10.0 AFTER THE WAR ENDED - Part 03

Meaning, Mr. Kofos, the world knows that the formation of the Macedonian nation is not someone’s project as you Greeks often maintain. Neither is Macedonia Greek, Serbian, or Bulgarian and it belongs to Tito even less. The process of how the Macedonian nation was built is the same process under which every Balkan nation and country has undergone and is based on continuity which cannot be argued. The Macedonian identity exists and that subject is already closed.

I, and many of my comrades who joined the ranks of DAG during the Greek Civil War, joined as Macedonians and we were respected as such by our Greek counterparts. Unfortunately, our fate was cruel and tragic, to be uprooted from our homes, to be uprooted and scattered around the world. This was done by no accident Mr. Kofos, it was well-perpetrated with aims of destroying our identity. What is happening to our people is nothing new; it is a continuation of Greek policy enacted even before Macedonia was partitioned in 1913.

Mr. Kofos, will you explain this to me: is it possible for my ancestors who, as you say, came to Macedonia 16 centuries ago, to have found people when they arrived here and could these people have formed any sort of symbiosis with my ancestors in those 16 centuries? Can you confirm that it was not your ancestors (Greeks) who gave my ancestors the name Macedonians? Did your ancestors, the Greeks, fight about the name with my ancestors during those 16 centuries that they lived together? Or is this something new, concocted by you and your Balkan colleagues who intentionally hijacked history and perverted it to fit your present situation after you annexed Macedonian territories? Was Alexander the Great truly always Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian as you all claim today, or is this more shameless propaganda? Please explain, Mr. Kofos, and be honest!

Dear Mr. Kofos, I have no intention of delving deep into history, yours or mine, and face your unpleasant endeavours towards my ancestors, there is enough unpleasantness in my time, in the 20th century, when Macedonia became the property of Greece, after ethnic Macedonia was divided in 1913.

But with regards to caring or not caring about the name of my country and nation and having nothing to lose by abandoning it, I will have to disagree with you on that. The name in essence and in perpetuity is essentially the most important element of a nation. To abandon our name as per your recommendation “because we have no attachment to it because we came to Macedonia only 16 centuries ago” is not only insane but suicidal. You have done harm to us when we insisted that we are Macedonians living in Macedonia on our ancestral lands; only God knows what you will do to us if we voluntarily accept that we are not Macedonian when in fact we are!

Mr. Kofos, surely by now I have mentioned the words “Greek occupied Macedonia” many times in this write up. Can you guess why? If you can’t, then please read some more of the Carnegie Commission’s testimony regarding the atrocities committed by Greek soldiers in my Macedonia and all other atrocities you Greeks have committed against my people after that!

Balkan chronicles and the Hellenization of Macedonia

After the Balkan Wars (1912 - 1913) and with the signing of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, signed on August 10, 1913, Macedonia and the Macedonian people were physically and politically divided between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and later Albania by awarding it the Lower Prespa and Golo Brdo territories. These are facts which are well known to Europe and the European Parliamentarians.

Macedonia’s division and the problems the Macedonian people were experiencing from it were still very current when they were brought up to the Paris Conference on July 15, 1919, and addressed to the Commission for New Countries requesting that they find a solution. Under the then circumstances, the British were reluctant to do anything claiming that “if they engage themselves in the issues created by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, they would be facing many problems from which it would be difficult for them to withdraw. And thus the Macedonian problem was not even looked at, at the Paris Conference.

Subsequent to that, the border problem was brought to the League of Nations, under Bulgarian pressure, many times between 1925 and 1930, but it seems no one could offer an acceptable solution. This way the Macedonian problem was always avoided and so was the issue of redrawing borders in the Balkans.

The idea of granting autonomous rights to the Macedonians in the Serbian occupied part of Macedonia and to grant cultural rights to the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia was supported by the Italians and the British. Unfortunately France and Serbia opposed it and the idea was rejected.

Ethnic cleansing in Greece – Round one:

Instead of respecting the rights of the Macedonian people, like it promised in all its agreements, Greece began to ethnically cleanse them. This was done through the following conventions;

A/ The Neuilly Convention (65), signed on November 27, 1919, called for “voluntary” exchanges of populations between Greece and Bulgaria. In 1920 Greece signed, before the League of Nations, a treaty obliging it to grant certain rights to the minorities of non-Greek origin in Greece. Four years later, in 1924, at the suggestion of the League of Nations, Greece and Bulgaria signed the well-known Kalfov-Politis Protocol under which Bulgaria was obliged to grant the Greek minority in Bulgaria their minority rights (language, schools and other rights), while Greece, recognizing the Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia as a “Bulgarian” minority, was to grant them their minority rights. But instead of doing what they were expected to do and what they had signed, both Greece and Bulgaria went on expelling Macedonians from the Macedonian territories they had occupied in 1912, 1913.

B/ Then came the Lausanne Peace Treaty signed in 1923 which called for the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey

Right after World War I, Greece began to implement its expansionist policies and initiated a campaign of conquest in Asia Minor which later became known as the Turkish - Greek War (1919-1922). This turned out to be a disaster for Greece and the last time it attempted to implement its ambitious “Megale Idea” to create a Greater Greece.

After its expansionist ambitions were curbed by the crashing defeat it received from Turkey, Greece began to look inward in order to purify itself from the inside. Being built on a shaky foundation under the claim that everyone in Greece was Greek and Greece only occupied historically Greek lands, Greece did not want to harbour “nonconformists” on its territory and made sure they were gone one way or another. But it had to do it “legally” and thus we have the various Agreements mentioned earlier. Legal or illegal, however, it made no difference to those being targeted. For them these agreements proved to be catastrophic and caused unprecedented consequences bordering on genocide, especially for the Macedonian people. During its last fiasco with Turkey, Greece expelled some 70-80 thousand more Macedonians and in their place, just in Macedonia, it settled 660,000 Turkish Christian colonists from Asia Minor.

One of the ploys Greece used to convince the world that it was okay for it to exchange populations with other countries, was the claim that these people were not only non-Greeks but they also did not belong there because they “illegally invaded” historical Greek territories over time. And thus, the indigenous Macedonians who lived on those lands for millennia, over night became “Slavo-Macedonians”. Greece, at the time, never made any claims that “other” Macedonians lived in Macedonia so the “Slavo” label was in fact a superfluous label which served to marginalize the Macedonians and label them as “outsiders” on their own lands! After tearing up a big portion of Macedonia for itself (1913-1919) and ethnically cleansing its population from 1920 to 1940, Greece had to ensure that things remained smooth inside and that if anything did happen, then it would have to have explicit rules and modalities for political intervention.

It is worthwhile at this point to mention that, much later, Greece did use the label “Slavo” to make a distinction between the indigenous (Endopii) Macedonians and the Turkish Christian colonists (Ponti, Prosfigi) it brought to Macedonia from Asia Minor. After many years of denying that Macedonians ever existed and after it became obvious to Greece that the Republic of Macedonia was about to declare its independence from Yugoslavia, Greece did a reversal on the “Macedonian issue” and declared that “everyone” in its part of Macedonia was now Macedonian, except in the reverse order. While the real Macedonians remained “Slavo-Macedonians”, the Turkish Christian colonists from Asia Minor became “Macedonians” without a label. They now were considered to be legitimate Macedonians who were exclusively entitled to the entire Macedonian heritage!

So, what does this mean? In this case Greece reacted as best as it could to the new circumstances of having to face up to the idea that a Macedonian identity was about to surface. And how did Greece react to that? Greece still maintained that a Macedonian identity did not exist because in its reality the “new” so called Macedonians, i.e. the Turkish Christian colonists, were “actually” Greeks who lived in Macedonia. And thus everything that was claimed to be Macedonian actually belonged to Greece! And because everything Macedonian belonged to Greece, the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia had no eights to it! In other words, nothing had changed since 1913 and Greece was on track with its original policies in dealing with the Macedonian people: destroy everything historic that tied the Macedonian people to Macedonia.

I have often been accused of throwing the words “genocide” and “destroy” when I talk about Greece’s attitude towards the Macedonians but what else can I call Greece’s acts against the Macedonians, such as those already mentioned involving population exchanges and uprooting people from their homes and ancestral lands, simply because Greece does not like their ethnicity or their ethnicity does not fit Greece’s idea of what Greece should be! No one deserves that kind of treatment, especially the indigenous Macedonians who lived in Macedonia for millenniums. But Greece did not stop with just tossing people out, it continued its genocidal acts by erasing everything Macedonian, starting with changing peoples first and last names. It began by calling the Macedonian territory it annexed “Voria Elada” (Northern Greece). And since when has Macedonia been “Greece”? Macedonia has always been Macedonia. Well, it was called Northern Greece now, shortly after 1913, and that was by no accident! By calling Macedonia Northern Greece, the Greek authorities not only put claims on Macedonia but also sent the Macedonian people a clear message – “This is Greece now and this is not your country any more, so comply with our rules or else!” The Macedonian people were put on notice and left with two options; comply or rebel!

After it possessed the Macedonian territory, Greece treated it as its own with total disregard for its previous owners, the Macedonian people. On November 21, 1926 the official Greek Gazette “tis Efimiris kiverniseos”, number 332, introduced the Law on Toponyms enacted to change all the place names across Greece’s annexed Macedonian territory. Later it did the same with people’s personal names all across Macedonia.

It is interesting to note at this point that while the Greek government was obviously preoccupied with changing the names in its “most recent” annexed part of Macedonia, it forgot that Macedonians also lived across the river Belitsa (Aliakmonas) in Epirus where the place names remained unchanged since my so-called “Slav” ancestors came to live there. I discovered this during the Greek Civil War, when I served in DAG and when I was stationed there. I found Slavic place names that still existed in the 1940’s unchanged for centuries. Names of mountains such as “Golio kamenik” (from Gol Kamen), “Orliakas” (from Orel), “Gramos” (from Gremost), etc. Cities and towns such as “Mechovo” (from mechka), “Konitsa” (from Kon), etc. Villages such as “Zagorie” (from zad gorie), “Vrbiani” (from vrbie), “Zlatino” (from zlato), “Prisoiviani” (from prisoo), all having roots in the Macedonian language.

As mentioned earlier, the Greek government’s plan was to name the indigenous Macedonian population in its occupied Macedonian territory, “Slavo-Macedonians” in order to prove to the world that Macedonians did not exist and those calling themselves “Macedonians” were not Macedonians at all but “Slavs” who migrated to Macedonia during the 4th-6th century AD. And because they were “Slavs”, they could not possibly have been Macedonians because only those who have ancient roots, connected to the ancient Macedonians, qualify to be called Macedonians. So, as you can see, Greece had “big plans” for the Macedonian population the day it invaded and occupied Macedonia. And in retrospect, there is no mistake what these plans were – to evict the Macedonian people from their homeland, by any means possible, in order to erase everything Macedonian – and if that is not genocide I don’t know what is?

Let us be open about this: Why are the Greeks so fearful of our identity? Historically we all know precisely what happened. We all lived in open borders since Philip II’s time, we all experienced the same invasions, famines, epidemics and we all traveled and moved around inside the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires looking for better opportunities to improve our lives. We all know how the Turks, Uruks, Jews, Vlachs, Albanians, etc., arrived on our lands, where they settled and the kinds of work they did. We all lived in difficult times and to some degree we tolerated each other, particularly our religions, customs, cultures and languages. Then, one day in our near past, nationalism came to our lands and overnight, some of us literally became a different people. But instead of learning from our past mistakes and moving forward, some of us leaped back. Greece leaped so far back that it found itself in ancient times. It then not only adopted the positive things from its “new past”, it also proudly adopted the negative things. Modern Greeks began to behave like the “Doric Hellenes” who had no tolerance for other races and their solution to people problems was enslavement and extermination. Even though today’s Greeks had nothing in common with the Doric Hellenes, they not only usurped their name “Hellenes”, they also usurped their behaviour towards others. So, what the Ottomans did not do to the Macedonian people in over 5 centuries of rule, the Greeks did in a matter of a few decades after 1913. They changed the entire character of Macedonia including banning the Macedonian language but they did not stop there. They also introduce laws and punishments to make sure that the Macedonian language was never again spoken.

Ethnic cleansing in Greece – Round two – Communist interference in Macedonian affairs:

A good way to avoid traps and of being used and manipulated in the present and in the future is by learning the truth about our past, about what happened to us in the past. The Macedonian people living in Greek occupied Macedonia up to the Second World War were a nameless people abused and oppressed by the Greek system and by the Greek people in general and lived under strict political neglect deprived of all human rights. Then, during the Greek Civil War (1945 - 1950) we became pawns of the communist agenda and were turned into victims first by the CPY and then by the CPG. While under the “care” of the CPY we were led to believe that we were fighting for an autonomous Macedonia to be joined to the Yugoslav Federation. Then, after we were made wards of the CPG we were led to believe that we were fighting for our human rights as citizens of Greece, during which time we were led by the very same people who we were fighting against. Our greatest oppressor in Greek occupied Macedonia was the Greek government and the Greek system. Our second greatest oppressors were the Christian Turkish colonists brought to Macedonia from Asia Minor by Greece to replace us and to make Greece pure again. How could we have been so blind not to have seen that our leaders during the Greek Civil War, who led us, were also the very same people who were trying to replace us? It is a fact that we were told that we were fighting for our human rights? It is a fact that those at the top of the CPG, the CPG Central Committee and the CPG Politburo who led us in this fight, were in fact the same kind of people who wanted us out of Macedonia so that they could have it for themselves. So, what exactly were we fighting for and what other outcome could we have expected? So, in addition to being a nameless people we became a homeless people, driven out of our ancestral lands to roam the world endlessly. And the shame of it all is that we were manipulated in doing this to ourselves. In other words, we were manipulated to raise arms against the Greek state and gave the Greeks yet another reason to seek our demise.

Unfortunately the truth is complicated and does not always come out even if you ask the right questions. Greece never admitted that Macedonians lived on its occupied territories and in fact no one is going to accuse Greece of oppressing an ethnicity that does not exist. But the truth has other ways of coming out; not from what the Greeks say but from what they do. It is a fact that Greece, over the years, passed a number of laws which discriminated against a certain segment of its population. It even passed a law that allowed people who were exiled to return but under the condition that they were “Greeks by birth”! This begs the question: if all people born in Greece are Greeks and if all people who were exiled were born in Greece then all exiled people must be Greeks by birth. Right? Then why pass this law? Greek occupied Macedonia became Greek in 1913, so are they trying to tell us that people who came to Greek occupied Macedonia 16 centuries earlier are not “Greeks” but those who were brought there in the 1920’s are?

Yes, Mr. Kofos, this is precisely the message you are sending out in a clever and subtle way!

Based on international law, citizens of a state are protected everywhere they go and have the right to return to their country of origin. But we, the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, have not only been deprived of our citizenship but we have also been robbed of our opportunity to return to our homes. Greece has made sure of that by enacting a number of discriminatory laws designed to apply only to Macedonians:

Law KZ 375/14 was enacted in December 1936 and by this law Macedonians who were characterized as being “disloyal citizens” were interned on the Greek islands. In practice this law was applied only against indigenous Macedonians, or against the descendents of those who were not Greeks by birth! Or more precisely, against those who had Macedonian leanings and sentiments.

The following laws were enacted and in practice used to prosecute Macedonians:

Law PZ 4124/45 “collaborating with the occupier”. This law was enacted exclusively to jail Macedonian fighters who belonged to armed bands in Kostur region.

Law KZ 453/45 and KZ 454/45 “participating in autonomous activities”. These laws were enacted to prosecute Macedonians organized in the political organizations NOF, NOMS and AFZH.

Draft – a law was drafted to forcibly expel Macedonians across the border in 1946.

Decree “Z” enacted on December 7, 1947, “deprivation of Greek citizenship for acting anti-nationally;

Law 516 enacted on January 8, 1948, “eligibility of citizens”;

Decree “H” enacted January 20, 1948, “property confiscation of Civil War participants”;

Law 2536/53 “displacement and resettlement in Greek border areas”;

Law 3958/1959 “dealing with properties of refugees”;

These were and still are the most racist laws in Europe.

Mr. Kofos, how can Greece, a democratic country and a member of the EU, still have such racist laws?

By decision 106.841/5-1-83, by the Ministry of the Interior, only “Greeks by genus” can be repatriated. Signed on December 29, 1982 by Giorgos Genimatas, Minister of the Interior, and Gianis Skularikis, Minister of Public Order.

Mr. Kofos, if everyone who is born in Greece is Greek then what is the purpose of this law?

Now let us be clear about this, Mr. Kofos. You know and I know that no one was Greek before the Greek state was created for the first time in 1828. Unlike the Macedonian identity which existed before a Macedonian state, the Greek identity was created after the creation of the Greek state in the 1820’s. In other words, the Greek identity came into existence after 1828. That means that, as per your design, everyone born in Greece after 1828 was Greek. That also means that on December 29, 1982 when the above decision was made, everyone in Greece and those who had left Greece were Greek. So again I ask you Mr. Kofos what was the purpose of this law?

In reality Mr. Kofos, if you care to know, the reason this law was enacted was to manipulate it so that it would apply to anyone Greece did not want returning back to Greece, particularly Macedonians who changed their names back to their original names because they found out who they were, learned their history and about the atrocities committed against their fellow Macedonians. And that, Mr. Kofos, would have caused your state problems inside Greece, should they have been allowed to return and tell their story to Macedonians inside Greece. Anyone who showed up at your border with a non-Greek name, claiming to be born in Greece, your border guards were instructed to refuse them entry - without an explanation. What explanation could they have given them other than to say that there is no such name in our database, therefore you don’t enter? If that person was “Greek by genus” he or she would have had a Greek name because Greece made sure that everyone in Greece had a Greek name; their names were either changed in the 1920’s or if they were born after that, the Greek system (Church and State) made sure they were baptized with a Greek name. So, Mr. Kofos, a person without a Greek name according to your design, “cannot possibly” be a Greek by genus. This is why this law was enacted and this is how it was manipulated to refuse Macedonians entry back to their homeland where they were born and lived for centuries.

One more question, Mr. Kofos, was Markos Vafiadis a “Greek by genus”? Why was he allowed to return to Greece? If anyone has any doubt about what I said above then ask yourselves “how can a person, a Turkish Christian colonist, born in Turkey be allowed to return to Greece and not a Macedonian who was born inside Greece?” Now tell me how these laws are not racist and how they don’t discriminate exclusively against Macedonians?!

The Greek acts described above are no secret and have been repeatedly applied against the Macedonian people for many decades. These acts are no secret to the European Union either, yet to this day the EU has made no demands on Greece to abolish them. The question is why? Is Europe party to all this? Logic would lead one to think in that direction. If that were true, and there is no reason for it not to be, then Europe itself (Western Europe) is no better than Greece!

How and why Macedonians were expelled from Greece by a one-way ticket

Mr. Kofos, these laws were enacted to punish the Macedonians who participated in the Greek Civil War, people ages 16 to 50 who were lied to and then forcibly mass mobilized. People of many ethnicities were mobilized then, during the communist chaos and we all served in the ranks of DAG together, by the thousands sharing our fate in the bunkers of Gramos. There and then I met many of them and they had no problem with me being Macedonian, but then when the time came for us to return home, back to Greece, you allowed them in and rejected me. The only difference between us is that I am Macedonian and they are not!

The Macedonian people suffered many casualties, more that 20,000 were direct victims of the Greek Civil War and for those who survived, the CPG leadership dug a different kind of grave for them. The CPG leadership reserved a black page in our history and along with the red card it gave us, it tossed us in the ideological waste basket. So the question to you, Mr. Kofos, is how can a “legitimate” government such as yours, member of the European Union, enact such laws and still have the power to deny some people their rights, and not the rights of others who allegedly participated in committing exactly the same crimes? How can your government enact laws to punish people who had absolutely nothing to do in the decision making in the war and yet free those like General Markos Vafiadis who were directly responsible for leading the war?

Was it not that by these laws that Greece also initiated the so-called “PEDOMAZOMA”, a violent act of kidnapping Macedonian children ages 3 to 14? Was this not done under political intent, an act of degradation of human dignity, to perhaps fatally wound the Macedonian nation? This, Mr. Kofos, as you know, was done by both sides of the war but as time has shown, with a single intent; to get rid of the Macedonians from Greece by any means possible. You know, Mr. Kofos, that in March 1948, 28,000 children were collected under communist orders and given a one way ticket out of their homes. This one way ticket, as it turned out, was planned and meant only for the Macedonians, which was part of Greece’s strategic plans since 1913, to violently evict the Macedonian people from their homeland!

Mr. Kofos, for years I have paid close attention to the various “actions” the Greek government has taken against the Macedonian state and against the Macedonian people. Every proposal made, no matter how innocent it may have looked to the casual observer, it was always made from a position of strength and with hidden political intent; to bring harm to the Macedonians.

I am amazed in this day and age at the audacity of the Greek government attempting to impose itself with such ferocity on an independent state which not only has nothing to do with Greece but is willing to stay out of Greece’s way. I am amazed that in this day and age Greece can claim to be democratic country yet demand of the Republic of Macedonia change its flag and its name! I am even more amazed that Greece would care so much about “everything” Macedonian in the Republic of Macedonia yet care none for the Macedonian people who live inside Greece. If Greece cares so much about the flag used by the Republic of Macedonia and about the name “Macedonia”, then why not allow the “real” Macedonians living inside Greek occupied Macedonia have and use them? Why is Greece, on one hand, so “concerned” about some aspects of “Macedonia” and, on the other, denying the “real” Macedonian people their history, culture, language, Macedonian names and other basic human rights?

If Macedonia and the Macedonian people continue to “bend” to Greece’s will, Greece will continue to impose itself, as part of its long term plans to rid of the Macedonian identity, and will not only undermine all past Macedonian endeavours and struggles but the Macedonian people, even those in the Republic of Macedonia, will lose their basic human rights, free expression and eventually their Macedonian identity. And that will not only be a disaster for the Macedonian people but a great loss to the whole world, a world that has been lied to about who the Macedonians truly are and the many contributions they have made to world civilization in the last three millenniums or so of their existence.

Mr. Kofos, as you well know the Greek government made demands on the Macedonian people under extreme pressure. When the Republic of Macedonia found itself in a vulnerable position, because Greece imposed an economic embargo on it, Greece blackmailed it into changing its constitution in ways that were damaging to the Macedonian people living inside Greece or originating from Greece. This was a politically motivated act to take focus away from Greece, away from the Greek atrocities committed against the Macedonian people, the illegal Greek confiscation of Macedonian properties, the continual Hellenization of Macedonians and the Greek denial of human rights for the Macedonian people living in Greece. This act, I call an immoral use of political power applied in the absence of spiritual rule!

Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia – From the hell of war to the hell of oblivion

Mr. Kofos, as you said at the end of your lecture: “… I accepted it and then I spent my entire life dealing with it! Fifty years!” So, Mr. Kofos, you preoccupied yourself for 50 years planning the demise of the Macedonian nation. You spent 50 years of your life planning to rob us of our heritage and toss us out of our homeland! How commendable of you!

At this point allow me to say, Mr. Kofos, that you are not the only Greek patriot and genocidal ideologist. You are one of many. Greece, in fact, since 1913 has used such strategic means to erode the Macedonian nation inside and outside of Greek occupied Macedonia. Greeks all around the world have been busy blocking, removing, deleting, rewriting and erasing Macedonian presence everywhere. Books, tapes, magazines, cultural items etc., have been removed from libraries and public institutions worldwide. Macedonian products have been denied, mislabeled and removed from store shelves all around the word due to Greek objections. These things are done even today. A Greek priest in Australia announced to the Macedonians that if they continue to speak Macedonian (in Australia) they will not receive Communion. (“The Macedonian conflict”, p. 359.) But there are even crueler and inhumane Greek acts: The Greeks persecuted the parents whose sons fought in the Greek Army to preserve Greek sovereignty, who laid down their lives in the Turkish - Greek War, who fought in the Greek-Italian war, etc. These parents were first persecuted because they spoke Macedonian and later were thrown out with the rest of the refugees to die on the roads with a sense of guilt. Based on how they were treated, these elderly people saw the Greeks as worse than the Ottomans, saying, “The Ottomans did not have faith but had sympathy. Greeks have neither faith nor sympathy.”

And this is how Greece works on a daily basis, systematically destroying the Macedonian national identity, not only inside Greek occupied Macedonia, but also outside all around the world while using any means possible to promote and build its own invented Greek identity. After promoting Turkish coffee, feta cheese and other Balkan products as “Greek” its latest manifestation is “Greek yogurt”. Today there is no television station or program in Canada where “Greek yogurt” is not advertised at least once per hour! Are there any other “yogurts” prefixed with a country name like “Macedonian yogurt”, “Bulgarian yogurt”, “Albanian yogurt”, or “Serbian yogurt”? NO! Only “Greek yogurt!”

But what is most surprising and, even crueler now, is that Greece, as a member of NATO and the EU, does not want to talk about the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, signed on August 10, 1913, for which it has accepted the following obligations regarding the Macedonian population:

Article 7: Section 1: “All Greek nationalities (communities living in Greece) will be equal before the law and shall enjoy the same civil rights regardless of race, religion or language”;

Paragraph 3: “People of different Greek communities with different religions, beliefs, faiths, etc., will not face prejudice when exercising their civic and political duties, require access to public works, employment, etc. Tolerance, respect and professionalism will be exercised towards all individuals”;

Paragraph 4: “No restrictions will be imposed on the use of any of the languages spoken by the Greek communities, in commerce, in religious proceedings, in the media, in publications and in any other way. This also applies to public gatherings, public meetings and to private discussions;

Article 8: “The smaller Greek national communities which belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and protection from the law as the larger Greek national communities. Basically, they will have equal rights to establish, manage and control expenditures in charitable and religious institutions, schools, other educational institutions and the right to use their own language and practice their own religion freely and without interference in these institutions”;

Article 9, paragraph 1: “In terms of public education in cities and regions where sizable minorities live who speak another language, other than Greek, the Greek state will provide adequate facilities for them and will ensure that primary schooling in their native language is available at the same level as is available to those who are taught Greek. In addition to this, the Greek government will also introduce compulsory Greek education in the same schools”;

Article 16: “Greece accepts these obligations and agrees to be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations as follows: each member of the League of Nations Council shall have the right to investigate any violation or threat of violation of any of these obligations and the Council will have the right to immediately take action and issue directives, make decisions in accordance with its jurisdiction and circumstances... The Greek government hereby agrees that if a dispute occurs, and if the other party deems it necessary, the said dispute could then be addressed to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decision of the Permanent Court shall be final and shall have the same power and effect as a decision made under Article 13 of the Convention of the League of Nations.”

Signatories or guarantors of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest (countries which drafted the said Articles and Paragraphs) were: Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.

After a century of ethnic cleansing, fierce discrimination, assimilation and forced exile of Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia, the Greek state, now a member of the EU and NATO, is using the same idea and same cynicism to establish itself as an imperial power over the Republic of Macedonia in order to incinerate everything that is Macedonian and permanently claim the Macedonian heritage for itself.

What has happened to us and what is still happening to Macedonians today can’t be good, not even for Greece. We have Greek politicians, the Greek government and you personally, Mr. Kofos, who have made your life’s mission to see us disappear. Have you forgotten, Mr. Kofos, that in the defense of Greek sovereignty, thousands of Macedonians died and left their bones on the fields and mountains in today’s Greece: The Turkish -Greek War of 1921, the war against the Italians in World War II and the most tragic of all wars for the Macedonians, the Greek Civil war, during which we experienced genocide.

After the Greek Civil War, only Macedonians lost everything:

a) Their human rights; b) Their right to return to their homes, c) Their properties were confiscated; and d) The right to integrate themselves in the Greek state with personal, cultural and national rights as Macedonians and citizens of Greece.

The laws mentioned earlier were enacted against the Macedonian people, to prevent them from taking their rightful place in Greek society and they are a true testament of what Greece has done against us!

Let us now examine what Professor Trepst said and what sins have been prescribed for us Macedonians:

“The real reason for the hysteria that swept through Greek society in terms of Macedonia can not be explained only by the then disintegration of Yugoslavia and the independence of Macedonia. It has deeper roots in the Greek, yet to be revealed, trauma. It has to do with the Greek nationalist notion of glory called Communism!” Professor Stefan Trebst, head of the research project at the University of Leipzig on “Greece and the Macedonian Question”, said this in an interview with Radio Deutsche Welle. According to Professor Trebst, the dispute between Macedonia and Greece may take another 100 years because Greece will completely lose its reputation if the current official name “Republic of Macedonia” is accepted.

What is Greece complaining about? Our country’s name is Macedonia! No one can dispute that it is our right to exist as a nation, as Macedonians! Our name “Macedonia” came from our past, we did not invent it! What kind of future will we have without a past? If not Macedonians, who will we be? What will happen to us if we just “give up” who we are? Is this the kind of advice Greece is giving us? Is this what Greece is planning for our future? And who and what gave Greece the right to do this to us?

Politics in Greece after the Greek Civil War ended

Mr. Kofos, as a principal architect of Greek politics you actively participated in shaping Greek government policies, seeking out special legal measures for ethnically cleansing your Macedonia and assimilating all remaining Macedonians after the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) ended.

After a decade of hostilities, the war ended in Greece in 1949. The number of Macedonians living there dramatically dropped, particularly in the Lerin and Kostur Region villages. By the time the war was over many Macedonians were either killed or had fled Greece, but approximately 100,000 Macedonians still remained inside Greece. After the war ended Greece sought its opportunity to re-examine its policies towards the “Macedonian Question” and awarded itself the opportunity to declare it “non-existent”. Because of the reduction in the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia, Athens officially decided, once again, to declare Greece “pure” and that again only “pure Greeks now lived in Greece” thus forcing the remaining Macedonians to accept “ a pure Greek national consciousness” in order to be part of the “Greek national core”. And thus a new baseless and groundless strategy was introduced which has been followed to this day.

If what was claimed by Greece is true, then things are not what they seem. If the Macedonians who were living in Greece before the war, and who remained in Greece after the war, already had a “pure Greek” national consciousness, then why were measures taken, as evidence suggests, to assimilate them, on an ongoing basis, which is practiced to this day?! Be it as it may, the “idea that Macedonians do not exist” was put in practice in Greek political life inside and outside of Greece on an international level. Is it not a fact Mr. Kofos that in 1950, Ioanis Sofianopulos, Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed the Greek Parliament about this very same issue?

Then, in the fall of 1951, the Ministry of Northern Greece issued its staff officers attached to Macedonia, an additional task to ensure that every Macedonian behaved properly and was educated properly in order to “restore” and strengthen “Greek national feelings” in the Macedonian population in Central and Western Macedonia, who were left behind after the Greek Civil War. The letter emphasizes that the Macedonian population, in addition to accepting the “Greek consciousness”, must also learn to speak the Greek language and abandon the “idiom” spoken inside the home.

In 1953 and 1956, radio stations, supported by the Royal National Institute, were opened in Kostur and Lerin. Opening these radio stations was justified as a “national need”. Characteristic measures such as these, known as “Special programs”, were also recommended and implemented by the Constantine Karamanlis government between 1958 and 1963. All these programs had a hidden agenda; they were all designed to assimilate the Macedonian population in Western Macedonia.

In order to implement these measures the Greek government was in need of assistance from many of its national institutions; schools, churches, military, militia and various other bodies and organizations. One of the measures implemented was the “oath”. For example, in 1959 three villages, Krpeshina in Lerin Region, Trebinio in Kailari Region and Ludovo in Kostur Region, were asked to take the dreaded oath. The Macedonian people in these villages were forced to swear that they would never speak the “damned idiom” again and would always speak only Greek, the language of the bible, the language inherited from their ancient ancestors. This also took place in 1962, in the village Ostrovo in Pela Region in the presence of a senior government representative involving 600 residents. The same took place in the village Rusilovo in Pela Region and other villages.

School children were also sent on free trips (to get to know Greece), courtesy of Frederica’s programs, as well as to attend paid classes to learn home economics and other practical household activities. Children were strictly forbidden from speaking Macedonian, singing Macedonian songs, or dancing Macedonian dances. These young children, especially the girls, became candidates for mixed marriages. They were encouraged to marry Greeks so that their children could be pure Greek.

All this, Mr. Kofos, the special programs, the people paid to carry out these tasks, came at a great cost and for what? To assimilate the “non-existent Macedonians”!

This, Mr. Kofos, has been Greece’s policy towards the Macedonians since 1950 and it remains unchanged to this day.

According to international law, a citizen of a state is cared for regardless of where they are located. The Macedonians, according to international law, have the right to return to their country of birth and their country is responsible for their protection. But we, the Macedonian political refugees from Greece, have been deprived of these rights for over half a century.

And finally Mr. Kofos, let me say that no matter what Greece says and does and how it twists history to fit its agenda, it can never hide the truth. The truth is out there, hidden in archives, in diplomatic papers, in personal biographies, etc., and can easily be found.

- “Memorandum – The Macedonian Question. Regarding the situation in Greek Macedonia; facts about the terror in Greek Macedonia. American press reports about the Greek terror in Greek Macedonia. The situation in Greek Macedonia from December 16, 1946. F0 371/58615 HP00201 R16924/298/67.

- “Greek memorandum regarding the Slav threat against Greek Macedonia, from October 20, 1946. F0 371/58615 HP00201 R156551/298/67.