1.3.1 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS – THE MACEDONIAN FREEDOM FIGHTING REBELS OF KOSTUR - Part 01

1.3.1 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS – THE MACEDONIAN FREEDOM FIGHTING REBELS OF KOSTUR

According to accounts written in rebel Vasil Ianakiev’s diary (as reported by his son Dr. Risto Ivanovski in Skopje.): “A committee of five members was formed on April 18, 1942 consisting of: Vasil Ianakiev from the village Maniak, Kostur Region, member of IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) (United); Luka Dimanin from the village Drenoveni, Kostur Region; Bai Kolio Shestevarot member of IMRO (United); Tanas Nizamov, translator and one more person. After forming the committee, the five requested an audience with Italian General Ravali, commander of the Italian troops in Kostur City. The five explained to the general the Macedonian situation, gave him a brief history of Macedonia’s invasion, occupation and division in 1912, 1913 and the horrors to which the Macedonian people were subjected. They explained to him how Greece, back in 1900, began its systematic destruction of the Macedonian identity with the arrival of Bishop Karavangelis and the armed formations guided by Pavlos Melas in an effort to conquer Macedonia.

Then with the massive colonization of the Greek part of Macedonia, with colonists from Asia Minor, the Macedonian people were further abused and terrorized by the Greeks, especially by the organization PAO which represented only the Greek nationalists. PAO was responsible for daily, organized raids where its members stole cattle, grain, cheese, butter, lard and other items from the Macedonian people and on top of that abused and tortured the victims and reported them to the authorities, even to the Italian authorities of being guilty of harbouring communist ideals. Many Macedonians were taken before the Italian authorities and intentionally accused of being Communists, arrested and beaten to death. Greeks on the other hand, who were accused of being communists, were arrested, imprisoned and then acquitted.

The five then explained to the General how difficult it was to procure necessities such as salt, sugar, oil, kerosene, etc., items unavailable to the Macedonian population. The final request they made was for the General to allow the Macedonians direct communication access to the Italian authorities because they explained that the Greeks put in charge of mediating did not exactly represent their interests. They told the General that the Greeks often

threatened the Macedonians with harm and they were afraid for their lives and needed protection. Ravali told them he would seek clarification from the Italian authorities and would reply to them soon.

Ravali gave them his answer on March 5, 1943 during a meeting he convened. Attending the meeting were 48 representative members of the various villages. It was decided to form a “self-defense” organization called “Macedonian Committee” for Kostur Region, which was to serve about 60 villages. They were given permission to arm themselves because the Italian authorities felt they needed to protect themselves from the Greeks who meant to do them harm.

Voted at the Assembly were:

1. Pando Makriev, from the village Chetirok, Kostur Headquarters, Chief of Staff.

2. Pascal Kalimanov, from the village Dobrolishta, Commander of all armed village fighters.

3. Luka Dimanin, from the village Drenoveni, Assistant Commander of Headquarters.

4. Bai Kolio, main leader of Kostur.

5. Hristo Naskov, from the village Ezerets, Secretary and Assistant to the Commanders.

6. Vasil Ianakiev, from the village Maniak, Intelligence Officer.

7. Kuze Shestevarot, Regional Commander.

After the organization was formed, 9,742 insurgents joined and were armed, mostly with small arms. They were given special permission to bear arms by the Italian garrison commanded in Kostur. They were limited in what they could do but were allowed to defend themselves and their villages from Greek aggression.

A celebration took place on July 24, 1943 in Kostur during which various Macedonian patriotic slogans were chanted, such as “Dear people of Kostur, be brave it is part of your ancient tradition!”, “Long live Ilinden our day of liberation!”, “Long live the spirit of the people of Kostur!”, “Long live all of Macedonia!” and others.

During the celebration the leaders of the organization gathered around a table covered with a red velvet tablecloth, symbolic of the Macedonian red colour, and in the centre of the table were a dagger and a handgun in the form of a cross. Insurgents joining the organization were required to take the following oath:

“I swear to fight for a free Macedonia to the last drop of my blood. I will be faithful to the Macedonian Kostur Committee and will never betray it. If I become a traitor then I shall die by this dagger and this revolver which I am about to kiss! Freedom or death! Let there be eternal glory!”

Most of these brave Macedonian fighters from Kostur Region left their bones in the fields and mountains fighting to free and preserve their homeland. Many were buried in a mass grave in Strashilovo, located between the villages Turie and Bapchor. Many were thrown into the D’mbeni cavern. A great number were buried in the large cemetery in the village Aposkep. And even more left their skeletons scattered in the Mountains in Epirus, Vicho and Gramos.

What were the Greeks saying about our fratricide (Macedonians in ELAS fighting against the Macedonian freedom fighting rebels in Kostur?)

1. “... They were some people who fought against Bulgarian bandits and died to preserve much of Macedonia in Greece, and who generally did not speak the Greek language; they spoke their own idiom. They thought of themselves as Greeks and fought and died with the Greek flag in their hands to preserve their villages and that region, in Greece. And if they thought so much of themselves as Greeks, then they were Greeks. Theodoros Pangalos (Interview “Dnevnik” 1998)

2. “… With the emergence of the so-called ‘rebel squads’, who were initially organized by the Bulgarian government in Sofia to serve as its spies, emerged the ‘Slavo-Macedonian’ and Greek armed units who then actively fought against the ‘rebels’ who were fighting against the interests of the people in Macedonia. The people in Macedonia lost many lives in those struggles. The ‘rebels’ not only failed to wipe out the rights of the people in Macedonia but in their attempt they actually destroyed themselves. ELAS and the ‘Slavo-Macedonians’ were determined to take those regions and arrested the ‘rebels’ and destroyed their formations…” (General Markos, Interview with I.P., published by “Pulse” in 1998.)

Who were these “rebels” Markos was talking about? They were the sons and grandsons of the Ilinden fighter who fought for Macedonia during the 1903 Ilinden Uprising and liberated the towns Klisura and Neveska. Their sons and grandsons were now organized to fight against the Greek nationalist black gangs of PAO. They are the people who we have referred to as the Macedonian freedom fighting rebels of Kostur.

As mentioned earlier, on March 5, 1943 the first armed military unit was formed in Kostur, consisting of fighters from Greek occupied Macedonia. They quickly appeared in 54 villages and their numbers swelled to 9,850 armed men. They called themselves fighters, defenders against the armed Greek nationalist gangs. In western Macedonia, in 1943, these armed nationalist Greek gangs were responsible for intimidating the Macedonian people by spreading anti-Macedonian propaganda in the form of leaflets and by other means. As mentioned earlier, on October 20, 1943 the CPG formed the organization SNOF (Slavo-Macedonian National Liberation Front) in order to disarm and destroy these Kostur fighters. After the Kostur fighters were disarmed and disbanded, in April 1944, the CPG also disbanded SNOF, its military units and incorporated the Macedonians fighters into ELAS. At that point some Macedonians fighters refused to be incorporated into ELAS and fled across the Yugoslav border and joined the partisan units in Vardar Macedonia as part of Tito’s army.

1.4 HOW AND WHY DID THE CPG RENAME THE MACEDONIANS TO “SLAVO-MACEDONIANS”?

Who renamed the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia to “Slavo-Macedonians and why? Why “Slavo-Macedonians” only in Greek occupied Macedonia and not in any of the other parts of occupied Macedonia? It is well known that Macedonia was invaded, occupied and portioned in 1912 and 1913 and parts of it were annexed by Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania, but no one other than the Greeks called the Macedonian people “Slavo-Macedonians”? Was that name given to them by the Communists or by the Greek government? Why was the leadership of NOF (and not SNOF) during the Greek Civil War, after April 23, 1945, given the task of recruiting “Slavo Macedonians” and not just Macedonians, to fight in the war?

Our historiography claims that NOF was a military and political factor in the affairs of the Macedonian people during the Greek Civil War years. Is this true? Or is this something that “others, people at the top were saying…?” How much attention have scientific and political writers, as well as historiographers, given this issue? Obviously not much because this issue has long been perceived as an exclusively “Aegean” issue, not to be tempered with, especially by prominent writers. But to make it look like it was not exclusively the “Aegean Macedonians” who were guilty of this problem, after the Balkan Pact of 1953, half a century of silence followed. There were even more serious problems which were ignored. After a book, written by a Macedonian from Greek occupied Macedonia, was translated from Macedonian to Greek, Greek reviewers were referring to the author as a “writer from the South Slavic part of Yugoslavia”, and no one objected. And as such one after another, many such “intentional errors” were allowed to slip by unnoticed. The Greek lobby on the other hand, in its long quest for our national annihilation, let nothing slip by.

After Greece capitulated to the occupiers, the CPG organized and managed the entire territory of Greek occupied Macedonia and kept it under its control only because the integral Macedonian factor was not there. This is due to the well known fact that the CPG, before World War II, had its own people inside Macedonia who loyally followed its program. Among them, of course, were many Macedonian communists and CPG members.

Based on proclaimed Comintern policy, the Communists already had a united stand against Macedonia on the Macedonian National Question. And thus the Greek bourgeois no longer saw danger in the communists regarding this matter. The real threat was in class change. There was no sign of any revival in the Macedonian movement (especially after the ethnic composition was changed with the depositing of the Asia Minor colonists), so Macedonia was safe in the hands of the Greek Communists and, as it turned out, they showed themselves to be better masters in disfiguring the Macedonian people. Because the Greek communists, or in this case the Asia Minor colonists, were in charge of the CPG in Macedonia, they saw this “struggle” as an opportunity to take more lands from the Macedonian people and fought even harder to develop deeper roots. Their aim was to break the Macedonian core. They wanted to instill in the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia awareness that only “Slavo-Macedonians” exist in Greece. This was a strategic CPG move which was reflected in the title of a book the CPG published in 1951.

The book actually had two titles, which reveal Greece’s measures towards the Macedonians by referring to them as “Slavo-Macedonians”. Interestingly however, the book also reveals some facts, in detail, of the Macedonian people’s national liberation struggles up until Macedonia’s partition in 1913. In other words the CPG demonstrated its care for the “Slavo-Macedonian” people and not for the Macedonian people and thus here is where the core of the Macedonian consciousness begins to erode. The CPG gave the impression that those who were willing to accept their “new title”, i.e. “Slavo-Macedonians”, would be well taken care of and those who insisted on calling themselves “Macedonians”… well, they simply did not exist… for all Greeks…

After the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, which took place from 1920 to 1936, the local Macedonian population became known as “endopii”, i.e. indigenous, local, native; the newcomers were identified as “Prosfiges” or “Madziri” this included the Asia Minor settlers and colonists as well as those who came from Greece after Macedonia’s 1913 occupation and partition. It is well known that after Greece expropriated Macedonian territories in

1913, Greek authorities began to change the ethnic composition of the population by various different means. Thus, according to credible evidence, in the period from 1913 to 1940 about 400,000 Macedonians were forced to leave their homeland in Greek occupied Macedonia (See Hadziev 1996) and relocate to neighbouring countries, mostly to Bulgaria. In their place Greek authorities settled colonists from Asia Minor. About this, on December 29, 1922, the prestigious Athens newspaper “Kathimerini” wrote: “1922 was a decisive year for furthering the national, religious and cultural physiognomy of Macedonia.” According to official sources from the Society of Nations (“The rise of refugees in Greece”, Geneva, 1926, published in the French language) the delivery of 900,000 colonists from Asia Minor to Macedonia from 1923 to 1924 was a disaster (See Hadziev 1996). The only positive result for Greece from the Treaty of Lausanne, with the delivery of these colonists, was the strict creation of a Greek front in Macedonia. In other words, such a strong Greek front did not exist before the colonists were deposited there and by saying this there is admission that Macedonia belonged to “someone else”, i.e. it belonged to the Macedonian people who were forcibly evicted and are still being evicted from their homes, especially during the genocidal Greek Civil War.

The reason the Macedonian population became known as the “endopii” (indigenous, local, native) in Greek occupied Macedonia is because Greece refused to recognize those people as Macedonians. For Greece it was the “the best of all evils” to call the Macedonian people “endopii”, which meant that they were not “Slavophone Greeks”, they were not “Western Greeks”, they were not “South Serbians” and they were not “old-Bulgarians”, they were simply “endopii” or “locals”! The idea that the Macedonians were “endopii” did not end with their identity but continued in day to day life. The Greek said they spoke the “endopii” language and sang “endopii” songs; they wore “endopii” clothing and practiced “endopii” customs. To the Greeks, everything was “endopii” and nothing Macedonian existed! So, the only time the Macedonians could call themselves Macedonians was in secret and only in the presence of their own people. Unfortunately that too became prohibited, including singing Macedonian songs. The Macedonian songs were banned because they contained lyrics that spoke of Macedonia and the Macedonian people. The Macedonian songs are

a lasting testament to the existence of a Macedonian nation that predates all the newly created modern Balkan nations. There are no lyrics in the old Macedonian songs that speak of the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbians, or “Slavo- Macedonians”. There were no songs that spoke of Greece or Bulgaria.

With the banning of everything that was Macedonian, including the renaming of all place names, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc., and people’s personal names, from Macedonian to Greek, Greek authorities were more than proud to declare to the world that Greek occupied Macedonia was “pure Greek”. Greece declared that it had no ethnic minorities living on its soil and attributed all its social problems not to minorities “fighting for their human rights” as guaranteed by international norms, but to the communists attempting to undermine its social system. Greece not only vigorously fought against those it labeled communists but was pleased to inform the world of its actions. And since Greece allegedly had no minorities living on its soil and managed to convince the world of that, then it had no obligation to comply with the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, with the 1920 Atlanta Agreement, the Sevres Treaty (07/10/1920) or any other Treaty that referenced minority rights or non Greek nationalities living in Greece.

Greece, however, was on the record for having minorities living on its soil, including Macedonians (not Slavo-Macedonians) and was bound by international laws to enable them to establish and have their own cultural, educational, religious and social institutions and to be able to freely use their mother tongue. This was confirmed by Eleftherios Venizelos, then Prime Minister of Greece who, on November 11, 1930 at a press conference in Athens, said: “The question of the Macedonian (he did not say ‘Slavo-Macedonian’) minority in Greece will be resolved and I will be the first in Greece to be committed to opening Macedonian (not Slavo-Macedonian) schools, if that’s what people want.” This confirms that Macedonians were living in Greece in the 1930’s.

The communists promised no different than what Venizelos promised except the communists called the Macedonian people “Slavo-Macedonians”. So it is becoming clear that the CPG with its program was attempting to sidestep Greece’s minority Treaties,

especially its obligation under the Treaty of Sevres. So, in effect, the Greek communists promised even less than their Greek predecessors and delivered total devastation and one of the most insidious means of disfiguring the Macedonian people.

This harsh reality shows nothing more than the Macedonian people’s backbone being broken by the Comintern’s attitude towards them. The Comintern leadership delivered a devastating blow towards the complete ethnic cleansing of the Macedonian people, a tragedy without words, perpetrated by Greece and Bulgaria, and by Turkey and Greece, in their adaptation of new global strategies and tactics, which they imposed on large numbers of people, and which Greece welcomed with open arms.

With all that had happened, the Greek bourgeoisie were convinced that the CPG not only skillfully kept the Macedonian Question under control, but it achieved historically much better results than anyone before. Here’s why:

1. The communists did not ask the question: “Why is the Greek State altering the ethnic composition of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia?” (See: “How the Communists of Vardar Macedonia asked the question”, by Emanuel Chuchkov. The question as to why colonists were being deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia did come up at the AVNOJ session of the Presidency Legislative Committee, held on July 31, 1945, where it was assumed that it was done to achieve some greater Serbian goals and that this was endangering the Macedonian nation). This, among the Macedonians, was not only a question of why the composition of the population was altered by bringing inhabitants exclusively from the Caucasus, who later literally ran the CPG, but about the question that was NOT asked and that was: “Why was Greece persecuting the indigenous people, i.e. the Macedonian people, and forcing them out of their ancestral homes and particularly why it was sending them to Bulgaria?” Why didn’t anyone ask: “Who were these people persecuted by Greece and why were they sent to Bulgaria?” If they had bothered to ask they would have found out that they were “our brothers”, Macedonians who participated in the Ilinden uprising to free Macedonia. They were the people who fought against the Ecumenical Patriarchate and against the use of the Greek language

in churches and schools. They fought against Bulgarian and Greek assimilation attempts to assimilate the Macedonian people through their churches. But when this question was finally asked, especially of the Communists, of the Soviet communist core, from which we Macedonians expect a lot, we were told this; as was documented in a magazine article entitled “Unknown Pages of the life of Yuri Andropov”, published by Boris Pop Giorchev in “Nova Makedonija” on July 15, 1994. Among other things the article said: “... We are talking about a Baltic territory and people, like the ‘Karelian labour commune’ in the USSR in 1920, shortly after the October Revolution (tearing off a part of Finland) three years later to be transformed into a Karelian-Finnish Autonomous Republic, with its capital Petrozavodska. Over 150,000 homogeneous Karolians, close to the Finns, lived in the northern Autonomous Republic along with 50,000 Finns. In the process of turning them into Russians (an ongoing process) in the years before and during the Second World War, in which Andropov had a prominent role, we colonized their lands. For seven and a half decades the colonization did its thing: Today Karelia has about 800 thousand inhabitants, of which over 500,000 are Russians, there are Ukrainians, Belarusians, etc., and the Karelians and Finns are a small minority.” So there you have it! If this was allowed to happen in Russia why should it not be allowed to happen in Greece? If the Karelians could be turned into an almost non-existent minority on their own native land, then why not the Macedonians? Did we, for some reason, think that we were something special? But no less important is the next question.

2. The Communists did not oppose the changing of the place names and personal names of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia; a means by which the Macedonian people were disfigured. At the same time the Communists were being praised for “taking care” of the people and for showing the greatest of concern for mankind. But, as it turned out, they just did not care for us the Macedonians; not even enough to call us “Macedonians”. Why?

3. The Greek communists showed no desire for Macedonian culture and traditions or for Macedonian life in general. Quite the opposite, they loathed it and us and enforced cosmopolitanism on us (which was normal for them because they did not have ancestral roots in Macedonia and since they were now in Macedonia they were the

Macedonians and they made sure to let us know that we were the “Slavo-Macedonians). What is bizarre about all this is that the Macedonian communists had accepted the “Slavo-Macedonian” title, but not the Macedonian people. This is when the proverbial “axle” broke, and it broke because of the CPG (after the changing attitude of the Comintern), when the CPG decided that, by communist logic, all Macedonians who were native and indigenous to Greek occupied Macedonia became known as “Slavo-Macedonians”. The communists gave us a tribal attribute and then began to degrade and humiliate us in every respect and use us against each other until they broke us spiritually, which was not an easy task.

It may not be so obvious, and to some it many seem ridiculous, but the Greeks, communists included, had a long-term plan to get rid of the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia by legal means and with little to no human cost to themselves.

It should be obvious by now that it was the Greek communists who created SNOF for only a single purpose and that was to disarm and destroy the Kostur Macedonian freedom fighting rebels. They used treachery to convince Macedonians to fight against Macedonians in order to solve a Greek problem. SNOF was disbanded as soon as it got the job done. Given how events took place, there is little to no argument that can be made that this was done for the benefit of the Macedonians and not for the benefit of the Greeks!

When the bureau of SNOF was arrested, the CPG District Committee began a fierce campaign against the old Macedonian fighters and leaders. They accused them of being agents of Vancho Mihailov and of the Ohrana.

It is worth mentioning here that in January 1944, the CPG allowed the formation of a Slavo-Macedonian army called SNOV and placed it under the direct leadership of EAM and ELAS. Later it was from this “army” that the “Aegean Brigade” was formed and transferred to Tito’s Army in Yugoslavia. It is also worth mentioning here that in Skopje, on April 23, 1945, the organizations NOF, AFZH and NOMS were formed under the initiative of the CPY/CPM and sent

to organize the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia in preparation of a new conflict - the Greek Civil War.

Here are some facts and arguments which prove evil did not fall from the sky but was there and part of our story.

1. The “First Aegean Brigade” was formed in free Bitola on November 18, 1944 from the fighters of the two battalions that fled Greek occupied Macedonia. This Brigade was deployed on December 28, 1944 in Western Macedonia, mainly in Kichevo, Tetovo and Gostivar, tasked with fighting Dzhemo Mefail’s gang of balisti formed during the Italian-German occupation. The “First Aegean Brigade” was disbanded by special order number 236 (strictly confidential) issued by Marshal Tito on April 2, 1945.

2. This may have been as a result of Tito’s following statement made in Moscow on April 26, 1945, when he gave an interview for the “New York Times” during which he said: “If the Macedonians from the Greek regions of Macedonia express desire to unite with other Macedonians, Yugoslavia will respect their aspirations.” See: Yugoslav-Soviet treaty of friendship signed April 11, 1945 in Moscow, and FO 371/48388/7762.

3. According to official historiography: There is no doubt that the establishment of NOF, AFZH and NOMS had political aims as confirmed by historian Risto Kiriazovski’s works (1966/181) in an attempt to reveal the “truth” by leaving us clues. But, on the other hand, Kiriazovski pushed the thesis that we led a Revolution and not a fraud perpetrated through the creation of NOF and AFZH. And finally in his latest book, Kiriazovski gives us yet another clue by saying that NOF and AFZH were led by the CPY/CPM during the period from April 24, 1945 to October 16, 1946.

And so, these people, the Greek and Yugoslav communists in particular, according to some of our own historiographers were our trusted “allies” in our struggle for justice, human rights and to re-unite our Macedonia…

Let us ask some relevant questions:

“Why didn’t we, the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia, up until the end of the Second World War, create a national Macedonian organization, whose program would have defined our policies, our national strategy and our political views towards EAM, ELAS, CPG, etc., who some of our historians call ‘our allies’?” Why were we, this whole time, powerless to act and take the initiative to bring about national consolidation? Does this mean that, because we were placed in the ideological slavery called communism, we had lost our perspective on life and our respect for our own Macedonian values? Were we not aware of what was happening around us and inside our country and we simply surrendered to the whims of EAM, ELAS and the CPG?!! Were we not aware, from prior experience, that our ethnic composition was rapidly changing and we, the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia, were being eroded from a majority living on our own lands down to a minority? Did we not see this as a genocidal threat? Did we not realize, or even imagine that maybe the Greek “thesis” of our so-called “allies” (EAM, ELAS and the CPG) had not changed at all and had remained constant for many years? Did it not occur to anyone that the Greeks wanted a Macedonia without Macedonian people and that our so-called “allies” were taking advantage of the war situation to destroy us, to do something to us which they had dreamed of doing for decades? To destabilize our country and drive us out of our ancestral homes and destroy our centuries old existence? Did no one see that by following our so-called “allies” blindly they would lead us along a one-way street and to national extinction, especially since we picked up guns and gave them reason to declare war on us? Did no one realize or imagine that there would be consequences, even for our national consciousness, if we blindly surrendered to this “ideological activism” business, which was bent on turning us into internationalists and cosmopolitan-ists and that in time it would eat away our values? We were villagers and villagers we would have remained if Greece had turned socialist. But instead of working for ourselves on our own lands and enjoying the fruits of our own labour, our lands would have been confiscated and we would have worked for and been paid a “fair” wage by the state. And what would be a fair wage for a Macedonian villager working for the Greek government in Greek occupied Macedonia? Did anyone think about that?!

It is easy to be critical “after the fact”… but if we are not, then how else can we learn from our mistakes?

As mentioned earlier, regional Macedonian organizations, regardless of how they were formed, did exist in Greek occupied Macedonia, at least in Kostur, Lerin and Voden Regions. There were also attempts made to consolidate these organizations, at some points in time, which is of historical importance and worth noting. There was one attempt made in January 1944: “…With aims at uniting the Lerin Region and Kostur Region regional organizations and aligning their goals. A meeting was held on January 28, 1944 in the village Tsrnovishte, Kostur Region, which was attended by the two regional committees (the author was thinking of the members of the CPG) to discuss, among other things, the following items:

1. The Macedonian National Question; i.e. Macedonia’s fate after the war;

2. Creation of a single National Liberation Organization throughout Aegean Macedonia;

3. What is a people’s democracy?

Unfortunately the meeting ended in failure because the Macedonians did not achieve their goals.” (See: “NOF and other Macedonian organizations from Aegean Macedonia 1945-1949”, by Risto Kiriazovski, p. 49.)

As can be seen from the quote above that there were Macedonians who made the effort to bring national unity to the Macedonian people, but it seems that our so-called “allies” did not want them to succeed. And thus, no Macedonian political entity was created which could have, perhaps, influenced the various critical and milestone Agreements such as the one in Lebanon on May 20, 1944 or the Varkiza Agreement signed on February 12, 1945, which ended ELAS’s activities and thus ended the armed struggle with a defeat of that movement.

But then, it seems like we did not learn anything from those lessons; we learned very little to nothing from our experience, from our

history and from the fact that our so-called “allies” did not want us to organize ourselves. But then we decided to join them anyway and allow them, our occupiers, to lead us into a war that we could not possibly win. It seems like we understood nothing of what was happening around us when we entered a new war after World War II had ended and the world was already divided into spheres of influence and there was an impenetrable international border drawn right through our country. We decided to trust our “allies” to lead us into oblivion even after our compatriots in Yugoslavia were sent to Srem to fight to liberate Yugoslavia instead of allowing them to go to Solun to liberate their own homeland, like they wanted. But more than a half a century has passed since those days and, I believe, we should have no problem understanding what happened then and identify who the real culprits were that did this to us. The history of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia has been one of the bloodiest histories in the Balkans and in Europe, a violent history influenced by outsiders and by outside ideologies whose only motives are to create division and suffering leading to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Surely some of us must have understood what was happening to us? So another relevant question to ask is: “Why did we again take the same road and follow our so-called “allies” into a new war? Why did we participate in the Greek Civil War, a war that should not have taken place?

2.0 HOW AND WHY DID WE HEAD INTO A NEW AND DEADLIER CAMPAIGN?

Every epoch has its own foolishness, but to activate the “Macedonian syndrome” in Greek occupied Macedonia, through ideological activism after World War II, was nothing less than foolhardiness… unless of course it was done to benefit some foreign goals. According to historian Vladimir Ivanovski, as reported by “Nova Makedonija” on October 11 and 12, 1997, (Transferred from Macedonia Times), particularly part three: “Why not to Solun”? Ivanovski provides an overview of events that took place especially in the subtitles: “Desires were stronger than circumstances” and “Views of the great powers”, which deserve special attention. Other authors too have made a point of mentioning this issue: “We are

going to Solun and not to the Srem front...” but it seems they did not identify it as an important issue. But it is an important issue, a key issue, to which historian Ivanovski has given a lot of attention. Ivanovski’s findings have revealed several interventions made by the CPM/CPY (See Kiriazovski Risto 1966/181) in the creation of NOF and AFZH and in the appointment of its leadership during that time period. Anyone who reads history and who wants to know what happened can easily find out the mistakes made by the Macedonians and how they were led to (self) sacrifice themselves for the benefit of foreign interests.

The problem may seem complicated, but the truth is simple. If we take an honest, impartial and objective approach to our history and ask the question: “Were we Macedonians, given the strategic options we were facing at the time, intellectually, militarily and politically able and prepared to preserve the territorial integrity and compactness of the Macedonian population after World War II, with an international border dividing Macedonia between Greece and Yugoslavia and by opposing super powers standing side by side on each side of that border?” Then the honest answer we would get is “NO!”

If in history we need to see our future, then I personally am interested and it is my duty, as a participant in the Greek Civil War, to investigate the roots of this evil; how and why the Macedonian syndrome was activated after World War II, during the Greek Civil War 1945-1949, and whether we Macedonians are guilty of causing damage (ethnically cleansing) to the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia? Did we have a strategy to preserve our century-old homes or not? Or by doing what we did, did we serve foreign interests and give the Greeks the upper hand to do what they had always wanted to do; have a Macedonia without Macedonians. We must have known that when the Iron Curtain was put in place that we Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia would be left out...

I do not want to talk only about the guilt of others as to what happened to us Macedonians. We cannot always blame others for our shortsightedness and mistakes. We cannot blame others for us keeping silent for more than a century in order to safeguard some

foreign interests for the sake of someone else’s “friendly relations”. It is time to speak up and to also look at our responsibility in these matters!

Let us now have a look at what historian Vladimir Ivanovski had to say about:

1. Relations between three of the Great Powers of the anti-fascist coalition: the USSR, the US and the UK;

2. That it was an undeniable fact that uniting Macedonia would have been a problem during that time. NOV (People’s Liberation Army), the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Macedonia and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Macedonia were well aware of this;

3. Made reference to a British document dated July 16, 1944, entitled “Macedonia – Memorandum”, in which British State Secretary for Foreign Affairs said: “We are ready to give consent to the formation of a Macedonian state within the federal Yugoslav state. But we must insist that this nation will not annex, or seek other territories, whether those territories belong to Bulgaria or Greece”;

4. Made mention of the fact that there was an Agreement regarding the division of spheres of influence, and that Greece was 100% under British influence with the right, if necessary, at any time be able to intervene by all possible means;

5. That Tito, in the summer of 1944, ordered Macedonian NOV units to secure the southern border with Greece. This means that Macedonian soldiers were ordered to guard the sovereign borders of these two countries (Yugoslavia and Greece);

6. That, at that time, the United States emphasized the necessity of preserving the territorial integrity, i.e. the status-quo pre-war borders of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece. The United States also strongly opposed border revision, even though it recognized the Macedonian territory in Greece.

And finally he concludes:

“... The political and military leadership of Macedonia realistically estimated, held and controlled the situation during the January events, not allowing emotions to prevail over reason and thus preventing the newly formed and fragile federal Macedonia to be drawn into the war. The consequences of such an adventure would have been catastrophic.”

I too, a half a century later, would like to ask the following questions:

- Why did the CPM allow the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia to be sacrificed by the CPY and the CPG?

- Why did the CPM allow NOF to be trapped in the CPY and CPG vice and to be placed in a position to have to defend the logic of insanity and to walk along a razor’s edge?

- Did the CPM not know that NOF was doing “assessable” service for the CPG, and no less for the CPY?

- Was the CPM unable to perceive that strangers were spreading ideological activism like cancer in the souls of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia in the years 1944 to 1950?

- Why did we discard our alternatives; if only to have defeated our enemy by staying in our homes? Had we not picked up guns… had we not been so determined to fight and defeat our enemies… which would not have been as glorious… but we may, there is a chance that we may have not all been driven out and we could have saved and kept our ancestral lands, our grandfather’s piece of land, to ourselves… perhaps even the compactness of the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia could have been saved? But we chose no such alternative!

The feeling that we were a people in Greece was felt by every Macedonian, but the feeling that in our short history being occupied by Greece and being turned into a minority on our ancestral lands, in a relatively short period of time, can only be felt by us Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia. Aside from being robbed of our

ancestral lands, we have also been made to feel guilty of belonging to the Macedonian nation. And that which today is being called a “minority”, using an unhistorical definition, because we are Macedonian people part of the Macedonian nation living on our Macedonian ancestral lands; how can we be treated as a minority inside of our homes? Besides that, our history is packed with ancient, old and new aspirations to unite ourselves as Macedonians and our country as Macedonia; we are not settlers, or colonists, or refugees…! Sadly, these desires of ours to re-unite ourselves and our country are often misused and, as it turned out after the Second World War, our desires were turned to illusions when we were manipulated by strangers who urged us to self-destruct. Please allow me to quote a wise German saying: “Naïve and stupid are those who speak loudly about reuniting their tattered fatherland, cowards and freaks are those who think of such a reunification!”

2.1 THE GREEK CIVIL WAR WAS THE MOST TRAGIC EVENT FOR THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE, BECAUSE EVERY ONE OF US FROM THERE WAS TURNED INTO PEOPLE WITHOUT ROOTS AND PLANTED IN US WERE FEELINGS OF ALIENATION.

The facts about events that took place in the Second World War and in the Greek Civil War speak of the depth of the Macedonian tragedy and have a major impact on the psyche of the Macedonian people and how they behave politically. The new generations are not ideologically free either. They still live in the shadow of the past, and even I (Stoian Kochov) am not ashamed to admit that I too live this way. It is not a luxury for us Macedonians to simply reject the past and go on off into the future and be indifferent to the de-Macedonia-zation of Greek occupied Macedonia by the Greece state. Respectfully I must read the answers to my questions, stemming from the conclusion that: “The political and military leadership in Macedonia realistically assessed, held and controlled the situation”, as per Ivanovski’s words.

It would have been admirable if indeed that’s what had taken place because the fact is that the slogan for a united Macedonia, after the Second World War, was unrealistic. We the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia are living our experience outside of our

homes… forever… because we allowed strangers to manipulate our Macedonian primordial desires to take up arms and liberate ourselves; to (self) sacrifice ourselves on a massive scale… producing the right conditions for the realization of ethnic cleansing.

More recently historians have made valid arguments and produced facts that disprove Ivanovski’s conclusion. These new facts and arguments accurately depict our history with many details including those of the CPM/CPY meddling in the affairs of our political and military leadership. These testimonials reveal a cruel justice perpetrated against the Macedonian people, which did not end with their persecution,but continued through lies and deceit by keeping the Macedonian people ignorant of their true history and by making sure they remained ignorant and unconscious and divided themselves between the CPY and the CPG.

Here’s why:

WHEN THE CPY/CPM CREATED AND ORGANIZED NOF, AFZH AND NOMS THE STAGE FOR WAR HAD ALREADY BEEN SET. THIS PROVES THAT THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE HAD FALLEN PREY TO FOREIGN INTERESTS AND TO OUR FINAL FATAL OPTION – GENOCIDE.

NOF was forced to propagate a great illusion on a small nation.

It is a historic fact that NOF did propagate a great illusion. But the important question is who instigated it and why? Why were the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia pushed to enter this deadly embrace which brought them genocide? The fact that they experienced genocide has been confirmed by historian Kiriazovski. This fact, hidden from us for the last 60 years has prevented us from looking into the secrets of the genocide and the real motives behind it. It has hidden the CPY/CPM’s real motives for creating NOF and AFZH in Skopje on April 23, 1945 under Tito and Kolishevski’s leadership. Here is what Tsvetko Uzunovski-Abas , CPM Central Committee Organizing Secretary and Interior Minister of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, had to say to the NOF and AFZH leadership: “… Yugoslavia has become the Centre of the revolution in the Balkans. The Macedonian question has now become a