EXHIBIT - Part 02

This phenomenon called the ‘Greek Civil War’ was not only pure genocide to ethnically cleanse Greek occupied Macedonia of its Macedonian population but it was a means of making it look legal and moral from the Greek side, which resulted in our silence for more than half a century. What did we want? We wanted our Macedonia, which was stolen from us, to be given back to us. We wanted to be Macedonians; exactly what we are! No more and no less! Were these not noble deeds? Why then did it turn out that we were the bad guys who had to suffer and keep silent about it for half a century?

NOF and AFZH’s objectives, which were then closely linked with the ideology of world globalization, were changed depending on which client and in whose hands NOF and AFZH’s fate belonged, the CPG or the CPY/CPM. As a result NOF and AFZH’s achievements were extremely disappointing. Not only did we lose many people, we lost our Macedonian primordial homeland forever. Not only were there no guarantees demanded by NOF and AFZH to ensure our postwar survival, but they also failed to stop the “Pedomazoma” from taking place, which was no less than political terror against the Macedonian children. Because no such guarantees were made, for our (self) sacrifices in the Greek Civil War, we were rewarded with a one way ticket out of our homeland.

The guilt is ours to bear…

After World War II ended it was more than clear that the Greek Civil War was started by the communist regime, or more precisely by Zahariadis, Tito and Stalin. But it became an interesting combination when demagogy and daily politics were merged in historiography where the dual historical reality was recklessly distorted in the belief that the Greek Civil War (1945 - 1949) was an epic, a historical event for us Macedonians. But if we analyze the facts, we will find that NOF and AFZH were preoccupied, according to some political plan, with using systematic propaganda in order to mobilize the Macedonian people, through lies and deceit, to join the

war. The Macedonian people were never asked if they wanted a war, they were simply led to join this strange conflict with false promises. We Macedonians should also bear much of the guilt for allowing strangers to take our children away from us. This act alone sealed the fate of the Macedonian family in Greek occupied Macedonia forever. Is there anyone, any member of NOF and AFZH who can explain why it was necessary to have this war?

Much of our historiography today is artificially constructed to include Greek and foreign ideological determination: ELAS, EAM, Chetniks, martial institutions in Aegean Macedonia, etc. This brazenly falsified historiography is specifically designed to keep the Macedonian reader confused and in the dark regarding Macedonia’s history and the reality of this war. We were a small nation of people living in Greece and had no means of getting help from the outside, not even from Macedonians living in other countries… because it was a pointless war. We should have used our brains and hearts, our intellect to demonstrate to the world that we needed help, not arms. What did we expect would happen when we picked up guns and started shooting? How did we think the Greeks, even the whole world, were going to react to our armed aggression, especially after the war (WW II) had ended and people were looking forward to living in peace?

I am sorry to say this friend but we too are guilty of many sins…

Now let me ask you this: ‘By participating in this war did we cause the loss of our ethnic and historical status in Greek occupied Macedonia? Did we help the Greeks achieve their objectives to get rid of us once and for all?!’ Think about it! What did NOF and AFZH achieve by dragging us into a senseless war with no safeguards for our lives or future in our country? Very disappointing!

Passing through the phases of time, NOF and AFZH first served under the CPM/CPY and then under the CPG during which time many mistakes were made, which turned out to be detrimental to our people. Knowingly or unknowingly, what was done eventually led to our defeat and destruction. NOF and AFZH (CPM), by their own actions, proved that they were created without a clear political

philosophy of their own, which was vital to the interests of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia. This was confirmed not only by the outcome of events, but also by how Macedonians were treated. For example, while we were supposedly equals to the Greeks we were being referred to as ‘Slavo-Macedonians’; not what we wanted to be called but what the Greeks wanted to call us. We were referred to as ‘Slavo-Macedonians’ against our will, which left deep psychological wounds in the collective consciousness and souls of the Macedonian people living in Greek occupied Macedonia. What kind of equality was that? And why did NOF and AFZH not object to it? Probably the most painful thing to this day is the fact that even though we were led into oblivion and lost many lives and our homes, NOF, AFZH, CPM and the CNG fiercely defended their actions as justified. After the war many people thought that there was no justice in this world,” I said.

By now Krapov was no longer listening to me. He seemed as if he was deep in his own thoughts so I stopped talking.

FREE GREECE MILITARY NEWS: Greek Civil War ends on August 29/30, 1949.

DAG units have moved to Albania. They are being disarmed by Albanian authorities and placed in the Bureli and Elbasan camps. From October 1st to 5th, 1949 members of the Macedonian NOF and AFZH leadership, by order from the CPG and DAG General Headquarters, were being arrested under accusations from the CPG that they were Tito’s agents.

Greek Civil War brings Macedonian families countless tragedies

Krapov looked at me as if he wondered why I had stopped talking. This was my cue to continue, so I said:

“Five years of war, Macedonian families destroyed, homes abandoned, villages burned down… only churches remain standing… silent witnesses to a great tragedy... but do we Macedonians know any more than this about what happened, why it happened and who was behind this tragedy… this has been our fate! Unfortunately, the powers to be made sure that the time for finding

the truth had stopped while our slavery continued… While the red storm was muted, the dirty slogans silenced… the call to escape intensified and we began to think dark thoughts… what had these ideological activists done to us? And then wondered: “Will we now lose our native hearth?!” This was genocide… and this is what the communists have done to us!

If there was any justice in that world it was for the strong. In other words there was only justice for those who willed power and in this case it was the communists. There was no fairness… only strength… and that’s what mattered then and nothing else. The same is true today… So, were our strategists in the CPM, NOF and AFZH not aware of what had already been decided by the Great Powers and by Macedonia’s neighbours when they went looking for an alternate solution for us Macedonians?! Why did these organizations wait for others, outsiders, to create a future for us? Were they not capable? If not then why did they accept to lead us? Why did they play a role in turning us into victims of the CPG? On top of that, why did they allow the history of this war to be falsified and for the truth and our future to be erased?

In the half century or so that has passed since the war ended many so-called intellectuals, if we can call them that, have been engaged in discussions about this war, both in political and general forums, but all they have done is apologize for the political powers, sometimes putting their own intellectual creed in question. Some were lost in the daily political waters in which they lost their intellectual virtues in favour of demagogy. But there were also those groups which worked in accordance with the needs of their clients and their lucrative goals and needs. From time to time these groups affirmed and praised some ideas and in different situations they were its fiercest critics. These groups, filled with unfulfilled ambitions, actively participated in the division of political power but because of their own failures were constantly filled with anger, jealousy and nihilism.

And how did the communists in Bureli solve and bury the Macedonian Question?

Let me say that they did it in the presence of the highest CPG communist leadership, in front of Grigori Petrov, a high representative of the USSR and member of the Information Bureau, in front of DAG General Headquarters staff and all the fighters (Greeks and Macedonians) who bled for four years fighting in the Greek Civil War. They did it in front of members of NOF and AFZH and in front of a number of senior representatives belonging to the Communist Party of Albania.

Was this then a strategy to drive the Macedonians out of Greece?!” I asked.

Unexpectedly Krapov looked at me and said: “Yes! Yes, but that was not all. That was not the end!”

“Here is a chronology of events,”,I said.

“Two days after being placed in the camps in Albania, the NOF and AFZH Macedonian leaders were labeled Tito and Kolishevski’s bandits. All of us DAG fighters were stunned by the news. We knew nothing about this during the course of the war.”

Krapov interrupted and said: “Well, this is how the communist system worked. It worked conspiratorially, secretly! Do you understand?”

“If that were so,” I said “why then did they all pretend to be naïve?! False heroes and victims… The Macedonians have no one to blame but themselves. They decided to become servents of the strategic policy implemented in Yugoslavia and wanted to have influence over the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia.

The moment we arrived at the camps, security organs under the leadership of General Dimitrios Vlandas and Periklis Mirovlitis, the officers in charge of intelligence activities at the DAG General Headquarters in Bureli Camp, began searching all the camps looking to capture and arrest Tito’s agents.

From October 1st to October 5th, 1949, arrested were:

1. Paskal Mitrevski, president of NOF. And as I have said before, NOF and AFZH were established in the CPM Central Committee Headquarters in Skopje on April 23, 1945. All NOF and AFZH members were selected by Mitrevski’s design. Mitrevski did that after he returned from Belgrade where he stayed for several months and received instructions from CPY Central Committee authorized personnel. He chose the following people: Pavle Rakovski, Mincho Fotev, Vera - Evdokia Baleva, Urania Urukova, Tashko Hadzhianev, Lazar Poplazarov, Hristo Kolentsev, Lambro Cholakov, Mihail Maliov and Themistoklis Leokratis.

The next day, October 3, 1949, the above mentioned people were arrested and placed in a joint jail cell. There they asked each other why they had been detained. They had never done anything that would be hostile towards the CPG? They had always acted on CPG orders, which included organizing the Macedonian people and getting them to fight for the CPG and for world freedom en masse? They pushed the Macedonian peasants to give everything they had for this holy struggle? They had even agreed to evacuate their children so that the women could enter the ranks of DAG? They were completely puzzled by the actions that the CPG took.

The CPG was the stepmother who they earnestly loved!

Like Umbero Eko once said: ‘I now began to believe that the whole world was a secret, a harmless secret, which became a horror when I attempted to interpret it as well-hidden truth’…”

Krapov interrupted me again and said: “The Macedonian communists from NOF and AFZH are now saying that they loved the CPG like it was their Party, and as such throughout the entire course of the war they preached its politics to the Macedonian people. They sincerely loved the CPG like a stepmother.”

I looked at Krapov and said: “Were these people trying to be naïve on purpose or were they truly subjects of the CPY and the CPG?! If the Macedonians from NOF and AFZH did not do what they were told to do by the CPY and CPG or as they said: ‘We only acted on the orders of the CPG when our assignment was to mass organize the Macedonian people in the struggle’, we would not have been

expelled from our homeland! And as Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher, once said: ‘There is no madness from which a person cannot escape, except from vanity.’

But what do statements like these, made by Vera and the others, tell us? They tell us that there was a strand of self-defeat amongst our Macedonian communists. In other words, the people of NOF and AFZH worked for strangers, for the designers of the war who planned to rid of us from our homeland. And as it turned out it was all done against the interests of the Macedonian people!

Now they were pretending to be naïve and fear made them wonder: ‘What will become of us?...’ Fear and horror preoccupied the leaders of NOF and AFZH as they sat in the jail.

The next day, October 4, 1949, General Vlandas lookеd at them angrily and said: ‘Write down about Tito and Kolishevski’s band!’

He wanted a statement from each one of them so he said: ‘Write, write about your dirty deeds.’ And as such each of the detainees was obliged to give a statement.

A great gathering involving all the DAG fighters was called for October 7, 1949. More than 3,000 people showed up. Among them were members of the CPG Politburo, members of DAG General Staff, CPG General Secretary Nikos Zahariadis, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government Petros Rosos and members of General Headquarters. Included among the top officials and Politburo members were Vassilis Brdzhiotas, Michos Vlandas, Georgios Gusias and Periklis Mirovlitis (who later published a book in Poland entitled “Tito and his clique’s betrayal of Greece”.)

CPG General Secretary Nikos Zahariadis delivered a bitter speech. A few years later Zahariadis hung himself in a prison cell in the city Surgun in Siberia.

For the benefit of everyone, among other things, Nikos Zahariadis said: ‘During our holy war all these people here were under CPY influence and played a treacherous role… there is no place for traitors in our ranks.’

If we further analyze these allegations we will find that there were dirty foreign political games played over the Macedonian people.

First, the Ideological activism carried out by NOF and AFZH in order to get the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia, during the years 1945 to 1949, to massively rise and fight was a Yugoslav initiative.

Then we hear from Vera, leader of the AFZH organization, telling Zahariadis that: ‘The Communist Party of Greece is my Party!’

So what exactly was NOF and AFZH’s ideological conception, in comparison to that of the CPG, if all the time they made compromises to it?

When we, the Macedonian fighters of DAG, first heard of this, that these people were Tito’s agents, we stood there with our mouths open, we were in shock. It was even more shocking that the CPG made them responsible for us Macedonians and before each battle they assured us that our death for this struggle was sacred because the Macedonian people would live free.

In other words, if we want to look for the root of this evil in all this then we will be faced with two questions… to which we should seek answers.

1. How and why did Tito and the CPY activate the Macedonian syndrome and push the Macedonian people on the ideological red gallows in 1945 to 1949?!

2. How did Zhariadis and the CPG manipulate Macedonian people through the hell of the red gallows?!

* * *

At the conclusion of the indictments; the security authorities immediately jailed the NOF and AFZH leaders in the Bureli jail where they remained until December 1949.

Then, between December 15 and 16, 1949, they were loaded on the ship Michurin and shipped from Albania to the USSR. Following a ruling from the USSR Supreme Court they were then sent to Siberia to serve their sentences in the Siberian camps.

At the same time, the villages in our homeland were turned into a wasteland as the population was expelled and found itself roaming the world.

Think about this. Think how well-planned and executed this matrix of genocide was over the Macedonian population. You can clearly see it as it happened to those who were convicted. They had no clue what was happening to them; they had no idea that this was perpetrated by both the CPY and the CPG.”

Krapov turned to me and again said: “Well, this is how the communist system operated. Secretly! Strictly secretly! Do you understand now? By this means everything that happened to us and our leadership was designed to have two versions.”

No sooner had he finished talking than Krapov again went into one of his trances, preoccupied with his thoughts no doubt, trying to make sense of things. Then suddenly he looked at me and said: “Regarding Vera, leader of the organization AFZH and her relationship with Zahariadis; Vera paid careful attention to Zahariadis and idolized him but with caution. Zahariadis, on the other hand, also paid careful attention to Vera but with a dose of compassion like a good and conscientious friend. But now he could not wait to accuse her of having done cruel things and put her in jail.

At every encounter and every time he parted with the leaders of NOF and AFZH, Zahariadis always left with an ironic malice,” concluded Krapov.

In reply I said to Krapov: “Why then did they all pretend to be naïve, was that not hypocritical?”

Krapov thought for a moment and said: “A person does not need to be very smart to understand that the Macedonian Communists, the stigmatized ones, always pretended to be very naïve but,

nonetheless, indirectly they were responsible for the organized genocide against us. How can they have been both guilty and brave when, together with Zahariadis, they played naïve; they all did the same thing, both the accused and the accusers, they were led by Zahariadis who a few years later hung himself in prison. Those on our side meanwhile, while serving their sentences in Alma Ata, went before Khrushchev asking him for a visa to return to Yugoslavia and told Khrushchev that they were Yugoslav Communists!

What kind of perfidious games were they all playing? Yugoslav Communists?! There had to be some sort of agreement between Tito and the CPY/CPM on one side and Zahariadis and the CPG on the other. The situation they were in was well-known after the Second World War,” concluded Krapov.

Now let us look at some facts and arguments.

1. The Yalta Conference lasted from February 4th to 11th, 1945. It was attended by the leaders Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, in the presence of their ministers of external affairs. Greece was placed under the British and American sphere of influence. Stalin gave them this guarantee in Yalta, which means that no socialist system would be allowed to take root in Greece, not even with a Civil War. So, what was the civil war all about then; if not to ethnically cleanse the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia? The Greek Civil War was started to legalize this process in order to get rid of the Macedonians from Greece and to make more space for the Turkish colonists and settlers from Asia Minor who were already settled in Macedonia.

2. At the same time, let us look at how the British and the Americans viewed the situation in Greece with regards to the Macedonians.

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?’

3. Marshal Tito, in an interview with ‘ The New York Times’ in Moscow on April 26, 1945, among other things, said: ‘If the Macedonians in Greece express a desire to unite with other Macedonians, Yugoslavia will respect their wishes.’

4. Perfidious games played by Zahariadis and Tito with regards to starting the Greek Civil War.

(Moscow – Belgrade - the CPG)

(The following facts reveal key moments in NOF’s history - from the military archives: USSR, Yugoslavia and the CPG)

March 20, 1946 - Zahariadis left Athens and went to Prague. He used this trip as an opportunity to discuss his armed struggle in Greece with the communist party leaders and to seek assistance from them. But, as it turned out, he received silence or advice that it was a bad idea to start a war at this point in time and that such a move would be foolish. The most notable leaders, including Torez of France and Toliati of Italy, told him that it was ‘dangerous to resort to arms’ at this point in time. Georgi Dimitrov asserted that ‘the international situation does not allow an outbreak of a new armed conflict, especially one that would directly interfere in the affairs of the Western allies in the Balkans’.

All those leaders knew very well that Zahariadis had returned to Athens in May 1945, after being imprisoned in the Dachau Camp in Germany for nine years, which had left a strong impression on him

and gave him a new attitude towards the world. He returned to Greece on a British plane and, immediately after returning, took up his former duties as CPG Secretary General and began to work.

Zahariadis laid out his Party’s aspiration for the newspaper ‘Rizospastis’ by saying that the CPG ‘never attempted to seize power against the wishes of the people and he had never had to pursue a course of action against the Trotskyites, anarchists and idiots’.

At the same time the communist party leaders knew that ‘Aris Viluhiotis’ was the ‘symbol of Greek guerrilla’ whom Zahariadis publicly reprimanded by referring to him as an ‘adventurer’ who, with his ‘reckless behaviour’, prompted the Right to attack the Left. Subsequently, following this, he was expelled from the Party and shortly afterwards was killed by the Right.

But during his meetings in Prague, Zahariadis did receive much information about Marshal Josip Broz Tito who, ‘after his successful guerrilla movement in Yugoslavia, had aims at expanding the revolution all over the Balkans’.

Disappointed by the reception he received in Prague, Zahariadis, on his way back, decided to pay Tito a visit in Belgrade.

Zahariadis was well-received by Tito who communicated with him in Russian and, after toasting him, Tito asked Zahariadis: ‘What do you think about the future of the Balkans?’ To which Zahariadis replied: ‘Marshall, that’s why I come to you, being urged by many leaders who have much respect for you and for your success with the guerrilla movement in Yugoslavia.’ Zahariadis then went into a detailed explanation in regard to the political situation in Greece, emphasizing that the people were ready to fight and take power away from the Anglo-American imperialists.

Unable to hide his excitement, Tito, feeling comfortable being surrounded by his subordinates, Rankovich, Kardelli, Dzhilas, Tempo, Kolishevski and others, said: ‘Life does not go back, it moves forward. Revolutions bring progress in society and develop productive forces. On behalf of the Communist Party and the

people, I promise you extensive assistance and whatever is needed to organize an Army. You know that after World War II, we immediately thought of starting a revolution but even today in Aegean Macedonia the same revolutionary power exists in the citizens of Greece, the Macedonians. They are led by our experienced centres and have a long revolutionary tradition. We are willing to put under your command those forces and the forces available in the Bulkesh Camp.’

Tito then turned to Kolishevski and said: ‘Lazo, take notes and do everything to bring those forces together under the motto ‘brotherhood and unity’ and put them under the authority of the CPG who it can use in its revolution.’

Here are the notes dictated for Kolishevski by Tito:

a/ NOF and AFZH are to break away from you (CPM) and be attached to the CPG. Do not get involved and do not give mixed orders on how to fight. Do not tell them to fight for a united Macedonia. And of course change their program goals and lead them to accept the CPG program goals;

b/ NOF is to form a central authority that will answer and report to a CPG Regional Committee;

c/ Put the armed Macedonian units in Aegean Macedonia under the command of military officers who are under the command of the CPG.

‘But all this Comrade Nikos,’ said Tito, ‘will have to be approved by the old man, Generalissimo Stalin before we can act on such a revolution.’ But Tito already knew that Stalin was in the mood to cause trouble for the capitalists and was sure he would accept Zahariadis’s proposal.

Zahariadis excitedly then said: ‘I am ready to take this to the Generalissimo and get his approval’.

‘Here’s to the future of the revolution!’ said Tito, continuing, ‘Be determined, not afraid, don’t be afraid of casualties and overcome all

difficulties, so you will succeed in your intentions. That’s what a revolution calls for! Grab everything firmly in your hands and, with great certainty, you can count on us!’

5. Why conceal the arrested? Who formed and imported NOF and AFZH and what tasks were they given when they were returned to Greek occupied Macedonia? With these organizations we created a political family of Macedonians, and with the existence of such a family it was much easier for the strategists to control the Macedonian population. Vera, the leader of the AFZH organization, confirmed this when she said her job was to follow CPG directives. Macedonian participation in the Greek Civil War gave the Greek government more reason to ruthlessly persecute the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia. (See: Makedontsite niz pekolot na tsrvenoto gubilishte-Istrazhuanieto na voeno istorisko-politichka studia od K.S, 2007.)

Created in Skopje on April 23, 1945, NOF and AFZH were Macedonian organizations. AFZH was a strictly women’s organization and unique only to Macedonian women. There was no equivalent Greek organization! Why? NOF and AFZH were created under the leadership of the CPY/CPM, Tito and Kolishevski and introduced by Tsvetko Uzunovski - Abas (7) Organizing Secretary of the CPM Central Committee and Interior Minister of The People’s Republic of Macedonia. At one point Abas said to the NOF and AFZH leadership: ‘… Yugoslavia has become the Centre of the revolution in the Balkans. The Macedonian question has now become a Yugoslav question on account that the CPY formed the organizations NOF, AFZH and NOMS in Aegean Macedonia and placed you in charge to lead them. These organizations have been tasked to give the Macedonian people in Aegean Macedonia a Yugoslav orientation. The Macedonian people and the Macedonian movements are now led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia will get their full recognition and acceptance within a Federal Yugoslavia and Aegean Macedonia will join Yugoslavia.’ (AM. Macedonian Archives. F-20/276, F-20/196.)

6. After NOF and AFZH were created their members received a new lesson from Kolishevski.

Right after the CPY and CPG agreed on what to do regarding the continuation of the war in Greek Occupied Macedonia, Lazar Kolishevski, Secretary of the CPM Central Committee, invited the NOF Board, headed by Paskal Mitrevski, for a briefing during which Kolishevski said the following: ‘Now you go down there (in Greek occupied Macedonia). The CPG is now responsible for you. You must have faith in the CPG. Its policy on the Macedonian question is clear. Any questions that may surface will now be decided by the leadership of the CPG Party. Be careful not to splinter or stray from the Party. You are to work under its directives. You are to struggle and fight to strengthen your unity with the Greek people and fight hard with all your strength against chauvinism, separatism and localized tendencies.’

7. Convicted by the CPG, after they returned to the Republic of Macedonia from Siberia the NOF and AFZH leadership was welcomed back with music and marching bands. Macedonia recognized their contribution and demanded from the Soviet Union that they be permitted to leave and return to the Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonians said that these people were Yugoslav communists. With the exception of some leaders like P. Rakovski, who did not even receive a grave, most NOF and AFZH leaders were given apartments to live in and jobs in the public sector. But all this was forgotten when we, the ordinary DAG fighters, returned to the Republic of Macedonia. The first place they sent us upon our return was to ‘Idrizovo’ Prison. The UDBA sieve caught us and sent us to prison. After enduring a horrific war, being exiled from our homes and being shuffled in foreign lands, we were so happy to return home to Macedonia, to where we felt like we belonged only to find out that there too we were not wanted! The ideological matrix had funny laws and played strange games, particularly when it came to strategic options between Tito and Zahariadis’s Left forces. The reader can find out more about this in the book: “Tito and his clique’s betrayal of Greece”, mentioned earlier.

Krapov was quiet for a while now so I decided to break the silence. I said: The genocide perpetrated against the Macedonian people living in Greek occupied Macedonia was no accident, it was deliberate and by design… That’s how the powers to be wanted it, but the saddest

thing about all this is that it was carried out with our assistance but without our knowledge. Instead of thinking about what we were doing, we simply acted on orders from others, from strangers who brought us our demise...

Five years of struggle for alien aims for which we received nothing in return except for our exile.

We the Macedonians in the DAG units fought in every battle and were exposed to all kinds of danger, more so than any of the Greeks, and in the end we lost our homes, we were exiled from our place of birth for which we were ready to give our lives.

And now, more than half a century later, we forgot why we fought and who pushed us into the Greek Civil War. Why has history been silent about this tragedy?

I remember reading something that Pavle Rakovski wrote some time ago. It went something like this: ‘On January 10, 1955, while serving our sentences in the corrections labour camps in Eastern Siberia, Irkutskaya Region, we were tossed into a cell where they tossed social outcasts from many nations from Asia Minor and Europe. There were also fanatics from various religious sects; considered the enemy of Soviet power...’ (See: Pavle Rakovski’s “My suffering”, p 174.) Rakovski did not even get his own grave after he died in Skopje. He was fingered by his own comrades maybe because he wrote a letter to the USSR Supreme Court asking why he was jailed. Why were he and the Macedonian people at fault and found guilty of crimes when this entire strategy and the Greek Civil War were designed by the CPY/CPM and by the CPG?

The fatal path we Macedonians, from Greek occupied Macedonia, took was a result of being led by the Left forces, in whose hands we entrusted our lives from 1924 to 1950.

Είναι γνωστό ότι µε βάση τις κοµµουνιστικές αντιλήψεις, η αναγνώριση της ύπαρξης ενός συγκεκριµένου έθνους ισοδυναµεί στην πράξη µε την αναγνώριση του δικαιώµατος αυτοδιάθεσης του έθνους αυτού.

It is accepted that on the basis of communist knowledge and understanding, there is recognition of a particular nationality which exists in practice, and with that recognition in the first place there can be self-determination for this nationality. (Document from the CPG archives.)

Στη βάση αυτή, το ΚΚΕ (3ο Έκτακτο Συνέδριο [26/11 - 3/12/1924], υιοθέτησε τη σχετική απόφαση του 5ου Συνεδρίου της Κοµµουνιστικής ∆ιεθνούς (Μόσχα, 17/6 – 8/7/1924) και µιλούσε [το ΚΚΕ] για καταπιεζόµενες [από την Ελλάδα] εθνικές µειονότητες και για “ανεξάρτητη Μακεδονία και Θράκη” !!

On the basis of this, the CPG (3rd Extraordinary Congress (26/11-3/12, 1924) adopted a resolution during the 5th Communist International Congress (Moscow, 17/6 - 8/7, 1925) and debated (CPG) about the acknowledgement (in Greece) of minorities and an “Independent Macedonia and Thrace”!!

Τον ∆εκέµβριο του 1935 (6ο Συνέδριο), το ΚΚΕ επικύρωσε την απόφαση της ηγεσίας του [Απρίλιος 1935] για ‘αντικατάσταση’ (καιροσκοπική, ωστόσο, προσωρινού χαρακτήρα και µηδέποτε ουσιαστικώς εφαρµοσθείσα!…) του παραπάνω συνθήµατος µε το σύνθηµα “πλέρια ισοτιµία στις µειονότητες”….

In December 1935 (6th Congress) the CPG top leadership confirmed the adopted resolution (April 1935) with a “change” (making it temporary and as such it was never actually realized!) to the above slogan: “Full equality for minorities…”

Σε συνέντευξή του στην Αγγλίδα δηµοσιογράφο Elisabeth Barker το 1946, ο Ζαχαριάδης είχε δηλώσει: “… τα ζητήµατα των συνόρων του Βορρά έπρεπε να διευθετηθούν µε βάση την αυτοδιάθεση…”

In an interview he gave to the English journalist Elizabeth Barker in 1946, Zahariadis said: “… the questions about northern borders should be regulated based on the self-division of the population”.

Είναι σχεδόν βέβαιο πλέον ότι χωρίς την αποφασιστική (καθοριστικής σηµασίας) στήριξή του από τη Γιουγκοσλαβία, το

ΚΚΕ δεν θα τολµούσε τότε να εξωθήσει τα πράγµατα ως την εµφύλια ρήξη.

There is no doubt that without getting a definite decision and support from Yugoslavia, the CPG would not have dared ask the questions and start the civil conflict.

Εξίσου βέβαιο φαίνεται ότι ο Τίτο δεν θα είχε παράσχει την στήριξη αυτή, αν προηγουµένως ο Ζαχαριάδης δεν είχε δηλώσει ρητά στο Βελιγράδι ότι το ΚΚΕ είναι σαφώς υπέρ της αυτοδιάθεσης των Σλαβοµακεδόνων, η οποία βεβαίως εξυπηρετούσε απολύτως τη µακροπρόθεσµη γιουγκοσλαβική πολιτική στο “Μακεδονικό”, δηλαδή την απόσχιση της [ελληνικής] “Μακεδονίας του Αιγαίου” και τη συνένωσή της µε τη γιουγκοσλαβική Μακεδονία…

It is also clear that Tito would not have had motive for support, if not for this motto, if Zahariadis had not stated clearly and categorically to Belgrade that the CPG was quite clear on its position regarding the self-determination of the Slavo-Macedonians and that statement undoubtedly served to further promote Yugoslav politics in terms of the “Macedonian Question”, which meant (Greek) consent for the “Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia” to unite with Yugoslav Macedonia.

Κι αν επιπλέον ληφθεί υπόψιν ότι οι Σλαβοµακεδόνες αποτελούσαν µέχρι και τα 3/5 [14.000 στις 25.000!!] του ∆ΣΕ (αρχές 1949), είναι πολύ δύσκολο να µην οδηγηθεί κανείς στο συµπέρασµα ότι άξονας και καταλύτης του Εµφυλίου υπήρξε η αξιοποίηση (εκµετάλλευση;) από το ΚΚΕ του πόθου των Σλαβοµακεδόνων για την ‘εθνική αποκατάστασή’ τους.

And if you take into consideration that the Slavo-Macedonians represented somewhere around 3/5 (14,000 to 25,000) of DAG (early 1949), it is very difficult for someone not to come to the conclusion that the motive was to destroy them, the CPG made profound use of them during the Civil War but the wishes of the Slavo-Macedonians always remained constant; “Independent Macedonia and national establishment”.

Μετά τη ρήξη Τίτο – Στάλιν και τη ‘σύνταξη’ του ΚΚΕ µε τον δεύτερο, η 5η Ολοµέλεια (Αλβανία, 30 – 31 Ιανουαρίου 1949) υποσχόταν, ως γνωστόν, στους Σλαβοµακεδόνες “πλήρη εθνική αποκατάσταση”· όχι, πλέον, στην αγκαλιά του Τίτο και της διευρυµένης “Μακεδονίας” του, αλλά αυτή τη φορά στα πλαίσια µιας [βουλγαρικής και πάλι εµπνεύσεως] ανεξάρτητης Μακεδονίας που θα συµπεριελάµβανε και τα 3 τµήµατα (ελληνικό, γιουγκοσλαβικό, βουλγαρικό) της Μακεδονίας, µιας κατασκευής σαφώς αντι -Τιτικής.

After the Tito-Stalin collision, the CPG “reaction” to Stalin and the 5th Plenum (Albania, January 30 to 31, 1949), the promise, as was known to the Slavo-Macedonians for “complete national establishment”, was no longer in the arms of Tito and neither was the “unification with the People’s Republic of Macedonia”, but this time it was for (Bulgaria with inspiration) a single Macedonia, which would contain the 3 parts (Greek, Yugoslav, Bulgarian) of Macedonia; a new and definitely anti-Tito construction.