WE NEED TO FACE THE TRUTH - THE LAST ACT IS NATIONAL FORGIVENESS - Part 02

12 When the Macedonian people in Kostur Region had had enough of Greek belligerent bands attacking them they formed the “Macedonian Committee” for Kostur Region which appeared on March 5, 1943. A group of forty-eight villagers, representatives of the various villages in Kostur Region convened and decided to form the “Macedonian Committee” for Kostur Region whose aim was to defend the sixty villages in that region. The Italians allowed them to arm themselves in order to protect themselves from the Greeks. The first Macedonian armed freedom fighting band was formed in Kostur and consisted of 9,850 armed men. They called themselves fighters, defenders against the armed Greek Macedonian freedom fighters that stood bravely and dignified against the Greeks and refused to accept Hellenization and give up their Macedonian national identity. But, instead of calling these people patriots and resistance fighters, our history denigrated them by any means possible, even calling them traitors. But miraculously during the Greece Civil War these same people, all who were still alive and their sons and daughters, and enlisted them to fight in DAG as the good sons and daughters of the Party...!

The appearance of the Macedonian freedom fighters in Kostur Region was an incredible moment for the Macedonian reality, but instead of having respect and dignity towards our own people, we are now constantly playing political games, especially with those who bore the most guilt destroying the Kostur freedom fighters.

If we consider that there is no nation in the world that has demolished something that was created (indigenously) by its own people, then we Macedonians must be the first! Precisely for having destroyed the Macedonian Kostur Committee.

We should know that the Kostur freedom fighters were the ones who experienced the most terrible discrimination perpetrated by the Greek state against the Macedonian people. Unfortunately their deeds have not only been forgotten by our history but they have been thoughtlessly anathematized. For the sake of a few Macedonians that had joined the Bulgarian counter-bands, many of our patriotic Macedonians have been fiercely denigrated. Instigated mainly by foreigners some of our people were led to speak ill and shamefully humiliate our most patriotic people. What’s worst than that is that ordinary people, listening to trusted CPG politicians gave life to those lies. Even during the Greek Civil War high ranking politicians including some from NOF and AFZH cultivated harmful anachronisms in our national existence with which they viciously attacking their political opponents… Were they aware of how much

nationalist gangs. But, the moment the “Macedonian Committee” was formed the Greek communists began a fierce propaganda campaign against it, labeling it “fascist”, “autonomist”, “Bulgarian”, etc., in order to discourage Macedonians from joining it and to make sure it looked like it was anti-liberation and anti-partisan.

they burdened and insulted their own people, especially the young Macedonian generations (children of the freedom fighters and of the old partisans)? Were they aware of how much they were clouding their young souls and their national consciousness?!

9. Which international institutions recognized NOF and AFZ as legitimate entities from which they could seek state and legal protection?

SO, WHEN THE DICE WERE ROLLED CHAOS WAS UNLEASHED, THE PAST WAS CANCELLED, AND REALITY BECAME A MEASURE OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF CRUELTY. THE FUTURE OF THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE LIVING IN GREECE AWAITED THEIR NATIONAL DEFEAT, DEATH AND PERSECUTION.

“The opinion of the more powerful is always the best!” Lafontaine.

If we ignore the bitter truth about the Macedonian situation, it means that we are powerless to face it. This is a fact even a half a century later. But let us not ignore the actions taken by the Macedonian organizations:

Calling the people to join a national uprising is a virtue but it can also be a trap. It is a fact that NOF and AFZH did call on the Macedonian people living in Greece to massively fight in a national front for implementing their strategic goals. So the question is did NOF and AFZH have any guarantee that their goals were legitimate and supported by anyone? Did they consult with the Security Council or the United Nations or did they just leave that up to Greece and Yugoslavia? Did NOF and AFZH know that they were strictly controlled by the Balkan communist parties and could do nothing to achieve their own goals without CPY and CPG permission?!

There is no way they could not have known. Their directives came directly from the CPY and the CPG and did not necessarily align with Macedonian interests or with the Macedonian strategy (if there truly was a genuine Macedonian strategy). The Macedonians were

basically used by the CPY and the CPG to benefit their own interests.

Since our Macedonian leaderships in NOF and AFZH did very little to escape the clutches of the CPY and CPG, perhaps because they were in no position to do so or because they didn’t want to try, means that they were willing to be ruled and be subservient souls. This proved to be true given the outcome of events which led the Macedonian people to their national defeat and genocide.

Unfortunately because of our weak and tangled position we took during the Greek Civil War, we not only lost our hearth then but we created future consequences for all Macedonians in Europe and we have been facing them to this day. One of those is our country’s name…

When the Second World War ended and fascism and Nazism were defeated people began to look forward to living in peace in a time where bloodshed would no longer be allowed. But by becoming involved in the Greek Civil War, a risky adventure, the Macedonians paid a heavy price and experienced ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Macedonian people, especially the Macedonian communists, should not have engaged themselves in this high-risk adventure. There would have been no Greek Civil War without the Macedonian participation. Had we not fallen under CPY and CPG control, things would have turned out differently. In defending the communist ideology, we lost four identity and our ancestral hearths forever. And because we did become involved we accepted blame for what happened to us. 13 This tragic affair unfortunately permanently entered the Macedonian consciousness…

13 During World War II, when the Western Great Powers thought no Macedonians existed in Greek occupied Macedonia, English spies and military personnel dispatched to Greek occupied Macedonia to monitor the war situation discovered that Greece had been lying to them. Contrary to Greek claims that no Macedonians existed in Greece, a sizable Macedonian population, speaking the Macedonian language and aware of its Macedonian consciousness, was living in its territory. When the British found this out they again resumed their policy of extermination. Some people say the English must have panicked because of fear of Russian influence and the possibility of these people wanting to carve out “Greek territory”, but the truth is England never wanted a Greek Macedonia with Macedonians in it. So the English, as they had done in the past, decided that the The question that needs to be asked at this point is was there no one from the Macedonian leadership that could see the big picture of what happening there? That the war (WW II) had ended and that Fascism and Nazism had been defeated, that people were looking forward to living in peace, that the iron curtain had been drown over Macedonia, that the WW II war zone had been divided into spheres of influence, that Greece with status quo borders had been placed under Western (British) influence and that Bulgaria and Yugoslavia were place under Eastern (USSR) influence…? Was there no one in our team of Macedonian political strategists that could see that?

It seems that the answer is No! We all kept silent like we were mutes! We found SALVATION IN SILENCE. Especially after the 1953 Law was signed and a WALL OF SILENCE was created. 14

Macedonian people had to go by any means possible. This information was later discovered in declassified British diplomatic dispatches in which the English wanted to expel 120,000 Macedonians en masse from their homes in Greek occupied Macedonia. In doing this the English requested the assistance of the fascist Yugoslav government before the communists came to power and received a positive response. The fascists agreed to take the Macedonians and resettle them on Yugoslav territory but Yugoslavia fell to the communists before this could happen and WW II ended. So, it would appear that the plan to rid the Macedonians from Greece was continued after WW II by instigating the so called Greek Civil War during which the CPG was led by Nikos Zahariadis, an English agent and Josip Broz Tito, head of the CPY.

14 - August 23, 1953. Legal Act No. 2536 was issued, on the strength of which all those who left Greece and who did not return within three years time could be deprived of their property. A decision on the resettlement of Macedonians was taken. A wide-flung campaign was launched in the mass media to induce the Macedonians to leave their native areas voluntarily and to settle in the south of the country and on the islands. The Greek authorities intended to create a 60 kilometer-wide belt along the border with Yugoslavia where “the faithful sons of the Greek nation” were to be settled. In the first point of this Act it is stated that the resettlement was necessary owing to the humanitarian aspect of the matter as the living standard of the Macedonians would improve. The actual intention was to separate Macedonians living in Greece from the Republic of Macedonia. Due to a firm reaction from Yugoslavia the realization of that shameful plan was cancelled.

After what happened, should the Macedonian people still seek a “war outcome” knowing that the primordial desire in the common Macedonian is to remain Macedonian, no matter how much he or she suffers in order to preserve his or her country, language and people – the future generations?

Before we answer that question we must first understand the desires of those, the foreigners, who brought us to this situation. Yes, we want a Macedonia of our own, but do those around us, who are more powerful than us, want us to have a Macedonia of our own? It had been proven over and over again that they don’t. So, we must conclude that, in the near future at least, a “war outcome” can not bring us a desirable solution… Quite the opposite… It could bring us more disasters and genocide…

If those foreigners wanted us to have a Macedonia they would not have invaded, occupied, divided and annexed our country. But more than that, they would not have divided us spiritually and attempted to either assimilate or destroy us. Therefore we must accept the fact that they do not want us to have a Macedonia or to be Macedonians which is reflected in their attitude towards us since before our country was divided. All they did is brought us devastation, disaster and genocide after genocide so that they could get rid of us once and for all. Regarding our involvement in the Greek Civil War; this was seen as a problem in the eyes of the world… with lasting consequences which are proving to be disastrous for our future… Case and point: Our Macedonian name, our Macedonian language and our Macedonian ethnicity… have yet to be internationally accepted… and they may never be.

The foreigners who authorize and those who carried out Macedonia’s division have not only been in favour of dividing the Macedonian territory but also our spiritually integrity as ethnic Macedonians which, for many centuries have lived as a whole in geographic and historic Macedonia The desire to divide Macedonia and to spiritual divide the Macedonian people has been there since before the Ottoman Empire was driven out of Europe, perhaps since the 1870’s, when the Great Powers decided on how to carve up Macedonian and the remainder of the Ottoman Empire. No care or concern had been shown for the destiny of the Macedonian people

since then; not by Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria or the world. In fact great effort has been made to falsely prove that Macedonians do not exist. To some extent we can say that even our own institutions have abandoned us. The educational system in the Republic of Macedonia, for example, has been indifferent to the Macedonian people’s history outside of the Republic of Macedonia. Even the Macedonian government in the Republic of Macedonia, under International pressure, had to amend the Macedonian Constitution and abandon fighting for the rights of the Macedonian people in Greece and Bulgaria.

The arguments explored in this study are not in favour of the so called history of the “Aegeans” which, in many cases, supports the CPY and CPG thesis which has taken a completely different critical attitude towards our historical events. Hidden from view also is the fact that it was not the Macedonian people’s idea to start or participate in the Greek Civil War and that they were pushed into it through NOF and AFZH by the CPY and the CPG. What happened and we have to accept that, but in terms of who did what, we have to be clear in presenting the facts. For example, how can NOF and AFZH be responsible for our destiny when our destiny was planned by the CPY and CPG? Unfortunately these facts have been covered up for the last half century. It must be clearly stated that a few foreigners in the CPY and CPG were pulling us by our noses and then found us guilty of what they did and we, the Macedonians from Greece, have been paying the price and keeping silent about it for over 50 years.

Today important research about migration problems is being carried out all over the world in an attempt to discover what caused them and why. New studies are appearing and the cruelest and most complex elements of the projected persecutions are revealed. Unfortunately nothing has been done about the migration movement problems we Macedonians in Greece experienced while we are being forced to keep silent about them. Our science has remained deaf to this problem for a long time. It is as if nothing happened to the Macedonians living in Greece and to their 28,000 children who were taken away during the Greek Civil War, who to this day do not have the right to return.

The problem with the children taken away during the Greek Civil War for us Macedonians, represents one of the most tragic and serious problems in Macedonian history. Why? Because nothing like that had ever happen before, not even during the cruel Balkan wars. To grab an innocent child and to take it away for political intentions and to never allow it to return to its parents is one of the cruelest acts one can perpetrate against a child. This happened to 28,000 Macedonian children who were taken from their homes with a promise that they will be returned, and then sent away with a one-way ticket. This was done to the Macedonian children but not to the Greek children who were allowed to return. After the Greek Civil War ended the Greek people who participated in this war were allowed to return; but not the Macedonians. They remained displaced around the world. This was not only true for the children but it also for their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers with unprecedented brutality.

Our main goal in this book is to obtain a much more realistic view of the events that took place when the children were taken away and to get to the historical truth of the political intentions 15 why the two warring parties: the Government of the Athenian regime in Athens, and the Partisan Provisional Democratic Government of Greece (CPG and DAG), who fought in the Civil War from 1945 to 1949, took the children.

The conflict between these warring parties was exclusively ideological and class-related (but also not very clear according to the views of the top CPG leaders, Markos Vafiadis and Nikos

15 According to UNSCOB - A/754 - 1948, the action taken by the Greek government and by Queen Frederica to collect the children and isolated some of the villages was done in order to cut DAG off from its resources, food products and future manpower and to make it impossible for DAG to mobilize more soldiers. This policy proved to be successful and gave the government the opportunity for greater control in certain regions of Greece. Also in the same document it was said that the action taken by the CPG to remove 28,000 children from Greece was done in order to secure its manpower and military resources. In March 1949, UNSCOB launched numerous petitions demanding that DAG refrain from sending children to the battlefields. In 1948, when the children were collected, the CPG probably expected that the war would continue for several years and many of the children who were taken away would have to return to fight in Greece.

Zahariadis, as well as the views of the top leaders in the CPM/CPY) to do with organizational issues in Greek society, i.e. the communists allegedly fought for socialism, that is, for the global project: Sovietization of the Balkans.

So, if this was strictly an ideological class war, then how did the Macedonians fit in it, especially NOF 16 which, according to its own propaganda, fought for the Macedonian people’s national rights?

So, what exactly was NOF’s role in this ideological class war? NOF was created by Tito and the CPY for the purpose of preparing and involving the Macedonian people in Greece in a future war. NOF was later subordinated to the CPG to carry out the war. All this time NOF faithfully served the CPY and CPG and carried out their orders without question. NOF’s main role in the Greek Civil War was to mobilize the Macedonian population and involve it in the Greek Civil War on mass, which it did very successfully. But then, after DAG was defeated and the war was lost, NOF and all its Macedonian fighters had to leave Greece along with the Greek fighters. After they crossed over the Albanian border all the fighters were sent to the USSR. Thousands of Macedonian fighters, including members of the CPG that fought in DAG side by side with the Greeks, were given a one-way ticket out. The Greeks who committed the same sins in the struggle for socialism in Greece, including the “great Greek communists”, were allowed to return to their hearths, only because they were “Greeks by birth”. This is a fact!

A reasonable person justifiably may ask: “What were the resulting consequences for the Macedonian people living in Greece as a result of NOF’s creation? In addition to unknowingly lying to the people to get them involved in an ideological war and ending up loosing everything, NOF’s creation also created future problems between

16 NOF (People’s Liberation Front) along with the Women’s Anti-Fascist Front (AFZH) and the Youth organization (NOMS) were created on April 23, 1945 under the initiative of the CPY/CPM and sent to organize the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia in preparation for a new conflict - the Greek Civil War. But the Greek Civil War did not star until March 31, 1946, about one year later. How did Tito and the CPY, who created NOF, know a Greek Civil War was going to take place one year before it began? Was this in anticipation, or was this war pre-planned? those Macedonians from Greece who left Greece and went to the newly created Republic of Macedonia and those who remained in Greece and fought in the Greek Civil War. The problems began right after the Republic of Macedonia was created when some Macedonians, under the guidance of the CPM/CPY refused to fight in the war. They were in opposition of the CPG’s position and practice towards the Macedonian question. These Macedonians left the war and demanded that their right to self-determination in Greece be recognized. The rest of the Macedonians continued to fight and to follow the Greek communist party’ position on the Macedonian question which recognized the Macedonian people as a minority with minority rights within the Greek state. This split the Macedonian people into two camps: one following the CPG, and the other following the CPM/CPY. This was yet another method the CPY and CPG found to successfully divide the Macedonian people. Why did the CPM/CPY support self-determination in Greece for the Macedonians when it was obvious that the West, especially England and the USA, would not support it. What possible gains would Tito have now, after he opposed this very same thing only a few years ago?

Remember, NOF was independently created by the CPY, that is, outside of CPG influence, and was sent to Northern Greece to agitate the Macedonian population to become involved in a future war that would have tragic and irreconcilable consequences for the Macedonian people that included disagreements, clashes, suspicions and sharp prejudices that lasted even after November 1946, after NOF and the CPG “united” 17 (according to our historiography) in a common front.

This is how NOF and the CPG “united”:

17 In October 1946, NOF and the CPG reached an agreement to combine forces and jointly fight against the Monarcho-Fascists. This was done following a directive issued by the CPM Central Committee ordering the NOF Main Board to make arrangements to have NOF put under the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece. After a difficult and arduous journey, an Agreement was finally reached to unite NOF and the CPG. NOF was not represented during the final talks to determine the conditions under which the unification was to take place. The NOF leadership participated only in the preliminary discussions.

The Macedonian NOF units were unconditionally disbanded and the NOF fighters were absorbed by the CPG units.

The CPG reserved the right to appoint “good commanders” (in other words, Greek) in its Military Headquarters in whom it had full confidence.

This is how NOF was placed under CPG control; removing all its (supposed) authority and placing it under CPG subordination… all throughout the Greek Civil War and after it, even to the present day. Therefore we should not have a problem recognizing that NOF was not a military or political factor during the Greek Civil War, as has been described by our historiography for the “Aegeans”. This was a well know fact all throughout the Greek Civil War period.

This deliberate act of creating NOF for the purpose of gaining Macedonian rights in Greece by war, organized by the CPM/CPY, was catastrophic for the Macedonian people living in Greece who had to pay dearly for wanting to just be Macedonians and as a result, faced (self) destruction, better known as the “Macedonian syndrome”. 18

Did NOF and AFZH called on the Macedonian people to enter the struggle under NOF’s own national characteristics and aspirations? Yes they did! And whose program principles did NOF follow. The CPG’s of course! 19 And were these program principles not contrary

18 See APPENDIX A (CIA report) 19 On February 3, 1949, for example, the 2nd NOF Central Council Plenum was held during which its program principles were introduced in which it was proclaimed: “That Macedonia will be unified and the Macedonian people will live in a single independent Macedonian state.” This, as it turned out, was a drastic attempt, a last political maneuver on the part of the CPG to keep the Macedonians in the war. We already know how the Greek government and the West, Britain and the Unites States in particular, felt about splitting Greek occupied Macedonia from Greece. Then on March 7, 1949, the CPG backtracked on promises. The CPG Central Committee denied coining the slogan “United and Independent Macedonia within a Balkan Federation.” The CPG also denied accepting NOF’s new program principles drafted during NOF’s 2nd Congress on February 3, 1949. In March 1949 the Interim Government in Greece was overhauled. More specifically the CPG Central Committee issued a statement denying any decisions being made during the 5th CPG Plenum regarding the Macedonian Question and to the CPG’s “Greek national interests”? Yes they were! So, what were NOF’s national goals then, and are there any documents available that shows them? Or was NOF entirely submissive and servile to the CPG?

The most tragic thing about all this is that NOF and AFZH have not been held responsible for misleading the Macedonian people in Greece from April 23, 1945, to September 11, 1946, while they were under the influence of the CPM/CPM, before they were subordinated to the CPG.

Are we Macedonians expected to forget what really happened and bear the entire guilt for allegedly loosing the war!? Unfortunately that is what is expected of us and that’s what we were taught for more than half a century, and even now, we are expected to live in a climate of conformism… But, at the same time we know the past never completely dies.

Ironically those who should have been speaking during this half-century were silent and those who should have been silent have been speaking.

But, it would be a great historical sin to our Macedonian science if we, the victims, continue to remain silent. In fact our silence will continue to feed the malicious and genocidal efforts of foreigners. That is why it is important for us to speak up and write our own history.

There was no doubt that the Macedonian people explicitly trusted NOF and AFZH and did what the Macedonian leaders asked of them including picking up arms and fighting, and even surrendering their children to them without question. But what the Macedonian people did not know was that NOF and AFZH were under the complete influence of strangers (the CPY and CPG) and blindly following their directives and false promises that “we will win the war”. The strangers were lying to them and had no intention on delivering on their promises or honouring the promises. And that is why they

regarding NOF’s programming principles outlined at the 2nd NOF Congress on February 3, 1949.

made sure the Macedonians lost the war. And when they did, the strangers put the blame on NOF and on the Macedonian people. Searching for the truth of what happened during that dreadful and catastrophic war was not only painstaking but very painful.

To add insult to injury, these same strangers and their supporters refuse to accept the fact that the Macedonian people living Greece were sacrificed for other people’s interests. They refuse to accept that NOF and the Macedonian people were manipulated during the Greek Civil War. Even a half a century later people still refuse to accept wrong doing and claim that the foreigners who did this to us had “good intentions” Unfortunately those “good intentions” have puts us in a position to not only lives and our hearths, but also to face constant backlash in all spheres of our life to this day, and even before our own Macedonian people.