all renew your membership in the fund and support the AMHRC so that they can continue to support us.Last, but certainly not least, we would like to especially thank the Board of Management of the AMHRC for their continued effort in managing the fund and the activities of the organisation. We appreciate the personal sacrifice that goes into human rights activism and every success that we have is due in part to the efforts of these invaluable volunteers."Indeed, the cooperation between the AMHRC and Vinozito dates back to the party's inception in 1994. AMHRC support for Vinozhito's activities has intensified since 2004, when the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund was established by the AMHRC. The fund provides regular monthly donations to Vinozhito to support their activities. Here is a summary of Vinozhito's achievements over the last 12 months: International lobbying activitiesEFA-Rainbow (Vinozito) was very active on the international front, especially within EU institutions and the Council of Europe. In June 2007, representa\tives of the party met with Mr. Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Issues discussed at this meeting included Greece's refusal to ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the continual non-registration of the "Home of Macedonian Culture"The visit to the Council of Europe also gave Vinozhito the opportunity to meet with members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Subsequently, Mr Geertz Lambert of Belgium submitted Written Question No. 530 to the Committee of Ministers on "Discrimination in Greek law which affects ethnic Macedonians" referring to the laws which prevent Macedonian political refugees from returning to Greece. EFA-Rainbow has also been very active in EU institutions. In January 2008 Rainbow participated in a Session of the Intergroup for Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages, an inter-group within the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels .In cooperation with MEPs from the EFA/Greens group in the Rainbow has also initiated several actions with the EP. In April 2008 Mikel Amezaga MEP filed several questions to the EP and the Council regarding the denial of entry of ethnic Macedonians into Greece. Mr Amezaga questioned the legality of Greece's policy in respect of the Schengen provisions and the EU principle of freedom of movement.Rainbow has also engaged the European Free Alliance - European Political Party (EFA-EPP) on many issues concerning Greece's undemocratic policy in relation to the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian minority of Greece. In May 2008, EFA-EPP sent letters of protest to the European Commission, European Parliament and all Greek MEPs protesting the campaign of Greek MEPs within EU institutions to replace and in some instances eradicate the use of the term "Macedonian" to describe the Macedonian language, Macedonian culture and persons identifying as ethnic Macedonians. EFA's letter notes that "It is well known that the motivation of Greece and its MEPs on this issue is its blatant refusal to recognise Macedonian identity, both in Greece and beyond. Indeed, Greece's aggressive behaviour on this issue is something not new to EFA. Our party was a witness to Greece's deplorable policy of rejecting the existence of ethnic Macedonian identity in Greece during a fact-finding visit to the country in 2006."In April 2008, EFA-Rainbow together with the European Free Alliance and the Association of Western Thrace Turks in Europe hosted an International Panel Discussion in the European Parliament on the "Ignored Minorities of Greece: Western Thrace Turks and Macedonians". The event was well attended and attracted a lot of attention both in Greece . The reaction of the Greek political parties was typical of Greece 's policy on the issue of minorities. Nea Demokratia and the Greek Communist Party issued statements on the conference to which Rainbow responded. In a press release entitled "The national - socialist audacity of the Greek "Communist" Party", Rainbow noted that "during the last several days, on the occasion of this Panel Discussion, the European delegates representing the Communist Party of Greece, the Secretary of the Party, as well as the newspaper Rizospastis, engaged in a series of attacks against the opinion of the EU regarding the rights of national and cultural minorities in Europe. Mainly, their attacks have been focused against the policy of support for "the different minority groups or other groups of the population with differences" in our region. We would like to inform the national-socialists of the Communist Party of Greece, that their past is so burdened and their present so undemocratic, that we can consider their accusations against us as a proof for the regularity of our policies. We would like to confirm that Rainbow, as part of the Macedonian national minority living in Greece, will continue to exist and struggle for one great multicultural and politically united Europe, despite the opposed desires of the bureaucracy in Perisos."EFA-Rainbow also lobbied countries outside of Europe . In July 2007, Rainbow was pleased to host the Consul General of the United States of America during his visit to Lerin. The representatives of Rainbow informed the Consul General of the problems of the Macedonian minority and also of the destructive anti-Americanism that exists in Greece.Cooperation with OMO "Ilinden" PIRINThe Macedonian minority of Bulgaria faces similar problems like the Macedonian minority of Greece. EFA-Rainbow continued to cooperate closely with OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN, a political party defending the rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. Rainbow continues to lobby at the international level for the re-registration of OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN. Moreover, EFA-Rainbow and OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN have jointly attended events at the international level. In June 2007 both organisations attended the PACE session in Strasbourg, while in December 2007 representatives from EFA - Rainbow, the Home of Macedonian Culture and OMO Ilinden Pirin participated in a Conference organised by the EU's new Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). In April 2008 both parties participated in the 2008 General Assembly of the European Free Alliance - European Political Party held in Mallorca.Press ReleasesEFA-Rainbow issued many press releases over the last 12 months. Most of them were not published in the Greek media due to the unofficial gag on issues related to the Macedonian minority. Here is a selection of the most important press releases:6 July 2007: Greek irredentism and expansionism exposed officially from the Greek Parliament. In recent years more and more often we hear the statements of various Greek authorities, parliamentarians, government representatives, ministries, Prime Ministers, journalists and others, about the so-called ‘expansionist propaganda of "Skopje" against our country. Typically, all the above mentioned who utilise such argumentation on the "expansionism of Skopje" have not attempted to enquire or consider the behaviour of our state on the issue of "expansionism". The Greek Parliament in 2000 printed a map under the heading "Historical Map of Greece" where part of Turkish territory is presented as being part of the "unitary Greek world". Specifically, the territory of Asia Minor around Izmir, eastern Thrace, the islands of Imvros and Tenedos are presented as Greek territories. The ‘wonder' of the above mentioned map is that it ‘decorates' a large number of administrative buildings in Greece such as municipal offices, police stations and even Greek embassies abroad, which indirectly serves as propaganda in the service of the policy of "Megali Idea" (the doctrine of a greater Greece from the last century which advocates the idea of a Greece spread over two continents and surrounded by three seas). Similarly, it propagates the Greek character of Cyprus as well as the Greek character of southern Albania20 August 2007: EFA-Rainbow condemns the statements of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling party "Nea Dimokratia" who claims that Greeks should remember the unredeemed Greek territories in Turkey18 December 2007: EFA-Rainbow condemns the hypocritical statements made by the Greek Minister of the Interior, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, in Strasburg in the occasion of the Human Rights Day (10 December).19 December 2007: EFA-Rainbow makes official complaint to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs after receiving an abusive e-mail by the Greek Embassy in Dublin18 February 2008: EFA - Rainbow's answer to Mrs Dora Bakoyanni - Greek Foreign Minister "... in Greece the only international recognized minority is the Muslim minority"20 May 2008: Greece is constantly and hypocritically accusing the Republic of Macedonia for "irredentist practices". The bitter truth is, that at the same time, official state bodies like the Greek Army express a scandalous irredentism against the Republic of Macedonia, openly & provocatively declaring in their public announcements that "Macedonia is One and Greek"23 May 2008: Greek Minister of Justice, Hatzigakis, refers EFA-Rainbow and the Greek Helsinki Monitor to the attorney's office of the Supreme Court of Greece accusing them of "anti-Hellenic propaganda" following a question from an extreme right MP from LAOS . Is a new prosecution of EFA - Rainbow underway?So-called "name issue"During the last 12 months the so-called "name issue" between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia has received much attention. While officially the matter is between the respective states, the essence of the matter, in Rainbow's opinion, concerns Macedonian ethnic identity i.e. Greece's refusal to recognise it. Therefore as members of the Macedonian minority of Greece, EFA-Rainbow felt obliged to become actively involved in the issue.On 5 November 2007 Rainbow sent a letter to Matthew Nimetz, the UN Special Representative. In that letter Rainbow writes that "the essence of the internal problem of this question for Greece is the denial of the recognition and the respect of a separate and distinct Macedonian ethnic/national identity different from the Greek one, because to do so would result in the collapse of the Greek myth of national homogeneity that the state has imposed for decades now." The letter ends by stating that Rainbow believes that "the international community should finally send a clear political message in relation the existing negative position of our state, Greece, regarding the Republic of Macedonia. We believe that such this will assist in the task of beginning a progressive ideological reform of the Greek state and indeed of Greek society, which are essential in order to make Greek policy in the region positive and constructive. This is particular importance for the peace and stability of our region, especially given that the "Yugoslav crisis" is coming to an end with the imminent decision on the future status of Kosovo."Following Greece's veto of the Republic of Macedonia to receive an invitation to join NATO, Rainbow released the following statement entitled "Greek nationalism strengthens the Macedonian national identity and reinforces the Macedonian nation". The detailed analysis of the Greek veto and general policy on the Macedonian question observed that "Greece, by preventing the neighbouring country to enter NATO, managed to seal its objective to create an enemy on our northern borders. The day that comes will not be the same as before. By using the right to veto, Greece pushed these friendly people to change their behaviour towards our country. In addition, the veto emphasizes the Macedonian identity inside the neighbouring country. It reinforces the Macedonian nation and national identity. Those were not the only repercussions of the April 4, 2008 veto. It destroyed all the false hopes that the politicians and the society of the neighbouring country had in the Greek intentions and policy towards them. This denial unites all the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia against the one who has proven to be the "enemy of the people." The previous convictions of Greece along with this last unfriendly act of denying membership into NATO, unfortunately transformed the Macedonian identity from being equal to that of the Hellenic one, into an identity opposed to Hellenism. The latest events are particularly disturbing for our country. They displayed (once again) unproductive anti-Americanism and cohesion of the red battlefront at the level of political practice. Our country, captured in the "nationalist glass bell", with the majority of its population being intellectually handicapped, begins to show characteristics of an Eastern country, with Parliamentary clothing and national-socialist features."HOW YOU CAN HELP VINOZITOThe continuing success of EFA-Rainbow (Vinozhito) is largely dependent on the level of resourcing available. As mentioned above, five years ago the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee established the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund. In practice this has meant, that for four years straight, Vinozhito has received monthly financial assistance without exception. This is a tradition worth maintaining!Also, whilst the AMHRC provides financial contributions to OMO-Ilinden-Pirin, we are trying to increase the number of members to the Fund so that we can establish a consistent and regular monthly support package to OMO-Ilinden- Pirin, similar to the one in place with Vinozhito. In this way, the Macedonian Human Rights movement will be able to better plan and co-ordinate their activities in a more integrated manner Membership of this fund costs only $120 per year for employed persons and $60 for pensioners, students and unemployed persons. Payments are then transferred on a monthly basis to Vinozito.Donations can be made to the following WESTPAC bank account:Account Name: Macedonian Human Rights Committee of Melbourne and Victoria
BSB: 033365
Account No: 189484. For further information, please contact the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee on (03) 9460 2910 or email: macedonian_rights@hotmail.comAUSTRALIAN-MACEDONIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE
AMHRC AND VINOZHITO CONTINUE SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP
AMHRC'S "MACEDONIAN MINORITIES SUPPORT FUND" MAJOR FACTOR
IN VINOZHITO'S ACHIEVEMENTS OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS
In their Annual Activities Report to members of the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund, the European Free Alliance - Rainbow (Vinozito) made the following comments:
"The last 12 months have been a very busy and productive period for Vinozito. We have been very active on the international level and for the first time in many years (due in large to the intensity of the "name dispute" betweenGreece and the Republic of Macedonia) we have had much exposure in the Greek media.
It goes without saying that our achievements would not be possible without the regular and generous financial assistance we receive from the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC). The monthly financial donations from the AMHRC allow us operate a full-time office in Lerin from where we coordinate our domestic and international affairs.
We look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the AMHRC. Such collaboration will be invaluable in the coming period as we are planning some very important activities. Later this year the Supreme Court of Greece will rule in the case of the "Home of Macedonian Culture" and if previous decisions are anything to go by, we will have to yet again seek justice in the European Court of Human Rights.
The entire Political Secretariat of Vinozito would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund in the last twelve months. We encourage you to all renew your membership in the fund and support the AMHRC so that they can continue to support us.Last, but certainly not least, we would like to especially thank the Board of Management of the AMHRC for their continued effort in managing the fund and the activities of the organisation. We appreciate the personal sacrifice that goes into human rights activism and every success that we have is due in part to the efforts of these invaluable volunteers."Indeed, the cooperation between the AMHRC and Vinozito dates back to the party's inception in 1994. AMHRC support for Vinozhito's activities has intensified since 2004, when the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund was established by the AMHRC. The fund provides regular monthly donations to Vinozhito to support their activities. Here is a summary of Vinozhito's achievements over the last 12 months: International lobbying activitiesEFA-Rainbow (Vinozito) was very active on the international front, especially within EU institutions and the Council of Europe. In June 2007, representa\tives of the party met with Mr. Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Issues discussed at this meeting included Greece's refusal to ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the continual non-registration of the "Home of Macedonian Culture"The visit to the Council of Europe also gave Vinozhito the opportunity to meet with members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Subsequently, Mr Geertz Lambert of Belgium submitted Written Question No. 530 to the Committee of Ministers on "Discrimination in Greek law which affects ethnic Macedonians" referring to the laws which prevent Macedonian political refugees from returning to Greece. EFA-Rainbow has also been very active in EU institutions. In January 2008 Rainbow participated in a Session of the Intergroup for Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages, an inter-group within the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels .In cooperation with MEPs from the EFA/Greens group in the Rainbow has also initiated several actions with the EP. In April 2008 Mikel Amezaga MEP filed several questions to the EP and the Council regarding the denial of entry of ethnic Macedonians into Greece. Mr Amezaga questioned the legality of Greece's policy in respect of the Schengen provisions and the EU principle of freedom of movement.Rainbow has also engaged the European Free Alliance - European Political Party (EFA-EPP) on many issues concerning Greece's undemocratic policy in relation to the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian minority of Greece. In May 2008, EFA-EPP sent letters of protest to the European Commission, European Parliament and all Greek MEPs protesting the campaign of Greek MEPs within EU institutions to replace and in some instances eradicate the use of the term "Macedonian" to describe the Macedonian language, Macedonian culture and persons identifying as ethnic Macedonians. EFA's letter notes that "It is well known that the motivation of Greece and its MEPs on this issue is its blatant refusal to recognise Macedonian identity, both in Greece and beyond. Indeed, Greece's aggressive behaviour on this issue is something not new to EFA. Our party was a witness to Greece's deplorable policy of rejecting the existence of ethnic Macedonian identity in Greece during a fact-finding visit to the country in 2006."In April 2008, EFA-Rainbow together with the European Free Alliance and the Association of Western Thrace Turks in Europe hosted an International Panel Discussion in the European Parliament on the "Ignored Minorities of Greece: Western Thrace Turks and Macedonians". The event was well attended and attracted a lot of attention both in Greece . The reaction of the Greek political parties was typical of Greece 's policy on the issue of minorities. Nea Demokratia and the Greek Communist Party issued statements on the conference to which Rainbow responded. In a press release entitled "The national - socialist audacity of the Greek "Communist" Party", Rainbow noted that "during the last several days, on the occasion of this Panel Discussion, the European delegates representing the Communist Party of Greece, the Secretary of the Party, as well as the newspaper Rizospastis, engaged in a series of attacks against the opinion of the EU regarding the rights of national and cultural minorities in Europe. Mainly, their attacks have been focused against the policy of support for "the different minority groups or other groups of the population with differences" in our region. We would like to inform the national-socialists of the Communist Party of Greece, that their past is so burdened and their present so undemocratic, that we can consider their accusations against us as a proof for the regularity of our policies. We would like to confirm that Rainbow, as part of the Macedonian national minority living in Greece, will continue to exist and struggle for one great multicultural and politically united Europe, despite the opposed desires of the bureaucracy in Perisos."EFA-Rainbow also lobbied countries outside of Europe . In July 2007, Rainbow was pleased to host the Consul General of the United States of America during his visit to Lerin. The representatives of Rainbow informed the Consul General of the problems of the Macedonian minority and also of the destructive anti-Americanism that exists in Greece.Cooperation with OMO "Ilinden" PIRINThe Macedonian minority of Bulgaria faces similar problems like the Macedonian minority of Greece. EFA-Rainbow continued to cooperate closely with OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN, a political party defending the rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. Rainbow continues to lobby at the international level for the re-registration of OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN. Moreover, EFA-Rainbow and OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN have jointly attended events at the international level. In June 2007 both organisations attended the PACE session in Strasbourg, while in December 2007 representatives from EFA - Rainbow, the Home of Macedonian Culture and OMO Ilinden Pirin participated in a Conference organised by the EU's new Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). In April 2008 both parties participated in the 2008 General Assembly of the European Free Alliance - European Political Party held in Mallorca.Press ReleasesEFA-Rainbow issued many press releases over the last 12 months. Most of them were not published in the Greek media due to the unofficial gag on issues related to the Macedonian minority. Here is a selection of the most important press releases:6 July 2007: Greek irredentism and expansionism exposed officially from the Greek Parliament. In recent years more and more often we hear the statements of various Greek authorities, parliamentarians, government representatives, ministries, Prime Ministers, journalists and others, about the so-called ‘expansionist propaganda of "Skopje" against our country. Typically, all the above mentioned who utilise such argumentation on the "expansionism of Skopje" have not attempted to enquire or consider the behaviour of our state on the issue of "expansionism". The Greek Parliament in 2000 printed a map under the heading "Historical Map of Greece" where part of Turkish territory is presented as being part of the "unitary Greek world". Specifically, the territory of Asia Minor around Izmir, eastern Thrace, the islands of Imvros and Tenedos are presented as Greek territories. The ‘wonder' of the above mentioned map is that it ‘decorates' a large number of administrative buildings in Greece such as municipal offices, police stations and even Greek embassies abroad, which indirectly serves as propaganda in the service of the policy of "Megali Idea" (the doctrine of a greater Greece from the last century which advocates the idea of a Greece spread over two continents and surrounded by three seas). Similarly, it propagates the Greek character of Cyprus as well as the Greek character of southern Albania20 August 2007: EFA-Rainbow condemns the statements of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling party "Nea Dimokratia" who claims that Greeks should remember the unredeemed Greek territories in Turkey18 December 2007: EFA-Rainbow condemns the hypocritical statements made by the Greek Minister of the Interior, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, in Strasburg in the occasion of the Human Rights Day (10 December).19 December 2007: EFA-Rainbow makes official complaint to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs after receiving an abusive e-mail by the Greek Embassy in Dublin18 February 2008: EFA - Rainbow's answer to Mrs Dora Bakoyanni - Greek Foreign Minister "... in Greece the only international recognized minority is the Muslim minority"20 May 2008: Greece is constantly and hypocritically accusing the Republic of Macedonia for "irredentist practices". The bitter truth is, that at the same time, official state bodies like the Greek Army express a scandalous irredentism against the Republic of Macedonia, openly & provocatively declaring in their public announcements that "Macedonia is One and Greek"23 May 2008: Greek Minister of Justice, Hatzigakis, refers EFA-Rainbow and the Greek Helsinki Monitor to the attorney's office of the Supreme Court of Greece accusing them of "anti-Hellenic propaganda" following a question from an extreme right MP from LAOS . Is a new prosecution of EFA - Rainbow underway?So-called "name issue"During the last 12 months the so-called "name issue" between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia has received much attention. While officially the matter is between the respective states, the essence of the matter, in Rainbow's opinion, concerns Macedonian ethnic identity i.e. Greece's refusal to recognise it. Therefore as members of the Macedonian minority of Greece, EFA-Rainbow felt obliged to become actively involved in the issue.On 5 November 2007 Rainbow sent a letter to Matthew Nimetz, the UN Special Representative. In that letter Rainbow writes that "the essence of the internal problem of this question for Greece is the denial of the recognition and the respect of a separate and distinct Macedonian ethnic/national identity different from the Greek one, because to do so would result in the collapse of the Greek myth of national homogeneity that the state has imposed for decades now." The letter ends by stating that Rainbow believes that "the international community should finally send a clear political message in relation the existing negative position of our state, Greece, regarding the Republic of Macedonia. We believe that such this will assist in the task of beginning a progressive ideological reform of the Greek state and indeed of Greek society, which are essential in order to make Greek policy in the region positive and constructive. This is particular importance for the peace and stability of our region, especially given that the "Yugoslav crisis" is coming to an end with the imminent decision on the future status of Kosovo."Following Greece's veto of the Republic of Macedonia to receive an invitation to join NATO, Rainbow released the following statement entitled "Greek nationalism strengthens the Macedonian national identity and reinforces the Macedonian nation". The detailed analysis of the Greek veto and general policy on the Macedonian question observed that "Greece, by preventing the neighbouring country to enter NATO, managed to seal its objective to create an enemy on our northern borders. The day that comes will not be the same as before. By using the right to veto, Greece pushed these friendly people to change their behaviour towards our country. In addition, the veto emphasizes the Macedonian identity inside the neighbouring country. It reinforces the Macedonian nation and national identity. Those were not the only repercussions of the April 4, 2008 veto. It destroyed all the false hopes that the politicians and the society of the neighbouring country had in the Greek intentions and policy towards them. This denial unites all the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia against the one who has proven to be the "enemy of the people." The previous convictions of Greece along with this last unfriendly act of denying membership into NATO, unfortunately transformed the Macedonian identity from being equal to that of the Hellenic one, into an identity opposed to Hellenism. The latest events are particularly disturbing for our country. They displayed (once again) unproductive anti-Americanism and cohesion of the red battlefront at the level of political practice. Our country, captured in the "nationalist glass bell", with the majority of its population being intellectually handicapped, begins to show characteristics of an Eastern country, with Parliamentary clothing and national-socialist features."HOW YOU CAN HELP VINOZITOThe continuing success of EFA-Rainbow (Vinozhito) is largely dependent on the level of resourcing available. As mentioned above, five years ago the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee established the Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund. In practice this has meant, that for four years straight, Vinozhito has received monthly financial assistance without exception. This is a tradition worth maintaining!Also, whilst the AMHRC provides financial contributions to OMO-Ilinden-Pirin, we are trying to increase the number of members to the Fund so that we can establish a consistent and regular monthly support package to OMO-Ilinden- Pirin, similar to the one in place with Vinozhito. In this way, the Macedonian Human Rights movement will be able to better plan and co-ordinate their activities in a more integrated manner Membership of this fund costs only $120 per year for employed persons and $60 for pensioners, students and unemployed persons. Payments are then transferred on a monthly basis to Vinozito.Donations can be made to the following WESTPAC bank account:Account Name: Macedonian Human Rights Committee of Melbourne and Victoria
BSB: 033365
Account No: 189484. For further information, please contact the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee on (03) 9460 2910 or email: macedonian_rights@hotmail.comAUSTRALIAN-MACEDONIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE
Membership of the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee is open to all individuals who pledge to the organisation's principles, objectives and constitution.
As a member of the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee you automatically become a member of the "Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund" This fund provides regular financial assistance to the European Free Alliance – Rainbow (Vinozito), the political party of the Macedonian minority of Greece and to OMO-Ilinden- Pirin, a political party in Bulgaria defending the rights of the Macedonian minority.
Annual membership fees are as follows:
Adults $120
Students & Pensioners $60
Please send your name, address, telephone number and email address together with a cheque or money order for the appropriate amount to:
Australian Macedonian Human Rights CommitteePO Box 364Doncaster VIC 3108
Alternatively you can pay your membership fees by directly depositing the appropriate amount into the following Westpac bank account.
Account Name: Macedonian Human Rights Committee of Melbourne and VictoriaBSB: 033365Account No: 189484
Important: If you directly deposit your membership fees into the above mentioned bank account please inform us or else we will not be able to identify you.
Telephone: (03) 9460 2910macedonian_rights@hotmail.com
As a member of the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee you automatically become a member of the "Macedonian Minorities' Support Fund" This fund provides regular financial assistance to the European Free Alliance – Rainbow (Vinozito), the political party of the Macedonian minority of Greece and to OMO-Ilinden- Pirin, a political party in Bulgaria defending the rights of the Macedonian minority.
Annual membership fees are as follows:
Adults $120
Students & Pensioners $60
Please send your name, address, telephone number and email address together with a cheque or money order for the appropriate amount to:
Australian Macedonian Human Rights CommitteePO Box 364Doncaster VIC 3108
Alternatively you can pay your membership fees by directly depositing the appropriate amount into the following Westpac bank account.
Account Name: Macedonian Human Rights Committee of Melbourne and VictoriaBSB: 033365Account No: 189484
Important: If you directly deposit your membership fees into the above mentioned bank account please inform us or else we will not be able to identify you.
Telephone: (03) 9460 2910macedonian_rights@hotmail.com
solomos solomou & Tasos Isaac: 2 Christian Turk lost cunts
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=SMut7pF8eSc
Solomos Solomou (Greek: Σολωμός Σολωμού) (1970 - 14 August 1996), was a Greek Cypriot refugee who died after being shot five times [1], while trying to climb the pole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast,[2] in the aftermath of the funeral of his cousin Tassos Isaac, who was also killed by Grey Wolves[3] a few days earlier
Following the funeral of Tassos Isaac who was beaten to death by a Turkish mob in the UN buffer zone three days earlier, a group of unarmed Greek Cypriots re-entered the area where Isaac was murdered in order to demonstrate against his unlawful killing.
Among these demonstrators was Solomou who was a second cousin of Isaac.[4]. At around 2:20 pm, Solomou distanced himself from the rest of the demonstrators and walked towards a Turkish military post in Dheryneia. With a cigarette in his mouth, Solomou climbed the flag pole with the intention of removing the Turkish flag but was shot by Turkish snipers three times; in the mouth, in the neck and in the stomach.[2] The whole scene was taped by bystanding journalists and was seen on live television. Solomou's funeral was held on the 16th of August in Paralimni, among thousands of people and an official Cypriot day of mourning.
A few days after the killings of Isaac and Solomou, the then Prime Minister of Greece, Costas Simitis came to Cyprus and together with the then President of Cyprus, Glafcos Clerides visited the homes of the families of the two cousins.
On her part, the then Turkish Foreign Minister, Tansu Ciller who also visited Cyprus (the occupied north) a few days after Isaac and Solomou were killed, addressed a rally saying that Turks would "break the hands" of anyone who insulted their flag.
Solomos Solomou (Greek: Σολωμός Σολωμού) (1970 - 14 August 1996), was a Greek Cypriot refugee who died after being shot five times [1], while trying to climb the pole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast,[2] in the aftermath of the funeral of his cousin Tassos Isaac, who was also killed by Grey Wolves[3] a few days earlier
Following the funeral of Tassos Isaac who was beaten to death by a Turkish mob in the UN buffer zone three days earlier, a group of unarmed Greek Cypriots re-entered the area where Isaac was murdered in order to demonstrate against his unlawful killing.
Among these demonstrators was Solomou who was a second cousin of Isaac.[4]. At around 2:20 pm, Solomou distanced himself from the rest of the demonstrators and walked towards a Turkish military post in Dheryneia. With a cigarette in his mouth, Solomou climbed the flag pole with the intention of removing the Turkish flag but was shot by Turkish snipers three times; in the mouth, in the neck and in the stomach.[2] The whole scene was taped by bystanding journalists and was seen on live television. Solomou's funeral was held on the 16th of August in Paralimni, among thousands of people and an official Cypriot day of mourning.
A few days after the killings of Isaac and Solomou, the then Prime Minister of Greece, Costas Simitis came to Cyprus and together with the then President of Cyprus, Glafcos Clerides visited the homes of the families of the two cousins.
On her part, the then Turkish Foreign Minister, Tansu Ciller who also visited Cyprus (the occupied north) a few days after Isaac and Solomou were killed, addressed a rally saying that Turks would "break the hands" of anyone who insulted their flag.
Ancient Macedonian genes in Modern Macedonians.
On the question by some Greek citizen which is: What are the origin of the Slavo-Macedonians? The iGenea institute on their official forum answers: First of all, they are Macedonians, not Slavo-Macedonians like you call them by your political reasons. Most of the Macedonians are direct descendants of the ancient one, and just a small part of them are Slav origin. For bigger disappointment for the Greeks, iGenea reveals that only 32% of the Greeks have Hellenic, Macedonian, even Arabic origin. Other 31% of the Greeks have Celt, 12% German and Slav, and 11% have Illyrian origin.In the last period the official forum of the Swiss institute is full with questions that arrive from the Greek citizens, which are mostly interested about the origin of the Macedonians instead of their own origin. I also found the following from the iGenea websiteiGENEA works together closely with FamilytreeDNA. The DNA-Analyses are performed in the laboratory of FamilytreeDNA in Houston (USA).FamilyTreeDNA was founded in 2000 and was the first company in the world to carry out DNA-genealogy tests that concentrated on genealogical research. Today, FamilyTreeDNA possesses the largest genealogical DNA database in the world.iGENEA is the European branch of Family Tree DNA, the leading organisation for DNA genealogy. FamilyTreeDNA carries out 90% of all DNA genealogy tests worldwide.The focus of our area of research lies on the analysis of European origins and the comparison of historical, anthropological, and archaeological sources with the newest discoveries from the field of genetics. iGENEA wants to learn, which indigenous peoples left their traces in Europe and what fascinating and multitudinous roots today's Europeans still carry in them.iGENEA is a bridge between historical research and genetics and seeks to use the advantages offered by both fields in an interdisciplinary manner, in order to learn more about our origins. While research in the field of history provides the underlying theory, methods of genetic research enable us to evaluate the effects and truth content of the underlying historical assumptions.Y-Haplogroups (from iGenea website)MacedoniaI2A – 39%, E1B1B – 26%, RIA - 20%, J2 – 15%, RIB – 10%SerbiaI2A – 28%, E1B1B – 20%,, RIA – 19%, J2 – 9%, RIB – 14%BulgariaE1B1B – 31%, RIA – 28%, RIB – 41%GreeceI2A – 11%, E1B1B – 32%, RIA – 12%, J2 – 14%, RIB - 31%UkraineI2A – 15%, E1B1B – 10%, RIA – 57%, J2 – 7%, RIB – 11%Post from iGENEA to 14.07.2008 (from official iGenea forum in response to a question)We have a lot of customers, who carried out a DNATest and discovered their Macedonian roots. A German journalist is actually searching Macedonian customers; Please, if you would be interest to talk to her, contact me under : pazos@gentest.ch. Inma PazosiGENEATel. +41 (0)43 233 81 51info@igenea.comhttp://www.igenea.com/ Furhter from iGenea websiteHow can a family be genetically distinguished? The DNA of all human beings is up to 99.9% identical. The remaining 0.1% are the source of the individual differences (e.g. eye colour, risks of certain illnesses, or deviations with no discernable function). Once in a while, there are non-functional sections in DNA, a coincidental harmless change called a Mutation. All descendants of that person will inherit this same mutation. If the same mutation shows up generations later in the DNA of two people, it is apparent, that they have a common ancestor. Mutations build the basis for the construction of a genetic family tree. How can DNA say anything about my Origins? Comparison of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome DNA of people from different people groups provide geneticists with an idea of when and where these groups have travelled in the migrations of peoples around the world. Mutations do not merely mark individual families, but also entire sub-populations (population groups). When one researches the occurrence or frequency of certain mutations (markers), one can sub-divide the complex family tree of the human race into individual branches. If a people group migrates, or lives for a long time in geographic isolation– meaning that there would be no genetic exchange with other groups– then it develops its own mutation pattern. It becomes a haplogroup with genetic characteristics, that are unmistakeable. Each one of these groups stands for a branch of the human family tree: In Europe, for example, other haplogroups are distributed than in Africa or Asia. Even social and religious traditions leave their traces behind in the inherited genetic material, since the members of some groups preferentially marry among themselves. Although, for example, Celts and Germanic Tribes often encountered each other, there were hardly any intermarriages. The same is true, for example, of Jews, who lived in isolation for centuries and have thus preserved specific genetic characteristics. Even when written history falls silent, DNAGenealogy can further research and decipher the history of humankind. Thanks to the socalled molecular clock, the point in time when two lines divided and the epoch in which their last common ancestor lived can be determined. Analyses of genetic material also reveal the Wanderlust of the first humans. Researches discovered remarkable similarities between the people groups in India, Oceania, and Australia, as well as between Siberian peoples and Native Americans. Thanks to the molecular clock, we can not only determine the point in time and the origin of the migration, but also how the peoples are related to each other. This is how, for example, the ancestral origin of the Basques was discovered. http://www.igenea.com/index.php
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The Drama of the Aegean Macedonians
Wednesday, 02 July 2008
Source: Utrinski Vesnik
By Viktor Cvetanovski
Translated by Zlatko Nikolovski, UMD Member in Vienna, Austria
An eight-day long nighttime march through ice and snow.
“Together with another two women and 40 children, on March 26, 1948, we abandoned the village after the attack by government troops, who kidnapped 13 children whose parents were in the DAG divisions, while we hid ourselves with the other women and children. They also bombed the village. We traveled through the snow and winter at night, while hiding during the daytime. “Near the village Trnovo, two government planes shot at us, but luckily nobody was injured. We joined a group of about 400 children being led by a few women. They were from the vicinity of Kostur (present-day Kastoria in Greece) and the women told us that their group had been repeatedly attacked by government planes, and had lost four children as a result. Near the village of Mavrochori, more refugees joined us, women and children from four villages (Dolno Kotori, Lagem, Turija, and Tren).” This dramatic re-telling of the children’s eight-day journey from their birthplaces to the villages of Dolno Dupeni and Ljubojno near Prespa (in present-day Republic of Macedonia) is by Lena Sulevska from the village of Gorno Kotori, near Lerin. Miško Kitanovski and Gjorgji Doneski are retelling her story together with the traumatic testimony of other mothers regarding the uprooting of 28,000 children from Aegean Macedonia (present-day northern Greece) from their birthplaces in the book “The Child-Refugees of Aegean Macedonia.” Sulevska said that at the time 20 women and 500 children gathered and traveled towards the north, moving only at night. “Throughout the journey we each carried three children, two in our hands, and one on our backs. From the village of Konomladi strong snows and heavy winds trailed us. We massaged the children’s feet to avoid frostbite,” recalls Sulevska, who was a replacement mother for 25 of the children. When they arrived at the village of Štrkovo, a surprise air attack forced them with the children and local population to seek shelter in the mountains, where they remained the entire day. “The children were crying from fear and cold, and we were forced to light a fire. But then the planes came back, and we had to throw our clothing and the children rocks to put out the fire,” says Sulevska. Fear of the airplanes prevented them from lighting fires again. At nightfall, they continued their journey and in two days reached the village of German; the following day, they unknowingly crossed the Yugoslav border. At daybreak, women from the Yugoslav Red Cross met them and wept at their hungry and barefoot state. The refugees were fed and transported to Bitola. “The difficulties of traveling in the cold left visible traces on the children. Even after arriving in Bitola (in present-day Republic of Macedonia), our children cried loudly, the same way they did during the entire journey. Many of them were vomiting, we women had tears in our hands and necks and shoulders from carrying them, and our backs and chests had dark bruises. The children were flea-ridden and dirty because they could not bathe the entire way, and the path was 100km and eight days long. Their eyes were bloodshot and only had rags for clothing,” recalls “mother” Lena Sulevska. Elena Eftova who fled from the village of Turje, also near Lerin (present day Florina in Greece), with 114 children tells a similar story. “The monarcho-fascists bombed the village with cannons. Six houses were destroyed and 34 houses were burned completely. Then they invaded the village, looted it, and let loose 500 sheep, while we watched hidden in the mountains. Our soldiers were nowhere, and the anger of the monarcho-fascists was unleashed on a few of the remaining villagers. During the bombing, a 10-year old girl named Lefterija Doneva was hit in the chest and wounded in her stomach. In her serious state, they took her to the basement of the house, while the bombing lasted. After the bombing, we took the girl from the village, but she died in the mountains in agonizing pain, and so we buried her near the village of Rula. The mother of this girl fled with us, though we lost track of her later and I don’t know where she is now,” says Eftova. Vasilka Delova from Lagen fled with two other women and a girl, leading 71 children. “While the attacks by the government troops lasted, we hid in the trenches outside the village. We went into the village at night looking for food. By the village of Konomladi, we joined a second large group, and together we fled to Yugoslavia. Even after five months, even though the children were put up in orphanages, they could not free themselves from the trauma of the attacks on the village and the difficulties and tortures they endured while fleeing that military hell,” she says. After the death of her husband, Jordana Jančova, from the village of Trsje, near Lerin, was left alone with her five children. Fearing that she too would be murdered, she decided to flee across the border. “At the time the mothers in the village left their children in my care to save them from the fearsome bombings of the American, British, and Greek planes,” she says. “And thus came that black day – March 24, 1948. During the nighttime, the drama of goodbyes began. Near the school in my village of Rudari about 100 children gathered, divided in groups of 25; I was in charge of one of those groups. Among these children were two young brothers, Vasil and Goče. We gathered them into harnesses and left. The mothers ran after us to give the children their final messages: “Sandra, remember your mother;” Hrisula, daughter, don’t cry, we’ll come back;” “Kosta, be careful, son,’” tells, “mother” Stoja Jankovska, who was with the first group of 500 children. Around midnight they arrived at German, and on morning of March 25, they left for Bela Voda, on the Yugoslavian-Greek border, where they met the other groups from German, Medovo, Rabin, Štrkovo, and where they hid all day from the airplanes. They met three guides who brought them bread and cheese, a final goodbye from the mothers they left behind. “At dusk, when there were no more of the black “birds” in the sky (who were unsuccessfully looking for us all day), we left for the border, on the path of our long-sought freedom. We reached a large opening, laid the children down together, and covered them with whatever we had, rags, leaves, branches. Some of the other guides and I went looking for our border guards,” tells “mother” Stoja. After arriving in Dolno Dupeni and Ljubojno, they were transferred onto trucks to Brailovo, and from there by train to Skopje. “On the platform at the old train station in Skopje there was a warm and heartfelt welcome for the children from Aegean Macedonia. They got off the train for a short break, while the women in white – the women from the Red Cross and from the AFŽ gave them candies for the first time in their lives. What joy that was! My children didn’t know that they had to unwrap the candy from is wrapper…” recalls “mother” Stoja, who added that despite the outstanding living and work conditions, despite the outpouring of care they gave to the children, regardless, even when they matured, they still cried and sought their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. “Later, when the decision was made to reunite the families, we sought the parents of the children, via embassies and consulates, through the Red Cross and via letter-writing campaigns. We wrote letters, to which we received many replies. Thus began the correspondence between the children with their mother, father, sister, or brother,” says “mother” Stoja.
Wednesday, 02 July 2008
Source: Utrinski Vesnik
By Viktor Cvetanovski
Translated by Zlatko Nikolovski, UMD Member in Vienna, Austria
An eight-day long nighttime march through ice and snow.
“Together with another two women and 40 children, on March 26, 1948, we abandoned the village after the attack by government troops, who kidnapped 13 children whose parents were in the DAG divisions, while we hid ourselves with the other women and children. They also bombed the village. We traveled through the snow and winter at night, while hiding during the daytime. “Near the village Trnovo, two government planes shot at us, but luckily nobody was injured. We joined a group of about 400 children being led by a few women. They were from the vicinity of Kostur (present-day Kastoria in Greece) and the women told us that their group had been repeatedly attacked by government planes, and had lost four children as a result. Near the village of Mavrochori, more refugees joined us, women and children from four villages (Dolno Kotori, Lagem, Turija, and Tren).” This dramatic re-telling of the children’s eight-day journey from their birthplaces to the villages of Dolno Dupeni and Ljubojno near Prespa (in present-day Republic of Macedonia) is by Lena Sulevska from the village of Gorno Kotori, near Lerin. Miško Kitanovski and Gjorgji Doneski are retelling her story together with the traumatic testimony of other mothers regarding the uprooting of 28,000 children from Aegean Macedonia (present-day northern Greece) from their birthplaces in the book “The Child-Refugees of Aegean Macedonia.” Sulevska said that at the time 20 women and 500 children gathered and traveled towards the north, moving only at night. “Throughout the journey we each carried three children, two in our hands, and one on our backs. From the village of Konomladi strong snows and heavy winds trailed us. We massaged the children’s feet to avoid frostbite,” recalls Sulevska, who was a replacement mother for 25 of the children. When they arrived at the village of Štrkovo, a surprise air attack forced them with the children and local population to seek shelter in the mountains, where they remained the entire day. “The children were crying from fear and cold, and we were forced to light a fire. But then the planes came back, and we had to throw our clothing and the children rocks to put out the fire,” says Sulevska. Fear of the airplanes prevented them from lighting fires again. At nightfall, they continued their journey and in two days reached the village of German; the following day, they unknowingly crossed the Yugoslav border. At daybreak, women from the Yugoslav Red Cross met them and wept at their hungry and barefoot state. The refugees were fed and transported to Bitola. “The difficulties of traveling in the cold left visible traces on the children. Even after arriving in Bitola (in present-day Republic of Macedonia), our children cried loudly, the same way they did during the entire journey. Many of them were vomiting, we women had tears in our hands and necks and shoulders from carrying them, and our backs and chests had dark bruises. The children were flea-ridden and dirty because they could not bathe the entire way, and the path was 100km and eight days long. Their eyes were bloodshot and only had rags for clothing,” recalls “mother” Lena Sulevska. Elena Eftova who fled from the village of Turje, also near Lerin (present day Florina in Greece), with 114 children tells a similar story. “The monarcho-fascists bombed the village with cannons. Six houses were destroyed and 34 houses were burned completely. Then they invaded the village, looted it, and let loose 500 sheep, while we watched hidden in the mountains. Our soldiers were nowhere, and the anger of the monarcho-fascists was unleashed on a few of the remaining villagers. During the bombing, a 10-year old girl named Lefterija Doneva was hit in the chest and wounded in her stomach. In her serious state, they took her to the basement of the house, while the bombing lasted. After the bombing, we took the girl from the village, but she died in the mountains in agonizing pain, and so we buried her near the village of Rula. The mother of this girl fled with us, though we lost track of her later and I don’t know where she is now,” says Eftova. Vasilka Delova from Lagen fled with two other women and a girl, leading 71 children. “While the attacks by the government troops lasted, we hid in the trenches outside the village. We went into the village at night looking for food. By the village of Konomladi, we joined a second large group, and together we fled to Yugoslavia. Even after five months, even though the children were put up in orphanages, they could not free themselves from the trauma of the attacks on the village and the difficulties and tortures they endured while fleeing that military hell,” she says. After the death of her husband, Jordana Jančova, from the village of Trsje, near Lerin, was left alone with her five children. Fearing that she too would be murdered, she decided to flee across the border. “At the time the mothers in the village left their children in my care to save them from the fearsome bombings of the American, British, and Greek planes,” she says. “And thus came that black day – March 24, 1948. During the nighttime, the drama of goodbyes began. Near the school in my village of Rudari about 100 children gathered, divided in groups of 25; I was in charge of one of those groups. Among these children were two young brothers, Vasil and Goče. We gathered them into harnesses and left. The mothers ran after us to give the children their final messages: “Sandra, remember your mother;” Hrisula, daughter, don’t cry, we’ll come back;” “Kosta, be careful, son,’” tells, “mother” Stoja Jankovska, who was with the first group of 500 children. Around midnight they arrived at German, and on morning of March 25, they left for Bela Voda, on the Yugoslavian-Greek border, where they met the other groups from German, Medovo, Rabin, Štrkovo, and where they hid all day from the airplanes. They met three guides who brought them bread and cheese, a final goodbye from the mothers they left behind. “At dusk, when there were no more of the black “birds” in the sky (who were unsuccessfully looking for us all day), we left for the border, on the path of our long-sought freedom. We reached a large opening, laid the children down together, and covered them with whatever we had, rags, leaves, branches. Some of the other guides and I went looking for our border guards,” tells “mother” Stoja. After arriving in Dolno Dupeni and Ljubojno, they were transferred onto trucks to Brailovo, and from there by train to Skopje. “On the platform at the old train station in Skopje there was a warm and heartfelt welcome for the children from Aegean Macedonia. They got off the train for a short break, while the women in white – the women from the Red Cross and from the AFŽ gave them candies for the first time in their lives. What joy that was! My children didn’t know that they had to unwrap the candy from is wrapper…” recalls “mother” Stoja, who added that despite the outstanding living and work conditions, despite the outpouring of care they gave to the children, regardless, even when they matured, they still cried and sought their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. “Later, when the decision was made to reunite the families, we sought the parents of the children, via embassies and consulates, through the Red Cross and via letter-writing campaigns. We wrote letters, to which we received many replies. Thus began the correspondence between the children with their mother, father, sister, or brother,” says “mother” Stoja.
Aegean Macedonians speak of their lands
Aegean Macedonians from Macedonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Canada, USA, Australia, Russia etc, speak out on their properties in Greece.
Everyone has an opinion, though they all agree on two things:
- Greece needs to pay us rent for occupying our land and properties for the past 60 years
- We need our properties and land back, it is up to us if we are going to sell or keep it
The most shocking of all cases is a Macedonian, presently living in Skopje, who submitted his papers to the Macedonian Government asking for 176 million euros from the Greek Government. The Macedonian Government thought the man had made a mistake, until they noticed how much land his grandfather owned near the Aegean Sea. His grandfather, had earned large sums of money while working in the U.S. for many years and purchased vast lands upon his return to Salonika. The land was taken away by the monarchofascist Greek Government in 1948. His grandfather was forced out of Greece.
Other Aegean Macedonians, around 30,000, are all asking for their land and property back, valued on average at 1 million euros.
For decades, the Aegean Macedonians have pressured the Yugoslav Government about their properties and land in Greece. The pressure transferred to the Macedonian Government, who turned a deaf ear. The then Socialist Macedonian Government had insisted of the need to have good relations with Greece and refused to help them. Wealthy Aegean Macedonians had sought help and spoke to Attorneys in Athens. Greek Attorneys, not interested in politics, told the Macedonians they have the right of their properties back, suggested hiring foreign attorneys, and suing in a Foreign Court, hinting of Strasbourg. Macedonians who could afford this have already done so, hired Macedonian, Greek and Swiss Attorneys.
The Greek Government have created some disturbingly racist and discriminating laws against Macedonians. After it became evident Yugoslavia would disintegrate, in 1985, Athens Parliament approved a law that would bar anyone (Macedonians) getting their land and properties back if they were not "pure Greeks of father/mother". Later, another law was passed that barred Macedonians from getting their land back because they have "illegally" left Greece, even though Greece forced them out.
Aegean Macedonians spoke of the Greek Communists who with the Macedonians were like brothers and fought shoulder to shoulder against the Greek (British) monarchy in Athens. Athens had not created problems for them even though they were like 'one' with the Macedonians. Greek Communist today have members in Parliament.
Gjorgji Donevski, of the Aegean Macedonian Association, says he has documents that Greece had carefully planned the genocide of the Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia, long before the Civil War. "The Civil War had been an excuse to go with their plans. The laws Greece has created to make sure Aegean Macedonians can't return to their land, is just another proof." says Donevski.
"Think of this, tomorrow the U.S. decides to kick out 10 million citizens, sends them to 20 different countries, and they can't return forever!? It's ludicrous even as an example. Greece is the only country that has kicked out its own citizens and made sure they can't return while breaking every imaginable law and human rights convention," concluded Donevski.
Everyone has an opinion, though they all agree on two things:
- Greece needs to pay us rent for occupying our land and properties for the past 60 years
- We need our properties and land back, it is up to us if we are going to sell or keep it
The most shocking of all cases is a Macedonian, presently living in Skopje, who submitted his papers to the Macedonian Government asking for 176 million euros from the Greek Government. The Macedonian Government thought the man had made a mistake, until they noticed how much land his grandfather owned near the Aegean Sea. His grandfather, had earned large sums of money while working in the U.S. for many years and purchased vast lands upon his return to Salonika. The land was taken away by the monarchofascist Greek Government in 1948. His grandfather was forced out of Greece.
Other Aegean Macedonians, around 30,000, are all asking for their land and property back, valued on average at 1 million euros.
For decades, the Aegean Macedonians have pressured the Yugoslav Government about their properties and land in Greece. The pressure transferred to the Macedonian Government, who turned a deaf ear. The then Socialist Macedonian Government had insisted of the need to have good relations with Greece and refused to help them. Wealthy Aegean Macedonians had sought help and spoke to Attorneys in Athens. Greek Attorneys, not interested in politics, told the Macedonians they have the right of their properties back, suggested hiring foreign attorneys, and suing in a Foreign Court, hinting of Strasbourg. Macedonians who could afford this have already done so, hired Macedonian, Greek and Swiss Attorneys.
The Greek Government have created some disturbingly racist and discriminating laws against Macedonians. After it became evident Yugoslavia would disintegrate, in 1985, Athens Parliament approved a law that would bar anyone (Macedonians) getting their land and properties back if they were not "pure Greeks of father/mother". Later, another law was passed that barred Macedonians from getting their land back because they have "illegally" left Greece, even though Greece forced them out.
Aegean Macedonians spoke of the Greek Communists who with the Macedonians were like brothers and fought shoulder to shoulder against the Greek (British) monarchy in Athens. Athens had not created problems for them even though they were like 'one' with the Macedonians. Greek Communist today have members in Parliament.
Gjorgji Donevski, of the Aegean Macedonian Association, says he has documents that Greece had carefully planned the genocide of the Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia, long before the Civil War. "The Civil War had been an excuse to go with their plans. The laws Greece has created to make sure Aegean Macedonians can't return to their land, is just another proof." says Donevski.
"Think of this, tomorrow the U.S. decides to kick out 10 million citizens, sends them to 20 different countries, and they can't return forever!? It's ludicrous even as an example. Greece is the only country that has kicked out its own citizens and made sure they can't return while breaking every imaginable law and human rights convention," concluded Donevski.
Aegean Macedonia after 1946
Kostur - Egejska MakedoniaOppressive Measures Following World War II 1
The Greek policy towards Macedonians in the course of the Second World War had a dual goal: to maintain the process of the assimilation and de-nationalization of Macedonians and the prevention of the creation and development of a Macedonian liberation movement with a Macedonian national programme in the Aegean part of Macedonia. With this aim in mind, the Greek right wing formed a variety of nationalist and chauvinist organizations in the Aegean part of Macedonia, such as the Protection of Northern Greece (I'VE), the Pan-Greek Liberation Organization (PAO) and others such, as well as a variety of military formations which persecuted the Macedonians, using terror, murder, Mass court proceedings, deportation, plundering, confiscation of property, clearances, resettlement, etc. In the given period 3,482 houses were burned down, 80 villages consisting of 1,605 families were plundered and 1,045 head of large live-stock and 23,382 head of small livestock were confiscated.
In order to put the anti-Macedonian persecution on a legal basis the Greek authorities passed laws, decrees and other enactments by which Macedonians were subjected to large-scale persecution. We shall mention only a few such laws: Law N2 453 and Law TOD of July 1945 "on the securement of public safety"; Law 509/1945 "on public order and banditry"; Law 543/45 against organizations and individuals acting in favour of secession from the Greek territories", etc.
The anti-Macedonian harshness of these laws surpassed the Compulsory Law S2 2366 of 7th September 1938, passed by Metaxas' regime and aimed at erasing every possible trace of the Macedonian national character of the Aegean part of Macedonia.
Under these laws Macedonian men and women, members of the Macedonian national democratic organizations, the National Liberation Front (NOF), the National Liberation Youth Association (NOMS) and the Antifascist Women's Front (AFZ) were proclaimed bandits. As soon as a person was proclaimed a bandit his or her next of kin and any other people who could be suspected of helping him or her were interned, in accordance with the regulations of these laws.
Law 543/45 "against autonomist activity" helped rig thousands of charges against Macedonians accused of co-operation with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in activities aimed at the secession of the Aegean part of Macedonia and similar offences. Special commissions formed in every village or other populated place preferred mass charges against Macedonians to the District Attorney's office, with groundless accusations of collaboration with the occupier, autonomistic activities and the like. In the Kostur region alone 4,500 Macedonian men and women were accused of autonomistic activities, even though most of them were on active service with ELLAS. According to the information available, in the period from 1945 to the end of 1974 9,924 Macedonians were remanded in custody and 4,203 were convicted. 23,811 Macedonian men and women were interned on the basis of decisions of the special Security Commission.
It was becoming clear that the Greek authorities were resolved to continue the oppression of the Macedonians, notwithstanding the cost, and thus to force them to flee across the border. The wave of refugees was growing daily. Under the pressure exerted by the Greek authorities entire villages fled across the borders. The most -typical examples of forced migration of Macedonians are to be found in eastern Macedonia, where Greek terrorist bands killed 29 and imprisoned 3,100 Macedonians and expelled 600 Macedonian families across the borders - and this in the period from February to the end of March 1945 alone.
The situation was no different in the other areas of Aegean Macedonia. In 1948 the majority of the Macedonian population of western and central Aegean Macedonia fled to Yugoslavia and Albania in order to save their lives. More than 60,000 Macedonian men and women were forced to seek, refuge outside the country, fleeing across the border.
As well as all these methods and measures, the Greek authorities attempted one of the greatest crimes against the Macedonians. In June 1946 a group of Greek Members of Parliament suggested that the Greek Parliament issue a decree for the forced deportation of all Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia, a suggestion which was justified by their alleged activities, which were said to be a threat to the integrity and sovereignty of Greece and a danger to the peace. In the period before the announcement of the suggestion and during the debate in Parliament a campaign of slander against Macedonians was carried out by the entire state and propaganda machinery, this being aimed at preparing domestic and international public opinion to regard the eventual implementation of this suggested action as completely justified. Thus Macedonians were described, among other things, as the "Sudetens of the Balkans and it was said that for as long as they were present in Greece they would represent a cause of war and a focus of war among the Balkan lands: or in other words, there would be no peace.
For certain reasons both internal and external the Greek Parliament did not pass a decree on the exile of the Macedonians, but the Greek right wing clung to its policy on the exodus of the Macedonians. One of the Crimes committed by the Greek monarcho-fascists was the forced resettlement of their villagers and the dumping of them in special camps in urban centres, which had begun as early as 1946. According to the statistics, 213,000 people were forcibly exited from the Aegean part of Macedonia.
The terror, mass murder and other forms of repression proved ineffective when it came to breaking the spirit of Macedonians. Indeed, the Macedonian national liberation movement grew into an important and in certain periods even a decisive military and political factor in the country, one with clear and defined strategic goals. More than 20,000 Macedonians served in the ranks of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) and its auxiliary services. The liberated territory, covering mainly the territory of Aegean Macedonia, had popular rule, Macedonian people's schools, a Macedonian people's printing-house which published newspapers and other material in Macedonian, cultural and arts groups and other Macedonian institutions.
Faced with the stand taken by the Macedonians the Greek authorities tried yet another cunning manoeuver. In order to shatter the unity of the Macedonian people and of the Macedonian Liberation Movement the Greek government passed, on 23rd May 1949, a strictly confidential decree by which the Macedonians, until then considered "Bulgarians", and other non-Greek elements which were to be uprooted, were renamed "Slavicised Greeks", and were to be treated as such by the Greek authorities: they were thus to be granted all civil rights, and included in all sectors of political and state life and the like. Their being called by the names Bulgarians or Slav Macedonians was strictly prohibited, and the name of "Slavophone Greek" was the only one permitted. The governmental agencies were instructed to adapt themselves and to help the Macedonians in every way possible to develop trust in the state and to seek its protection, so that they would begin to approach government representatives freely for the solution of their problems.
This attempt on the part of the Greek right wing also proved to be a total failure. The decree had no effect on the Macedonians. They carried on with their struggle for national liberation and for the affirmation of their national identity with even greater intensity. As a result, the Greek authorities continued and even reinforced the violent repression of the Macedonians.
On 20th January 1948 the Greek government passed the "M" Decree ordering the confiscation of the property of those individuals who had taken part in the Civil War on the side of the Communist Party of Greece (CPG) and NOF, and of those who had assisted these organizations and whose Greek citizenship had been revoked.
In addition to this decree, the "N" Decree was passed on 2nd April 1948. This decree revoked the right of inheritance of all those who had taken part in or helped the Civil War. In view of the fact that large numbers of Macedonians had taken part in the Civil War, the consequences of this Decree and other regulations were borne mostly by them, but, after all, that was the main intention of the decrees.
The implementation of these laws and decrees continued even after the Civil War had come to an end, for they were supported by enactments issued by the Ministerial Council of Greece: Nos. 944/1950; 253/1951; 826/ 1952. All these regulations were sanctioned by article 105, inserted into the Greek Constitution in 1952.
The aim of this was to prevent Macedonia ns returning to their homes even after the end of the Civil War. Commissions for the confiscation and expropriation of refugees' property and for the allocation of this to new owners were formed in every district.
The property confiscated and expropriated from the Macedonians was allotted to people loyal to the regime and to those who had distinguished themselves in the struggle against DAG and particularly against the Macedonians. Most of these people were brought in from the Greek hinterland.
On 23rd February 1953 a meeting of the Greek military and administrative authorities in Macedonia was held in Thessaloniki at which it was decided to propose that the Greek government pass a law on the resettlement and re-inhabiting of the so-called sensitive border areas of the Aegean part of Macedonia. it was suggested that all Macedonians from within 60 kilometers of the border be resettled, as disloyal elements, and that in their place Greeks loyal to the regime should be brought in as "healthy elements" with "pure Greek national awareness.
The Greek government accepted this proposal and submitted it to the Greek Parliament which, on 4th August 1953, passed Law NL- 2536 on the resettlement of the population from the border areas. In accordance with the regulations of this law special state commissions were formed which effected the resettlement, selected people of pure Greek origin and established them in the Macedonian border areas, handing over to them the Macedonians, property. Among these people there were Greek nationalists, chauvinists and anti-Macedonians who had distinguished themselves in the struggle against NOF and DAG.
A case in point, and not an isolated one, is that of the group of Macedonian villages called Janovenski in the Kostur region, the inhabitants of which had all fought in the ranks of ELLAS. Some of the inhabitants of these villages did not emigrate but were resettled in other parts of Macedonia. When the Civil War ended they requested to be allowed to return to their villages, but their request was turned down and their properties were pillaged and their homes demolished.
The court proceedings for the return of their estates have lasted for decades. After the end of the Civil War the question of the confiscated properties became very strained. There were many new laws and regulations on the issue. The aim was to avoid returning the Macedonians' property, to prevent them from returning to their homes and thus to prevent the creation of conditions for the formation of a compact Macedonian population.
All this was in the interest of the Graecization of the Aegean part of Macedonia. The problem of the estates was taken care of in Regulations Nos. 3958 and 2951 of 1959, as well as in Law *- 4234, known as "Measures for Public Order", passed by K. Karamanlis's government in 1962, and by the 1972 decree No. 666. Under these regulations Macedonians were prevented from realizing their rights.
An enormous number of applications for repatriation were turned down and those few who succeeded in returning could not have their estates back, which forced them to engage in marathon lawsuits which eventually ended to their disadvantage. In accordance with tradition, the Greek church took an active part in the anti-Macedonian campaign. Besides the daily sermons of anti-Slav and anti-Macedonian content preached by Greek priests, the Greek church took measures to force the Macedonians to give a collective and public oath that in future they would not use Macedonian but only the Greek language.
In April 1980 the leadership of the Central Committee for Political Refugees (KEPPE) submitted a demand to the Greek government that political refugees be allowed freely and unconditionally to return to their homes. Minister Konstantinos Stephanopulos replied that the request could not be granted, because of national interests. In his explanation Stephanopulos stated that in certain parts of Greece there were areas in which there had lived and still lived people of a reduced national feeling, i.e. territories with a sensitive population composition, so that if a free repatriation of such people were to be allowed, Greece would have to face once again a national issue and danger in certain sensitive areas. Recent history had confirmed this, said Stephanopulos. He went on to offer a precise figure of 40,000 people residing in East European countries (Macedonians) and to say that this did not constitute an issue that concerned Greece.
That this was out of the question so far as Greece was concerned. For these reasons, according to Stephanopulos, the Greek government could not accept or apply the principle of free repatriation. When the Pan-Greek Socialist Alliance (PASOK) assumed power, the government of Andreas Papandreou sharpened the measures towards assimilation and de-nationalization even further. On 30th December 1982 this government passed a law on the free repatriation of refugees from Greece, i.e. of those "Greek by birth", by which the Macedonians (as non-Greeks by birth) were deprived of the possibility of returning to their homes, to the country of their birth.
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The Greek Civil War
"From the period prior to the Metaxas dictatorship until after the Civil War, the Greek Communist Party recognized the large ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece. Click here to read articles from the newspaper Rizospastis.
""Toward the end of World War II, Aegean Macedonians formed the Slav National Liberation Front (SNOF) in alliance with the Greek Communist forces in order to resist the fascist occupation of Macedonia by the Germans and Bulgarians. During this period in the liberated areas of Greece under Communist control, Macedonians were free to publish newspapers, establish schools, and hold church services, all in the Macedonian language."
"During the Civil War that followed, Aegean Macedonians continued their struggle for the creation of an autonomous Aegean Macedonia, which would ultimately become part of a united and independent Macedonia. But in 1949, with the defeat of the 'democratic forces of Greece' by the 'promonarchist bourgeois forces' of the Greek government, these hopes were dashed. Over the course of the Civil War thousands of Aegean Macedonians were killed, imprisoned, or had their land confiscated, and many Macedonian villages were completely destroyed. Fifty thousand Aegean Macedonians were forced to flee their homes and escape to Yugoslavia in order to avoid persecution. In one of the most tragic episodes of this period 28,000 Aegean Macedonian children, known as 'child refugees' (Deca Begalci), were separated from their families and settled in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in an attempt to save them from the terror, slaughter, and bombing inflicted on Aegean Macedonians by the Greek government." 2
A Macedonian living in Melbourne, Australia, Vangel Rozakis, recalls his experiences of the Greek Civil War:
"We've been fighting for our freedom for two thousand years. With the referendum we finally broke our chains. The more you suppress a people, the more they assert their identity. People are like tobacco seeds; there can be a drought for thirty or forty years, but when the moisture comes, the seeds will begin to grow."
"The hell we've seen, especially from the Greek side. We'll have nightmares till we die. The Macedonian people went through a mincing machine and came out a people who fight for freedom."
"My grandfather was arrested because he was a Macedonian. He was sixty years old, and he didn't speak Greek. He didn't know anything about politics either. He went to jail for four years because he wouldn't sign a paper saying he was Greek. I'll never forgive the Greeks for that. Every family here has dropped a tear from the Greek government. My wife saw a Greek soldier cut open a woman who was eight months pregnant and put her baby on the end of his bayonet. That's what makes the nightmares come. Where was the UN? Where was Europe?"
"I remember sitting with my friends for three days in a dirt hole with no food and no water. The Greek soldiers had machine guns; they were just waiting for orders from Athens to kill us. They dropped a bomb on my godfather's house and killed eleven members of his family. It wasn't their nation; it wasn't their people. We were Macedonians. They did it so they could bring Greeks from Asia Minor to take our land."3
"After the Varkisa agreement (12-2-1945), the use of the Macedonian name and the Macedonian language were once again prohibited in the Aegean part of Macedonia and the Greek authorities started applying medieval terror against the Macedonians. In the period of 1945-46 alone, according to statistics: 400 murders were registered; 440 women and girls were raped; 13,529 interned on the Greek islands; 8,145 imprisoned in the Greek prisons; 4,209 indicted; 3,215 sentenced to prison; 13 driven mad by the torture in the prisons; 45 villages abandoned; 80 villages pillaged; 1,605 families plundered; and 1,943 families evicted."
"In order to protect themselves from this attempt at ethnic extermination, the Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia began to organize and provide armed resistance against the nationalistic policy of the Greek government. Macedonian organizations (NOF, AFZ, NOMS) played invaluable historical roles in the organization of the Macedonian resistance."
"At the beginning of the Greek Civil War (1946-49), the Macedonian people were drawn into the conflict not because of Communist aspirations, but by the promise of granting them full national and human rights. These included the rights to use the Macedonian language publicly, be educated in the Macedonian language, and to be able to establish and worship in Macedonian churches. It also included the promise of the right to self-determination through the establishment of of autonomous Macedonia. Because of these factors, the Macedonian people took massive participation in the Greek Civil War with over 20,000 Macedonians who actively participated in the armed resistance, and hundreds of thousands more who supported them."
"For a short time during the conflict, certain rights were granted to the Macedonians in Greece. The Macedonian language flourished in the schools and churches. Eighty seven Macedonian language schools with over 10,000 pupils were opened, and cultural theatrical performances in Macedonian were an everyday occurrence."
"Unfortunately, this period ended with the systematic bombing and destruction of the cities and villages in the Aegean part of Macedonia. The genocide and terror perpetuated against the innocent civilian population raged on without any restraints from any local or international authorities." 4
The Period Following the Greek Civil War"During this period (following WWII and the Greek Civil War) these Slavic-speaking people who knew they were not Greek-these Macedonians-were severely persecuted. They were accused of being 'Communists,' on the one hand, and 'Slavs' or "Bulgarians," on the other. They were considered 'enemies of the state' because of their politics and because of their ethnic or national identity. On both counts they were not 'real Greeks'; they were not full members of the Greek nation."
"The persecution of the Macedonians in Greece took on two particularly egregious forms: the administration of language oaths and the confiscation of property. In the late 1950's the inhabitants of several villages in the districts of Florina (Lerin), Kastoria (Kostur), and Edhessa (Voden) were forced to take oaths in which they swore never again to speak 'the local Slavic idiom,' but to speak only Greek." They took the following oath:
"I promise before God and men and the official authorities of the state that from this day on I shall cease speaking the Slavic idiom, which only gives grounds for misunderstanding to the enemies of our country, the Bulgarians, and that I will speak everywhere and always the official language of my fatherland, the Greek language, in which the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ is written." 5
Petro Shorev, a seventy-five year old man born in Voden living in Skopje, crying, told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that he wants to visit his parents' graves, but is not allowed into Greece (Aegean Macedonia):
"My heart is suffering. I am a wounded man. I don't know if I will be alive tomorrow or next year to see their graves. I go to the border and ask to visit, but the guards won't let me. My nephew used to visit, but now he is afraid to, since Macedonian independence. I have two sisters in Solun, but they're afraid to try to visit me too. I left in 1944. I never got a notice that the Greeks had taken away my citizenship. I became a Yugoslav citizen (now Macedonian) in 1957. I have property in Greece (Aegean Macedonia), in Voden. I can't go to claim it, and I was never paid for it." 6
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Decata Begalci (The Child Refugees)
Over 28,000 Macedonian children were evacuated by the Red Cross during the Greek Civil War in order to prevent them from being killed by the Greek government. After the war, they were not permitted to return to their birthplaces and to be reunited with their families:
"In 1947 those who had fought against the government in the civil war and fled Greece were deprived of their citizenship and their property." 7
This affected the Deca Begalci despite the fact that they were evacuated, as children, in order to save their lives. The Greek government attempted to "purify" Greece by denying Macedonians re-entry into the country to resettle, reclaim their property or even to visit. Their aim was to repopulate Aegean Macedonia with ethnic Greeks, a process started after the annexation of Aegean Macedonia in 1913. The discrimination against the Macedonian participants in the Civil War continued several decades later, as is evident by the following quote:
"In 1982, a Greek ministerial decree (Decree Number 106841 of December 29, 1982) provided that 'all Greeks by genus (ie. of Greek origin) who during the Civil War of 1946-49 and because of it have fled abroad as political refugees may return to Greece, in spite of the fact that Greek citizenship had been taken away from them. In 1985, a law was enacted that permitted political refugees who were 'Greek by origin' to reclaim their property, thus excluding Macedonians from doing so."
"Human Rights Watch/Helsinki has been unable to obtain accurate figures on the number of people 'of Greek origin' who availed themselves of the 1982 law, but the number is in the thousands." Those who considered themselves Macedonians, although born in Greece (Aegean Macedonia), or children of parents born in Greece, were not permitted to return, even, for the most part, to visit." 8
"Because of these life-threatening circumstances, it was decided to evacuate the children and to save them from certain death. Although it was only supposed to be a temporary measure, it became a life-long exile for the vast majority of the children."
"A total of 28,000 children, aged 2-14 years, left their war-torn homeland for the safety of the Eastern European countries. With the assistance of the Red Cross in these countries, they were housed, fed and educated. Tragically, 1,200 children between the ages of 14-15 were brought back to the battlefield by the Provisional Government of the Greek Communists, the majority of whom were slaughtered in the last days of the Greek Civil War."
"For the Macedonian children that remained in the Eastern European countries, life was made very difficult by the separation from their parents, grandparents, and the homes in which they were raised. Because of the generosity of the host countries, the basic needs of the children were always fulfilled, even to the extent that Macedonian language classes were a regular part of the school curriculum. With time, the majority of the children emigrated to the free part of Macedonia (at the time the Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia), only a handful returned to the Aegean part of Macedonia because of the ongoing discrimination and attempt at the assimilation of the ethnic Macedonians. Many of the children later emigrated to Western countries such as Canada, the United States and Australia, to be re-united with other members of their families, and became prominent and productive members of those societies."
"The situation in the Aegean part of Macedonia has unfortunately not changed significantly since the 1940's. Even internationally guaranteed fundamental human rights are not enjoyed by the ethnic Macedonians in Greece, the Greek government denies the very existence of any Macedonian minority within its borders. In 1982, the Greek Parliament, under the leadership of Mr. Andreas Papandreou, passed legislation named Bill 1540, which allowed for a general amnesty and repatriation of all political refugees who left Greece during the Civil War, a restoration of their civil rights and the reinstatement of confiscated properties. The injustice lies in the fact that Bill 1540 only applies to persons of Greek nationality. Any of the children who left Greece and declare themselves as Greek citizens of Macedonian ethnicity are not granted repatriation."
"It is ironic that the former leaders of the Greek Communist Party, who were responsible for the Civil War, were allowed to return freely to Greece, while innocent children that were evacuated with the help of the Red Cross are prevented from returning to their birthplaces. Even as Canadian citizens with valid Canadian passports, they are not permitted to visit Greece as tourists or to attend funerals of immediate family members. All this because the former children refugees declare themselves to be ethnically Macedonian, a right which is guaranteed by all International Human Rights Agreements and to which Greece is a signatory."
"The Association of Refugee Children from Aegean Macedonia (ARCAM) was formed in the year 1979, with the intention of uniting all former Macedonian children refugees living in Canada and throughout the whole world. One of the main objectives of ARCAM was to facilitate the adaptation of these people into their new homelands so that they could become more productive members of their respective societies. Another main objective was to organize the refugee children to work in a systematic manner for the achievement of fundamental human and national rights as ethnic Macedonians. With chapters of ARCAM existing in: Toronto, Canada; Adelaide, Australia; Perth, Australia; Melbourne, Australia; Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; Poland; Czech Republic; and Slovakia, they will continue their struggle until Greece recognizes the Macedonians within its borders as a separate ethnic people, grants them all of the fundamental human rights as enjoyed by other ethnic groups throughout the world and as guaranteed by International Agreements such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the 1975 Helsinki (human rights) Accords." 9
References
Macedonia and Its Relations With Greece, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, 1993; p.80-85
Danforth, Loring M.,The Macedonian Conflict, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1995; p.54
Ibid; p.75-76
Human Rights Violations Against Ethnic Macedonians-Report 1996, Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada, Toronto, 1996; p.111-112
Danforth, Loring M.,The Macedonian Conflict, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1995; p.76-77
Denying Ethnic Identity: the Macedonians of Greece, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, New York, 1994; p.28
Ibid; p.9
Ibid; p.9
Human Rights Violations Against Ethnic Macedonians-Report 1996, Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada, Toronto, 1996; p.111-112
The Greek policy towards Macedonians in the course of the Second World War had a dual goal: to maintain the process of the assimilation and de-nationalization of Macedonians and the prevention of the creation and development of a Macedonian liberation movement with a Macedonian national programme in the Aegean part of Macedonia. With this aim in mind, the Greek right wing formed a variety of nationalist and chauvinist organizations in the Aegean part of Macedonia, such as the Protection of Northern Greece (I'VE), the Pan-Greek Liberation Organization (PAO) and others such, as well as a variety of military formations which persecuted the Macedonians, using terror, murder, Mass court proceedings, deportation, plundering, confiscation of property, clearances, resettlement, etc. In the given period 3,482 houses were burned down, 80 villages consisting of 1,605 families were plundered and 1,045 head of large live-stock and 23,382 head of small livestock were confiscated.
In order to put the anti-Macedonian persecution on a legal basis the Greek authorities passed laws, decrees and other enactments by which Macedonians were subjected to large-scale persecution. We shall mention only a few such laws: Law N2 453 and Law TOD of July 1945 "on the securement of public safety"; Law 509/1945 "on public order and banditry"; Law 543/45 against organizations and individuals acting in favour of secession from the Greek territories", etc.
The anti-Macedonian harshness of these laws surpassed the Compulsory Law S2 2366 of 7th September 1938, passed by Metaxas' regime and aimed at erasing every possible trace of the Macedonian national character of the Aegean part of Macedonia.
Under these laws Macedonian men and women, members of the Macedonian national democratic organizations, the National Liberation Front (NOF), the National Liberation Youth Association (NOMS) and the Antifascist Women's Front (AFZ) were proclaimed bandits. As soon as a person was proclaimed a bandit his or her next of kin and any other people who could be suspected of helping him or her were interned, in accordance with the regulations of these laws.
Law 543/45 "against autonomist activity" helped rig thousands of charges against Macedonians accused of co-operation with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in activities aimed at the secession of the Aegean part of Macedonia and similar offences. Special commissions formed in every village or other populated place preferred mass charges against Macedonians to the District Attorney's office, with groundless accusations of collaboration with the occupier, autonomistic activities and the like. In the Kostur region alone 4,500 Macedonian men and women were accused of autonomistic activities, even though most of them were on active service with ELLAS. According to the information available, in the period from 1945 to the end of 1974 9,924 Macedonians were remanded in custody and 4,203 were convicted. 23,811 Macedonian men and women were interned on the basis of decisions of the special Security Commission.
It was becoming clear that the Greek authorities were resolved to continue the oppression of the Macedonians, notwithstanding the cost, and thus to force them to flee across the border. The wave of refugees was growing daily. Under the pressure exerted by the Greek authorities entire villages fled across the borders. The most -typical examples of forced migration of Macedonians are to be found in eastern Macedonia, where Greek terrorist bands killed 29 and imprisoned 3,100 Macedonians and expelled 600 Macedonian families across the borders - and this in the period from February to the end of March 1945 alone.
The situation was no different in the other areas of Aegean Macedonia. In 1948 the majority of the Macedonian population of western and central Aegean Macedonia fled to Yugoslavia and Albania in order to save their lives. More than 60,000 Macedonian men and women were forced to seek, refuge outside the country, fleeing across the border.
As well as all these methods and measures, the Greek authorities attempted one of the greatest crimes against the Macedonians. In June 1946 a group of Greek Members of Parliament suggested that the Greek Parliament issue a decree for the forced deportation of all Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia, a suggestion which was justified by their alleged activities, which were said to be a threat to the integrity and sovereignty of Greece and a danger to the peace. In the period before the announcement of the suggestion and during the debate in Parliament a campaign of slander against Macedonians was carried out by the entire state and propaganda machinery, this being aimed at preparing domestic and international public opinion to regard the eventual implementation of this suggested action as completely justified. Thus Macedonians were described, among other things, as the "Sudetens of the Balkans and it was said that for as long as they were present in Greece they would represent a cause of war and a focus of war among the Balkan lands: or in other words, there would be no peace.
For certain reasons both internal and external the Greek Parliament did not pass a decree on the exile of the Macedonians, but the Greek right wing clung to its policy on the exodus of the Macedonians. One of the Crimes committed by the Greek monarcho-fascists was the forced resettlement of their villagers and the dumping of them in special camps in urban centres, which had begun as early as 1946. According to the statistics, 213,000 people were forcibly exited from the Aegean part of Macedonia.
The terror, mass murder and other forms of repression proved ineffective when it came to breaking the spirit of Macedonians. Indeed, the Macedonian national liberation movement grew into an important and in certain periods even a decisive military and political factor in the country, one with clear and defined strategic goals. More than 20,000 Macedonians served in the ranks of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) and its auxiliary services. The liberated territory, covering mainly the territory of Aegean Macedonia, had popular rule, Macedonian people's schools, a Macedonian people's printing-house which published newspapers and other material in Macedonian, cultural and arts groups and other Macedonian institutions.
Faced with the stand taken by the Macedonians the Greek authorities tried yet another cunning manoeuver. In order to shatter the unity of the Macedonian people and of the Macedonian Liberation Movement the Greek government passed, on 23rd May 1949, a strictly confidential decree by which the Macedonians, until then considered "Bulgarians", and other non-Greek elements which were to be uprooted, were renamed "Slavicised Greeks", and were to be treated as such by the Greek authorities: they were thus to be granted all civil rights, and included in all sectors of political and state life and the like. Their being called by the names Bulgarians or Slav Macedonians was strictly prohibited, and the name of "Slavophone Greek" was the only one permitted. The governmental agencies were instructed to adapt themselves and to help the Macedonians in every way possible to develop trust in the state and to seek its protection, so that they would begin to approach government representatives freely for the solution of their problems.
This attempt on the part of the Greek right wing also proved to be a total failure. The decree had no effect on the Macedonians. They carried on with their struggle for national liberation and for the affirmation of their national identity with even greater intensity. As a result, the Greek authorities continued and even reinforced the violent repression of the Macedonians.
On 20th January 1948 the Greek government passed the "M" Decree ordering the confiscation of the property of those individuals who had taken part in the Civil War on the side of the Communist Party of Greece (CPG) and NOF, and of those who had assisted these organizations and whose Greek citizenship had been revoked.
In addition to this decree, the "N" Decree was passed on 2nd April 1948. This decree revoked the right of inheritance of all those who had taken part in or helped the Civil War. In view of the fact that large numbers of Macedonians had taken part in the Civil War, the consequences of this Decree and other regulations were borne mostly by them, but, after all, that was the main intention of the decrees.
The implementation of these laws and decrees continued even after the Civil War had come to an end, for they were supported by enactments issued by the Ministerial Council of Greece: Nos. 944/1950; 253/1951; 826/ 1952. All these regulations were sanctioned by article 105, inserted into the Greek Constitution in 1952.
The aim of this was to prevent Macedonia ns returning to their homes even after the end of the Civil War. Commissions for the confiscation and expropriation of refugees' property and for the allocation of this to new owners were formed in every district.
The property confiscated and expropriated from the Macedonians was allotted to people loyal to the regime and to those who had distinguished themselves in the struggle against DAG and particularly against the Macedonians. Most of these people were brought in from the Greek hinterland.
On 23rd February 1953 a meeting of the Greek military and administrative authorities in Macedonia was held in Thessaloniki at which it was decided to propose that the Greek government pass a law on the resettlement and re-inhabiting of the so-called sensitive border areas of the Aegean part of Macedonia. it was suggested that all Macedonians from within 60 kilometers of the border be resettled, as disloyal elements, and that in their place Greeks loyal to the regime should be brought in as "healthy elements" with "pure Greek national awareness.
The Greek government accepted this proposal and submitted it to the Greek Parliament which, on 4th August 1953, passed Law NL- 2536 on the resettlement of the population from the border areas. In accordance with the regulations of this law special state commissions were formed which effected the resettlement, selected people of pure Greek origin and established them in the Macedonian border areas, handing over to them the Macedonians, property. Among these people there were Greek nationalists, chauvinists and anti-Macedonians who had distinguished themselves in the struggle against NOF and DAG.
A case in point, and not an isolated one, is that of the group of Macedonian villages called Janovenski in the Kostur region, the inhabitants of which had all fought in the ranks of ELLAS. Some of the inhabitants of these villages did not emigrate but were resettled in other parts of Macedonia. When the Civil War ended they requested to be allowed to return to their villages, but their request was turned down and their properties were pillaged and their homes demolished.
The court proceedings for the return of their estates have lasted for decades. After the end of the Civil War the question of the confiscated properties became very strained. There were many new laws and regulations on the issue. The aim was to avoid returning the Macedonians' property, to prevent them from returning to their homes and thus to prevent the creation of conditions for the formation of a compact Macedonian population.
All this was in the interest of the Graecization of the Aegean part of Macedonia. The problem of the estates was taken care of in Regulations Nos. 3958 and 2951 of 1959, as well as in Law *- 4234, known as "Measures for Public Order", passed by K. Karamanlis's government in 1962, and by the 1972 decree No. 666. Under these regulations Macedonians were prevented from realizing their rights.
An enormous number of applications for repatriation were turned down and those few who succeeded in returning could not have their estates back, which forced them to engage in marathon lawsuits which eventually ended to their disadvantage. In accordance with tradition, the Greek church took an active part in the anti-Macedonian campaign. Besides the daily sermons of anti-Slav and anti-Macedonian content preached by Greek priests, the Greek church took measures to force the Macedonians to give a collective and public oath that in future they would not use Macedonian but only the Greek language.
In April 1980 the leadership of the Central Committee for Political Refugees (KEPPE) submitted a demand to the Greek government that political refugees be allowed freely and unconditionally to return to their homes. Minister Konstantinos Stephanopulos replied that the request could not be granted, because of national interests. In his explanation Stephanopulos stated that in certain parts of Greece there were areas in which there had lived and still lived people of a reduced national feeling, i.e. territories with a sensitive population composition, so that if a free repatriation of such people were to be allowed, Greece would have to face once again a national issue and danger in certain sensitive areas. Recent history had confirmed this, said Stephanopulos. He went on to offer a precise figure of 40,000 people residing in East European countries (Macedonians) and to say that this did not constitute an issue that concerned Greece.
That this was out of the question so far as Greece was concerned. For these reasons, according to Stephanopulos, the Greek government could not accept or apply the principle of free repatriation. When the Pan-Greek Socialist Alliance (PASOK) assumed power, the government of Andreas Papandreou sharpened the measures towards assimilation and de-nationalization even further. On 30th December 1982 this government passed a law on the free repatriation of refugees from Greece, i.e. of those "Greek by birth", by which the Macedonians (as non-Greeks by birth) were deprived of the possibility of returning to their homes, to the country of their birth.
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The Greek Civil War
"From the period prior to the Metaxas dictatorship until after the Civil War, the Greek Communist Party recognized the large ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece. Click here to read articles from the newspaper Rizospastis.
""Toward the end of World War II, Aegean Macedonians formed the Slav National Liberation Front (SNOF) in alliance with the Greek Communist forces in order to resist the fascist occupation of Macedonia by the Germans and Bulgarians. During this period in the liberated areas of Greece under Communist control, Macedonians were free to publish newspapers, establish schools, and hold church services, all in the Macedonian language."
"During the Civil War that followed, Aegean Macedonians continued their struggle for the creation of an autonomous Aegean Macedonia, which would ultimately become part of a united and independent Macedonia. But in 1949, with the defeat of the 'democratic forces of Greece' by the 'promonarchist bourgeois forces' of the Greek government, these hopes were dashed. Over the course of the Civil War thousands of Aegean Macedonians were killed, imprisoned, or had their land confiscated, and many Macedonian villages were completely destroyed. Fifty thousand Aegean Macedonians were forced to flee their homes and escape to Yugoslavia in order to avoid persecution. In one of the most tragic episodes of this period 28,000 Aegean Macedonian children, known as 'child refugees' (Deca Begalci), were separated from their families and settled in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in an attempt to save them from the terror, slaughter, and bombing inflicted on Aegean Macedonians by the Greek government." 2
A Macedonian living in Melbourne, Australia, Vangel Rozakis, recalls his experiences of the Greek Civil War:
"We've been fighting for our freedom for two thousand years. With the referendum we finally broke our chains. The more you suppress a people, the more they assert their identity. People are like tobacco seeds; there can be a drought for thirty or forty years, but when the moisture comes, the seeds will begin to grow."
"The hell we've seen, especially from the Greek side. We'll have nightmares till we die. The Macedonian people went through a mincing machine and came out a people who fight for freedom."
"My grandfather was arrested because he was a Macedonian. He was sixty years old, and he didn't speak Greek. He didn't know anything about politics either. He went to jail for four years because he wouldn't sign a paper saying he was Greek. I'll never forgive the Greeks for that. Every family here has dropped a tear from the Greek government. My wife saw a Greek soldier cut open a woman who was eight months pregnant and put her baby on the end of his bayonet. That's what makes the nightmares come. Where was the UN? Where was Europe?"
"I remember sitting with my friends for three days in a dirt hole with no food and no water. The Greek soldiers had machine guns; they were just waiting for orders from Athens to kill us. They dropped a bomb on my godfather's house and killed eleven members of his family. It wasn't their nation; it wasn't their people. We were Macedonians. They did it so they could bring Greeks from Asia Minor to take our land."3
"After the Varkisa agreement (12-2-1945), the use of the Macedonian name and the Macedonian language were once again prohibited in the Aegean part of Macedonia and the Greek authorities started applying medieval terror against the Macedonians. In the period of 1945-46 alone, according to statistics: 400 murders were registered; 440 women and girls were raped; 13,529 interned on the Greek islands; 8,145 imprisoned in the Greek prisons; 4,209 indicted; 3,215 sentenced to prison; 13 driven mad by the torture in the prisons; 45 villages abandoned; 80 villages pillaged; 1,605 families plundered; and 1,943 families evicted."
"In order to protect themselves from this attempt at ethnic extermination, the Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia began to organize and provide armed resistance against the nationalistic policy of the Greek government. Macedonian organizations (NOF, AFZ, NOMS) played invaluable historical roles in the organization of the Macedonian resistance."
"At the beginning of the Greek Civil War (1946-49), the Macedonian people were drawn into the conflict not because of Communist aspirations, but by the promise of granting them full national and human rights. These included the rights to use the Macedonian language publicly, be educated in the Macedonian language, and to be able to establish and worship in Macedonian churches. It also included the promise of the right to self-determination through the establishment of of autonomous Macedonia. Because of these factors, the Macedonian people took massive participation in the Greek Civil War with over 20,000 Macedonians who actively participated in the armed resistance, and hundreds of thousands more who supported them."
"For a short time during the conflict, certain rights were granted to the Macedonians in Greece. The Macedonian language flourished in the schools and churches. Eighty seven Macedonian language schools with over 10,000 pupils were opened, and cultural theatrical performances in Macedonian were an everyday occurrence."
"Unfortunately, this period ended with the systematic bombing and destruction of the cities and villages in the Aegean part of Macedonia. The genocide and terror perpetuated against the innocent civilian population raged on without any restraints from any local or international authorities." 4
The Period Following the Greek Civil War"During this period (following WWII and the Greek Civil War) these Slavic-speaking people who knew they were not Greek-these Macedonians-were severely persecuted. They were accused of being 'Communists,' on the one hand, and 'Slavs' or "Bulgarians," on the other. They were considered 'enemies of the state' because of their politics and because of their ethnic or national identity. On both counts they were not 'real Greeks'; they were not full members of the Greek nation."
"The persecution of the Macedonians in Greece took on two particularly egregious forms: the administration of language oaths and the confiscation of property. In the late 1950's the inhabitants of several villages in the districts of Florina (Lerin), Kastoria (Kostur), and Edhessa (Voden) were forced to take oaths in which they swore never again to speak 'the local Slavic idiom,' but to speak only Greek." They took the following oath:
"I promise before God and men and the official authorities of the state that from this day on I shall cease speaking the Slavic idiom, which only gives grounds for misunderstanding to the enemies of our country, the Bulgarians, and that I will speak everywhere and always the official language of my fatherland, the Greek language, in which the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ is written." 5
Petro Shorev, a seventy-five year old man born in Voden living in Skopje, crying, told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that he wants to visit his parents' graves, but is not allowed into Greece (Aegean Macedonia):
"My heart is suffering. I am a wounded man. I don't know if I will be alive tomorrow or next year to see their graves. I go to the border and ask to visit, but the guards won't let me. My nephew used to visit, but now he is afraid to, since Macedonian independence. I have two sisters in Solun, but they're afraid to try to visit me too. I left in 1944. I never got a notice that the Greeks had taken away my citizenship. I became a Yugoslav citizen (now Macedonian) in 1957. I have property in Greece (Aegean Macedonia), in Voden. I can't go to claim it, and I was never paid for it." 6
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Decata Begalci (The Child Refugees)
Over 28,000 Macedonian children were evacuated by the Red Cross during the Greek Civil War in order to prevent them from being killed by the Greek government. After the war, they were not permitted to return to their birthplaces and to be reunited with their families:
"In 1947 those who had fought against the government in the civil war and fled Greece were deprived of their citizenship and their property." 7
This affected the Deca Begalci despite the fact that they were evacuated, as children, in order to save their lives. The Greek government attempted to "purify" Greece by denying Macedonians re-entry into the country to resettle, reclaim their property or even to visit. Their aim was to repopulate Aegean Macedonia with ethnic Greeks, a process started after the annexation of Aegean Macedonia in 1913. The discrimination against the Macedonian participants in the Civil War continued several decades later, as is evident by the following quote:
"In 1982, a Greek ministerial decree (Decree Number 106841 of December 29, 1982) provided that 'all Greeks by genus (ie. of Greek origin) who during the Civil War of 1946-49 and because of it have fled abroad as political refugees may return to Greece, in spite of the fact that Greek citizenship had been taken away from them. In 1985, a law was enacted that permitted political refugees who were 'Greek by origin' to reclaim their property, thus excluding Macedonians from doing so."
"Human Rights Watch/Helsinki has been unable to obtain accurate figures on the number of people 'of Greek origin' who availed themselves of the 1982 law, but the number is in the thousands." Those who considered themselves Macedonians, although born in Greece (Aegean Macedonia), or children of parents born in Greece, were not permitted to return, even, for the most part, to visit." 8
"Because of these life-threatening circumstances, it was decided to evacuate the children and to save them from certain death. Although it was only supposed to be a temporary measure, it became a life-long exile for the vast majority of the children."
"A total of 28,000 children, aged 2-14 years, left their war-torn homeland for the safety of the Eastern European countries. With the assistance of the Red Cross in these countries, they were housed, fed and educated. Tragically, 1,200 children between the ages of 14-15 were brought back to the battlefield by the Provisional Government of the Greek Communists, the majority of whom were slaughtered in the last days of the Greek Civil War."
"For the Macedonian children that remained in the Eastern European countries, life was made very difficult by the separation from their parents, grandparents, and the homes in which they were raised. Because of the generosity of the host countries, the basic needs of the children were always fulfilled, even to the extent that Macedonian language classes were a regular part of the school curriculum. With time, the majority of the children emigrated to the free part of Macedonia (at the time the Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia), only a handful returned to the Aegean part of Macedonia because of the ongoing discrimination and attempt at the assimilation of the ethnic Macedonians. Many of the children later emigrated to Western countries such as Canada, the United States and Australia, to be re-united with other members of their families, and became prominent and productive members of those societies."
"The situation in the Aegean part of Macedonia has unfortunately not changed significantly since the 1940's. Even internationally guaranteed fundamental human rights are not enjoyed by the ethnic Macedonians in Greece, the Greek government denies the very existence of any Macedonian minority within its borders. In 1982, the Greek Parliament, under the leadership of Mr. Andreas Papandreou, passed legislation named Bill 1540, which allowed for a general amnesty and repatriation of all political refugees who left Greece during the Civil War, a restoration of their civil rights and the reinstatement of confiscated properties. The injustice lies in the fact that Bill 1540 only applies to persons of Greek nationality. Any of the children who left Greece and declare themselves as Greek citizens of Macedonian ethnicity are not granted repatriation."
"It is ironic that the former leaders of the Greek Communist Party, who were responsible for the Civil War, were allowed to return freely to Greece, while innocent children that were evacuated with the help of the Red Cross are prevented from returning to their birthplaces. Even as Canadian citizens with valid Canadian passports, they are not permitted to visit Greece as tourists or to attend funerals of immediate family members. All this because the former children refugees declare themselves to be ethnically Macedonian, a right which is guaranteed by all International Human Rights Agreements and to which Greece is a signatory."
"The Association of Refugee Children from Aegean Macedonia (ARCAM) was formed in the year 1979, with the intention of uniting all former Macedonian children refugees living in Canada and throughout the whole world. One of the main objectives of ARCAM was to facilitate the adaptation of these people into their new homelands so that they could become more productive members of their respective societies. Another main objective was to organize the refugee children to work in a systematic manner for the achievement of fundamental human and national rights as ethnic Macedonians. With chapters of ARCAM existing in: Toronto, Canada; Adelaide, Australia; Perth, Australia; Melbourne, Australia; Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; Poland; Czech Republic; and Slovakia, they will continue their struggle until Greece recognizes the Macedonians within its borders as a separate ethnic people, grants them all of the fundamental human rights as enjoyed by other ethnic groups throughout the world and as guaranteed by International Agreements such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the 1975 Helsinki (human rights) Accords." 9
References
Macedonia and Its Relations With Greece, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, 1993; p.80-85
Danforth, Loring M.,The Macedonian Conflict, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1995; p.54
Ibid; p.75-76
Human Rights Violations Against Ethnic Macedonians-Report 1996, Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada, Toronto, 1996; p.111-112
Danforth, Loring M.,The Macedonian Conflict, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1995; p.76-77
Denying Ethnic Identity: the Macedonians of Greece, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, New York, 1994; p.28
Ibid; p.9
Ibid; p.9
Human Rights Violations Against Ethnic Macedonians-Report 1996, Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada, Toronto, 1996; p.111-112
Video's on youtube on Aegean Macedonians.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cNTTRusEx88&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=JBLSRBD6aLo&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=o6_ZULK2nH4&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEcbqop3as&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7VOA5qKhlOo&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rW1Ud0YfIqc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZ6JsWTb18&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LOFcR2yTKN8&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qj5raVhkwnE&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xHahIq5wLJ4&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YDb8MAuoMV4
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lRfrgu2qtXA
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=k8oW_hcNyZc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHoi9Y5Spc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPp5740zXg&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPp5740zXg&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=JBLSRBD6aLo&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=o6_ZULK2nH4&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEcbqop3as&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7VOA5qKhlOo&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rW1Ud0YfIqc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZ6JsWTb18&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LOFcR2yTKN8&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qj5raVhkwnE&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xHahIq5wLJ4&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YDb8MAuoMV4
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lRfrgu2qtXA
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=k8oW_hcNyZc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHoi9Y5Spc&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPp5740zXg&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPp5740zXg&feature=related
Friday, September 26, 2008
iGENEA - Today's Macedonians are direct descendants of the Ancient Macedonians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBqAQiGAvpU
A Macedonian genetic profile exists and has been discovered through the comparison of archaeological finds and persons with Macedonian roots. These studies enable us to determine the Macedonian roots of a person. We have 30% of Macedonians in Macedonia, 20% in Greece and minorities in Bulgaria and Albania. It is very important to differ between politics and genetics, we are a genetic institute and we don't have political aims!!! All countries in Europe show different roots…We have Arab, Berber, Phoenician, Iberian, Celtic, Germanic and Viking roots in Spain and Italian. Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonian, Croatia, etc, show genetic differences, but these are not as strong as politics tell us the whole time. Inma PazosiGENEATel. +41 (0)43 233 81 51info@igenea.comhttp://www.igenea.com/ The following is the genetic composition in the following countries (remember there is no such thing as a pure race), and notice how the Slav element is larger in Greece than in Macedonia. Post from iGENEA to 26.09.2008 Albania: 30% Illyrians 15% Phoenician 14% Hellenen 18%Thraker 2% Vikings 20% slavs Greece: 10% Germanic 10%illyrians 20% slavs 20% phoenician 5% macedonian (in north more than 18%) 35% Hellenen Bulgaria: 49%Thraker 11%macedonian 15%slavs 15%hellenen 5% pheonician Macedonia: 30%macedonian 10% illyrian 15% hellenen 5%phoenician 20% germanic 5% hunnen 15% slavs Inma PazosiGENEATel. +41 (0)43 233 81 51info@igenea.comhttp://www.igenea.com/ Let’s face it, migrations of people do occur and always has throughout history for what ever reason. But the way our history is written suggests that the whole of Macedonia, as well as regions of Thrace, Illyria, Greece and so on, were all overran by the so called Slavic people and thus completely replaced the people originally living there. To even think in such terms (by some people – unfortunately) is strange to even comprehend. Fair enough, if we are talking about very small regions and extremely small tribes, that can easily be overran. But when we are referring to Slavs overrunning powerful cultures and tribes, and thus land masses encompassing half of Europe and in such a short amount of time, as suggested by the Slav invasion theories (as emphasized by many Greeks and others – for obvious political reasons) it then becomes quite overwhelming, confusing and extraordinary to say the least.
The research by the Swiss Institute iGenea, frustrated the Greeks. The IGenea Institute explores the genetics of European people, and it is one of the leaders in the world in DNA analysis. The institute confirmed that today's descendants of the ancient Macedonians are Macedonians. When asked by a Greek citizen: "What is the origins of the Slavo-Macedonians?" The iGenea on her official Forum replied:First of all, they are Macedonians, not Slavo-Macedonians as you mention because of your political reasons. The majority of Macedonians are direct descendants of the ancient, and only a small part of them has Slavic origin. For the greater disappointment of the Greeks iGenea revealed that 32% were of Hellenic Greek, Macedonian, even Arab origin. Other 31% of Greeks have Celts, 12% German and Slavic, and 11% have Illyrian origin.For the Albanians and their faith confirmed iGenea the opposite of her believe iGenea says that it is the smallest percentage of Illyrian origin. Considering the DNA analysis, only 20% of Albanians have Illyrian origin, while 40% of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina direct descendants of the Illyrians are.In the last period is the official forum of the Swiss Institute iGenea with questions fully, by the Greek citizens arrive, which is mostly about the origin of the Macedonians instead of their own origin of interest. iGenea in their centers, except for the DNA analysis, uses historical, anthropological and archaeological resources.
A Macedonian genetic profile exists and has been discovered through the comparison of archaeological finds and persons with Macedonian roots. These studies enable us to determine the Macedonian roots of a person. We have 30% of Macedonians in Macedonia, 20% in Greece and minorities in Bulgaria and Albania. It is very important to differ between politics and genetics, we are a genetic institute and we don't have political aims!!! All countries in Europe show different roots…We have Arab, Berber, Phoenician, Iberian, Celtic, Germanic and Viking roots in Spain and Italian. Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonian, Croatia, etc, show genetic differences, but these are not as strong as politics tell us the whole time. Inma PazosiGENEATel. +41 (0)43 233 81 51info@igenea.comhttp://www.igenea.com/ The following is the genetic composition in the following countries (remember there is no such thing as a pure race), and notice how the Slav element is larger in Greece than in Macedonia. Post from iGENEA to 26.09.2008 Albania: 30% Illyrians 15% Phoenician 14% Hellenen 18%Thraker 2% Vikings 20% slavs Greece: 10% Germanic 10%illyrians 20% slavs 20% phoenician 5% macedonian (in north more than 18%) 35% Hellenen Bulgaria: 49%Thraker 11%macedonian 15%slavs 15%hellenen 5% pheonician Macedonia: 30%macedonian 10% illyrian 15% hellenen 5%phoenician 20% germanic 5% hunnen 15% slavs Inma PazosiGENEATel. +41 (0)43 233 81 51info@igenea.comhttp://www.igenea.com/ Let’s face it, migrations of people do occur and always has throughout history for what ever reason. But the way our history is written suggests that the whole of Macedonia, as well as regions of Thrace, Illyria, Greece and so on, were all overran by the so called Slavic people and thus completely replaced the people originally living there. To even think in such terms (by some people – unfortunately) is strange to even comprehend. Fair enough, if we are talking about very small regions and extremely small tribes, that can easily be overran. But when we are referring to Slavs overrunning powerful cultures and tribes, and thus land masses encompassing half of Europe and in such a short amount of time, as suggested by the Slav invasion theories (as emphasized by many Greeks and others – for obvious political reasons) it then becomes quite overwhelming, confusing and extraordinary to say the least.
The research by the Swiss Institute iGenea, frustrated the Greeks. The IGenea Institute explores the genetics of European people, and it is one of the leaders in the world in DNA analysis. The institute confirmed that today's descendants of the ancient Macedonians are Macedonians. When asked by a Greek citizen: "What is the origins of the Slavo-Macedonians?" The iGenea on her official Forum replied:First of all, they are Macedonians, not Slavo-Macedonians as you mention because of your political reasons. The majority of Macedonians are direct descendants of the ancient, and only a small part of them has Slavic origin. For the greater disappointment of the Greeks iGenea revealed that 32% were of Hellenic Greek, Macedonian, even Arab origin. Other 31% of Greeks have Celts, 12% German and Slavic, and 11% have Illyrian origin.For the Albanians and their faith confirmed iGenea the opposite of her believe iGenea says that it is the smallest percentage of Illyrian origin. Considering the DNA analysis, only 20% of Albanians have Illyrian origin, while 40% of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina direct descendants of the Illyrians are.In the last period is the official forum of the Swiss Institute iGenea with questions fully, by the Greek citizens arrive, which is mostly about the origin of the Macedonians instead of their own origin of interest. iGenea in their centers, except for the DNA analysis, uses historical, anthropological and archaeological resources.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Johann Gustav Droysen, creator of Greece's Fake History
Perhaps it was convenient that German created Greece's history. Only the Germans at the time understood how powerful history was, especially if you twisted, invented and fake it.People hear “Hellenistic this, Hellenistic that” all the time, envisioning in their mind something very ‘old’, ancient if you will. If you envisioned something old, you‘d be right, because it goes back to 1833. If you envisioned something ancient, sorry to disappoint you. What happened in 1833? Greece had just gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire. To be more precise it was given to her by France and Britain. In return, Greece received a French appointed German ruler, Prince Otto.
Otto was a freshly arrived hit in Greece. He loved the ethnic soup there, though he grew a bit concern as to how he would rule this people.
His biggest concern was Athens, where the Albanians and Turkish dominated. Prince Otto phoned his twenty seven (27) year old friend Johann Gustav Droysen at Friedrich Wilhelm University. The student turned part time teacher was such an authority on his subject “History” that he was a privatdozent and then a professor (appointed by Otto) without a salary.
Even Prince Otto didn’t think he was good enough to have a salary. Granted, friendship can sometimes go far, as in this case. Johann was hired by Greece’s ruler to create the “new history” for Greece, to unite the populace, give him an idea of a ‘language’ in such a way that the populations wouldn’t be in a conflict.Johann Gustav had recommended Albanian as the core language of Greece because it dominated Athens. This idea didn’t go well with Prince Otto who explained that people in and outside of Athens spoke Turkish as well. Besides, the idea was to unite the populations.
Johann’s showed his cleverness by suggesting to adopt the long lost Koine language. Imagine Americans today adopting what is now considered the dying Latin language.
Prince Otto loved Johann's idea and it was set in stone. Koine was the language. Better yet, the language was called “Greek”, the German born Greek ruler decided.
Little it was known that Otto’s friend and “history” professor Johann Gustav had transferred to yet another University, this time at Kiel, where once again was not able to get a salary. Shortly afterwards he made a decision to move into Politics! You’d think History would have worked out for him.
We are not done with Greece and Johann Gustav Droysen. Once the Koine language was introduced, Johan decided to further help Prince Otto in uniting the ethnic soup in Greece.
Hellenism.
This word was coined by none other, but our remarkable History Professor turned Politician Johann Gustav in 1836.
I understand few of you are disappointed because this term doesn’t go back in ancient time as some believe. 1836 is the year, the word Hellenism was first coined. Not a minute before that. When you consider who created the word, any comment can be superfluous.
By all means, Johann did his job, he was tasked to ’unite’, not to divide. Yes, he went perhaps a bit too far with the Hellenism phrase, not to mentioned calling Koine 'Greek'.
I suggest to Macedonians to adopt the Hebrew language and call it "Macedonian", that way anything they find written in Hebrew, can claim as being Macedonian. Easy enough, if you follow "Greek logic".
Perhaps, I’d accept the term “Hellenistic” to describe something that happened in Athens, though I don’t know what that would be, still, the term "Macedonistic" period should, and ought to be, used to cover any other historical references.
There is no denying that the period from Alexander the Great until well into the Roman time deals with Macedonian Dynasties, their rule, succession and their eventual interaction, or lack there of with the indigenous local populations throughout the Balkan Peninsula, Asia and Egypt.
The term "Hellenistic” can hardly do any justice to historical scholarship since its coverage/domain leaves a huge section of history barely touched. Hellenism, the term Johann Gustav Droysen gave to this era, is such a narrow cultural belt of history that its usage is not only misleading and inappropriate but it very much distorts and minimizes the greatness of the ancient Macedonians. Perhaps the Athenian contribution, from a cultural point of view, may be argued to have occupied a place of some importance in the administrative sector of the empire, the organizational, the military and the structural components of the Macedonian Empire must have been obtained, delivered and maintained strictly from Macedonian resources and for Macedonian interests.
The concept of an empire, an esoteric notion for the Athenians, was born with the first few initial successes of Alexander, and its meaning, magnitude, scope and structure grew as the string of victories and the success on the battlefields allowed Alexander to enlarge, coordinate and control huge land areas in Asia and Egypt. For almost 3 centuries after Alexander, it was his successors that carried the symbols and the name of the Macedonian Empire.
Thus, the very narrow strip of "Hellenism" that comes, as a residue, attached to the period in question, cannot, in any meaningful way, embrace and encompass the scope and the magnitude of an empire that was built, organized and maintained on the strength and the efficiency of the Macedonian army.If Johann would be alive today to see what his fake history and the god-father style of creating Greece has caused, I am certain he would have broken off his friendship to Prince Otto.
Marina Sazdovska
Friday, September 19, 2008
Vinozhito talking about the meeting with Gay McDougall
United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Ms. Gay McDougall, was in Florina (Lerin), Northern Greece today to investigate minority issues and meet with members of EFA-Rainbow (Vinozhito), representing the Macedonian minority in Greece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2OCbLgjx1s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2OCbLgjx1s
Anastasia Karakasidou
It's tough to live in Greece and have knowledge
All right, maybe we have taken shots at Greek Daily Eleftheros Tipos, here and there (it's hard not to).
Sure, they publish nonsense information and are an extended hand of the Greek Government, but today we realized that news to Greece travels very slow.
Perhaps Madame News is stopped at the Greek Border to clean up the area, show it has no intention of spreading un-Greek news that may in any way influence the Greek population. You see, Greeks are a sensitive bunch. They have so much history they have been told they have, that, well they are just sensitive to it.
Eleftheros Tipos became popular with their "New Name News Breaking Coverage" HERE. Earlier today, I read a news article on E-Tipos, and became a bit worried, and yes, I understand Koine.
We have reported on Macedonian University EURM opening up an Affiliate in Britain (buying the Westminster College of London), and working to open an Affiliate at Oxford University. EURM named its Faculties for Art&Design, Economics and IT with: Alexandar the Great, Philip II and St Nicholas. We reported this over 3 weeks ago HERE. Tipos reported this TODAY . It took 3 weeks for Tipos to get a green light to publish this? We could have given you the green light much sooner, in 2 weeks.
Change of subject. 'Real' Greeks aren't the problem, it's their settlers who unfortunately are in Government. Settler #1, Karamanlis. This man has nothing Greek in him, his family is 2/3 Turkish, and unfortunately the rest is Macedonian, this is a fact folks. Somehow, the non Greeks feel bigger Greeks than the Greeks.
Change of subject #2. Greek Delegation today is in Skopje, guests in the Cultural Center "Tocka-Point", where an antinationalist tribune takes place. The Delegation is led by a representative of the Socialist Workers Party, Mr. Janis Sifakakis. -I feel bad for writing his name, he may have some issues getting back to Greece.
The goal of the discussion is an attempt to stop the further deterioration of relations between the two countries and put a stop to ever increasing nationalism and nationalist stereotypes.
At the Cultural Center, a book will be promoted which the Socialist Party had published back in Greece, in 1993. The book reveals information on historical facts and calls on Greece to not meddle with Macedonia, because Macedonia has always been Macedonia. The book was forbidden for sale and is completely anonymous in Greece, like any other book that has information contrary to Official Athens. Unfortunately, the information in the book sent five leaders of the Socialist Workers Party to Court, and quickly afterwards to jail. This has happened to dozen Greek Authors who dared to say anything different from the Greek Government, in particularly when it comes to History.
Macedonians always wonder why Greek Customs Officers take away any pamphlet or any written information before they enter Greece, even if it's a recipe. Paranoia is a difficult thing.
The group of Greek activist believe their book should be known to the Greek Public. I am not sure things will turn out well for Mr. Sifakakis and the rest of the delegation in their attempts to make their book public. Judging from what Greece has done to other Authors! One that comes to mind is Anastasia Karakasidou who not just that she was threatened to be killed, (she doesn't live in Greece now), but the actual publishers and employees of Cambridge University Press were threatened. The world press took notice of Anastasia's saga, read below.
Gorazd V.
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By SARAH LYALL c.1996 N.Y. Times News Service; Fair Use reprint for non-profit scholarly use only.
LONDON - Anastasia Karakasidou's first book, a 300-page study of ethnicity and identity in the northern Greek province of Macedonia, seemed poised for publication after surviving months of grueling academic review at Cambridge University Press and winning high praise from academic specialists for its insights and fairness. But in December, Ms. Karakasidou received surprising news: The press had decided not to publish the book after all, it said, because it feared for the safety of its staff members in Greece. Back home in Stony Brook, N.Y., the Greek-born Ms. Karakasidou, an assistant professor of anthropology at Queens College, still sounds stunned. She had appreciated that her subject was a potentially provocative one -Greeks bristle at suggestions that residents of that province consider themselves anything but true Greeks - but she never expected this. ``They had my manuscript for more than a year and a half,'' she said in an interview this week. ``I had no idea that this was happening, and I had no way of defending myself.''
The immediate result of the Cambridge University Press' decision not to go ahead with the book, Fields of Wheat, Rivers of Blood, was the outraged resignation of three of its academic advisers in anthropology, who charged that the publisher, one of the most prestigious in the world, with violating the author's freedom of speech and caving in to a threat that was largely hypothetical. But what in the old days might have remained a controlled protest by a small group of disgruntled academics has now expanded into a full-scale offensive, via the Internet. Earlier this week, two of the three people who resigned as editorial advisers to Cambridge University Press - Stephen Gudeman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and Michael Herzfeld, a professor of anthropology at Harvard - sent a battle cry to colleagues around the world, calling for scholars not to submit manuscripts to, or review books for, Cambridge. "By hindering the production and reviewing of new manuscripts,'' their message said, "we hope to demonstrate the academic world's collective dismay."
Although it is too early to gauge the effects of the Internet manifesto, it is clear that the word is getting out, fast, as E- mail messages zoom from campus to campus. "It's gone out to thousands of anthropologists," said Herzfeld. "I think the historians are getting it as well." At the University of Florida, Thomas Gallant, a professor of modern Greek and Balkan history, said that he no longer wished to be published by Cambridge, even though he was about two-thirds finished writing a book for the publisher on the social history of modern Greece. "I am having legal counsel examine my contract because I think that ethically I cannot remain committed to the press," he said.
Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood, is a study of three villages in the Greek province of Macedonia that asserts, among other things, that many of the residents speak Slavic dialects and consider themselves Slavo-Macedonian, not Greek. The findings challenge the official position of the Greek government, which remains at odds with the neighboring Republic of Macedonia, a part of former Yugoslavia, and denies the existence of a Slavic ethnic minority within its own borders. In the past, the Macedonian question has spurred nationalist-led violence in Greece. Ms. Karakasidou herself was threatened by right-wing groups two years ago after she published articles with conclusions similar to those in her book. But, she says, she continued to live in Greece without incident. Ms. Karakasidou submitted her manuscript to Cambridge more than 18 months ago, sending it on a well-worn path of academic reviews and revisions. Finally, its reviewers deemed it ready to go, and Ms. Karakasidou, though she had no contract in hand, had every reason to assume that Cambridge would publish it.
"It is easily the most carefully researched and balanced assessment of the on-the-ground situation, from a historical and ethnographic perspective, that I have ever seen," Herzfeld said. But a nervous Cambridge Press decided to seek advice about the potential for violence in Greece. Among other things, the publisher asked for an evaluation from the British Embassy in Athens, which sent a two-paragraph response saying no one at the Embassy had read the book, but that its subject was potentially controversial. "It is impossible to judge the extent of a likely reaction, since so much depends on the political situation at the time of publication," said the letter, "but it could take the form of public criticism, protests and demonstrations, or violence or threat of violence against the author or publishers." That was enough for the publisher, which has about five employees in Greece. In December, after consulting its 20-member ruling body, it decided not to proceed with the book.
Cambridge Press says it is unlikely to change its mind. "At no stage was there a contract signed or a commitment made," said Adrian du Plessis, the publisher's communications director. "Given the way we are established in Greece, it would be inappropriate for us to publish the book. It is not accurate to say that we banned it or censored it."
Some of the publisher's critics charge that Cambridge was also worried about local boycotts if the book went ahead. Cambridge has a lucrative market for English-language books in Greece, and administers English exams to hundreds of thousands of people each year. du Plessis disputes this interpretation. "I've been involved in every discussion," he said, "and at every occasion I have never heard any economic motivation discussed. The issue was the risk to staff." At the same time, the notion that the book was bound to spur violence has annoyed Greek scholars, who say that with the recent thawing in relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, the possibility of reprisals has ebbed considerably. "There really, really, was no tangible threat to the press, its personnel, or its property," Gallant said. One thing the publicity has done is to draw unexpected attention to Ms. Karakasidou at a relatively early point in her career. Several publishers have expressed interest and this week, the University of Chicago Press offered her a contract. While Cambridge Press has been forced to defend itself against irate anthropologists, it is also even facing the wrath of some Greeks for its timidity.
Elias Gounaris, the Greek ambassador to London, sent a scathing letter to the Guardian newspaper, defending his country's 'honor'. "The worst possible fate that could befall a Cambridge University Press book on an anthropological subject in Greece would be indifference, spiced perhaps with the odd verbal attack against it in the column of some obscure extremist publication," the letter said. "Intolerant voices do of course exist, as in most countries, but so far they have always dismally failed to silence anyone. In Greece, at least."
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All right, maybe we have taken shots at Greek Daily Eleftheros Tipos, here and there (it's hard not to).
Sure, they publish nonsense information and are an extended hand of the Greek Government, but today we realized that news to Greece travels very slow.
Perhaps Madame News is stopped at the Greek Border to clean up the area, show it has no intention of spreading un-Greek news that may in any way influence the Greek population. You see, Greeks are a sensitive bunch. They have so much history they have been told they have, that, well they are just sensitive to it.
Eleftheros Tipos became popular with their "New Name News Breaking Coverage" HERE. Earlier today, I read a news article on E-Tipos, and became a bit worried, and yes, I understand Koine.
We have reported on Macedonian University EURM opening up an Affiliate in Britain (buying the Westminster College of London), and working to open an Affiliate at Oxford University. EURM named its Faculties for Art&Design, Economics and IT with: Alexandar the Great, Philip II and St Nicholas. We reported this over 3 weeks ago HERE. Tipos reported this TODAY . It took 3 weeks for Tipos to get a green light to publish this? We could have given you the green light much sooner, in 2 weeks.
Change of subject. 'Real' Greeks aren't the problem, it's their settlers who unfortunately are in Government. Settler #1, Karamanlis. This man has nothing Greek in him, his family is 2/3 Turkish, and unfortunately the rest is Macedonian, this is a fact folks. Somehow, the non Greeks feel bigger Greeks than the Greeks.
Change of subject #2. Greek Delegation today is in Skopje, guests in the Cultural Center "Tocka-Point", where an antinationalist tribune takes place. The Delegation is led by a representative of the Socialist Workers Party, Mr. Janis Sifakakis. -I feel bad for writing his name, he may have some issues getting back to Greece.
The goal of the discussion is an attempt to stop the further deterioration of relations between the two countries and put a stop to ever increasing nationalism and nationalist stereotypes.
At the Cultural Center, a book will be promoted which the Socialist Party had published back in Greece, in 1993. The book reveals information on historical facts and calls on Greece to not meddle with Macedonia, because Macedonia has always been Macedonia. The book was forbidden for sale and is completely anonymous in Greece, like any other book that has information contrary to Official Athens. Unfortunately, the information in the book sent five leaders of the Socialist Workers Party to Court, and quickly afterwards to jail. This has happened to dozen Greek Authors who dared to say anything different from the Greek Government, in particularly when it comes to History.
Macedonians always wonder why Greek Customs Officers take away any pamphlet or any written information before they enter Greece, even if it's a recipe. Paranoia is a difficult thing.
The group of Greek activist believe their book should be known to the Greek Public. I am not sure things will turn out well for Mr. Sifakakis and the rest of the delegation in their attempts to make their book public. Judging from what Greece has done to other Authors! One that comes to mind is Anastasia Karakasidou who not just that she was threatened to be killed, (she doesn't live in Greece now), but the actual publishers and employees of Cambridge University Press were threatened. The world press took notice of Anastasia's saga, read below.
Gorazd V.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By SARAH LYALL c.1996 N.Y. Times News Service; Fair Use reprint for non-profit scholarly use only.
LONDON - Anastasia Karakasidou's first book, a 300-page study of ethnicity and identity in the northern Greek province of Macedonia, seemed poised for publication after surviving months of grueling academic review at Cambridge University Press and winning high praise from academic specialists for its insights and fairness. But in December, Ms. Karakasidou received surprising news: The press had decided not to publish the book after all, it said, because it feared for the safety of its staff members in Greece. Back home in Stony Brook, N.Y., the Greek-born Ms. Karakasidou, an assistant professor of anthropology at Queens College, still sounds stunned. She had appreciated that her subject was a potentially provocative one -Greeks bristle at suggestions that residents of that province consider themselves anything but true Greeks - but she never expected this. ``They had my manuscript for more than a year and a half,'' she said in an interview this week. ``I had no idea that this was happening, and I had no way of defending myself.''
The immediate result of the Cambridge University Press' decision not to go ahead with the book, Fields of Wheat, Rivers of Blood, was the outraged resignation of three of its academic advisers in anthropology, who charged that the publisher, one of the most prestigious in the world, with violating the author's freedom of speech and caving in to a threat that was largely hypothetical. But what in the old days might have remained a controlled protest by a small group of disgruntled academics has now expanded into a full-scale offensive, via the Internet. Earlier this week, two of the three people who resigned as editorial advisers to Cambridge University Press - Stephen Gudeman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and Michael Herzfeld, a professor of anthropology at Harvard - sent a battle cry to colleagues around the world, calling for scholars not to submit manuscripts to, or review books for, Cambridge. "By hindering the production and reviewing of new manuscripts,'' their message said, "we hope to demonstrate the academic world's collective dismay."
Although it is too early to gauge the effects of the Internet manifesto, it is clear that the word is getting out, fast, as E- mail messages zoom from campus to campus. "It's gone out to thousands of anthropologists," said Herzfeld. "I think the historians are getting it as well." At the University of Florida, Thomas Gallant, a professor of modern Greek and Balkan history, said that he no longer wished to be published by Cambridge, even though he was about two-thirds finished writing a book for the publisher on the social history of modern Greece. "I am having legal counsel examine my contract because I think that ethically I cannot remain committed to the press," he said.
Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood, is a study of three villages in the Greek province of Macedonia that asserts, among other things, that many of the residents speak Slavic dialects and consider themselves Slavo-Macedonian, not Greek. The findings challenge the official position of the Greek government, which remains at odds with the neighboring Republic of Macedonia, a part of former Yugoslavia, and denies the existence of a Slavic ethnic minority within its own borders. In the past, the Macedonian question has spurred nationalist-led violence in Greece. Ms. Karakasidou herself was threatened by right-wing groups two years ago after she published articles with conclusions similar to those in her book. But, she says, she continued to live in Greece without incident. Ms. Karakasidou submitted her manuscript to Cambridge more than 18 months ago, sending it on a well-worn path of academic reviews and revisions. Finally, its reviewers deemed it ready to go, and Ms. Karakasidou, though she had no contract in hand, had every reason to assume that Cambridge would publish it.
"It is easily the most carefully researched and balanced assessment of the on-the-ground situation, from a historical and ethnographic perspective, that I have ever seen," Herzfeld said. But a nervous Cambridge Press decided to seek advice about the potential for violence in Greece. Among other things, the publisher asked for an evaluation from the British Embassy in Athens, which sent a two-paragraph response saying no one at the Embassy had read the book, but that its subject was potentially controversial. "It is impossible to judge the extent of a likely reaction, since so much depends on the political situation at the time of publication," said the letter, "but it could take the form of public criticism, protests and demonstrations, or violence or threat of violence against the author or publishers." That was enough for the publisher, which has about five employees in Greece. In December, after consulting its 20-member ruling body, it decided not to proceed with the book.
Cambridge Press says it is unlikely to change its mind. "At no stage was there a contract signed or a commitment made," said Adrian du Plessis, the publisher's communications director. "Given the way we are established in Greece, it would be inappropriate for us to publish the book. It is not accurate to say that we banned it or censored it."
Some of the publisher's critics charge that Cambridge was also worried about local boycotts if the book went ahead. Cambridge has a lucrative market for English-language books in Greece, and administers English exams to hundreds of thousands of people each year. du Plessis disputes this interpretation. "I've been involved in every discussion," he said, "and at every occasion I have never heard any economic motivation discussed. The issue was the risk to staff." At the same time, the notion that the book was bound to spur violence has annoyed Greek scholars, who say that with the recent thawing in relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, the possibility of reprisals has ebbed considerably. "There really, really, was no tangible threat to the press, its personnel, or its property," Gallant said. One thing the publicity has done is to draw unexpected attention to Ms. Karakasidou at a relatively early point in her career. Several publishers have expressed interest and this week, the University of Chicago Press offered her a contract. While Cambridge Press has been forced to defend itself against irate anthropologists, it is also even facing the wrath of some Greeks for its timidity.
Elias Gounaris, the Greek ambassador to London, sent a scathing letter to the Guardian newspaper, defending his country's 'honor'. "The worst possible fate that could befall a Cambridge University Press book on an anthropological subject in Greece would be indifference, spiced perhaps with the odd verbal attack against it in the column of some obscure extremist publication," the letter said. "Intolerant voices do of course exist, as in most countries, but so far they have always dismally failed to silence anyone. In Greece, at least."
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