AFTERWORD

AFTERWORD

Churchill once said: “A nation can recover from military and political defeat, can overcome crime and poverty, but once it consciously accepts humiliation, it will surrender or sell itself, then after that there is no recovery. Responsibility ends here. There is no further!”

All countries (nations that experienced wars in the XX century and before) that adhered to the old cultural survival strategy of retaining their centuries-old homes, are now content, and today enjoy their own culture and statehood. But what happened to us Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia? How and why did we lose our homeland?

Many of our ancestors fought battles and wars, including our recent forefathers, and many died for their country and for their freedom but those who survived always managed to hold onto their homeland, that is until the terrible decade 1940 to 1949 when that generation lost its homeland.

Every person exiled during the terrible decade must be thinking: Why did the war not end here on May 9, 1945 as it did everywhere else?! Why did it have to continue until we were either killed or exiled? Most importantly how and why did we get embroiled in this ideologically insane Greek Civil War? Who lied to us to get us involved and what was their purpose for involving us?

Whatever decision was made, which resulted in our involvement in the conflict, must have been made during World War II and put into effect during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) resulting in our exile from our homeland.

If someone were to ask the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia why were NOF and AFZH created in Yugoslavia and what was their purpose in Greek occupied Macedonia, what do you think they would say? Honestly, unless these people were personally involved in seeking answers about our involvement they would probably have no answer. Most people are unaware of the details and can’t even explain how events transpired, never mind tell you why they transpired and who was behind them!

In retrospect, and now that we know “what” happened to us, in other words “they” promised us an “autonomous Macedonia to be joined to Yugoslavia” and later “human and equality rights” and none of these things materialized, then we have the right to ask “why did they lie to us”? But who is “they”? To us “they” are the people who looked us in the eyes and made these promises. “They” are the NOF and AFZH activists. “They” were the frontline people and our only contacts.

So, now that they did not deliver what they promised we have the right to ask them why they lied to us. They can’t deny that they lied to us because they did not deliver what they promised, so the burden now lies with them to look beyond themselves at those who promised them these things and figure out who lied to them! But, with most of them now gone, it will be difficult to get to the truth!

For the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia memories of the Greek Civil War are murky at best and historical records are scant. Almost everything that has been written about us was written by the victors, our enemies, and is cloaked in lies, deception and politically correct propaganda. Some sources, especially western sources, go as far as saying that we do not exist so how could we possible have been involved in this conflict? The facts however speak differently, we do exist and our understanding of our own history is very much different than that written by the victors. Many crimes were committed against our people before, during and after the Greek Civil War, which are now cloaked in lies and deceit. Our lands in the fourth decade of the 20th century became a wasteland and we were given a one-way ticket out of our ancestral homeland. Those are the facts! So, who are we to blame for that? Again I must emphasize our primary and only contacts during this fiasco were our NOF and AFZH activists who got us involved in the war in the first place. Then we have the CPY/CPM principally led by Tito and the CPG led by Zahariadis, behind which stood Stalin. On the other side of the conflict we have the Greek government, behind which stood Britain and the United States of America, who made no secret of their hatred of us because we were involved in the insane ideological war.

The Greek Civil War proved that there were geo-strategic and geopolitical interests in that part of the world, by the fact that not only were the Great Powers interested in dividing the world into spheres of influence but they were also committed to defending, at all costs, the territories under their influence. Greece was placed under the British sphere of influence and regardless of what was happening inside and what the people wanted, it was going to remain under British influence and it was going to be molded the way Britain desired it! Britain did not want Russia to access the Mediterranean Sea so it did everything in its power to prevent it, including getting the United States to take its place in Greece.

Although Stalin did agree to the way the world was divided, he was not happy about it so he was not beyond causing trouble for Britain and the USA. This trouble came in the form of the Greek Civil War. The fact that NOF and AFZH were created in Yugoslavia and sent to Greece to stir up trouble after World War II ended and as things were winding down, and the fact that Stalin dispatched Zahariadis to stir things up Partisan style, are indications that Stalin was involved. So we can conclude with certainty that Stalin had a hand in stirring trouble up in Greece, but ever so slightly so that his involvement would be unnoticeable by his partners, the British and Americans.

A typical way to start trouble is by stirring up old sentiments and old feelings and who better to do it with than with the Macedonian people who always yearned for freedom and to be noticed for who they are, Macedonians. So the bait was set at the end of 1945 and the beginning of 1946 when NOF and AFZH were formed under CPY/CPM control in Yugoslavia and dispatched to Greece to “stir the Macedonian revolutionary spirit”. But when the NOF and AFZH activists found it a little difficult to stir the Macedonian revolutionary spirit, they got some help from their Greek fascist and nationalist reactionary counterparts in the form of “white terror”. Frightened and in fear for their lives, the Macedonian people finally found their revolutionary spirit and armed themselves to protect themselves from the escalated Greek aggression. To maintain the momentum and continue to build up the revolutionary force, Macedonians were told they were not only fighting for their own personal freedom but also for all of Macedonia, so they needed to continue to fight so that their part of Macedonia could be freed from Greece and joined to Yugoslavia in the same way the Republic of Macedonia was joined to Yugoslavia.

No sooner had Macedonians picked up arms and were ready to fight for their liberation, than Zahariadis arrived and took control of them. He now told the Macedonian people that they still needed to fight if they wanted to survive and take their place as equals in a Greek society. But they had to win in order to do that. He never did say what would happen to them if they lost! In fact, the subject of “losing the war” was taboo with Zahariadis who always projected the idea that they were winning, even when they were losing.

Zahariadis could not have been so stupid as to think that he was winning when he was actually losing? In fact Zahariadis could not have been so stupid as to ignore the advice of important leaders such as Torres of France and Toliati of Italy after they told him that it was dangerous to pick up weapons at that point in time. Georgi Dimitrov also warned him that “the international situation does not allow for a new outbreak of an armed conflict, especially for one which would interfere in the affairs of our Western allies in the Balkans”. But Zahariadis, in spite of the advice he received not to do it, started the Greek Civil War anyway! Why?

Sixty years later, we Macedonians still have not figured out why Zahariadis did what he did and why Yugoslavia wanted to start a conflict in Greece after the Second World War ended. Was this done to get rid of us Macedonians from our homeland or was this done by Stalin to stir up trouble for Britain and the USA in Greece and we were the instrument with which to do it, or both?

Unfortunately we must conclude with much regret that, in either or both cases, we the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia were never any key players in any global process, we were simply willing victims of political circumstances used by the CPY and the CPG, through NOF and AFZH to do their dirty deeds. Then, when they were done with us, the CPY surrendered us to the Greeks and the Greeks in turn did what they always wanted to do to us, get rid of us once and for all. We gave the Greeks a legal means to get rid of us when we picked up arms and turned them against them. The Greek Civil War was supposed to be an ideological war between communism and capitalism but in the end, it turned out to be a war against the Macedonian people. The fact that Greece does not want us back and will not allow us to return to our place of birth proves that!

The forces that occupied, divided and annexed our country in 1912, 1913, have always been against us. If we take into consideration that about 40 to 50% of the fighters and support staff that fought in the Greek Civil were Macedonians who came from a proportionally small Macedonian population compared to the Greeks, you would think that we were a major factor in leading this war and in the decision making process. But if you thought that you would be wrong! We were never given the opportunity or allowed to lead our forces or make decisions during the war! What does that tell you?

Let us examine what happened when the time came to “govern” the lands we liberated from the fascists and from the Right, then known as “Liberated Territories”. When the so-called Provisional Democratic Government of Greece was established in the mountains, there was not a single Macedonian placed in a position of responsibility, even though this government was wholly supported by Macedonians. The justification given was that there were no Macedonians in high positions so as not to aggravate the government in Athens, its number one enemy! Then, after pulling that stunt, General Markos had the nerve to begin a recruitment program, taking recruits from the “Liberated Territory” most of which were on Macedonian territory with some parts covering Epirus. Recruits were mass mobilized with 10 to 20 people recruited from each Macedonian village with a population of no more than 200 people. In many cases all the recruits from one village were placed in one unit and in many cases all were killed in battle together, devastating the village. Markos was master of NOF and AFZH and whatever Markos wanted, Markos got, regardless of the consequences to the villages and the Macedonian people. Many people began to wonder what was the point of this war if it were to consume and destroy the entire Macedonian population? But the recruitment process kept moving along with NOF and AFZH activists encouraging and pushing people to join the fighting!

How and why did we defend the battles we lost?!

In the interest of Yugoslavia, official history about the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia, over the last half century or so, has strongly defended the lost battles in which we participated during the war. I often wondered about that and why it was taboo for us Macedonians to openly speak about them in the Republic of Macedonia?

One of the excuses for not wanting us to speak about the Greek Civil War was that “... it would stir up bad memories and anger the Greeks and ruin our good relations with them!”

The Greek Civil War was and still is a key national issue for us Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, but somehow it has been dislocated from our national interests. It has become a secret political problem, which still exists but we can’t talk about it. And whose interests are we serving by not being allowed to talk about it? The fact that we were not allowed to talk about it has been confirmed by the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, consisting of legal experts who held a meeting on January 23, 2006 during which Vania Toshevski said: “…all practical steps in this direction have been blocked by Yugoslavia. And it was done in favour of Greece...” Are we not the victims in all this? Over 60 years have passed, it’s time that we turn the page and begin discussions about what truly took place in Greece and get to the true purpose of the Greek Civil War in relation to the Macedonian Question.

Put simply, the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia were made into victims first by the CPY/CPM and later by the CPG, which involved the Macedonian people in order to fuel the war against the Greek government. The Greek government then did what comes naturally and attacked those who raised arms against it. This not only gave the Greek government the long awaited chance to get rid of the Macedonians but also the opportunity to do it legally by claiming self defense. And today, 60 years later, we have tens of thousands of Macedonians roaming the world as permanent refugees.

The burden to bear for over 60 years is heavy and yet still many things remain unclear, which begs the question: were the Macedonian organizations created during the terrible decade 1940 to1949 a result of Macedonian national necessities or were they created by the Greeks and their allies to do us harm? Was this another Greek “political project” to create more space for the settlers from Asia Minor?

As we have seen in this write-up, SNOF, supposedly a Macedonian organization, was created by the CPG in Kostur to serve a Greek purpose, destroy the Macedonian armed bands. Then we have NOF, AFZH and NOMS created by the CPY in Yugoslavia by Tito’s cronies and dispatched in Greece to start an uprising when one was not needed. Then after that we have the creation of KOEM and “Ilinden”, both created by the CPG to serve Zahariadis’s agenda. So you can see why it is necessary to ask these questions!

These and many other similar, questions have already been asked of our Macedonian leadership and yet, to this day, no one has stepped forward to answer them or take any responsibility for our tragic and deeply misguided policy, especially during the Greek Civil War, for the Macedonian national disaster.

In my research for this and my other books, I have discovered that we, the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, have been prey to both the left and the right and both sides have used us in their struggle against each other. But when it came to facing up to the Macedonian question, i.e. what to do with us, both sides maintained an almost identical policy, which has remained the same and in effect since 1913, “destroy everything Macedonian”!

It should not be a surprise to anyone that if Serbia and later Yugoslavia (and Bulgaria) maintained a more subtle yet similar policy towards the Macedonians because all of those countries were involved in our country’s occupation in 1913, so one would assume they were all abiding by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest for which each had an obligation to the others! So you can see why Tito was more “in favour” of pleasing the Greeks than caring for the Macedonians! He had no “international obligation” to the Macedonians; especially to those from Greece!

Not knowing any of this and being fooled by the lies and propaganda on all sides, we, the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, became willing victims in an ideological embroilment which cost us many lives and our homeland. It is that simple!

There is plenty to be learned from this lesson and from previous lessons, like the disastrous execution of the Ilinden Uprising, but first we need to know not only what happened, but how it happened and who was behind it in order to avoid it from happening again! For that we need to ask questions. Being silent is not the answer! And neither is following the lead of strangers and outsiders! Always remember this: “Words are cheap”! Anyone can tell you what you want to hear! Just because someone is cheering “long live Macedonia” does not make them a true patriot! Like I said: “Words are cheap”!

All those exiled Macedonian people, for more than half a century now, have been waiting for answers; they have been waiting to find out who was at fault for this Macedonian National disaster! It is time they get their answer… they deserve to know the truth!