CONFRONTING REALITY AWAKENS A FEELING OF UNEASINESS

CONFRONTING REALITY AWAKENS A FEELING OF UNEASINESS

Maybe it is time to learn the truth, and as the Russian novelist, reformer, pacifist and moral thinker Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) said: “The symbol of truth is simplicity and clarity. The lie, on the other hand, is always cruel, decorated and eloquent.”

Dr. Kiriazovski’s latest book was published after his death by “The Association of Refugee Children from Aegean Macedonia” and was launched on September 23, 2009 by Misho Kitanovski who, while promoting the book, among other things said: “The book gets to the truth of the matter and should be regarded as a historical textbook and a source of information. It should also be regarded as inspiration for further research.”

The promoter however failed to explain how the “Axis of evil across the great ideological system” was created, i.e. by the CPY/CPM and the CPG.

But when we dig a little deeper into this book, it becomes clear why historian Kiriazovski could not see eye to eye with the publishers at the Institute of Natural History, resulting in him losing confidence in them and rejecting them altogether.

Why have “the lost battles” in the “history of the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia” been defended and covered up by this fake history and why are they only now being revealed by this historian; the same historian who defended them and covered them up for over half a century?

It is a fact that our “real” history has been hidden from us for a long period of time; it has been covered up with decades of silence. It has been covered up by historians like Kiriazovski, historical institutions like the Institute of Natural History, as well as many other government authorities.

Is it time for the most competent institution i.e. the Institute of National History and Macedonian historians to answer the question; Why has the truth has been hidden from us? But will they answer those questions? No one knows!

Isn’t it about time that the question, “Why did Macedonians enter this deadly Greek Civil War?” be answered?

“No truth should ever be afraid of another truth. But lies and deception are always afraid of the truth.” (Schopenhauer).

The whole act of this book, issued outside of the Institute for National History exactly 60 years after the Greek Civil War, shows that obviously there are still many unanswered questions and that deeper and more fundamental problems still exist. It shows that, in the 60 years that have passed since the Greek Civil War, a huge historical period, nothing was talked about, nothing was revealed of the genocide committed against the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia. The continued silence has caused division among the Macedonian people, damaging their spiritual continuity. This division has politically isolated the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, wherever they live, from those living inside Macedonia. And this has immensely helped and is still helping Greece and the Greek authorities.

It is a fact that historian Kiriazovski was responsible for contributing to the “false” history about the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia. This is because he was caught in the pro-Yugoslav net and in the pro-Yugoslav daily politics in regards to the “Macedonian Question”.

It will be no secret if I tell you that in Macedonia there was no national interest in writing the truth about what happened to the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia during the Greek Civil War, especially during the years 1945-1946 and 1947-1948.

This situation is nоthing new when it comes to the history of the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia. My aim for writing this book was to widen my research and reconstruct a more complete picture of what happened then and explain a number of key manipulations used by the CPY/CPM and by the CPG against the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia. Despite the obvious truth, however, people in the past six decades have been told something completely different. So if the past reality is something that happened in the past, then it is a complex reality with many variations. And we should not only be looking at World War II, the Greek Civil War and the political changes that took place there, we should also be looking at all the elements of ordinary daily life; the imposed ideological propaganda, religion, culture and at our age-old desire to survive in our ancestral homes.

In place of playing an important role in the development and understanding of the Macedonian nation and its history, the Institute of National History, as confirmed by the publication of Kiriazovski’s latest book, was, for the last 60 years, abused by pro-Yugoslav politics to cover up the manipulation, sacrifices and extermination of the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia. The Institute was used to create many misconceptions and today we have generations of misinformed Macedonians. These Macedonians do not know their own history; the genocide that was perpetrated against their compatriots in Greek occupied Macedonia; a great tragedy that occurred in the 20th century.

Reality is sad and cruel: How and why did we lose our homeland? What happened to us and for what did we (self) sacrifice ourselves?

The most dangerous and biggest error we Macedonians made was that we had no grasp of our obligations towards the fate of Greek occupied Macedonia and we did not refine our struggle to help us survive and protect our deep family roots which are a confirmation of our identity.

Exactly for these and many other reasons (intentionally premeditated by shady authors in the ranks of the Greek Civil War and by official

Macedonian historiography) the Greek Civil War remains a mystery and a delicate phenomenon to explain.

Six decades of searching for the truth, of interpreting military and political issues and of sifting through problematic Greek history regarding the Macedonians has made me very bitter. I don’t hate anyone, I don’t hate any nation but I will not allow others, especially foreigners, to walk over the history of the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia. It is a great injustice. We Macedonians in our long period of struggling; the Ilinden Uprising, World War I, the Greek-Turkish War, World War II and the Greek Civil War, were exploited to the max by foreigners. I especially want to emphasize what I personally witnessed; the ruthlessness, the insolence and the ideological manipulation of our people by the Greek government and by the left of both the CPY and the CPG.

My aim here is not to insult and offend the authors who wrote about that “conflict”, referring to it as “a revolution” and to the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia as “a political and military factor” in that revolution. (The same authors now shyly call that same “conflict” the “Greek Civil War”, emphasizing that it was not a “Macedonian War”, as did Academic Ivan Katardziev in the newspaper “Nezaborav” published in March 2010.)

As I have done in my previous books, my aim here is to try and conduct a serious analysis of our history. I want to uncover the flaws in the arguments presented to us in the last six decades when we were discouraged from talking about our history, our memories, our emotions and about the tragedy and genocide our people experienced.

My survey of the military and political historical analysis conducted for this book is divided into two phases:

- The first phase covers 1944 to 1945 and the Greek Civil War up to 1949. It also looks at the most extensive and hidden Yugoslav interests particularly of the CPY and Tito’s activities and policies.

- The second phase covers the six decades after the Greek Civil War and the time after the Republic of Macedonia became independent.

After doing my research I decided to write what I felt was the “real” situation by which I think I am going to disappoint many of my comrades who saw these events as beautiful and revolutionary.

I never got tired of remembering the events from the years 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948 and 1949 which take a man’s breath away and about which many people are asking: why in the 60 years of writing the history of the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia was this history so coloured by Yugoslavia and Tito’s politics?!

As a student of the Greek Civil war, in which I was driven to risk my own life by the ideological activists, I maintain my own common sense to not become someone else’s subject. I never gave up my own free thought, that is: to speak the truth, the bitter truth, no matter how difficult and dangerous it might be. Maybe I am more courageous than my comrades but for me it has always been whether I would be deprived of my goals or advance further.

My literary engagement and sometimes biased approach often invited criticism such as those published in “Nova Makedonija” and other newspapers; especially from historian Risto Kiriazovski author of the book “The five vital years in Aegean Macedonia (1945-1949)” about which a comprehensive military and political analysis has been written: “The road of Freedom and persecution by ideological activism (1945-1949)” especially for the years 1944-1946 when the Macedonians were under the influence of the CPY/CPM leadership.

Stalin’s message: Nelezgj zabluzhdatsgj!

After the Second World War, the Greek Civil War was a new test for us Macedonians. The war had a dual purpose; one, expel the population, and for that reason the war was located inside Greek occupied Macedonia; two, liquidate the Communists who obviously were grossly misinformed and wanted to create socialism inside Greece.

Russia’s (Stalin’s) position in all this was very odd: Stalin wanted to interfere in capitalist affairs even though it had been decided and he had agreed with the Western Powers that: Greece in its entirety was going under the English and American spheres of influence. This was done under the Yalta (4) Agreement which guaranteed that no socialist system would be implemented in Greece. This Agreement negated and made the need for the Greek Civil War unnecessary. So, if the War was not about “installing” socialism in Greece, then there was only one other option left: internationalize the problem and legally ethnically cleanse the ethnic Macedonian population and then replace it with the new Asia Minor colonists and settlers, commonly known as “Prosfigi”.

We the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia should have realized that we were living inside Greek borders and that our roots were inside Greece. We should have also realized that if we did not respect that, we would be officially treated as outsiders. By defending ourselves with arms and accepting support from Yugoslavia we gave our enemies a reason to eradicate us.

That was a terrible time then, when the Balkans were full of paradoxes, controversies and a mixture of old anachronistic and new undefined illusions and delusions. We desperately wanted to right the past wrongs and waited for many years for the right time. Unfortunately our union with strangers and with our enemies, who divided our country and our people in the first place, put us in peril. We were sold on a theory of blood and soil, which brought havoc to our people and ultimately made us disappear from our ancestral homes. In the end we paid the bill with misery exactly in accordance with the conspiracy perpetrated against us.

The Macedonian peasant was caught between the powerful CPY/CPM -Tito and Koloshevski, the CPG - Zahariadis and Markos Vafiadis and their subjects NOF and AFZH.

It is interesting to note that I was mindlessly criticized and harassed by many historians for writing my books and questioning historical inaccuracies. Included in the list of critics was Risto Kiriazovski, who now decided to answer some unanswered questions which makes me wonder why the change of heart? Why, in the first place, defend the actions of those who wanted to do us harm all these years and then criticize me for wanting to do the right thing? What kind of logic did he find in supporting those who shared in the partition of our Macedonia in 1913? Who and what persuaded him to support those who made false promises to us that they would help us re-unite our Macedonia? Did he or any of the others expect that we would somehow be “liberated” by those who actually enslaved us in the first place? Or did they think the Greek, Yugoslav, or Bulgarian government was stupid enough to arm NOF or any other Macedonian organization and help the Macedonian people rebel against it?

So, in my estimation a “false” history about the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia was written and supported for the last 60 years in order to defend the views of organizations like NOF; responsible for selling illusions to a small nation and getting the Macedonian people involved in that insane war. All those people came up with limited national options, holding the Macedonian people in delusion. Historian Risto Kiriazovski with his pro-Yugoslav inclinations was also part of that delusion aimed at collectively silencing the conscience of the people. This false, written history contained all the dirty politics aimed at showing that: the Greek Civil War was a Macedonian revolution; that the Macedonian people themselves had formed their own institutions; that the Macedonian organizations NOF and AFZH were political and military factors in the war! This obviously is a political lie and a way of concealing the terrible things done to the Macedonian people. It is an undeniable fact that Macedonians did not hold any high positions in either the CPG Central Committee or in DAG’s military headquarters! In essence they were “subjects”; some of the CPY/CPM and others of the CPG. If any NOF or AFZH member had the nerve to criticize the CPY (Tito) or the CPG’s (Zahariadis) dictatorial policies they would have been labeled anti-communist, anti-brotherhood, anti-Soviet, anti-Tito and Greeko-philes.

How can we call the Greek Civil War a “Revolution”? No politically astute person would believe the Greek Civil War was a Revolution. Let us look at some facts: If the number of fighters participating in DAG was around 25,000, then this figure would have constituted no more than 3% of the total population (ten million people) in Greece. And of those 25,000 fighters about 50-60% were Macedonians. How can a 3% population involvement constitute a “Revolution”? No wonder the Greek government, up until 1985, referred to this as a “Bandit War”. Συµµοριτηκός αγόνας.

There is only one thing that is irrefutable about this war, also recognized by the Greeks, and that is that the ordinary Macedonian fighters were the best and bravest fighters in DAG.

So then what was the role of the “subjects” in this war? It seems that they were intoxicated by the false power bestowed upon them by their patrons. It is realistic to say that they lost touch with reality and that the war turned them upside down a thousand different times. They carried out the dirty politics in accordance with the orders given to them by those in power; those who wanted to bring hell to earth; those who wanted the Macedonian people to be displaced and Macedonia turned into a barren landscape; those who wanted to persecute the children, persecute the families and exile them without the right of ever returning.

All this happened under their watch. They were the ones leading the people astray! No wonder they wanted all this hidden over the years. But that does not mean that we all need to keep silent! We, the ordinary Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, who suffered immensely under their watch have the right to challenge these powerful figures and their “subjects” and ask them: “Why did you lie to us and bring us so much misfortune? Why did you lead us into a senseless war? Why did you make us fight and lose our homeland? Why did you force us to fight knowing that we would all be exiled if we lost the war, with no hope of ever returning?! Why did you lie to us telling us that we were winning even when we were losing?”

The Greek Civil War is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against us. Gramos is one of the largest tombs where thousands of forcibly mobilized Macedonians lie dead. This period was one of the most tragic events in the history of the Macedonian nation. This was NOT a Macedonian revolution as false history would have us believe, this was a tragic event in our nation’s history which has turned us into permanent wanderers.

Our exile from Greek occupied Macedonia had been planned by Greece and by Yugoslavia a long, long time ago.

Reactions in Greece:

1. On April 17, 1946 the Solun based Right Wing newspaper, “Nea Alithia” (New Truth), published an article about the Macedonians entitled “Our Judgment” in which it judged the Macedonians with the words: “... in the interest of peace and security in Greece, they should be liquidated...”

2. The newspaper “Ethnikos Kirikas” wrote: “Greece should soon expel 80,000 Slavo-Macedonians”. The following was said in an article in the weekly Republican newspaper “Eleftheros Typos” on January 28, 1946: “Let the Slavo-Macedonians leave our Macedonia - let them go wherever they want to go.”

Have we Macedonians forgotten that all these plans to exile us were based on the Lausanne Declaration of July 24, 1923 signed by Greece and Turkey, as well as several other countries in the capacity as guarantors? Have we forgotten that the signed Lausanne declaration allowed for a legal exchange of populations? Originally the document called for Christians from Turkey, mainly from Asia Minor, to be moved to Greece and replace the Macedonian Muslims who were exiled to Turkey. This was the first step marking the beginning of the mass exodus of the Macedonian population from Greek occupied Macedonia. The massive pressure for mass exodus on the Macedonian population unfortunately did not end in the 1920’s. The push to eradicate us continued during WW II and especially during the Greek Civil War. This was not done by accident; it was part of the long term plan to force us north and out of our homeland.

The saddest part about this plan was that prior to and during the Greek Civil War we were sold out by the CPY/CPM. It was the CPY/CPM who surrendered us to the CPG. It was the CPY/CPM who allowed those who came from Asia Minor to replace us, to lead us in a disastrous mindless war.

Reaction in the new federal Yugoslavia:

Ivan Shubasich, then minister of federal Yugoslavia (Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in early 1945), had plans of his own to help the Greeks forcibly evict the entire Macedonian population from Greek occupied Macedonia, which he estimated numbered around 100,000. This, he figured, would solve the “Macedonian Question” (5), which was a major obstacle for the development of good neighbourly relations between Greece and Yugoslavia. With this approach, Ivan Shubasich estimated that the Macedonians would disappear forever. He defended his thesis by claiming that: “There is no National Question in Yugoslavia!” He claimed that “only Serbs, Croats and Slovenes lived in Yugoslavia and those claiming to be Macedonians were actually Serbs...”

When Shubasich was Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, during a diplomatic reception, he revealed his Yugoslav plan for the Macedonians to an American political adviser named Alexander C. Kirk, who at the time was stationed in the Allied Military Command in Europe. In a telegram dated February 26, 1945 Kirk sent this information to the then U.S. Secretary of State. Among other things he wrote: “Shubasich said that he was of the opinion that there will not be any expected problems with Macedonia... Shubasich said no one is challenging the desire to free Macedonia in Federal Yugoslavia. He also explained that Bulgaria will not oppose this plan, and argued that the issue with Greek Macedonia does not have to be a big problem. He said that a population of about 100,000 Macedonians lives in Greek Macedonia, which could be moved to Yugoslav Macedonia, thus resolving the problem with Greece.” (American diplomatic history archives, University of Wisconsin).

British and American reactions:

British Ambassador to Athens, Mr. R.A. Leeper, back in November 1944 toyed with the idea of displacing 120,000 Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia and moving them north of the Greek border. Mr. Leeper suggested this to Mr. Eden, then UK Foreign Minister, in a letter dated November 24, 1944 in which, among other things, he wrote “… and since the amputation of the Slav areas in Western Macedonia and their annexation to a Slav Federation is a practical impossibility and would also be economically disastrous for Greece. It would follow that, difficult as it may be, a home must be found for perhaps 120,000 Slav Macedonians north of the Greek frontiers of 1941.” (5a) (See: FO 371/43649 XP 00201 R 20431/1009/67).

Yes. During the war and during the half century after the war we never asked: “Why did Britain and the United States support the Greek injustices perpetrated against Macedonia and the Macedonian people?”

The ominous collision between ELAS (6) and SNOF who fought together against the German occupation.

The National Liberation Front (EAM) was formed on September 27, 1941 by the Communist Party of Greece, the Agricultural, Socialist and People’s Democratic Party, the General Workers Federation, the General Federation of state officials and by the organization of national solidarity and political representatives of the scientific and cultural life in Greece. EAM was later joined by the advanced section of the Liberal Party. From this we can see that no Macedonian organizations were included in EAM because until then the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia had no political ambitions. In other words until then we had not fought for any political participation in Greece. We were simply voluntarily members, simple citizens of Greece without any Macedonian markings.

EAM’s program consisted of the following:

A) 1. Expel the German-Italian and Bulgarian occupiers from Greece;

2. Re-establish Greece’s integrity;

3. Establish self-determination in Cyprus, the Dodecanese and in northern Epirus. (Where is the self-determination for Macedonia, EAM’s faithful ally?) And;

4. Strategic regulation of Greece’s northern borders (meaning our so-called “partners” wanted a little more of our Macedonian lands). See the remarks in the ELAS authority newspaper “Mahitis” published on February 10, 1944. It says: EAM is the answer to the national question, yet to this day the EAM program contains absolutely nothing about us!

B) The People’s Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS) was formed on May 15, 1942 in Rummely and was organized in Partisan Detachments. ELAS’s goals were decided at a joint meeting between the CPG Central Committee and EAM. Its proclamation was aimed at the citizens of Greece and at the former officers of the Greek Army, known for belonging to the bourgeois class. At the time we, the Macedonians, were not ELAS’s allies or fighting partners, we were simple “Slavo-phones”, ordinary soldiers to be used as they saw fit, just like our fathers and grandfathers were used in previous wars. At that time the only thing we did was loudly sing and yell the slogan “Embros ELAS gia tin Elada” (Forward ELAS for Greece)… and nothing more. But there is still another undeniable fact about ELAS and the people (the Elasiti) who fought in ELAS that we should not forget. That is the oath to which we all swore. The oath reads: “I will fight for the liberation of our motherland Greece…” and I will protect the integrity of the Greek nation... Where is Macedonia and the Macedonian Nation in this oath?

How and why was there a clash between ELAS and SNOF?

The ranks of SNOF (7) and those of its military wing SNOB were filled exclusively with Macedonians who were also members of the CPG. The first time SNOF came into conflict with ELAS was when SNOF staff members made a human rights request asking the CPG to fulfill a number of basic human rights principles governing nations such as historical, cultural, territorial, national, ethnic, linguistic and economic rights. Until then the Macedonians, as members of the CPG, had given up on the territorial and state sovereignty principles.

Attitude of ELAS and the CPG (8)

Instead of attacking the remaining German units leaving the south of Greece, ELAS Commanders Evripidis Bakirdzhis and Markos Vafiadis, on October 16, 1944, issued orders to ELAS units to attack and destroy the “Slavo-Macedonian” Battalions crossing over the Yugoslav border. That was the attitude of the CPG, which shows that during that period Markos was not a “Titoist” and did not sympathize with the idea of a “United Macedonia” as part of a United Balkan Federation. (See “Studies in the history of the Greek Civil War, 1945–1949”, edited by L. Baerentzen, J.O. Smith, “Museum of Tusculanum Press”, Copenhagen 1987)

Every person who has been persecuted should ask themselves this question:

Why did ELAS want to destroy the Macedonian battalions as if they were German battalions? And now in 1946 when NOF and AFZH had entered the “joint struggle” with the Greeks, why did they expect that General Markos, the same General who personally signed the orders to destroy our Macedonian battalions in 1944, would guarantee their support and safety this time?

On July 16, 1943 ELAS Commander Sarafis and head of the English Military Mission, Colonel Eddie Myers, signed a joint declaration recognizing ELAS as an allied army and placed it under Middle East Command.

Now let us examine events that followed:

October 31, 1944 a larger group of English soldiers with armoured vehicles entered Solun before ELAS. Why? Why did the English have to enter Solun first when our own forces were right there? Three days later the BBC broke the news that British troops had liberated Solun.

In Varkiza, a resort near Athens, on February 12, 1945 an agreement was signed between the heads of the CPG and EAM, on the one hand, and the Plastiras government and the British General Scobey on the other. By signing this agreement EAM and ELAS practically handed power to the powerless right. This was the beginning of the end for mighty ELAS which until then had control of almost all of Greece.

Now let us see the assessment given on November 11, 1948 by the CPG Central Committee. Here is what it said: “Markos Vafiadis, as Commissar of a group of ELAS divisions in Macedonia, followed a chauvinistic policy towards the Slavo-Macedonian fighters.” (See “Neos Cosmos” August 1950, “Ten years of struggle”, p. 470) But why did they say this so late in the game when Markos had already been removed from command and when they needed Macedonian soldiers to fight in the Greek Civil War? Obviously they wanted to put all the blame on Markos. They lied to the Macedonian people in order to draw them into the Greek Civil War!

People were lied to and led astray by strangers. They were made to believe that they would receive their national freedom while the Macedonian leadership was bogged down with many fruitless debates on the “Macedonian Question” with the local Greek leaders in Kostur, Lerin and Voden Regions, appointed by the CPG and EAM.

To this day no one from the NOF or from the AFZH leadership (except for Rakovski) has given an explanation as to who “interfered” the most with the destiny of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

To this day no one has explained what Tempo’s purpose was when he invited the Kostur-Lerin and Voden Region battalions to Yugoslavia.